Yes, All Women

A study by Plan International UK, performed during the pandemic1, shows that 1 in 5 girls aged 14-21, has experienced street harassment under lockdown. One in ten girls have received unwanted attention including having insults shouted at them, and one in ten also said they have experienced unwanted sexual attention, unwanted sexual or physical contact, or indecent exposure in public. Yet one quarter of girls (26%) who had experienced harassment did not tell anyone about the incident. In a recent interview with Emma Barnett on BCC Radio 5, a male caller openly admitted on air that at the age of forty, he feels comfortable with catcalling girls in sixth form, or younger, due to the fit of their school uniforms. His understanding, as stands, is that if they did not wish to be harassed and shouted abuse at, they should simply wear longer skirts. He also believes that females as a group genuinely enjoy being catcalled, as some even smile. The harsh reality however is that when faced with these comments, we may indeed smile, or laugh, or play along, but we do so solely as it is the safest way for a woman to unscathedly evade a salacious and aggressively persistent man.

I had my very own first experience with harassment when I was only ten years old. A man in a shop made comments about my body which I shall not repeat, but I will never be able to forget the way they made me feel – deeply and terribly afraid. He may have believed that his actions were being complimentary but catcalling never is, because compliments should not incite terror in those who are being complimented. These comments, shouts and outright invasions of our spaces and identities fill us only with dread and anxiety, never pleasure. A compliment could be “I like your shoes!”, “That’s a lovely bag!”, or “Your hair is gorgeous! What conditioner do you use?”. Being shouted at “nice ti**/a**” from a passing car, being obviously groped on a crowded bus, or having a man say to you “I’d ra** you straight if I could!” – are not compliments. I have experienced all three, countless women have, and from these instances the only thing that stays with us is the horror and disgust that linger on the tip of our tongue, as we learn to swallow down the rage.

I was physically violated for the first time at the age of fourteen, by a man who wanted to hear “Yes” so badly he wilfully forgot that “No” was and always will be a complete sentence. In fear and shame, I accepted the experience and moved on as I thought it would have otherwise been seen as “my fault”. This carried on with time and I absorbed all abuse, until my mental health collapsed into PTSD, social anxiety, and depression, culminating in years of self-harming, anorexia, and bulimia. Although the physical scars on my skin have faded, the psychological ones, through recovery, will remain with me forever. Children who experience physical, sexual, and emotional abuse or neglect are at least two to three times more likely to attempt suicide in later life2. In that respect I might even consider myself lucky, as the worst of my symptoms have passed, and I am still here. To some people catcalling and what may be considered as “innocent” sexualization of women, is a simple even trivial thing. But this interpretation reinforces the lived myths in our society which propagate victim blaming and which reinforce rape culture. Thus, giving leeway to the growth of the ideology in future perpetrators, only placing more individuals at risk of becoming the next victim. The risk factors for females are higher as we are five times more likely to be abused than males, and black children carry almost twice the risk of sexual abuse than white ones3. But it is all children who have the right to protection from abuse, neglect, exploitation and discrimination, and it is up to every adult to safeguard and preserve these rights.

Shortly before my sixteenth birthday, I was walking my dog when a Jeep with five men drove past me. All hunters with riffles as it was the season. They shouted out names, whistled and asked me to “bl**” them. I remember their laughter as the car got further away and the feeling of burning hot, almost acid tears running down my face. In a moment of insuppressible fury I picked up a rock and threw it at their back windshield and even though it took them a second, the car stopped right at the turn and it began reversing. Suffice to say, I panicked. In that moment in time I was so afraid there was nowhere to hide and of what might happen next, that I picked up my dog, climbed to the edge of the bridge and jumped into the river. I cannot swim, but I made my way through the branches upstream and hid right under it so I would not be seen. Through the water I heard some yelling and cursing, but luckily no shots were fired, and after what seemed like eternity – they drove away. I crawled up the bank and hid in the woods until I dried out so I would not have to tell my grandparents what had happened. But this time I did tell a friend, a trusted family friend, yet when I shared my pain with him, he asked me “And what were you wearing?” … For those of you wondering – shorts, a t-shirt, and trainers, although it does not, should not nor it would have mattered if I or anyone else in a similar situation had been wearing anything different. A sexual assault is an exertion of power in which the victim is dehumanized, to the point of becoming nothing more than a possession under the assailant’s control. It is not up to the victim to prepare for and protect themselves from the crime. It is the crime which should not be committed in the first place. The things which were shouted that day were not kind, I did not smile as those men laughed, nor as they yelled out what they would like to do to me. The only thing humming at the back of my throat as I bit through my lips and desperately held my dog’s jaw shut under the bridge, was a prayer - that I would not be found, and that I would not be killed. I learned the hard way that against men, above my own fists, honeyed words were the better weapon and I too started smiling, laughing, and brushing things off even when I felt an ocean of horror inside.

I was working in tech support by the time I turned eighteen. One night at the end of our shift at 2 am, my supervisor offered to drive me home. I did not want to be alone with an unknown taxi driver, hence I accepted the offer. Little did I know at that time that he would divert through another longer route and try to force me to perform oral sex on the way. A few moments, a burning face, some pulled hair and one bleeding nose later, I jumped out of the car and straight into the first taxi I could see. Soon enough I was home, showered and in bed. The next day I told HR, but the response was “It’s your own fault for getting in the car to begin with”. I never spoke of it to anyone else and for a while did think that perhaps it was truly my own fault. That same year I had also worked at another tech company, where I happened to be the youngest member of the team. Because of this, the males I worked with felt it was okay to send me highly explicit messages of activities they would like me to engage in as they thought I was a “virgin”. They also felt it was okay to pull my hair every time they passed by and laugh as I’d cry out in pain, to which my manager also laughed and responded with “boys will be boys” while shrugging his shoulders. One of my colleagues even went through the trouble of pretending we were friends, in order to connect with me on Facebook and send me uncensored pictures of some specific body parts of his. With the promise that it was all in the right as his wife had given him permission to be unfaithful. How I felt about it apparently did not matter, as in his mind this was a gift which I should be nothing but grateful for.

I came to study in the UK at the age of nineteen and during my first year of University I was sexually assaulted on campus, by one of my classmates. This individual had also at that same time taken one of my friends to his dormitory under false pretences and groped parts of her body without her consent. In the moment it happened, and as he came close to me, I froze in fear, dismay, and an overbearing feeling of an unsilenceable internal alarm. I was able to reject him, but when I said I didn’t want to be touched, he grazed my cheek with his knuckles and said “That’s too sad, no one will ever want you that way”. I could not speak, all I felt was a fist twisting and pulling at my stomach from the inside as the same burning tears ran down my face once more. A year passed until I had the courage to speak out and tell my tutors, and I only did so because I knew he was now going after other girls, younger ones too. I told them what had happened, then had to send a formal email in, then to tell them again, and the police, and other staff, and re-live and re-feel that fear at least five or six times. Peaking at an interview with a detective who questioned my experience and why I had not reported it before, but who still went to execute the arrest the following morning. He called me afterwards and in complete shock said “He’s admitted it. I didn’t think he would, so it’s true”.  These words still echo in the back of my mind to this day, and I feel unfathomable wrath because they way in which they were spoken means that the system which exists to protect us from harm, to bring us justice, is a system that has no faith in the trauma of its people at all.  

I could write volumes for every other comment, pursuit or attack I’ve experienced at the hands of other men, from being chased in or out of public transport in order to be “asked out”, being followed for over half an hour by individuals or groups who “just want to talk” to me, being exposed to men showing themselves in public areas, having men even in my family spying on me while I change, to having to run through traffic to lose the men chasing me or being sent pictures and videos on social media (including LinkedIn) of men doing things to themselves, which they’d like to do to me. Countless times, when I’ve forgotten to smile or after I’ve blocked someone, I’ve been called a “rude bi***” or a “stupid wh***”, threatened and told I need to be put in my place. But I am not the only one, many other women have been too. 64% of Women of all ages in the UK have experienced unwanted sexual harassment in public places, and an additional 35% of women have experienced unwanted sexual touching. For more than 1 in 4, this started before the age of 16, and more than 3 in 4 have experience it by the age of 21?. An astonishing 90% of British women have experienced their first instance of sexual harassment by the age of 17?.

Additionally, the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) estimates that 20% of women and 4% of men have experienced some type of sexual assault since the age of 16, equivalent to 3.4 million female and 631,000 male victims in these regions of the UK?. To belittle these experiences and wrap them under nothing more than a statistic, only perpetuates the problem. Just because there are multiples of one occurrence happening again and again over time, does not mean it should be normalized. No part of crime is “normal”.  None of us are born treating people’s bodies like objects, this is a learned behaviour, which can also be un-learned. How we dress, our make-up, our hair, who we are with, where we go, the way we look, speak or smile, do not serve as an invitation to objectify nor use any part of our bodies in any way. No single individual has “ownership” over the being of another and consent is not such unless it is freely, fully, and explicitly given. It is up to all of us to educate ourselves on these matters. Rape culture is one in which dominant social norms downplay, dismiss, joke about or even seem to condone rape and sexual assault. It describes a culture in which the normalisation of rape and sexual assault are so great that often victims are blamed, either implicitly or explicitly, when these crimes are committed against them. A culture in which other factors such as media objectification make it easier to see women as dehumanised objects for male sexual purposes alone.

This culture grows further when a child victim of sexual abuse is accused of being complicit with their abuser, when they are accused of having “asked for it”. It is this culture that makes it so difficult for male victims to speak out too, because hand-in-hand with the dismissal of rape as a hilarious joke goes the stigmatisation of male rape victims as effeminate, impotent or non-existent. Many times, I have heard people say that collectively as a society we need to do better by our sons, so they can grow to be better men too. But we also need to do better by our daughters, by all our children, to support them, encourage them, to teach them bravery, kindness, and respect. The education and work needed cannot happen with one group over another, because this is a collective issue, not a solitary one. Even if not all men are perpetrators, all women have been assaulted or harassed in one way or another. Even if we do not commit the crimes ourselves, if we chose to be silent about them, then we are complacent with their existence in the world. I, for one, do not wish to be part of a world where a child should fear being sexually assaulted on their way home from school, the park, church, etc. Do you? If not, then we must commit to calling out these thoughts and behaviours, correcting them and eradicating their presence in any path considered to be the “norm”. And we must do so not only for people like myself who’ve had the same experience, nor because those most affected may be someone’s mother, sister, or daughter, but because these are our basic human rights and protecting them, is and always will be the right thing to do.

With each passing year, as I grow older, I also become more fearless and dare speak of my truths just as fate has dealt them. Even when my voice shakes, I look to stand for those who may not yet be able to stand for themselves. If we are all able to do the same, even if just for one more person, soon change will come and power will return to those from whom it has been taken. Men, Women or Children - all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, and it is up to all of us to uphold, preserve, and defend these same rights regardless of “who’s” son, daughter or other these may apply to. No one should walk with keys between their fingers, running to cross the street, afraid of the dark because of the threatening presence which may be following them. This is not safe, and it is not normal. Nor are the lifelong implications of any such instance either. We must all be better and do better by one another, only this way will our lives in freedom and safety become “the normal”.

If you or anyone you know has been affected by sexual harassment or assault, direct support can be found through:

https://rapecrisis.org.uk/

https://www.victimsupport.org.uk/

https://www.thesurvivorstrust.org/

https://www.survivorsuk.org/

https://www.nationaldahelpline.org.uk/

1 https://plan-uk.org/media-centre/1-in-5-girls-have-experienced-street-harassment-during-lockdown

2 https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/child-abuse-linked-to-risk-of-suicide-in-later-life/

3 https://www.d2l.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Statistics_4_Risk_Factors.pdf

? https://www.stopstreetharassment.org/2016/03/uknationshstudy/

? https://www.ihollaback.org/cornell-international-survey-on-street-harassment/#uk

? https://rapecrisis.org.uk/get-informed/about-sexual-violence/statistics-sexual-violence/