sexism: the little things

[helenic]

I'll admit it: the main reason I repost links like these isn't because I think I need to check my own privilege (although I do); it's because I'm tired of having conversations about gender with people who don't believe that sexism is a problem for most women today. Usually well-meaning, smart, decent guys who live in the same queer-friendly alternative bubble as I do. Asking them to listen before they become defensive is an important part of that conversation. However, I've started to think it might be worth actually keeping notes on the sexism I experience.

One of the problems I have with feminist analysis is that I have no stomach for anger. I just don't have the energy for it. Sometimes something will offend me, but I'm much more inclined to shrug it off than dwell on it. Sometimes something that happens to me will strike me as intellectually offensive, but my emotional barriers stop me from being personally riled by it. This is a valuable self-defense mechanism and a political weakness. I'm much more interested in putting my time and energy into creating positive, beautiful, affirming artworks and experiences for people than I am in maintaining an anger at the injustice I perceive around me. Injustice is everywhere: being angry all the time would make me unhappy. I have a flash temper and it often doesn't take much to hurt or annoy me, but I don't stay angry easily.

I'm pretty sure I have no real concept of the scale of the sexism I've experienced in my life. Women are, let's face it, used to being victims of sexism - we rationalise it away, shrug it off, don't dwell on it. Which is all very well for short-term personal happiness, but not for revolutionising society. We go out of our way to avoid sexism, which is often self-defeating when our long-practised skills at avoiding abuse result in a lack of convincing examples to persuade anyone that there is, in fact, a problem.

I'm not interested in being angrier, really. But what I can do is observe, take notes, make a record. I think it might be interesting to start using this LJ to record examples of sexism when I notice it. And I won't notice everything; I'm not trained in this sort of analysis. But it would be useful for me to have a better idea of the scale of it, rather than having a transient, unsubstantiated, emotional sense that it's there, but never being able to think of good examples during relevant conversations. I don't want this to turn into a list of complaints; I certainly don't want anyone to start criticising me for not balancing this list with examples of female privilege. That's not what I'm focussing on, here. Nor am I trying to say that women are the only victims of sexism or oppression. I'm just trying to combat a very real belief among my (mostly male) friends that a feminist perspective is out-dated and inappropriate in our society.

I'd encourage anyone who's had similar experiences to comment, just because I know it's not just me, and I think it's important to notice the little things.


1. Today I was walking through Cavendish Square, eating a sandwich. My phone beeped, and I held the half-eaten sandwich in one hand while I read the message. A middle-aged bloke - he looked more like a construction worker than a city office worker - was walking towards me. I didn't notice him until he passed me, but he'd obviously been watching me for a couple of minutes. "I bet that was tasty!" he said unpleasantly, looking me up and down and gesturing to my sandwich. "I saw you licking your fingers." I gave him my best contemptuous look and kept on walking.

The bloke would not have said that to another man. A woman would not have said that to a man, because men eating while walking is normal. When a man is eating it is unremarkable: to men, food is fuel. To women, food is a complex socio-political issue. Women are not meant to treat food as fuel: a woman eating in the street is making a public display of herself that invites comment. It is a sensual display that draws attention to her body and figure. She is not permitted to mind her own business; men are at liberty to approach her and make personal remarks. This applies especially if she's alone. The discomfort or threat felt by a young, solitary woman approached by a strange man making personal remarks in public is irrelevant; the most important thing is that, by engaging in such a lascivious display right there on the street, she is clearly attention-seeking and will welcome scrutiny and criticism from any man who happens to catch sight of her.

2. Several times - four now, I think - in the last few weeks, I have been sent photos of a stranger's cock via Bluetooth while sitting on the bus.

The first time this happened I was on the 67, going down Kingsland Road. I was sitting upstairs and having a flirty text conversation with mr_magicfingers, whose house I'd just left. My phone beeped, asking me if I wanted to accept $random_img219278. Surprised and not really thinking, I pressed yes. It was a photo of an erect cock belonging to a white man who was sitting down with his tracksuit bottoms pulled down to reveal his erection. He was holding it in one hand.

I deleted it, instantly, heart pounding. My first thought was: Oh my god. It's the guy sitting behind me. He saw me using my phone, checked to see if he could see any active Bluetooth devices, and sent it. Now he's seen me receive the message, he knows the Bluetooth device he detected is mine. He might be sitting behind me. Oh my god. He's sitting on the bus with his cock out and he's going to come and sit next to me any minute. Shit. Shit. I disabled my Bluetooth, nonchalantly put my phone away, and stared out the window. I was shaking. I was certain that whoever sent the message had now worked out who I was; that any moment now when the bus stopped, a man would walk down the aisle, sit next to me, and get his cock out. The photo had been a threat. It had been a violent threat.

The second thing I thought was: That'll teach me for leaving my Bluetooth turned on. I shouldn't have been so stupid. This is my fault.

The third thing I thought was: Wait. That wasn't mr_magicfingers, taking our flirtation one step further? Shit, have I just got completely the wrong end of the stick? No, no, it didn't look like him. And I'm too far away from the house, surely. But oh shit, I don't actually know how Bluetooth works. It wasn't him. Damnit, I can't check the picture to be sure - I've deleted the message. No, it can't be him. That's not like him, even if he had meant it well. I'm too far away, it must be someone on the bus.

It wasn't until then that I started feeling angry, started thinking How dare he. How dare he make me feel threatened like that. I sent an angry Twitter, and received a couple of sympathetic/aghast texts in reply, which made me feel a little better. After a few minutes, I got up out of my seat when the bus stopped, and made my way downstairs without looking back over the bus. It was an effort not to try and work out who had sent it. I kept my head down, not wanting to draw attention to myself, sat downstairs next to an older woman, and tried to put it out of my mind.

About a week later I was sent another photo by an unknown Bluetooth device on the same bus, just as I was about to get off on St Ann's Road. I cursed myself for leaving my Bluetooth on and refused the photo without looking at it.

But thinking about it, I wondered if I was right in assuming the photo I'd refused had been like the first. I was so surprised by the frequency of this new form of sexual harassment that I decided to leave my Bluetooth on and accept all the photos as a deliberate exercise. If I refused to accept them, I couldn't be sure that they were the kind of photo I thought they were. It was pointless getting angry about the phenomenon if I was making assumptions. It's happened four times in total, including the unverified second time, and as far as I can tell from a cursory glance (I really don't want to look closely) it's been a different sender each time. I've deleted all the photos.

I actually doubt that these photos are taken on the bus. They're probably saved on the phone and the mobile flasher spends his time trying to send them to random phones, on the off-chance that any of them are girls. The recipient has no way of telling who the sender of the message is by looking around them; and if they're female, they're probably too unsettled to want to try to identify the sender. Maybe they just get a thrill out of knowing that a possibly female stranger has unwillingly been exposed to their penis. Maybe they're keeping an eye on the girls in the bus to see if any of them has a phone that goes off; if any of them look upset or scared after checking it. I don't know. But whatever it is, I find it grossly offensive and borderline threatening. I don't care how bizarre your kink is; don't involve unsuspecting passers-by in it, particularly not when women are so constantly aware of the risk of sexual threats in urban environments. This isn't just me being a wimp. It is normal and valid for a woman to feel threatened in those circumstances, and it's sexual harassment to deliberately make her feel that way, even if you can't identify her in a crowd.

3. A more general example: strange men shouting after a woman who is jogging or running down a public street. Occasionally after a woman riding a bike. The shouts may be encouraging, jeering, sexual - there's a broad range. I don't run or cycle in public myself so I only notice this as a passer-by, but I still notice it a fair amount. The point is not the content of the shout, but the fact that the shout is made by a man or men about a woman who is doing something physical in public. Like my first example, anything a woman does that draws attention to her body in public - however normal or non-sexual the activity - is fair game for male commentary, no matter how uncomfortable, threatened, upset or irritated it will make the woman in question. Do these men really think the women will be glad of the attention? No - they don't think about the woman's feelings at all. They are objectifying her. She is running in public: her jiggling female body's only purpose is entertainment for any men watching, and her feelings and humanity are irrelevant.

4. Another more general example: strange men commenting on my mood when I'm out in public. This ranges from the all-too-common variations on "Smile!" which almost every woman I know has experienced, almost always from a man ("lighten up, love!" "it's not that bad!" "give us a smile, darlin'!" ) to any comment on how a man perceives me to be feeling. They almost always read my expression wrong and even if they do, it's none of their business. I am not a public object, I am not here for your entertainment. My face's only purpose is not to be cheerful and attractive so as to brighten your little world. I am a human being with my own ups and downs and I do not presume to comment on yours - at least, not with a shallow one-liner; sitting next to someone and offering a sympathetic ear is a very different thing. You are not concerned for my welfare. You are telling me to modify my appearance to please you. Women do not tell me to do this. Men do not do it to other men. Kindly do not do it to me.

5. Ooh, another one: men groping me in clubs. I go to a lot of clubs and they tend to be very hot. Both men and women tend to wear skimpy outfits; men are often topless, sometimes in skirts or shorts; women are often in miniskirts or bikinis. Everyone's sweaty. There seems to be an unspoken assumption among a lot of the men attending such clubs that if female flesh is exposed, it is inviting touch from anyone, including strangers. Every time I go out I'm groped at least once; one night it happened over a dozen times. This isn't just men - sometimes it's young women who are pilling their faces off and just not thinking. But it's mostly men, and I'm much more confident asking the women to please not do that without asking than I am with the men. I'm sure they mean well - they're having a lovely time, everyone's so pretty, let's spread the love, man. But I hate not being able to move through a crowd without anonymous, sweaty hands reaching to grab my bum or breasts or belly, and I hate being made to feel like a kill-joy for wanting people I don't know to get their hot, smelly paws off me. Someone coming up and complimenting me, and asking for a hug or a kiss? No problem - sometimes I'll say yes, and if I say no I'll do so politely. Just assuming that because my body is in their vicinity, it is available for them to fondle? Not fucking on. It's such an endemic problem of club culture that you can't even complain to the venue staff - it happens to everyone, it's normal, and they won't do anything about it. If they're a particularly lovely club and you talk to one of the organisers rather than one of the venue staff, and you can point out the person involved, they might go up and ask them to stop, but keeping track of someone you've barely seen in the first place in a crowd like that is not easy, and most of the time I don't even want to take a closer look - or I might not be able to if the crowd is particularly busy.

That's all I can think of right now. I'll add more as and when they happen; I have no doubt that they will. Please feel free to contribute your own, whether or not they're related to the above. The more anecdotal evidence I have, the more chance we have of persuading the non-feminists reading this that we aren't imagining things.

Next question: what's the best way to respond to this kind of thing? The older and more confident I get, the more ready I am to stand up for myself in public, to make a fuss. I would dearly love to respond to these examples by loudly and clearly calling attention to the behaviour and making it clear that it's unacceptable. I don't; I keep my head down and hurry on. Occasionally I manage a contemptuous laugh or a withering look first. I'd love to have a clear, pointed comeback that called people who do this up on it without starting a confrontation that could get nasty, but sadly, I doubt it's possible. If anyone has any bright ideas, I'd love to hear them.

In the meantime I shall await the inevitable responses from male readers telling me that they're not like that; that I'm overreacting; that the above are neither indicative of endemic issues nor examples of sexism. G'wan, prove me wrong. :)

Comments

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

I love this idea. Well done. I shall be interested to read your further updates on the subject.

#4 especially makes me want to grind glass in the speaker's face. I try and think of anger as an energy, which can be dangerous but is wonderful if used wisely. I find that helps.

[biascut.livejournal.com]

WOW. I have never heard of that Bluetooth thing before, but good God, that's awful. I'd seriously consider pitching someone about that to the Guardian Comment is Free pages or something (or getting someone to write about it on thefword?) because if that's a new form of harassment that technology has enabled, it should be made public.

Just to add my own harassment tales of the past week: Glitz and I were walking to the station on Saturdsy morning, pretty briskly, deep in conversation. A big group of lads tried to get our attention shouting something which finished in "girls", and I kind of glanced up, irritated at being interrupted. Didn't do anything apart from look kind of irritated. So that turned into, "Well fuck off then, yah stuck up cunts!" Super.

I stuck my middle finger up at them as we carried on walking, which is the kind of thing I usually do in situations like that, because it at least makes me feel like I've responded, you know? But it's not what you'd call a solution.

[forthwritten.livejournal.com]

I think my most disturbing one was a man coming up to me when I was waiting for a friend. He started being all creepy and sleazy, asking what I was doing, what I was doing later and clearly coming on to me, and it transpired that he thought I was 14. I made the excuse that I'd seen my friends and went to wait somewhere else. It still horrifies me that he thought it was okay to do this to someone he thought was 14.

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

Ugh. The bluetooth thing is awful :/

Recent thing that happened to me is that I was waiting for a bus and a guy came up and asked me for a cigarette. I said no, and after harranguing me for a while whilst I ignored him he turned to my (apparently male) companion and said "I don't know why you're bothering with her mate, she's a lesbian".

In general I think the best way to respond is to calmly say "I find that inappropriate, please don't do it again", but usually I just ignore it.

[biascut.livejournal.com]

Also, it sucks that you have to "prove" to your male friends that this is something that should be taken seriously. One of the things that Glitz and I talk about is the fact that we have relatively few male friends, and even fewer straight male friends, except those that we know because they're the partners of various female friends. I'm just not interested in having to make those explanations, so I generally just strike men of my list of "people I'm interested in getting to know" if they don't demonstrate an awareness of how sexism works and the ways in which they experience gender privilege. I'm just not interested in having to argue that.

(Similarly, I can entirely understand it if people who are not members of the privileged groups that I'm a member of feel the same way about me. I do try hard to be an ally and I know that I am massively more privileged than I am disadvantaged even within a UK context, never mind a global one. But it's far enough if someone is, "You know what? Actually, I want to talk to someone who gets this firsthand.")


Edited to add: Would it be too cynical to add "completely ignoring the substance of the post and commenting purely on the technical aspects without offering any empathy or solidarity whatsoever" to the list of tediously predictable male responses?

[alohura.livejournal.com]

I find that "Get your fucking hands off my arse and go trawl for meat elsewhere, dickwad" usually works.
especially if said loudly, and in the presence of other men who *haven't* got their hands on your arse.

Most of these assholes are quite taken aback by a vivid, explicit response.
If you can add looking right in their eyes and giving them a big, crazy, I-could-carve-out-your bollocks-out-in-a-heartbeat kind of smile, it helps...

[chiller.livejournal.com]

Oh GOD I love your icon!

[fluffymark]

This post is enlightening. I'd not actually realized these things actually happened, and on such a regular basis. Not you're not overreacting, those are all squicky and nasty things to happen and make me shudder. Presumably because I'm male, I guess, they don't happen to me, so I don't see them. And I really can't fathom the mindset of any man who would behave like that. I should just learn to appreciate how lucky I am that these things don't happen to me, I guess.

[sharp-blue.livejournal.com]

Accepting random Bluetooth file transfers is a bad idea for other reasons too: there are various viruses that propagate through Bluetooth connections and can then do all kinds of unpleasant things to your phone.

[whatifoundthere.livejournal.com]

Since my name is rather unusual, I'm more uncomfortable than most when people (read: men) ask me my name. It always, ALWAYS leads to a tedious conversation ("what? can you say that again? how do you spell that? where is it from? were you born there?") that I'm just not interested in having with strangers. In fact, I don't even like having it with public officials or bar servers or other people that might have a good reason to ask my name. But among strangers it is only ever men that ask my name, and the accompanying conversation is simply not welcome to me.

When a man does that, on the bus or whatever, I usually tell him that it's none of his business, and then he is SURPRISED. Because he OUGHT to know who I am so that he can REFER to me.

I don't know how it is with the women who have more common names; with me, along with the implicit threat in telling a strange man "who I am" there is the added threat that he will be able to "find" me later (which is kind of silly, but perhaps less silly than it would be if I were a Susan or a Joanne).

In that poll I posted a few weeks ago, I was trying to get at the "objective" differences between how women live in the world and how men do. I was less interested in feelings and opinions on political issues, and more on how the world, as it is, reacts to you. I'm still planning to do a full-on analysis of that post, but the hostility I got when I tried to give the poll to my students really upset me, and even though I've mostly recovered now I just haven't gotten around to it.

[maga-dogg.livejournal.com]

I find it entirely bizarre that men exist who either aren't aware that this sort of bullshit goes on, or don't see that it's a problem. I suppose most men didn't have a parent who carefully fed them feminist lit from a tender age, though.

Even so, I still forget, often. And it's good to be reminded of things that society in general would like to forget, which everyone by default conspires to make easier to forget (forgive hideous sentence construction). So thank you.

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

This is an excellent post, and I know exactly what you mean about having no concept of the scale of sexism. I also think there is a division between being treated differently because we are different (e.g. the way that students interact with me compared with how students interact with male graduates), and being treated differently in a way that is wrong and inappropriate. That too is a difficult line to walk.

The problem is not just young men who are saying 'why do we need feminism?', but young women who see women in political office and assume that all is now well. That's a whole other kettle of fish, but one that got opened out at FemCon.

It's interesting you mention the Bluetooth thing, as I read this (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/world/middleeast/13girls.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all) in the NY Times the other day:

Saudi newspapers often lament the rise of rebellious behavior among young Saudis. There are reports of a recent spate of ugly confrontations between youths and the religious police, and of a supposed increase in same-sex love affairs among young people frustrated at the strict division between the genders.

And certainly, practices like “numbering” — where a group of young men in a car chase another car they believe to contain young women, and try to give the women their phone number via Bluetooth, or by holding a written number up to the window — have become a very visible part of Saudi urban life.

A woman can’t switch her phone’s Bluetooth feature on in a public place without receiving a barrage of the love poems and photos of flowers and small children which many Saudi men keep stored on their phones for purposes of flirtation. And last year, Al Arabiya television reported that some young Saudis have started buying special “electronic belts,” which use Bluetooth technology to discreetly beam the wearer’s cellphone number and e-mail address at passing members of the opposite sex.

[cokephreak.livejournal.com]

OK, lots I 'd like to say ... but I'm unsure of this bit :
In the meantime I shall await the inevitable responses from male readers telling me that they're not like that; that I'm overreacting; that the above are neither indicative of endemic issues nor examples of sexism. G'wan, prove me wrong. :)

I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you wanting to think your male friends are like this,or not; is this meant as a hope or a challenge(?)


oh well, how badly can this go?
As an attempt at not getting into unwanted arguements, I'll stick to specifics


responses from male readers telling me that they're not like that

1 - 3 - I'm fairly sure I'm guilt free.

4 - I don't "comment on peoples mood". I do smile at them, directly and with eye contact, and I guess this is the same kind of behaviour. I do this with both sexes though, on the train, bus, street, queue in the supermarket etc.
Maybe I do it more with women, maybe not.
It's certainly not limited to people I find attractive.

5 - *shame* ...... My only words of defence are that I don't do this with strangers, and I tend to get the hints about which of my friends this is acceptable with and which would rather they didn't. Eventually, anyway.


responses from male readers telling me ... that I'm overreacting
No overreaction that I can see. The only reaction to these things from the post are that you wrote this post. How can that be an overreaction?
Ok, you got distressed on the bus. This seems normal. No overreaction.

And for the record, I've never witnessed you overreact to unwanted groping. Seen you react : yes. Overreact : no.


responses from male readers telling me that the above are neither indicative of endemic issues nor examples of sexism.
They are indicative of issues and examples of how people differ in there actions towards different genders. "Endemic" I'd not agree with though. I'd not disagree either, though. Here I sit, on my fence *twiddles thumbs*

[cokephreak.livejournal.com]

I'd say the same

Also, after thinking "that will teach me ..." after the first one I'm slightly bemused / amused that it happened another 4 times.

You said the second one was on the same bus ... were the others? If so it's probably a staionary device sending it to everything in range.
Same place or not, sending things like this is fairly random. You never know who owns a device from it's name, and thats all the info the sender has.

Also, is your(libellum) phone's bluetooth name something distinctly feminine? If so, you could be advised to change it. Maybe an idea to change it anyway.

[jossish.livejournal.com]

Re: changing a feminine Bluetooth id: I don't imagine this is the argument you're making - don't you think that puts the onus on women to protect themselves, rather than men to stop? Why should any woman have to portray themselves as gender-neutral even in a virtual space, so that she isn't harrassed? Why isn't the onus on men to stop acting the way they act?

[whatifoundthere.livejournal.com]

:: In the meantime I shall await the inevitable responses from male readers telling me that they're not like that...

: I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you wanting to think your male friends are like this,or not; is this meant as a hope or a challenge(?)

I'm not libellum, but I think that if you followed the link to her previous post, it would be pretty clear the answer to your question has nothing to do with either hope or challenge. Whenever I talk about sexism, I dread the inevitable moment when a man pipes up with I'M NOT LIKE THAT! I AM LIBERATED! I AM SENSITIVE! WHY ARE YOU COMPLAINING TO MEEEEEEE?!

libellum said something similar in the post she linked:

This [comment] by sammaelhain struck me as summing it all up pretty well:

"If it's more important for me as a white hetero male to assert how i'm not "like that" than it is for me to shut the fuck up and consider the perspective of someone other than me, then functionally I'd rather have my privilege than work for a more fair society.

So perhaps instead of protesting, and making the conversation all about YOU, it would be more helpful to say, "Shit, libellum, that really sucks, let's see what I as a man can do to help change that environment for women in the city."

[taimatsu]

Doom! Reading this I realise that the last week or two has been remarkably free from sexist crap - then again, I have been doing exams or hiding away in bed with my girlfriend, so I either haven't noticed or haven't been exposed to any.

Tangentially relatedly, I'm going to be spending my summer reading up on feminism, about which I intend to burble on LJ, which is probably going to also involve ranting about sexist crap in general. I'm up for more conversation on the subject, depressing though it can be. I hear what you're saying about anger. I'm wondering how far your ability and perhaps opportunity to shut off or avoid the anger that might otherwise be prompted by the sexism and other kinds of injustice around you ties into the discussion of privilege that you've mentioned and which has been permeating the feminist blogosphere. That was a long sentence.

[arachne.livejournal.com]

Fantastic post, worthy of far more comment than I'm capable of giving right now.

[sharp-blue.livejournal.com]

Similarly, why should anyone have to obfuscate their email address or use spam filters so they aren't deluged with spam emails? Why isn't the onus on spammers to stop acting the way they do?

I would certainly much prefer society in general to be reformed so that I'm not bombarded with emails and weblog comments trying to induce me to buy drugs, send all my money to Nigeria, look at (increasingly unpleasant, based on the contents of the URLs) pornography or buy alien antigravity technology(*), but such reform is pretty unlikely in the near term so I choose to apply certain not too onerous practical measures instead.

(*) Yes, really. Actually, I didn't mind receiving that one so much as it was quite fun.

[biascut.livejournal.com]

(I want to use sinsense's *facepaw* icon here, just because - OH GOOD LORD.)

[lady-illflower.livejournal.com]

I don't have bluetooth myself (I'm too low-tech with my phone), but I've got friends who've had that same experience... lovely... it would seem it's an international phenomenon. -_-

Other than that, yep, I know what you're talking about.

Sometimes one despairs about the state of the world.

[woodavens.livejournal.com]

It's depressing to think that I was on marches about this sort of thing (well, not Bluetooth, which had yet to be invented) in the 1970s, and not nearly enough has changed since then.

My most successful retaliation has been a loud and outraged "HOW DARE YOU!" which drew the attention of passers-by to the creep in question, who melted away as fast as he could.

I'd love to come up with something which was guaranteed not just to get rid of them but to instantly educate them, so they didn't try it on anyone else, but I think that's rather a tall order; at least, I haven't got it yet.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

rohbu, please don't leave replies like that. They aren't funny, they're unhelpful, and they're offensive. I'm opening this dialogue in the hope that people will listen, not ignore all the challenging parts of my post and spam my LJ with all-caps "jokes".

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Gah. I'm doing a good job of pissing everyone off today.

Sorry - I thought [Bad username or site: sharp_blue' / @ livejournal.com] would find it funny because of his comment about anti-gravity spam.

[emperor]

I'm beginning to feel quite corner-painted here.