Let it burn!
CW: References to sexual harassment and violence.
I think I was not yet nine the first time I remember working out that I had to be careful with men. That I had to watch my back, not draw attention, take precautions. I’ve written about this moment in a previous blog.
That’s over thirty two years ago and like so many women, this latest violence has made me reflect again.
I had been thinking that the majority of times I have felt in danger were when I was younger, more single, more vulnerable and more attractive. The time that some guy chased me from the tube to my brothers’ flat in Ladbrook Grove where he just opened the door in time and we actually saw his fingers around the edge of the door before we were able to slam it shut. The time a guy who I thought was a friend pushed himself up against me all night whilst I lay paralysed with fear. A level results night when I punched a guy in the face for grabbing my crotch on the dance floor. The time when I was 12 or 13 and an adult man, who was a local window cleaner, started following me. The police spoke to him and said he had not realised how young I was. I was in school uniform. The message was clear. If I was an adult then it would have been fair game. So many, many incidents.
Then I remembered that last year a guy exposed himself on an empty train and started masturbating. I’d genuinely forgotten about it because it was, terrifyingly, in many ways, so unremarkable.
We were the only people on an overground London train one afternoon when I realised what he was doing. I sat still whilst he stared and waited for next stop. Pretended I hadn’t clocked it. This time weirdly my first thought wasn’t fear. The adrenaline hit later. My first thought was one of total exasperation. “Really?! FFS! Now I’m going to have to wait in the rain for my train!” I wasn’t surprised. Not shocked. I was pissed off at the inconvenience. I waited till the train stopped. I didn’t give an indication that I was planning to get off as didn’t want him following me. As the alarm sounded to indicate the doors shutting I jumped off the train at the last moment and then waited twenty minutes for the next train. My brain made this plan in a split second because my brain is primed to make plans like this. All women’s brains are. Meeting my colleagues at the other ends of the journey, women ranging in age from 22 to 60, I told them and no one was shocked. We were resigned because we as women are tired. We are resigned that this happens. It’s unremarkable, it’s forgettable. It needs to change.
Every woman has stories like this and normally more than one.
We shouldn’t have to parade our trauma to convince the world. We are the 51% and we have so little power.
It’s scary to realise just how downtrodden I/we have become.
This latest incident has reignited the fire.
Let it burn!
