Marga
Berlin – Disco Havanna, 7th of April 2018, around midnight I was out with friends in a salsa club and wanted to go to the restrooms while my friends were still dancing in the 1st floor. So I went down the stairs on my own to the ground floor. Two guys came towards me (I wasn’t even paying attention to them really, there were so many people going up and down the stairs) but then out of the blue one of them took some strong steps in my direction trying to kiss me. I blocked him by holding his shoulders and then tried to tell him that this kind of behavior is not cool, that he is crossing a limit and that he should never ever do that again, to no one. But instead of understanding he just moved his head towards me again, trying to kiss me a second time. So I slapped him in the face and started to shout at him, on what the hell he thinks he is or what gives him the right to behave like that. In this moment his friend joined the scene, holding my shoulder and trying to convince me that there is no problem, and I was overreacting and so on. I was getting more and more upset and pushed his arm away and told him in a quite angry voice not to touch me. That pissed him off so he tried to push me away now, saying things like, “Ok, crazy girl, she is totally overreacting…etc. etc.” By that time we were already heavily arguing down the stairs and I considered just leaving, but that behavior (turning the whole thing around and making me the person losing the temper without reason) really made me angry. Luckily there was a girl that saw us and she asked me if everything was all right. I would like to say thanks again to that woman who gave me the support and the confirmation in that moment that something has to be done and that it is not ok to accept this as something normal and ignore. I spoke to the security and they immediately took action. I have to admit that I was positively surprised about how they dealt with the situation. We searched for the two guys and found them (there was another person that had seen the situation as well and that told us where they were) and I was asked if I wanted to make a formal complaint but then I just said no and the guys were just thrown out of the club. I don’t know if it would have been better had I filed a formal complaint. One of the security personnel told me later, when I went back in, that I was wrong not to do it. But in that moment though I wasn’t sure if that would not be overreacting somehow. Retrospectively, now I ask myself if that is not exactly what the patriarchal society makes us believe every day (and what that friend-guy also told me), that we are overreacting when affected by sexist behavior and unfortunately, in the end we believe it (because it is so ingrained in our heads) knowing at the same time that it is NOT true and that we are NOT overreacting.