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After a tedious and unwanted departure from my usual place of residence, I have returned with a creepy anecdote about an uncomfortable encounter with a dude. So, brace yourself, for the not-so-exciting, but still a pretty eerie tale that illustrates patriarchy and male entitlement.
***
I am at work taking care of children at the beach and I notice a food and drink stand that is set up nearby. Coffee, of all beverages, is being sold at this stand and mouth watering ensues since, you know, nothing calls for a steaming cup o' joe like the summer heat!
At the stand, a woman takes my order - she is kind and absolutely not creepy. As she is fiddling with a slow "one cup" coffee machine, a dude is throwing down some f-bombs. The man is white and probably in his early to mid forties. He is wearing sunglasses and has pierced ears and a few forearm tattoos; his hair is short and spiked and he wears a chain around his neck. He proceeds to make small talk and asking me how many kids I was minding. I manage to get away before he can say anything else. It was not until the second visit, for yet another cup of coffee that his presence becomes creepy. Once again I am at this stand and the man is there and appears much more talkative. As the coffee-machine takes a while to work, the dude uses this idle time to create more small talk with me. I try and stick to discussing the weather. We do not get much seasonal weather in the summer up here (eh?) so it is usually a safe topic. Despite this old standard, the man departs from the weather and moves onto a conversation about my abundance of mosquito bites. "Oh, look at your shoulder!" he tells me, "You have so many bites just on that one shoulder there."I tell him that I realize how bad my shoulder is and how I find it annoying to have so many bites in one place.
Since my shoulder is not very interesting, at least in my opinion, I start to welcome a change in conversation or better yet, a conclusion to my cup of coffee. Rather than dropping the bug-talk, the man actually gets up and walks towards me.
My mind is well-aware of his intentions - they have become so predictable and tiresome over the years of personal invasions. I am also aware of the entitlement that many men feel towards personal space, particularly women's personal space.
And so, the man moves behind me and begins to put his fingers on my shoulder, feeling the largest bug-bite with his fingers. The whole experience lasted a few seconds, but instantly, I feel violated. In response, I find myself making some awkward gesture or noise before I proceed to quickly grab my coffee and make my way back to my spot in the sand.
Should I have protested right then and there? While taking care of kids? Something along the lines of "do not touch me" - I failed to utter much of anything. The larger society appears to view this type of interaction as "normal," since men often feel that touching that is not sexual in nature, like the touching in this situation, is acceptable and even somehow "friendly." Many entitled people see this non-sexual touching as completely ordinary, and certainty not as an invasion of someone's space.
However, what is intriguing and yet enraging to consider, is how this form of stranger-touching is viewed as normal when it is done to women and children, but not when it is done to men by other men. How likely would we see a man randomly touching another man that he does not know in a public place? Would you see a man randomly scruffily rubbing another man's hair, as some adult strangers to do to random children that they do not even know? How about a man kissing the hand of a male stranger or just touching another dude-stranger's hand in anyway at all? Oddly enough, we do not see a lot of up-close and in-my-personal-space interactions going on between adult males who have never met before.
We must recognize the power dynamics at play in our society - the power that establishes these entitlements make room for not just violation of space, but violence against women at large. If our personal space was considered as valuable as a man's personal space than perhaps violence against us would become less common. When men feel as if they are authorized and entitled to accessing a women's bodies and personal space, we know that we are still living under an oppressive patriarchal force that perceives women (and children, as well) as objects. This is not to say that some women do not violate children's personal space.
Women and children, at large, are viewed as passive, non-thinking, non-feeling creatures without boundaries or feelings of their own. This is made clear by the enormous numbers of cases of violence against women and children by male perpetrators. This is also made clear by the normalization of these invasive interactions by complete strangers.
But I digress.
Men respect the boundaries of other men because the social norms set up by the social hierarchy requires their allegiance to the status quo and to one another. Men who step out of these boundaries, or question male entitlement at large will often fall victim to other men; they do not fall victim, systematically and disproportionately to women and children. This is how patriarchy presents itself to the masses and yet the masses do not see it. Why? Because they have grown accustomed to the principles of male-dominance; males at large, as a sex-class, have been unquestioned in their privilege for so long. This unquestioned privilege has become a routine force in the continued oppression of women, children, the earth and the rest of the global community at large who is not a class-privileged white guy.
There is an enormous human rights problem sweeping South Africa. A disgusting trend called “corrective rape” is prevalent in South Africa and lesbian women are the targets of such abuse. To be clear, this violation of human rights isn’t just happening in South Africa, but it is by far the most rampant there. According to amplifyyourvoice.com, "corrective rape," often accompanied by vicious beatings or even murder, is intended to punish lesbians for not being heterosexual.” According to the same source, South Africa has rather liberal policies regarding LGBTQ community but homosexual women are being targeted by males as well as the highest levels of government.The Times Online states that there are 150 rapes a day reported in South Africa.
Possibly the most well-known case of “corrective rape” in South Africa involved Eudy Simelane, an openly lesbian soccer player who was beaten, gang raped and murdered in 2008. Since then, this “corrective raping” has increased as the men in South Africa feel their male dominance is being threatened. The justice for these women appears to be bleak for according to ActionAidUK, for every 25 men brought into court for rape, 24 will walk free.
The question that comes to mind here is: Why? Why is this still happening and why aren’t these men being punished? It appears to be less of an individual issue and more of a collective and societal problem. ActionAidUK affirms,
This shameful record of male domination and violence has helped build an increasingly brutal and oppressive culture, in which women are forced to conform to gender stereotypes or suffer the consequences. As part of this oppression, the country is now witnessing a backlash of crimes targeted specifically at lesbian women, who are perceived as representing a direct and specific threat to the status quo.
So, why isn’t anything being done? Why aren’t other countries stepping in?
I wish I knew the answer.
I wish a lot of things.
I wish we could live in a world where women were free to express themselves fully and live in a way that made them happiest without being threatened with extreme violence and hatred. I wish that the women who were harmed and killed could have justice. Sadly, this cannot be solved by wishful thinking, only action. Action needs to be taken worldwide to help these women – they are our sisters. We cannot simply leave them without hope or assistance, we need to use our resources and step in.
In the west, we must realize that this is a hate crime and it is just as serious. We need to, even in the west, realize that heterosexuality is not the “right” sexuality. The whole idea of “normal” sexuality is what is keeping so many people in danger throughout the world. This horrible trend of “corrective rape” is ingrained into the social culture from centuries of male dominance and heteronormativity. There is a definitive root to this problem that needs to be examined and changed in order for these women to be saved. We must focus our energy to help save these women and bring them justice. We must take what we have and work towards helping all women worldwide in combating rape, violence and murder. To quote the fword.org,
“If we are to stand any chance of eradicating the injustices we suffer, then securing equality and rights for all women must be our priority - and to achieve that, one of the first steps must be a concerted effort internationally to tackle violence against us.”
One of my friends posted a facebook status challenging childbirth and marriage and I left a comment in agreement more or less with her. I stated that marriage can often hold women back or keep them down, but not always. I suggested, of course, throwing away the traditional idea of marriage all together. After a few minutes, a man from where I grew up came on and spouted the most ridiculous, narrow-minded crap I had read in a while:
Hah. Yep, all we need are more single moms who can't even support themselves. Just live off the system. Great. At least a guy has to go through paperwork if he wants to leave the girl when there is a certificate. Don't be silly. Traditional marriage is a good systematic tool and a key to keeping structure without chaos.
Don’t be silly, you dumb broad! GOD, I must be so stupid to speak with such a sharp and honest tongue! Are you serious? I mean, so many women will see this status and likely have a good chuckle at this nimrod’s comment. After this fail of a comment, I responded:
“Marriage is an instution, it's one based on religious superstition and white male supremacy. So single mums are all poor and lazy hey? Really nice. "Live off the system", what system? We live in a greedy capitalist society that doesn't give a fuck about women and their economic issues anyway.”This whole idea that a man and a woman need to raise a child is what is causing so much hatred, ignorance and blatant bigotry in the world. This is why there is stigma with mixed households, homosexual/lesbian parenting, single mothers or fathers and various other types of families...because of blatant bigotry like this.
He then told me this:
A man and a woman are not necessary for the development of a child but two parental figures can create a true sense of love and togetherness and well as providing more stability of income and time together with the child. I do not need to read any books on marriage [he's referring to the second sex, which I told him to look at] to know my true feelings towards the idea. If you lived in ____ you would understand just how many single moms there are and almost all I know of require some assistance from the system. I wish for true equality but know that marriage is not to blame. One cannot blame an idea for the acts of humanity, or lack thereof.
Oh my god, the system! REALLY? The system! Oh they are just using a flawed and already fucked up system that doesn’t care anyway! Boohoo for the POOR government. Give me a break! This isn’t an argument.
I responded:
What's wrong with requiring help from a system that has kept you down for centuries...Kids are beyond expensive as it is, you shouldn't have to settle in with someone and be partnered up just to be able to raise your child. You’re against welfare, too? I'm assuming. You sound like a libertarian laissez faire enthusiast.
I mean, this jack hole sounds like Bill O’Reilly as of late when he remarked about single-motherhood to Jennifer Aniston. Luckily she handed him his ass on a nice platter. For those who didn’t see or hear about this, here’s what happened.
O’Reilly believes the father figure is incredibly important and he’s most likely talking about father and son relationships. Of course, someone to take kid into the world of manliness is vital! All little boys need to grow up knowing how to shoot a gun, beat up more feminine males, bottle up emotions and pretend to be superior to every female they encounter. I know that sounds a bit extreme, but O’Reilly is a bit extreme. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have no qualms with happy heterosexual parents as I have no qualms with happy single, mixed, homosexual parents and any other types of families you can name. I know, however, that O’Reilly wasn’t trying to talk about fatherly love as much as he’s talking about masculinizes children – that’s what fathers do, right?
Wrong.
What is also incredibly incorrect is both the facebook dude’s comments and O’Reilly’s rant. Why? Because it is suggesting that TWO people NEED to raise a child – if there isn’t two parents then the child will not have the best life. Of course, they say this without any proof, they base it on popular right wing opinion…and well…that’s not evidence of fact. Why would anyone tell a mother or father who is a single parent to just buddy up with someone they don’t really love or someone who treats them poorly? You think having two parents fighting all the time is better than having one single parent that devotes time and love to their child? Come on, now.
Also, this idea that it’s wrong to ask for assistance from the government is absolutely ridiculous. Take this, for example…A woman is raising a child by herself, she has to work to put food on the table so she needs to hire someone to take care of the child for a few hours a day. Of course, if you live in America or Canada this won’t be paid for by the government, so you’re expected to pay for the care during the day, while working a full time job to pay for food, rent and other living expenses. Now, if one says “Gee, I wish I was living in France where I could have some government assistance with hiring a nanny” They must be totally diluted. I mean, is it so crazy to need a little bit of help? It wouldn’t be so crazy if North America would get over this idea of the nuclear family being the only way to raise a child.
The government and economy seems to be built around this idea of two parents and children, why? Well because marriage became pretty popular with the rise of private property. Why? Well because property could be bought and sold and so could women – buy a house, get a wife. Men could own women and own property – thus marriage was kind of expected, the whole legal bindings and dowries from way back when. So the economy has established itself around this idea, and so people choose to blame the single mothers instead of blaming the system. It’s so much easier to blame women isn’t it? I mean, we live in a culture that does nothing but blame women, so why not blame single parents, too?
