Tyranny

When i was in Switzerland, one thing i couldn’t help observing was the extremely quiet nature of their trains. Not that they operated with very little mechanical noise (which they did), but that passengers invariably stayed silent throughout their rides in a noiseless solitude. To some extent, it just seemed typically Swiss. They do love their peace and quiet, after all. (God have mercy on the poor soul that mows their lawn on Sunday, for His followers won’t…) But, as time went on i began feeling that the pattern extended farther than just the trains.

On the trains, everyone had their iPods plugged in their ears, or a copy of 20 Minuten, the daily news flier, under their nose. But on the streets, i still felt this unavoidable sense of being purposefully ignored. As i spend more time on it, i begin parsing it down, and realizing that i was being quickly appraised by the men, and studiously ignored by the women. This was when it struck me – their behavior was the same as that New Yorker who walks reminding herself, don’t make eye contact don’t make eye contact. At the time, i had considering writing a post about it, but there wasn’t quite enough there.

Until i was introduced to Holla Back DC, a blog where women recount tales of how they are randomly harassed on the street. For example:

I was walking out of my house to go to work – it was early and the weekly trash collection was that day. As I turned onto the sidewalk from my walkway, the garbage truck pulled up, the man collecting my trash stepped off, and in a very casual way said to me, “I’ve always wanted to f*ck a woman with short hair.”

By the time I realized what he’d said, he was gone. Just like that. Needless to say, I just felt kinda icky for the rest of the day.

Many of the stories are worse – going as far as groping and actual assault. For a man, it’s always shocking to read what it’s like to step in a woman’s shoes. The concept of people needing to force themselves into your consciousness for their own gratification at your expense is utterly foreign. Why, if a woman did that, i would be flattered… For me, especially, being a male comfortably over six feet tall, it is completely alien that such a thing could be a threat. The greatest risk to me is the old adage “Never trust a woman who’s interested in a man like you,” with it’s implications of prostitution and hostile confederates lurking in the dark. But the woman herself is never a threat.

A few weeks ago, our friend Ashly Star wrote a post about the harrassment she gets when she goes out. Fortunately, the story ends pleasantly poorly for the harrasser when her extremely imposing boyfriend arrives on the scene. But it still perfectly illustrates the impossible position a woman is in – accept the harassment as flirtation, and pave the way for an outright assault, or reject the man, and be berated as a bitch. Unless there is some deus ex machinae, or a large boyfriend, there to set the guy straight, you’re going to lose, and the harrasser will get away with it.

When i first had the idea for the post, i was originally going to title it, “The Tyranny of Beauty,” because i had this image in my head of all these beautiful Swiss women trying desperately not to be noticed on the train. But even that title shows a level of construction in my incurably male brain: it’s her fault for being pretty; if she weren’t pretty, no one would bother her. No, it’s the fault of the harassing asshole for being an asshole. Consider the thought experiment i went through myself this morning. Let’s suppose i invent an “ugly suit” that an attractive woman would wear to avoid harassment. Well, that wouldn’t work, because men jeer ugly women, too. But suppose anyway – the behavior would just land on the other, presumably less-attractive, women. So, we start making all the women wear them. Would the behavior stop? Of course not. We could even take this to the logical extreme, and put all women in burqas. Guess what? That doesn’t work either.

The problem isn’t that women are attractive – it’s that men aren’t expected to act like, well, men. Going back to Holla Back DC, many, if not the majority, of the stories happen in populated places in the public square. With virtually no exception, no one does anything. By letting these guys get away with it, we sanction it. The reasons we don’t do anything are predictable: We’re too shocked in the moment, we don’t know if that guy is crazy, we don’t want to escalate the situation. So, there is no neat solution here, i get that. But what makes me angry is that i have to be aware, constantly, that any woman that doesn’t know me has to regard me as a potential rapist, and not because she is being paranoid.

During my first week in Switzerland, i was at the train station and was confused by the signs over the tracks, so i turned to ask another traveler a question.

“Entschuldingung Sie,” She whipped around and looked at me uncomfortably, and i instinctively hunched over a bit and took a half step back. “Was ist den Unterschied zwischen Brugg AG und Brugg Lenzburg?” There was a palpable sense of relief on her face, and she explained it briefly (and, for the record, the question i asked was the equivalent of, “What is the difference between Baltimore Philadelphia and Baltimore, MD?”) i blushed a little bit at the explanation, thanked her, and then walked abotu ten meters down the track and never looked in her direction again. At the time, my attitude was, “geez, don’t want her to call the cops on me.” Now, i would do the exact same physical actions again, but with the intent of “Okay, make sure she doesn’t feel like she needs to worry about me, in case there is someone she needs to worry about.”

What these people do, when they harass women is that they make life infinitely more difficult for the rest of us. And i don’t mean in the sense that “You can’t just talk to a girl and flirt any more,” i mean in the sense, of normal, every day interactions. At that’s a tyranny that weighs on us all, not just the beautiful.