In the Forests of the Night:
What I am Thinking When I Walk Alone at Night
When I walk alone at night I am alert. I am never more aware of the thump of my chest as I am at this time.
I am intentional in my steps — I want to get to point B quickly and without stopping to smell the roses. I don’t smile and I don’t put headphones on or talk on the phone or do anything to impair my ability to hear or see my surroundings. I make an honest effort to keep my shoulders squared and my head up. I am confident and I am primed to keep myself safe.
And some might find this much too cautious. I’ve heard someone call me paranoid or feminatzi before. I’ve been called a bitch under muttered breath because I wouldn’t take a strange man’s suggestion that I smile while I walked by. But you know what? When you’re not teaching boys and men at large about consent and castigating the principles of rape, you are not giving me a lot of reasons to smile at night.
In the past year I’ve become more heavily involved with a nonprofit focusing on teaching self-defense and boundary setting to women and children. It has given me courage and reminded me that I am a part of a community of women, but it has also made me aware of a different, and perhaps more insidious, form of victim-blaming.
What I am referring to, simply enough, is the belief that it is up to us — the women, the young teenage girls, the children — to protect ourselves. The assumption here is that rape and assault *will* happen, that men are not capable of controlling the acts from occurring and so we are on our own.
Taking care of ourselves can be liberating. There is a joy in my heart in knowing just how loud and frightening I can make my voice. I am soft spoken, but when threatened I am a force to reckon with. I am proud of it. I embrace it gladly.
But taking care of ourselves can be stifling and claustrophobic. It can mean not going outside after dark, even when you realize you’re almost out of diapers or formula and an infant will not wait for safety to have its needs met. It can mean avoiding the intersections of X and Y streets where the catcallers like to hang out (a big pack of guys egging each other on to step past the personal boundaries of a woman is a frightening experience, I can assure you). It can mean being dressed nicely in one venue only to be warned in another that you’ll attract ‘the wrong sort’ and offered a long, dark coat to hide under. It can mean being afraid of letting a service or repairman in your home know that there isn't a man in the house (husband, boyfriend, roommate).
So we defend ourselves. We learn to fight. We learn what streets to avoid. We learn to stay in groups and to watch our drinks at parties and our hemlines in public. And we look over our shoulders at night.
This is what women in society are taught — caution and deterrents and defense — but what about the men? The young boys who are just learning to function in society? What are they learning?
Zerlina Maxwell was threatened with bodily harm and even rape when she went on Fox News and made the bold suggestion that we teach men NOT to rape as a way to prevent rape from happening. Not guns for women, not the oft-touted suggestion that woman vomit or urinate on themselves in case of an attack (I cannot imagine having the capacity to throw up on cue, much less during an attack. My esophagus is not well trained for it). She suggested that the way to stop this form of violence is to teach men and boys that they should not do it.
How is this revolutionary? Schools across the nation currently invest in Don’t Do Drug campaigns for children — law enforcement often come and speak about it in classrooms — in the hopes that the next generation comes away with an understanding of the dangers and consequences. Why can’t we explain that it does not matter what a person wears/where they are/what they have been eating or drinking, that consent is an ever-present third person in the narrative and should never be violated? That to do so yields tragic results, legal action, and the deserved scorn of society upon the perpetrator?
It is doable. I believe Zerlina Maxwell is right, and for real change we need to stand with this concept and not against it.
Until then, I’m keeping my awareness on. Especially at night.
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