Men Need To Do Better
*Trigger Warning. This post discusses sexual assault, sexual abuse and rape*
As someone who has been a victim of abuse and a victim of rape/sexual abuse previously, I get a bit anxious around men I don't know. One of the worst things I have to do in life is get into a lift by myself, with no one I know, and every other person in the lift being a male. My palms get sweaty and clammy, my chest gets tight, I feel sick and generally unsafe. When I step out of the lift, it's like coming up for air after being held down under water for almost too long.
It only happens when I don't know anyone else. If I'm in a lift with Jonny, with my friends or even with a male colleague, I'm totally fine. But if I know no one else in that lift, and am the only woman present, my mind tells me that I am not safe.
Lifts are the worst. However, I get a little anxious walking past groups of men, or in front of men (one or more) or walking past men in clubs. In fact, in Ibiza a man tried to grab me whilst I was walking past him holding Jonny's hand and then tried to block my path. I got frustrated and asked him to move. He laughed, and moved closer towards me - so I used every ounce of force and strength I had behind me and elbowed him right in the ribs. My elbow killed after, so I hope I cracked a rib to make it worth it!
No one fucks with me.
So you can only imagine my surprise when I was assaulted by a man in broad daylight on Saturday morning, and my greater surprise at the fact I did nothing to defend myself. Absolutely nothing.
I'm feisty - everyone knows it. I'm all talk, but that's because my talk is enough to get people to leave me alone. If someone touches me, and I don't like it, I will often say something along the lines of "touch me again and I'll break your fingers". I absolutely never would - I don't think I'd even know how to break someones fingers! - but it warns people enough to make them stay away from me, and people don't often try it on a second time after that. I can stand my ground, hold my own - verbally, anyway. When I was single, and actually, even now, guys call me a bitch because of it. When I was single, they often told me I'd end up alone if I didn't act "friendlier".
Good. I'd rather end up alone than be touched up without my consent by a creep like you.
So what happened to me this weekend?
I'm mad at myself for not being my normal feisty self on Saturday morning. I'm mad for not punching him in the balls, spitting verbal abuse that would cut his soul in two, leave him hurt and upset the way he left me.
I just don't know what happened. My mind didn't know how to compute the situation.
There was me, walking out of Brixton train station at about 9:30am. There was a tonne of people around, the sun was shining, I was walking along with my headphones in, minding my own business, when a man stepped in front of me and tried to grab me. I gave him a look and said, quite firmly, "no". He laughed and tried to grab me again, I sidestepped him and he sidestepped with me. His friend sat on a bike, watching it all unfold. "I'm not interested", I said. Suddenly, his smile dropped. "You're a bitch" he screamed in my face, "a fucking bitch. You're ugly, I wouldn't touch you if somebody paid me. You're fat and you look like shit".
I know. Ego so fragile, right?
He carried on screaming at me, whilst I stood at traffic lights, waiting to cross the road - I literally could not escape him. People stared, but walked past. One woman, a foreign lady who couldn't speak much English, was stood waiting to cross with me. "He's crazy, a drughead, don't listen to him" she said. I nodded, still frozen in shock and unable to speak. Then, when I crossed the road and walked around the corner, away from him, I burst into tears.
"But more important than telling women to be so careful - for just doing simple things like walking down the bloody road - I want to tell men to do better"
Normally, in any other moment, I would have made a cutting remark, sworn at him and probably told him to fuck off and suck my dick (like the eloquent lady my mother taught me to be...). But I just couldn't deal with it. I've been attacked by men when drunk, when in a nightclub or at a party, when walking home alone after a night out... but never in broad daylight, surrounded by literally hundreds of people who wouldn't step in and help. I write about this stuff happening all the time, try to raise awareness of how important it is that women protect themselves on the streets, but it never happened to me in an ordinary daytime situation and my brain just didn't know what to do. I quite literally froze.
I'm kicking myself now because I feel like I acted like a baby. I didn't fight back like I normally would have done. He will have gone back to his mates and had a laugh about the girl he verbally abused "for fun". It won't mean anything to him at all - but it means everything to me.
He tried to assault me on a route I use on a very regular occasion - what if I see him again? What if it happens again? He's ruined a route I once believed to be safe, to take me to work. What am I supposed to do now?
There isn't much point to this blog post, other than once again I want to tell women to be so, so careful. I was surrounded by people, in broad daylight, and this still happened. But more important than telling women to be so careful - for just doing simple things like walking down the bloody road - I want to tell men to do better.
Don't speak to a woman on the street if she has headphones in, if she doesn't know you, if she's walking alone and you're in a group, if you're trying to make a move on her. Don't make women feel unsafe as they do ordinary, day to day things. Don't move to a woman trying to hook up and then turn on her when she says no. Don't let your fragile, male ego make you turn into a monster when a woman rejects your advances. Just don't do it!
"It won't mean anything to him at all - but it means everything to me"
And for the men who might sit there and say "not all men" or "that's not me". Great, I'm glad to hear it. But is it your friends? Your brother? Your dad, cousin, uncle, colleague? Have you seen men you know act like this towards women before? Catcalling women as they walk past, grabbing women inappropriately in a club, forcing women to go home with them because they bought them a drink?
Hold yourself accountable. Step in, hold them back, educate them and inform them. If you know what's right and what's not, make sure the men you know do, too. Don't sit back and watch them intimidate, abuse and assault another woman, because that honestly makes you just as bad as the one doing it in the first place.
I'll watch my back at all times because I know that I'm never 100% safe - even if I'm walking along with a man by my side. I hope one day, this can change.
Love from,
Florence Grace
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