Coil: “She should expect that.. “

by Vidyaratha Kissoon

“She is a lady, she should expect that” the female security guard at NIS said. It was a hot afternoon. A woman had walked into the NIS compound in Brickdam. One of the male staffers who was liming in the shed let out one of those sucking sounds. There were people around who seemed not to hear him. 

I asked him if that is how he would treat customers at NIS.

He said that he is a normal man and he showing his appreciation. He was angry that I would challenge him and looked like he wanted to fight. The security guard endorsed the behaviour.

I didn’t bother to question her more to discuss gender expectations.

Another time I was walking with two women. We passed a man and a woman. The man made comments about white meat. I asked the man.. is suh yuh gun talk to yuh sistah dem.

The woman near him said no, is not a problem he just complimenting the women. He said “is whuh, man cyan show appreciation.” In 2007, there were two letters in the Stabroek News which said that women should appreciate the male aggression and that those who resisted had ‘thin skins’.

The letters were part of an exchange (Dionne Frank, Bernard Rollins and others) condemning street harassment. The exchange resulted in an editorial in the Stabroek News.

An older man doing construction near my house would tell a 13 year old school girl ‘hello good morning’ in a way which did not mean anything good.

Another older man who does not believe in gender equality, but who had a grand child the same age as the school girl would holler at him.

I asked the worker how come he don’t tell anyone else that passing the same thing. He didn’t have an answer. He might have stopped harassing the child.

Some of his younger colleagues however, were relentless in their harassment of women and girls.

Some of them were silent, one or two were embarrassed. I used to wonder at the race thing – did the black men harass coolie women, did the coolie men harass black women? One prominent coolie man had reportedly told a woman that he was on a mission to use his sexual harassment as way to sexually awaken ‘Young Indian girls’. He has a lot of support.

It was as though he would approve as rape as an initiation into sex. Many women have told stories of how an act of abuse or rape was taken as a desire to get married. The violent desires expressed in the ‘normal’ harassing behaviour is supposed to be the initiation of love . Many people, women and men seem to believe that it is okay.

I recently facilitated a workshop on preventing gender based violence with 30 young men. They were concerned about domestic violence, rape , violence against LGBT citizens.

Many of them did not understand the problem with street harassment and the comments. It was “normal” and that if women did not like it, they could ignore it.

One young man said he used words like “If was Christmas and you was a gift, I would open you”. He did not want to talk what ‘opening’ without permission meant.

The discussion was difficult. “But some of dem like it Sir”. “How do you know?” “Dey does smile and say morning”

Some women have talked of hoping that if they responded in friendly manner, the abuse would stop.

We used this video of young women talking about street harassment in the USA. Some of the young men looked like they did not want to hear anything.

So, what yall think?

One of the young men had said he no longer harasses women since he was baptised. He was the first to comment “Sir, I notice one of the girls with piercings in her nose. Some women have to watch how they carry themselves,…. “

There were choruses of ‘Yes sir, yes sir…’ and ‘Look how in Muslim countries, the women dress..“

There was something in the responses.. that the women are looking for it and that men don’t harass women who ‘carry themselves well’. There seemed to be some of the religious undertones.. heard in many religious settings, that bad things only happened to ‘bad women’ who did not dress well or carry themselves well.

Subtle messages which included dress codes for Church, and instructions in mandirs ” women cover your heads’.

I remembered a friend who was warned by her cousins in Pakistan about the pinching and the touching through the Burka. I lost my cool at the point and started a barrage a questions about who they harassed – including the girls from schools. There was some nodding. There was some refusal to accept that it men should not harass women and dress and other behaviours were no indications of consent to harassment.

Alizeh Babar writes about being in Saudi Arabia “While my stay recently in Saudi Arabia was for religious reasons, at times I felt quite other wise. This was so because my sharp observations were based on how some men looked at women as if they were undressing her in their minds. The audacity reached its limit when I would watch men gawking out their eyes and with the hint of a strong Arabic accent they would cry out “MashAllah” loudly to a woman in a fully clad burqa even with her “Mehrum” (male relatives) by her side…. So now its safe to say that even while modestly dressed, some men would have to fulfil their frustrated desires. This would definitely include unwanted attention, which is ridiculing, denigrating and at times intimidating as well”

Saudi Arabia was recently contemplating laws against sexual harassment. Other countries have put laws in place, but according to this article in The Economist, enforcement is difficult.

In Guyana, the Prevention of Discrimination Act refers to sexual harassment in the work place specifically. ‘unwanted conduct of a sexual nature in the workplace or in connection with the performance of work which is threatened or imposed as a condition of employment on an employee or which creates a hostile working environment for the employee.”

There are no laws about street harassment.

Resistance to street harassment has taken many forms in the last century or so according to writer Holly Kearl. The Gulabi Gang of India has captured international attention – a group of women armed with lathis and shaming tactics who hold men and the authorities accountable for the prevention of street harassment and other forms of gender violence.

In Guyana, in April 2015, Witness Project Guyana launched a campaign ‘It’s not a compliment’.The campaign included the sharing of stories and the use of posters.

The website has some of the stories, and calls for other stories. On Facebook recently, some women talked about their disgust at the harassment. One woman does not want to go out.

Some women and girls have talked about changing their routes to avoid harassment. Some men’s comments increase in violent intent when they feel they are not getting attention. The supposedly polite good day becomes violent.

The Men’s Affairs Bureau had indicated they were going to work with young men. It is not easy work to undo a culture in which citizens are taught that women are inferior and ‘women should expect it’.

There is another cultural practice in which women’s bodies are judged and commented on, sometimes in language similar to the men harassing women on the road.

Beauty pageants are disguised as empowering events, which excuse the objectification and disrespect by claiming that the targets of the sexism consent by being willing participants.

The judges who assign points to women’s bodies and existence, the commentators who destroy the losers and the supporting infrastructure are connected to the men and boys who harass women on the road.

The underlying philosophy of beauty pageants and street harassment is the same – women’s bodies and the ways in which women decide to be female are targets of judgements and marks.

Some women choose to participate in patriarchy to survive. The girls and women trying to avoid harassment can only choose to finding routes to walk which are not close to sites of harassment, or have no choice.

The attempts to create a superficially safe space for women and girls , while perpetuating sexism in different forms has not worked. It is futile to band aid the effects of sexism without transforming attitudes to encourage respect and equality.

Male bystanders are caught up like some women in not wanting an argument. One way to deal with sexual harassment, is to speak out against it. Exchanges might be violent. The target of any harassment should be safe first.

The unlearning and re-education have to happen.

About a year ago, a small business in Guyana started work on educating staff about sexual harassment in the work place. I worked on a draft a policy . Groups of employees were engaged in some training and discussions. The employees recognised the connection between sexual harassment in the work place and in the public They discussed that there were different ways of dealing with attraction which were not about harassment.

(The draft of the policy is available free for use. A session plan for a two hour training session with a group of 10 people is also available for free use.

There is an opportunity to discuss, through work places, ways of preventing harassment in and out of the work place.

The kind of work to undo the prejudice is intense. It is not easy.

At the end of the workshop I did with the young men, they shared comments anonymously on the evaluation forms. Under ‘Any other comments’ ” one of the young men put ““Add nuff girls at the venue, sweet ones too””.

However, another young man wrote “All women should be treated fairly [I think he meant equally] so let us make a difference together”

It is hard work, the work to unlearn about loving with inequality and violence and to learn about loving with equality and respect.

The work has to start though, and never stop.

(Edited 11 October, 2016 to include reference to the October 2007 letter exchange in the Stabroek Ne