“AS A WOMAN, I AM A BODY OF DISPLAY BEFORE BEING A PERSON. AND HERE’S WHY I’M TIRED OF IT”
“Women still cannot walk on the street without hearing strangers’ feedback on their bodies and without getting those slow, slimy once-over looks that say “Hey, watch me, watching you.” I live with fear. For the sake of my mind, I sometimes send it on short holidays to the state of Denial. At times I even try to cross the border to the neighbouring state of Defiance. This summer, the croptop hashtag has inspired me to — you guessed it — wear a crop top and brave the streets. My small attempt at heroism ended with my Saturday afternoon walk cut short, as it didn’t take long for me to end up feeling like Rembrandt’s skinned bull. Actually, make that Francis Bacon’s reinterpretation of Rembrandt’s skinned bull, cut in half, with the screaming pope figure in between the two flanks…
even in cold weather, I still have my earbuds in, regardless of whether or not I feel like listening to music. I still make a conscious effort to not look anyone in the face on public transport — I’ve been told that it might be interpreted as provocative. It’s like folding my eyes upon themselves. It gives me headaches. In short, I still refuse to watch myself being watched.”
“I refuse to watch myself being watched”. That’s so real, and so constant, that I want to cry and scream.
It perfectly captures how powerless anyone who is perceived as feminine can feel in public. And how in the face of dealing with this everyday we can’t do anything but try to preserve ourselves so that we can be the person we need to be when we get to work or when we arrive at that party or walk into the grocery store and have to remember what was on our list.
#YesAllWomen
I’m in the middle of this conversation about street harassment with a male friend and it’s amazing to me how invisible this is to people who don’t read as feminine in public. It’s not the first time I’ve sent articles and described experiences to someone, and they don’t quite take it seriously, it’s like they can’t absorb it.
Until recently, that’s been the most frustrating part in a way — how it doesn’t feel possible to make it not-invisible. But then I realized how much denial I am in even when it’s happening to me, and how I rarely find space in my life to discuss street harassment because it’s not obvious how to integrate the privileged and safe and self-guided nature of much of the rest of my identity and experiences with the experience of street harassment.
And that realization gives me something to sort of chip at, in terms of thinking about visibilizing struggles and lowering that threshold to understanding.
After I finish throwing a tantrum.
