Jerusalem – 3rd of April 2018
The following happened to me on my way home from the city centre to Damascus Gate after midnight: I spent the evening with my temporary lover and decided to walk home to my flat in the Old City. Since it was already past midnight streets were pretty empty. I am not afraid to walk alone through parks in the dark and I do feel safe in public spaces. The experience of being sexually assaulted hasn’t changed this in my case even though it shook my sense of safety. Two guys approached me while I was walking on Yannai Street. Since I wasn’t interested in chit chatting I tried to pass by without giving them much of attention. From then everything seemed to happen pretty fast: They didn’t let me pass and one of them pushed me with both of his hands against a fence next to the walkway. Meanwhile his friend started to grab me under my shirt. He touched my belly, my back and parts of my breast. For seconds I was totally paralysed. I couldn’t move and felt the weight of patriarchy crushing me down. My female body seemed to belong to anyone else but myself. This feeling of powerlessness and objectification let me freeze like a statue not able to defend myself verbally or physically. After my self-esteem kicked in again I took advantage of creating a moment of surprise and pushed away the guy who was trying to fix me against the fence making a necklace out of his hands for me. Doing so gave me the opportunity to run away. Shocked and not able to express myself properly I arrived back at my lovers place and shared briefly what just happened to me. He hugged me and it actually felt good to entrust my body to a male person after experiencing sexism in such a way. Not knowing how to deal with the situation and with the good intent not to enforce him on me that person left me alone in his bedroom in order to finish a movie he was currently watching. Feeling vulnerable, alone and fragile I didn’t even come up with using obvious resources such as calling feminist friends or asking my lovely roommate to pick me up. Once again I haven’t felt treated as a subject that deserves attention and care. Finally I stayed overnight at his place and managed to express my needs and feelings towards him.
What I realised after this experience is that sexism is part of my life. This could have happened anywhere to me. As a feminist it is part of my daily struggle to raise my voice in order to strive for, amongst others, the equality of the sexes. Besides that I believe we have to share our stories with our male counterparts. We can expect more from them than sexist behaviour. In fact we have to reach out for men as allies we can trust. Furthermore I want to point out that texting my best friend after getting home safe on a random night out is not overly cautious. It is damn necessary even though we are living in the 21st century. We are not all simply human beings. Not yet!