By Anonymous
I’ve deliberated over whether I should put my name to this story.
To be honest, I feel a bit cowardly in my decision not to.
I’d like to say it’s because I’m simultaneously wary of perpetuating stigma and of singularising my experience – I’d like to say that my anonymity is my acknowledgement that this is the experience of so, so many others. That this story could be that of your sister, your girlfriend, or your Mum.
To varying degrees, they’ve inevitably experienced similar harassment.
But to be honest, I think my reluctance to put my name to this speaks more to my continued discomfort and embarrassment, than it does anything else.
I was 19, and waiting at a bus stop.
I could tell you what time I was there, what I was wearing, who I was or wasn’t with – but that shouldn’t matter. That doesn’t matter.
I saw a man walking across the street.
There’s a comedian called Ever Mainard, who rather unfunnily, says women are taught to never walk alone at night – and told that if they do, they will die.
“You need a man to survive, unless he’s following you at night.”
She goes on to say that every single woman has that one moment when she thinks: “Here’s my rape.” Notably and overwhelmingly disheartening, it’s the men who laugh the loudest.
As the man crossed the street, we made eye-contact. In the dark, I felt my face blush.
I pretended to look at my phone, acutely aware that it was on 14% and the next bus was 40 minutes away.
As he got closer, I began to feel physically sick.
Did you know that whilst most men fear getting laughed at or humiliated by a romantic prospect, most women fear rape and death?
I wish I could finish with the humorous conclusion that my fear was unfounded, and that the man just walked past me. Or that all he did was ask me the time, leaving me safe, though sweaty palmed.
He didn’t.
I sat alone, in the dark and in front of me, he exposed himself, masturbated and asked: “Are you working tonight?”
Later, I sat in an Indian restaurant on the phone to a friend, swallowing words and lemonade. I left out the part about the man masturbating.
When I told my sister, I just said he asked if I was working that night.
When I told a friend the complete story, she looked at me indignantly.
“You know that’s illegal, right?”
I did know. I’d scoured the internet for the legislation. I’d found Fact Sheets and infographics, statistics and relevant phone numbers.
“Why didn’t you call the police?”
I’m still not sure why.
As I watched the man jog away across the road, I felt like any chance of consequence went with him. Any chance of what I had experienced being acknowledged, my rights being respected, the laws which I knew existed to protect those rights being enforced – I felt like those possibilities disappeared with him.
They didn’t – my rights existed and continue to exist independent of my ability or willingness to enforce them.
And yet, to be effective, my rights rely upon me enforcing them. They exist without enforcement, they’re in theory, “universal,” but they’re a bit useless in that capacity unless I do something about them.
My name lies absent from this piece, and yet I hope one day I’ll feel a little bit more like I would speak up more if a future situation arose. That sitting in that Indian restaurant, between sips of lemonade, I’d explain the situation in its entirety to my friend. That I would call the police.
I hope one day I’ll feel a little bit more like, just maybe, I’ll be able to acknowledge this experience as my own.
Writing this makes me a feel a little bit more like I can.
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