It鈥檚 happened to me before and it will happen again, but I鈥檓 still annoyed about it.
I was standing in my driveway, awkwardly juggling purse and keys and sunglasses, when two men in a coupe swung up next to me. Sticking his head out the window, the one in the passenger seat called to me, leered and yelled a mocking sexual overture.
Sigh. Like I said, it鈥檚 happened before and it will happen again. I know this, because it鈥檚 happened to almost every woman I know.
I have a pretty solid sneer-and-middle-finger reflex for situations like this, which I use without compunction when I鈥檓 catcalled on the street or touched inappropriately in a club, so it wasn鈥檛 like I was immobilized with offended dignity as they drove off, no doubt high-fiving each other on successfully having made a random woman feel humiliated and upset, but man, did I feel humiliated and upset. I put my headphones on and walked to the bus like it hadn鈥檛 happened, but it had happened, and I couldn鈥檛 pretend it hadn鈥檛.
I wish I could be one of those people who can let a little sexual harassment slide off their backs, who can just choose to not be upset, but I鈥檓 not and I can鈥檛, and I was left with the glum understanding that I was just going to feel slightly gross all evening.
I鈥檝e told this story a couple of times, so here鈥檚 where the telling gets tricky, because my next impulse is invariably to make a comment about what I was wearing, to assure my listener that my clothing couldn鈥檛 possibly have been to blame.
Let鈥檚 be clear: This impulse is demented. Whenever we ask (or pre-emptively answer) the question 鈥淲hat were you wearing?鈥� what we鈥檙e really saying is: 鈥淚 know that jerk harassed you, but let鈥檚 focus on your behaviour instead.鈥�
This attitude is toxic and pervasive, and we鈥檝e all internalized it. It allows us to believe that sexual harassment only happens to a certain kind of a woman, that there are certain things that women can do to avoid harassment, that women can be safe if they play by the rules, that ultimately it鈥檚 a woman鈥檚 responsibility to avoid harassment, rather than a man鈥檚 responsibility not to harass.
This, of course, is absolute lunacy and has been disproved time and time again: Sexual harassment happens to women everywhere, no matter what they鈥檙e wearing or what they look like. Women are harassed in niqabs, miniskirts and sweatpants. Even if we鈥檙e nominally on board with the idea that harassment is the harasser鈥檚 fault, we鈥檙e still OK asking a woman: 鈥淏ut what were you wearing?鈥� Interpretation: What did you do to deserve it?
Nothing. I was being female in a public place. That鈥檚 it. I do it every day. The only thing that was different was that I was in the presence of two men who chose to behave badly.
Yet it鈥檚 so hard to tell this story without throwing in a last Hail Mary of justification, some way of rationalizing my clothing choices so that you, my audience, can understand that it really and truly wasn鈥檛 my fault. My refusal to 鈥渃ome clean鈥� with what I was wearing will be proof enough for some that my clothing was to blame. Alternately, if my clothing is deemed 鈥減rovocative enough,鈥� I could be accused of overreacting to what was surely just an innocent compliment. (It wasn鈥檛.)
We think we鈥檙e protecting women when we interrogate their clothing choices, but all that does is transfer responsibility from the harasser to the victim. This might seem like small beans in the context of my story, but it鈥檚 part of an insidious pattern in the way we talk about sexual assault. We have only look to the chronic mishandling of sexual assault cases in the RCMP to see how our attitudes toward sexual harassment conspire to place the blame on the victims鈥� behaviour, rather than the abusers鈥�.
Commissioner Bob Paulson has referred to the systemic sexual harassment within the RCMP as a 鈥渃ouple of bad apples,鈥� but it鈥檚 a culture of entitlement that defends men鈥檚 ability to harass rather than women鈥檚 right to live without harassment.
And if we blame harassers鈥� behaviour on women when it happens on the road, why are we surprised when the same thing happens in places of power and authority?
