How Invisible Threats of Violence Hold Women Hostage
What the slogan “My body, My choice” really means in everyday practice
Trigger Warning: this article contains descriptions of gender violence that may not be suitable for all readers. Fearless community, please read with care.
During my undergraduate studies, my thesis was on how drone warfare during the War on Terror was normalised in society.
Before the pandemic-paranoia, I was consumed by other, more regular dysfunctionalities of life. One afternoon, riled up after seeing scriptwriter X verbally destroy activist Y on a news channel, I felt a familiar normalisation of violence — but a different violence. The context behind this public confrontation was the recent Women’s March 2020 that took place globally, including in countries like Pakistan.
I first had to call my mother to vent, swear, complain, rant. It was reciprocal.
[Note: There’s no attempt to support the activist in a broader sense because of her gender but rather make clear that abuse and threats of any kind shouldn’t have space on streets, at home, and especially on media where thousands absorb content.]
Next thing I’m on my bicycle rushing to work. I make sure there’s something socially and politically engaging playing on Spotify while my headphones are on. When looking for what to play for the bike ride, I make sure it’s in tune with my very fresh but somehow historical frustrations and insecurities.
I see ‘The Ezra Klein Show’ by Vox appear — usually a show that has a lot to say. The latest episode said ‘Rebecca Solnit on Harvey Weinstein, feminism, and social change.’ Yes.
Solnit on invisible violence
Rebecca Solnit — a familiar name but never read — turned out to be who and what I was looking for.
She said things I always knew but not in the way she said them. As I heard her soft cracked voice, X and his very somber face kept appearing in my mind — scared I might crash my bike into a poor child crossing the pathway, a potential martyr to X’s tragic controversy.
Why did Solnit remind me of what now seems to be my ancient undergraduate thesis on invisible structural violence? What struck was her explanation of how: not only physically raped women are victims.
The larger issue is how a woman, any woman, who hasn’t been raped will always wonder she might. This makes her an unusual victim but a victim nevertheless.
Solnit tries to convey that the fear itself provokes such uncertainty in female-life that a ‘she’ (could be me, you or her) structures self-behaviour in a way no man knows.
Routine and inescapable fear
As I ride a bicycle to work everyday, it’s usually quite an enjoyable and therapeutic habit. The work route includes a few minutes across a very large park.
When winter arrived, less people began hanging around at night time and I immediately felt uncomfortable. I decided to change my route which now included riding around the park rather than through it. The first evening I was to try this new route, a pre-annoyance overcame me: I don’t want to add extra time to my way home. So, I ditched the new route and have since been biking through the park every winter evening.
This doesn’t mean I feel comfortable and safe with a switch in the mind. I don’t. I, every evening, while biking in that park think of scenarios where someone may stop and assault me. Another biker could hit into me, I’d fall and that’s the end of it. A group of boys could hover around and stop me, and that’s the end of it. Infinite scenarios and infinite reactions.
Violence is authoritarian
Invisible violence is a violence that hasn’t happened yet, but could at any moment.
What X and many like him (including women) don’t understand or want to understand is that slogans like “Mera jism, Meri marzi” [My body, My choice] isn’t really about women wanting to walk about on streets with minimal clothing, while respectful and honourable men tell them to cover up.
It’s about the way a female body is subject to external control. When a man kills his sister in the name of honour, he’s conveying he has complete power over her body and life. He has the power to murder her. There is no greater control, even according to Solnit.
“…violence is first of all authoritarian. It begins with this premise: I have the right to control you.”
Murder is an extreme of violence-authoritarianism. But there are different degrees of such control; be it domestic violence, rape by a stranger, marital rape, socially-pressured pregnancies, online and work harassment, groping, cat-calling, and so much more. “Mera jism, Meri marzi” is letting you know that you don’t have control over her body and her life.
Gender is not a zero-sum game
If this was widely understood and implemented, like the general consensus over gender abuse is, this slogan would cease to exist.
Perhaps marches would be X’s utopian marches (as stated by him in the same show) where head-covered women come out on streets with a Holy Book in their hand saying “Even if the economy is bad and our husbands don’t earn much, we will efficiently spend that little money on household expenses.”
Wait, that sounds like another version of the same old gender war we’re in now — sorry, X.
A more balanced utopia-like social environment would probably entail men dismissing the concept that manhood is a zero-sum game. Solnit points out that the real world isn’t just for one gender. A woman with more equality doesn’t equal to a man with less equality. She urges us to let go of the thought that:
“Only one gender at a time could be free and powerful.”
We can then finally move on from what Solnit calls ‘Manistan’.
