OI

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.

Last week, I went to dinner with my fabulous, big sister (we had Turkish food, it was so good). We left the restaurant at about 9.30 and had to walk down an inner-city high street to get to the car. Just outside the restaurant, a group of about 6 or 7 boys, aged around 10-13, I'd say, were walking and one of them being very observant spotted me in my 'I <3 Paris' t-shirt and asked, 'You love Paris yeah?' I love children, and I genuinely saw these boys as children so I didn't think it harmful at all to engage in conversation, so I responded 'Yeah man, Paris is the spot.' We were all still walking, but they had made a sort of semi-circle around my sister and me. Another boy, now on my left and up to my shoulder in height, says 'Does this hat look good on me?' I reply, after thought, 'Yeah it does actually, good look.' I think nothing of this, I was just talking to some young'uns who were kind of excited about life, or so I thought UNTIL the moment when one of them grabs my rear...

Yeah, this has never happened to me before, because any time a male approaches me in an aggressive manner when I sense that a rear-grab is possible, I'm extremely quick to shun: walk faster, head down looking at my blackberry, listening to music or replying with short phrases expressing my disinterest. This situation turned out in a completely different way, merely because I treated the boys as children (which they are) rather than potential sexual predators. Sadly, I was wrong.

After the first one, I squealed and told them off, but in a joky way, and then another one did the same thing from another direction, I squealed again. My sister turned around and did her big sister thing, directly challenged them about their unacceptable behaviour and one boy responded by admitting that he was bad, and didn't respect his mum or his dad in a very mocking and disrespectful, to my sister, manner. She was pissed. I was taken aback, but not angry for some reason. She told me to 'Walk faster. No, faster' so we did. They all started shouting, pretending as though they were trying to catch a bus, but when they ran past us I got more rear-grabs, and they laughed...there was no bus. Tasha, oh so wise with her strategies, saw the potential that they might follow us all the way to the car and so made us stop at the bus stop, where they then continued their hooligan shenanigans in a phonebox a hundred yards away from us. She took my phone and made a call, it was just for casual conversation with someone, but she knew that they would be on guard, just in case we were calling for back-up. Two minutes later, she said 'Let's go' and we walked to the car, unfollowed. She was not impressed at all. I was stunned maybe.

End of story.

So yeah, after that happened, I got home and just started pondering about the events that had occured that night. I felt sad. Sad that these young boys had probably seen older boys and even men doing the very same thing to women, and thought that it was okay, that it was their right to boldly express their lustful desire for a woman, no matter her age, race or occupation just because they were men. I was disgusted that for them, this mild form of harassment was a legitimate form of entertainment. One boy said something that stuck with me, 'I wanna hear her squeal again.' That made me realise that these boys, and all males who engage in what has been labelled 'street harassment' are on a dangerous power trip. They want to exert their dominance over women who can, seemingly, do nothing back. How many times have you witnessed, or personally experienced a churpsing male who sprays the sweetest bars but then switches like a light in an extremely menacing way the moment the girl coldly rejects him in front of all his boys. 'You're ugly anyway.' *Okay, so why did you start talking to me in the first place?* Silly.

Coincidentally, when I was surfing the Internet that night, I came across an article entitled 'Why Do Men Shout At Women In The Street?' I learned that this kind of thing happens in cities all over the world. In India, it's called 'eve teasing'. There and in Japan, they went as far as creating a women only carriage for night travel on the subway, as groping had been a problem for many years. A woman is quoted in the article saying, 'Women are advised to ignore it, and we don't speak up about it. Therefore, these men keep on doing it and push boundaries further and further' which is sadly the truth. What else can we do? I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling that if you fight back, you're being foolish and endangering yourself. The article goes on to say that street harassment continues to be a problem because as a society we've come to accept it, and allowed "men to be men".

Reading the comments on this article proved to be even more interesting as about 80% of the men who replied were on the defense, deeming the article to be hyperbolic, some saying what we women perceive to be dangerous harassment was harmless fun, others turned it around and saying that they had been made to feel uncomfortable by harassment from women. And shockingly in this day and age, the line about the things women wear came up. When one dresses like a slut, one should expect to be treated like one basically. Okay. One woman rightly said, 'Why are so many men missing the point? Women have to put up with lewd behavior from men on a daily basis - grabbing, men whispering obscenities as they go past, following us as we walk home - especially in cities. All while we're dressed normally in jeans or a massive winter coat. It happens every day - and men don't seem to realise this!?'

I'd been meaning to blog about this since it happened, but didn't really feel I had enough fuel for the fire. I blog about it today having attended my very first Black Feminist gathering yesterday evening. This was not their monthly discussion group meeting, but a showcase of art, mainly spoken word. (I was going to perform but chickened out, what a wasteman ha.) The evening was wonderful - a small gathering of like-minded females with wide smiles on their faces laden with support. When the floor was opened for a short general discussion, one lady, an American raised the point of street harassment, she said she'd only been in London for 2 months but had already noticed that it was so frequent, and it shocked her, she wanted to know how we dealt with it/why everyone seemed so "okay" with it. Two other ladies responded by saying that they had simply and regrettably become desensitized to it, and all the other females nodded in disappointed agreement. The conclusion to all the issues that were raised, whether they pertained to being a female, or being black, or being both, was that you cannot let the issue go unnoticed. Make noise about it. Blog about it. Create art about it. Join a group like the Black Feminist so you don't feel like you're going through it alone or brush it off because you think you're just super paranoid.

So, what now?
I honestly don't know. The article lists a couple of groups who are doing work to stop street harassment which is great, and maybe if we keep on shouting about it, just maybe, we might see a change.

(If that was a little heavy-going I apologise. Have a read of this great and more light-hearted take on the matter by a wonderful writer and hilarious lady, http://thecommentatorspeaks.wordpress.com/2011/02/19/a-bit-of-a-rant-a-bit-of-a-rave-part-2/)