If I ever write a horror novel, I think I'll call it "When
Creepers Come Calling." Unfortunately,
I can't even read the jacket of horror novels without losing sleep for a week,
so there's no chance of me ever writing such a thing. However, that does free up the title such
that I can use it for this blog post without risking plagiarizing myself later,
so that's a definite plus.
This title in this context is partly because of my nerdy
enjoyment of alliteration, and also, unfortunately, true. Last Sunday, I found myself at home, writing
some notes for work and watching a movie when, around 7PM, the dog started
barking. I looked out the window and saw
two men walking up to my door. My blinds
were open because the sun was still shining, and they waved as they saw me on
the couch and continued to the door. They
knocked, and I answered, opening only my door, and leaving the storm door
closed. These two men looked about my
age, maybe a little younger. One was
tall and a larger guy, the
other short and thin. The dog continued barking, they started talking, and I couldn't hear a word they were saying. I opened the storm door and the dog tried to get out, so I pushed him in and closed the door behind me.
other short and thin. The dog continued barking, they started talking, and I couldn't hear a word they were saying. I opened the storm door and the dog tried to get out, so I pushed him in and closed the door behind me.
"This one's mine," said Short Guy. "She's short like me, and her hair's
super sexy." He then introduced
himself, speaking very rapidly in a very heavy Southern accent that I struggled
to understand, explaining that he and his buddy were selling magazines to pay
off their student loans. He asked to
come inside, and I told them no. When I
told him I was not interested in ordering any magazines, he said, "well in
that case, can we just come in? I think
we got off on the wrong foot here...let's start again. My name's Short Guy, I'm a Taurus and I like
long walks on the beach and even shorter walks to the bedroom." He continued a song and dance routine between
him and Tall Guy that made it hard to get a word in. While Short Guy fiddled with his magazine
list for 0.2 seconds, Tall Guy jumped in: "How about we just forget him
and you and I get together for some heavy breathing later?" I ignored him, told them again that I was not
interested in magazines and moved to go inside.
Short Guy again asked to come inside -- they were cold, he said, from
doing this all afternoon, and he could just use my kitchen table to write down
my order while they got warm. I said
no. "Well in that case, let me just
take you out to Red Lobster and kiss you, because you're super sexy and I love
your hair." I moved again to go
inside, he kept talking about his magazines and how I should want to help him,
and couldn't I just order a magazine for my husband? Boyfriend?
"Don't you have a boyfriend?!" he asked. I deflected the comment, said thanks, and
moved to go inside, "but Doll, don't go...I love your hair and I'm super
cute and good in bed...and you KNOW that's better than you got right now,"
he drawled. I told him no and opened the
door. They asked me the direction of
Second Ave. I pointed and closed the
door, and they walked away.
It took me exactly 0.7 seconds to start telling myself that
I should have handled that differently.
That, in spite
of the fact that I could feel my anxiety starting to rise, that it was Nothing. No Big Deal. That I should just sit back down, finish my movie and note-writing, and move on.
of the fact that I could feel my anxiety starting to rise, that it was Nothing. No Big Deal. That I should just sit back down, finish my movie and note-writing, and move on.
I tried that -- but it didn't work. I couldn't focus. My chest felt tight and my body was all
twitchy and uncomfortable, and I kept thinking about those things they
said. What right did they have to come
to my house and say those things to me?
Did they realize it was threatening?
Did they realize it made me uncomfortable? Did they REALIZE the impact they just had on
me? Did they realize I live by
myself? I live at the end of the street
and my neighbors are Deaf. Did they
realize this? Why did they come all the
way down this little street, right to the very end, to come to my house? What if they come back? Were they really selling those
magazines? Was it all a front for some
awful assault scheme I just narrowly avoided?
Ultimately, I decided to downplay it and post about it on
Facebook, because...ya know...what else are you going to do with this thing-that-happened
that feels like a big deal but shouldn't be?
I posted it, and then stared at the notes I was trying to write
thinking, "you're so stupid.
Nothing happened. It's no big
deal. People say things like that. Guys say things like that. It's just a guy thing. Why are you so stupid? You're just reacting to things that happened
in the past. That isn't now. Nothing is happening now."
But -- I have awesome friends. Although personal history told me folks might
say, "huh, that's weird," or
"were they cute!?" or
"sounds like a missed opportunity to me..." or "nothing bad
happened," or "did you get his number?" my friends did none of
that. Instead, they indicated that what
had transpired was decidedly Not Okay.
They encouraged me to call the police.
There was no joking. It wasn't
funny. It was decidedly wrong.
Oh.
After much thought and deliberation, I did call the police
(in spite of my fears that he/she would not believe me, would think I was
overreacting, would be upset that I called about something so small and wasted
their time). They sent an officer out
quickly -- and he was nice. He listened,
took a description of them, said he would like to "run them out of
town," and offered to continue to patrol the area until he went off duty
at 4AM, if I would like. I felt silly,
but I said I would like that. And I
did. I did like that. Feeling supported and protected was a novel
experience that was uncomfortable, purely because it was not what I
expected.
And really, that's it.
That's the whole story. That's
all that happened. Weird guys showed up
at my doorstep and said weird things, and I felt uncomfortable and called the
police, who did what they were supposed to do.
It's a simple story, on its face.
But in reality? It's so, so
complicated.
So here's a little unpacking I've done of this complicated
issue. It's not new news. It's not new ideas. It's not going to shatter any thinking you've
done about this issue before. BUT -- I
think it's important, because so often we (and by we, I mean me) understand
issues when they are presented to us abstractly. When we see the issue in a book, or an essay,
or a blog, we can say, "oh yeah. I
get that. Rape culture is definitely a
thing. Violence against women is totally
normalized, I see that. And yeah,
patriarchy and oppression of women is totally an issue! Rock on, book!" we think. Then when issues come up in our conversations
with others, we can say, "I read this article on rape culture the other
day..." and we feel like we've done something good. We feel like we have been educated, like
we've shared that knowledge, like we know what we're doing and we're
well-versed in being a good person, or standing up for ourselves and others.
But too often, when it comes down to the real life
application of these principles/ideas/issues, we don't see it. We can't see it. When it comes down to the fact of the matter,
as it applies to us as we live our daily lives, we don't see it. There was an article I read in a social
psychology class that asked the question: "does the fish see the water in
which it swims?" The answer? No.
And what are we, really, but fish in a big sociocultural pond? The important thing here, too, is that this is
true regardless of which fish we are -- if we're the big fish that eats the
little fish, we don't see the water. If
we're the little fish that's being eaten, we
don't see the water. Whether we represent majority or minority
status on any particular issue, we need to work to see the water. And, regardless, we will sometimes be unable
to see it. It's just how the water is.
And that is exactly what happened here. I have been raised in this water. I catch glimpses of it from time to time, but
when it is a real life experience that is playing out for me? I am just as ignorant of the water as if I
had never seen it. So creepy guys came
to my door, and I, not seeing the water, thought that I shouldn't talk about
it. I thought it was not a big
deal. I thought that I was making a big
deal out of nothing, because those lies are in the water. Those lies are the water. Those lies are part of what many women are
raised to believe, and in the moment? I
fell for them.
I thought, "why do things like this always happen to
me?" Because that is also a
function of the water -- making us feel as though we are alone. Things like this happen all the time, to
horrifying numbers of women. This story
is the story of street harassment. It is
the story of bosses that make sexist comments to women. It is the story of assault, it is the story
of rape, it is the many, many, many stories that we don't tell, because we've
been told not to. Because we've been
trained not to. Because we've been
taught not to. Because we've never been
shown anything different. So many of us
have never been taught to tell these stories, because the mechanisms that make
up the water are the mechanisms that keep these stories in place. To expose them would be to expose the water,
but some of us? Some of us don't even
have the language to begin the conversations.
In talking to a good friend of mine, who has an uncanny
ability to not only see the water, but also to name it, I confided, "I
feel like I'm making it all up. I feel
like I was just responding to things that happened in the past, and that I just
made this whole thing up."
"I think you may have been reacting to this AND to
previous events," she said.
"Think about someone who has been mugged. If a person starts acting like they are going
to mug them, they might be more unsettled than someone who hasn't been mugged before...but
they likely aren't 'making it up' or 'overreacting.' They are respond adaptively to a dangerous
situation they have been in before."
Right. Yes. There is a message that we're supposed to
ignore/suppress/inhibit that adaptation and response. We don't talk about it, and we're supposed to
think (or come to believe) that it is wrong.
Imagine how things would be different if we were all taught to honor
that response? If I had been taught from
a young age that you don't have to
always be nice and polite to people, would I have been more comfortable with
closing the door on them earlier in the conversation? Would I have been able to tell them they were
out of line? Would I have hesitated in
calling the police? Would I have looked
as intensely for all the ways I mishandled the situation?
About a year ago, I had a similar type of situation occur
that I posted about here. While walking to my car in the grocery store
parking lot, I felt two guys following me.
I walked quickly to my car and locked the doors just in time -- they
came up to my car and tried to open the doors a second after I
locked them. My first thought? "WHY did I go to the grocery store
at 8:30 at night!?"
That's fucked up. But
-- it's not me. It's the water. I was taught these things before I knew what
I was being taught, by people who were taught those lessons before THEY knew
what they were being taught, and so on, and so forth, for eternity.
I also want to recognize that men are being raised in this
same water. They are given lessons on
how to treat women before they are old enough to question it. They are being taught how to be a man before
they can walk. It is not their
fault.
I don't know what the intentions of those men were. They may have thought that making comments
like that would be the best way to get me to buy a magazine. Sex sells, right? They may have been trying to get magazine
sales + benefits. Or, they may not have
given a damn about the magazines at all, and they just wanted that short walk
to the bedroom.
However, if the water were not made up with the stuff that
constitutes our metaphorical water, they may never have dreamed of walking up
to a house, seeing a woman by herself, and making those comments. If they were not socialized to believe that
they could do this without repercussions, to believe that this is just
"what guys do," to believe that they hold this power that renders
them able to engage in these behaviors, then it likely would not have
happened. There are always deviants, of
course, but if this was not socially acceptable on some level, it wouldn't have happened.
Which means, of course, that -- to some degree -- we condone
this. The burden of that responsibility
is too much to hang on any one man, or group of men, or even men as a
whole. The burden of that responsibility
lies in part in our history, in part with our legislators and persons in
positions of power, and in part with all of us.
There are things that women
need to see and change.* There are things men need to see and change. And it takes us telling the stories and
unpacking their ugly truths for any of us to see what constitutes those needed changes.
*I am struggling to find another way of wording this that
reeks less of a "blame the victim" mentality, and I am coming up
empty. What I mean is this: women need
to do what I've done here and unpack the stories. We need to honor our instincts. We need to stand with one another. We need to tell our stories and dissect them
and reject the pieces that no longer fit for us, and we need to name the infuriating
parts where we see them. We need to find
the places where we "get it" and the places where we don't, and we
need to try and see the water we swim in.
Otherwise, it passes for status quo, where status quo is, clearly, unacceptable.