It would be difficult to find a girl or a woman who couldn’t say, yes, me too.  As someone said on Twitter, those of us who are referring only to harassment rather than to assault or rape are the fortunate ones – often we barely even recognise what we’ve experienced as being what it is, it’s just the way things are, it’s just what being a girl or a woman means.

Of course, it happens to boys and men too and some are using the #MeToo hashtag to share their experiences.   I know that we find it easier to tell each other about the things that happen to us than men do.  We may make a bit of a joke of it, or frame it as a warning about a colleague who’s all hands after a few drinks or whatever, and we may not be able to talk to anyone ever at all.  But one burden that men carry that we don’t is the need to be strong, and to be seen to be strong.

Nonetheless, primarily I am talking about girls and women.  About the fact that we learn to expect a degree of harassment, verbal or physical. And the fact that whatever our age, size, however we dress, wherever we go, we must learn to always be aware that there are predators – predators in dark alleys, predators in smart suits, predators in our homes and workplaces.  There are men who think that what they want they can have, and that what they want is all that matters.  There are men who will punish with violence or in subtler ways someone who says no.

I’ve got no heartrending stories to tell.  My experiences of sexual harassment have been so very ordinary, which is a story in itself, I guess.  The guy on the bus, the group of lads in town, the pushy sales rep with his sleazy comments, all normal, all ordinary.  I have been made to feel afraid.  I have, when cornered on a train by leery groups of lads drinking Special Brew, been thinking furiously about how to get away, whether there’s anyone else around who might be an ally, whether I should be friendly and risk them thinking I’m up for it, or cold and risk triggering overt hostility.

But that’s all normal and ordinary, and a long time ago.  Something happened a few weeks back, though, which reminded me of some of those earlier ordinary, normal incidents.  Sitting having a drink with my friend, catching up, enjoying each others company, when two very drunk middle-aged blokes come in and try to engage people in conversation.  We avoid eye contact but to no avail.  One of the blokes comes over and asks if he can join us.  We say no, very politely and with smiles because we’re nice people, but we say no.  He carries on talking to us, we continue to (politely) assert that we are fine as we are, and that we don’t want him to join us.  And quite suddenly he makes some remark about our size.  That’s our punishment for saying no.   It reminded me of the man at a party (decades ago) who when I turned him down (despite his incredibly seductive promise to ‘destroy’ me) gave me unsolicited feedback on my weight.  They felt entitled – whether to sex or just to attention – and when that entitlement is denied, they hit back, physically or verbally.

What can we do?  We can stop blaming ourselves for someone else’s vileness.  We – women and men – can stop implying that someone asked for it, or was stupid or naive to find themselves in that situation, or was cowardly to not speak out sooner.  We can challenge the entitled mindset whenever we encounter it, we can not join in with the comments or laugh at the jokes, we can stand with someone in a difficult situation and back up their account when they’re being called a liar.

Remember that every time a man commits a violent act it only takes one or two steps to figure out how it’s a woman’s fault, and that these dance steps are widely known and practiced and quite a bit of fun. There are things men do that are the fault of women who are too sexy, and other things men do that are the fault of women who are not sexy enough, but women only come in those two flavors: not enough, too much, and it is the fate of heterosexual men to endure this affliction.

Rebecca Solnit

And what’s happening to me as I write this is that incidents I had forgotten – not suppressed because they were traumatic, just forgotten because they were ordinary and normal – are coming back to me.  I hadn’t realised that there were so many.

Yes, me too.

What “me too” does is bring it back into the home, the school, the shop, the street, the office where women have been harassed. It makes it small screen not big screen. It makes it ordinary and everyday and seen. … Many have waited a long time for this. Don’t let it go now. Keep saying “me too” because we are fighting not one guy here, but a system that can only be challenged by collective rage, not individual shame.  Suzanne Moore, The Guardian

https://www.rachelmariner.com/harvey-weinstein/

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/12/challenge-extreme-masculinity-harvey-weinstein-degrading-women

To The Men on the Other Side of #MeToo