#ignorance

Anne

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There are countless stories of everyday sexism. I think many of these men genuinely believe they are good, kind, respectable guys. I cannot really talk about these stories with people. When I do try, I try to explain how much something affected/affects me, but they then talk about it as something I could and should just ‘brush off’. I’ve been told “Don’t let it bother you so much” or “It’s just something guys do” so, so many times. I’m relieved I can share one story here. A supposed ‘good guy’ and ‘friend’ asked me to go to a party with him. I agreed to it, knowing mutual friends of ours would attend. When we were walking to the party, I took the precautionary measure of basically telling him (as kindly and respectfully as I could): “Hey, I don’t know if you intended your invitation to this party as an invitation to date, but just know I don’t see it that way and I have no feelings for you. I want us to remain friends.” He basically said: “Of course, I never considered this party a date either”. After the party, we walked back to our houses. A car passed. He suddenly pulled me aside, supposedly to protect me from the car (not that I needed any protection, of course, I am perfectly capable of stepping away from the car as I always do), but really to press me up the wall of one of the houses at the side of the street. He put his hands on the wall, with me being stuck in the middle. He leaned forward slowly (thank God), and I managed to lift my right hand, putting it on his chest, gently (I didn’t have much strength) pushing him away from me, repeating the word “No” many, many, times. He continued to lean back in and kiss me a few times, but after a while (maybe 20 seconds or so, but it’s hard to say) he finally stopped saying: “I don’t want to make you do anything you don’t want to do”. He must have thought that was soo gentlemanly of him to say. We continued walking, I was quiet and upset. He didn’t seem to notice. 5 minutes later, we were at my house. He said goodbye, sort of grabbed me, and tried to kiss me again. Since I couldn’t really move because he was standing so close and he was sort of holding me, I did what I could to avoid his mouth. He ended up planting a disgusting kiss on my forehead. Then I angrily told him he couldn’t just do this again after I had made it very clear that I didn’t want to kiss him (or anything else for that matter) just 5 minutes earlier (as well as at the start of the evening), he just kind of laughed. I quickly went home. In the proceeding weeks, he kept finding excuses to touch me and he kept trying to hold my hand (he would just bluntly take it sometimes, I always pulled it back) many, many times. I told him ‘no’ and “I do not have feelings for you, nor do I want to date you” many, many times. Clearly, he did not consider the attempted kisses (or his other behavior) that had horrified (and continue to horrify) me to be ‘bad’ at all. When I had worked up the courage to talk to him about the attempted kisses (and his other behavior) weeks later, it became immediately clear that he thought his behavior was perfectly normal, because he was really surprised to learn that it had affected me. He was embarrassed for trying to kiss me that night of the party and apologized (Which is a relatively good response, since I also have many stories in which guys do not own up at all and tell me I’m too sensitive). He seemed sincere, but even so, I do not think he really knows how much it affected me. He may do it again to another girl.

Gemma

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My family and I were speaking to a salesman who was informing us about his services. I was more cautious than the rest of my family and wanted to read the paperwork before signing anything. I don’t think the salesman liked this. He drew attention to my marital status and living situation (I have been recovering from a long-term health condition which has had an impact on my life) and kept commenting on them. I think that this was very inappropriate and disrespectful. It made him look ignorant. He knew nothing of my life or circumstances and had no right to make any comments anyway. My family listened to me, not committing to any further services and losing him a lot of money in the process. I hope that this man learns that his judgemental behaviour reflects on him and will sometimes have consequences.

Sabrina

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I had a big fight with my mom about Sexism today. She didn’t even want to know what I had to say: “Sexism?! What’s that? That’s something that didn’t exists back in the day and I don’t want to know about it now!” So apparently it was my fault when 3 guys yelled at me “you arrogant bitch!” when I didn’t respond to their “hello” at 1am, alone on a badly lit up path, because my facial expression looked “aloof”. Then being sexually assaulted/groped at in public/in a club etc. is different than being sexually assaulted/groped at in your workplace. Wow, thanks for being a role model model. Thanks for letting all us women form, mom!

melwel

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I met my secondary supervisor for my thesis yesterday for a meeting with my primary supervisor (they are both men) to go over my thesis so far. I am doing a personal topic on chronic pain, something I have survived for 12 years now. I want to bring awareness and education to this topic, so my platform for this is to propose a public art exhibition with art depicting chronic pain, created by chronic pain survivors. One of the things that this guy said to me was that I shouldn’t be using the term “survivor” for people with chronic pain, but rather the term “lived experience”. At the time, I thought that was interesting. An hour passed and I was mulling it over and I suddenly said to myself, ‘Um EXCUSE ME? How dare you criticise the term that I use to talk about myself and how I see myself, and others with chronic pain!’ He said that the word ‘survivor’ implied that someone had survived something but was now on the other side… either cured or dead. Um what? I could say the same about ‘lived experience’, that sounds like past tense to me, not present tense. And the people in the chronic pain community know, chronic pain is, most of the time, present! What right does he have to disempower us?! Needless to say, I’ve told my primary supervisor that I don’t want this guy as my secondary supervisor anymore. This ignorant, self-centred, self-righteous, puffed-up fool of a man is the prime example of someone I’d love to force-educate about the world of chronic pain. Unfortunately that sort of teaching doesn’t fly in our new museology world.