Slut Shaming and Street Harassment: At a Bar Near You!

      

Overheard near JMU: Slut Shaming! Street Harassment! (Insert more phrases from my title!) Is anyone shocked, surprised? Sadly, unless you live in some kind of crazy isolated dorm-cave, the answer is probably a predictable “No!” After an anecdote, we investigate!     

     

This post begins with a retelling of an occurrence that I witnessed last Friday. It involves dancing, drinking (warm milk) with a slew of my favorite girlfriends at a local establishment! Sounds like a pretty typical Friday night in the ‘Burg, right? (Especially that warm milk, so refreshing! So wholesome!) Oh, but then there was this whole deal with blatant public harassment! Not so typical anymore, right? (or is it?) “What is public harassment?” you may ask. Let’s find out!     

While leaving said establishment at closing time, one of my friends became suddenly, and very visibly, irate. When one of us inquires as to what happened, she mutters a few expletives and indicates this guy in an orange shirt, who in turn is seriously staring at her with that unsavory leer some of us may recognize as a prime way of identifying a sub-species of humankind known as creepiusjackass. What, exactly, this guy did to her is still unclear to me, but I imagine it could have ranged anywhere from a comment on the side that didn’t go over too well with my friend, or groping! (and there were lots of strangers groping that night!) He begins to mouth off to her, something about her “nice ass” and very crass and unimaginative euphemisms.     

So readers? What does one do in this situation to prevent it from escalating? Granted, it could just be a drunk dude that we dismiss as just that (and should we?) and continue on our merry way? Or does one respond, explicitly telling this guy to cease and desist (albeit less formally)? I imagine most people would think that ignoring it is the safest route, but we can probably admire the courage it takes to tell someone like this off. It’s a tough call, because no matter what, the situation has already begun, and it could go anywhere from here. And does it ever.     

My friend tells him off, and they (all female, about 4-5 of them and as a slight digression to demonstrate how this happens to people we know, 2 of them work on this blog) begin to walk to their car. The guy, and his friends that have appeared at this point, start screaming. Like just go berserk. While I try to be light with the profanity when I post, I think it lessens the severity to try to clean it up. (If you have delicate sensibilities, turn away now!)     

He yelled, to the best of my recollection: “Fuck you, you ugly cunt!” “I was giving you a compliment, fucking cuntwhorebags!” (and you thought that caption on the photo was muck raking!)  “Fuck you fat cows!” etc. Cunt was yelled a lot. His friends think this is pretty hilarious. The other 20 people milling around and waiting for taxis are trying to act like this is happening on another planet.     

So that is public (or street) harassment. Some people would blow that off as no big deal, an isolated incident. Not so, my friends, just not so.     

So to give us a quick play by.     

1) Dude hits on friend via touch or word in a way she finds unwelcome.     

2) She rejects his advances, he continues, she tells him to stop.     

3) He then makes a huge public display of screaming some pretty horrific stuff at her and company, makes it clear that he gave her a “compliment” that she is rudely rejecting which then justifies horrific things being screamed, and bystanders act like this spectacle is happening on television.    

So what really happened here? While it is incredibly obvious that this was absolutely NOT OK, we might not see the undertones of what really occurred. Which was firstly: gendered violence and secondly: a whole lot of other societal garbage. Let me make it clear that you do NOT need to know someone for them to verbally abuse you. Let me reiterate that: Not knowing someone doesn’t make their words non-verbally abusive. My friends were verbally abused because they were women and for no other reason. At any given moment, this situation could have escalated into becoming very dangerous very quickly. Street harassment is considered to be at the beginning of the violence spectrum because it can lead to physical violence. (Even the threat of it leading to physical violence, I think, falls into the spectrum, because at its very core all street harassment is a rape-threat. Simple as that) Does that sound like “alarmist paranoia”? Maybe. But rape threats (or the fear of such) are super effective because at their very essence, they are limiting, they are oppressive. They already give the harasser an upper hand, because he is automatically in a position of power when he begins his tirade of verbal abuse. The victim is very aware of how badly things can go.  

There are a zillion other things as well. This is the male-gaze at work! Street harassment is fundamentally built upon the idea that women’s bodies are public property, free to be touched, commented upon, hooted, whistled and barked at and every other kind of depraved public commentary on their bodies/appearance. Notice how quickly he went from “complimenting her” to calling her a cunt, ugly and a cow? Because he can. Our culture, media etc. tells us consistently that women’s bodies are ALWAYS up for evaluation, while the “compliment”/insults seem like two opposites, they are both firmly rooted in her physical appearance and nothing else. Speaking of male gaze, we as feminists often discuss how women have to perform for it constantly. (and they do!) But this guy was also totally performing. He was asserting his masculinity for an audience, and he was performing this twisted concept of male dominance in front of his friends. They were sickenly amused, and I’m sure he received rave reviews that night.  

And let us examine the repercussions for his behavior.By which, I mean, there were none. NONE. The bouncers watched and said nothing, the rest of the patrons watched and said nothing. Other than my friends who definitely gave very blatant signals that this behavior was unappreciated, he is validated by a) his peers and b) the silence of the rest of the audience. And I’ll say it here: I did nothing. As a very visible queer who was left alone to wait for his ride (that could have appeared in 5 minutes or 15) I did not feel safe in doing anything and that is the perverse genius of it. No one else wants to be involved, no one wants to become the focus of this asshole’s ire. Because, disapprove as some may of this behavior, it is not condemned in our culture. At All. Had it been racist hate speech, I think (I hope) someone would have said something. And had the backing of the other witnesses present. But this is culturally condoned hate speech, and if one person says something they have no idea if they have the backing of the others that are present.  

And so this lack of repercussions and disapproval works in SO many ways. It affirms to the harasser in his actions, condones his actions to all those present, reinforcing the idea that harassment is ok, and also sends a very clear message to any female/queer/POC bystanders that they could very easily be victims next.  

So in the face of all this, what can we do? We can be extreme in our response (but it isn’t quite viable). We can also look at resources such as the fabulous Holla Back DC! and start to get the message out that this is not ok. This is NOT right. Also, we can begin to identify our experiences with street harassment (both as victims and/or bystanders) not as isolated instances but as something that is very culturally connected with women’s oppression. We can share our stories and find out that this, as women, queer-folk, POCs etc. is probably very much a common denominator in our experiences as minorities. We can destroy silent and passive condoning with active and vocal condemnation.