Feminist Fight-back!

Today I learnt of two things to make my little Inner Feminist jump up and down with glee. (Except she wouldn’t actually do that. Externally I am a bastion of uncoolness but my Inner Feminist is far too cool to actually jump and down with glee, or with anything else for that matter. She despairs of the rest of me, as you can imagine…)

First was the news, long awaited and almost virtually unexpected, that Saudi Arabia’s government has passed laws making domestic abuse a crime in the Kingdom. As of now it is against the law to use physical or sexual violence against women, and law enforcement agencies are now beholden to actually investigate, prosecute and punish those who carry out domestic abuse. The law also makes provision for refuges and support for women suffering domestic abuse, and places an onus on all its citizens to report such abuse if they become aware of it happening to a colleague.

Now I’m sure there are plenty of cynics out there muttering “too little, too late” and wondering why on earth I, whose pet cause and passion is the eradication of domestic abuse in all its forms once and for all, would be jumping for joy at this news. And to be fair to you, O Cynics, there is a fairly substantial part of me which simply states “duh!” After all, it’s not exactly rocket science to expect that any and all human beings, regardless of gender, sexuality, race, religion, colour, creed and love-or-not of ‘Dogtanian and the Muskehounds’ should be treated with respect and kindness; that any show of violence and abuse is resolutely declared intolerable and stamped out like the plague and pestilence it actually is. To be even fairer to you, O Cynics-Who-Might-Not-Love-Dogtanian-But-Whom-I-Still-Consider-Friends, there is also a part of me which wants to berate the Saudi Government for a) stating the bleeding obvious; b) taking so long about it and c) not going far enough. But you know what? I am going to jump for joy on this one because as far as I’m concerned this is progress. Baby steps, yes, but none of us could run before we could walk, crawl or shuffle on our bums, and if this is the Saudi equivalent of bum-shuffling then we should all immediately start on the praise-and-reward-and-encouraging-them-to-try-crawling-for-a-bit-now side of things. (And yes, I’m using the Country-As-Recalcitrant-Child Analogy. I went there…)

For a country like Saudi Arabia, which has a particularly, um, interesting view of women and their rights, this is actually a fairly major cultural shift. Whether or not it’s because the Kingdom is a Islamic country is something I’m not going to speculate on; I’m eminently under-qualified to make such judgements and am only a teeny-weeny way through my reading of the Qur’an, but whatever the root causes and cultural beliefs up to this point, the new laws and focus on domestic abuse is a fairly spectacular change. The issue of domestic abuse has always been legally considered a private matter in the country; until this year, there were no campaigns to highlight the problem or raise awareness amongst the population. Earlier this year posters appeared depicting a woman wearing the niqab with only her eyes showing, one of which appeared to be blackened and bruised; the slogan “some things can’t be covered up” became the campaign strap line. It’s quite an arresting image, actually, and if it helps even one person escape the cycle of domestic abuse then more power to Saudi Arabia’s elbow, says I…

The other thing making my Inner Feminist punch the air with glee and do a little jig, metaphorically speaking, was my/our discovery of the Hollaback! Campaign. Hollaback! began in the United States and has now made its way to us here in Blighty; the campaign aims to highlight, combat and abolish the ‘cultural norm’ of street sexual harassment in all its forms. Its message is simple and clear: if it makes you feel uncomfortable, it’s not a ‘compliment’ and it’s not ok. End of story. It’s a straightforward enough message, but one which definitely needs pointing out if you ask me; I know several people who’ve been on the receiving end of said unwanted attention, have been on the receiving end of it myself in fact, and knowing how to deal with it at the time would have been extremely useful.

I tend to have two reactions to this street harassment malarkey. After the initial yell of “oi, darling, nice legs/tits/arse/whichever body part has taken my fancy!” my initial, culturally-and-socially-ingrained response tends to be “wheee! Clearly I am considered attractive; this therefore validates me as a person in the eyes of the world!” and induces a warm and fuzzy glow of feel-good-about-myself vibes. The second reaction, usually when I’ve got home and had time to process things, is one of violent, bitter and futile rage: “Oi, White Van Man I’ve Never Met Before In My Life, how dare you pass judgement and comment upon my person!! Just because my body type is female doesn’t make it public property, nor does it give you the right to sexualise it any old way you fancy, you blimmin’ pervert!” That’s the inner monologue I tend to direct psychically to the perpetrator, along with muttered threats of doing unspeakable things to them with pointed objects. In fact now that I think about it, I’d quite like to get my hands on the doctor who told his student that I had a “lovely anatomy” – I’m not sure what’s worse: being seen as a sexual object or a piece of meat, but either which way I’d quite like to insert scalpels where the sun don’t shine…

Now clearly there are worse things happening on the streets to the sisterhood and the population at large. The whole ‘stranger rape’ thing is very rare but it does happen, not to mention the levels of assault and general violence which seem to go on at chucking-out-of-pubs-and-clubs time, but it’s this sort of low-level insidious sexism which becomes the ‘cultural norm’ and passes without comment. I’m not saying every time someone yells “nice tits!” or whistles at a woman she should turn round and administer a swift punch up the bracket or fire off a witty retort – safety and self-preservation at all times, after all – but keeping your head down and doing nothing just reinforces the message that it’s perfectly ok to carry on doing this sort of thing when it actually bloody well isn’t. And this has got nothing to do with any form of self-loathing where my body’s concerned; we’ve reached a pretty amicable consensus these days in that I acknowledge its flaws and faults and it points out its fabulousness and that’s that, but the point is it’s my body. I can slag it off or sing its praises to all and sundry but I’m buggered if I’m going to let anyone else objectify it or pass comment on it out of context. It’s one thing for your boyfriend to say he thinks you’re sexy; it’s quite another for some random loser in a van to yell things at you out of his window. Hollaback! aims to be a place for people to come together to record these incidents without feeling like victims; it might only be a tiny drop in the ocean chipping away at the massive rock bed of culturally normative sexism but it’s a start, and if it makes even one person more aware of the issue then it counts as a Good Thing in my book.  

And the next time some random idiot in a white van (why oh why is it always White Van Man who does this?!) yells something at me, I’m going to have one hell of an arsenal of comebacks to fire at him.