When I was about 12 I had a school friend who was about 2 years younger, but tall and developed early, with big breasts. She told me petrified once as we were walking home together, in the middle of the busy city, that a man (she pointed him out) was following us because he was following her often on her way to the bus stop and talked dirty to her. I became very angry, and as the oldest I felt very protective of her. My late parents had always instilled me with a lot of confidence and taught me to be ballsy and not to take shit from anyone. They always told me to have self-respect. I turned and looked at the harasser and he looked old and haggard, more like a homeless, with dirty hair and a grey long beard. As we were in a busy road, as soon as we turned around a corner I told her to wait. He soon was there having followed us. I started shouting at him in the middle of the road and screaming to leave us alone and go to hell. He mumbled something, seemed nervous, looked around and backed off. I remember my face getting red with anger, and a lesson I learned that day was that in the middle of the city, around 1980, and NO ONE came to two young teenagers, two children 10 and 12 years old, to check what happened and that we were OK. I learned very quickly that I had to only count on myself.
Then I got sexually assaulted on a bus twice. Once when I was 14 and once when I was 18. Disgusting men were rubbing off against me. I was petrified and didn’t know what exactly was happening. I was worried I could get pregnant and I was trying to analyse where my fault was, because in my mind this is something that happened to girls wearing provocative clothes, and I didn’t. I was ashamed to speak to my mum or anyone else, which I now know was typical victimised behaviour.
This experience left me very angry. I decided not to be a victim again and I started to choose my position on a busy bus very carefully. I took a zero tolerance approach and became very edgy and aggressive towards men making any kind of inappropriate comment to me. I accepted no shit any more. I started carrying a knife. I noticed how men became astonished when I spoke back at them, swore like a sailor and exhibited aggressive behaviour. It seems it was the only language they could understand and respect.I felt empowered, but sad at the same time that I had to become so hardened. I have been called a bitch among other things quite a few times. If I were a man they would call me a ‘fighter’.
On other occasions when I was a young new car driver men of various ages would give me road rage and abuse. I learned to always lock my car doors from the inside and keep the windows up, because on a few occasions abusive men tried to open the car door and drag me out. Since we have mobile phones, I didn’t hesitate to tell them I’d call the police right there and then. That made them leave. Once I pulled a knife at one of them and stuck it under his chin. He quickly backed off and left. I was very sad that I, a girl from a respectable family and a boarding school had to behave like this to protect myself is a supposedly conservative and God-fearing Christian community.
Once, when I was about 32, I experienced sexual abuse by a colleague. This was a 60 year-old supervisor who asked me to drop by his house to review some boxes with project-related photos. Keeping such material at home wasn’t unusual for that profession (poorly paid, no official premises, people work as freelancers often) so I went, as he was also very well known and people spoke highly of him. After all, he was short, plum, around 60 and suffering from diabetes and dizziness, so he couldn’t be a threat right? He could be my dad FFS. As I was sifting through photos, he approached me from behind and kissed my neck a couple of times. I shouted at him and told him to stop politely, because I didn’t want to make him panic and attack me or lock me in his house. I kept calm and I managed to leave the house without any escalation of violence. If he attacked me, I was prepared to kill him.
Unfortunately even now, after all these years I have experienced lots of micro-behaviours at work: men wink at me, make subtle comments (“I will let you take me anywhere” wink-wink) and mainly try to patronise me and gaslight me, by telling me that I am imagining things, that the reason i don’t get promotion is because I don’t believe in myself, that I should leave my current role (which is more ‘masculine’) to get promotion in HR, that it is my fault i don’t compromise etc.
It is almost impossible for a woman nowadays to just be herself, without either sexualising herself and dumbing her intellect to get promotion, or without copying the male behaviours and becoming loud, bullying and aggressive. I try to stay as neutral as possible, but it is a struggle.
One thing I would say to younger women is respect yourselves and your bodies and don’t compromise.