Letter to the aggressive sidewalk peddlers in uptown Manhattan

Have you ever been in a situation where someone said something offensive to you, but you couldn’t think of a great response until at least 2 hours later? Well, this is my response to a couple of “sidewalk peddlers” who have been increasingly aggressive in their tone towards me recently.

“So you don’t care about police brutality?”

The words seep in through my ears and twist around my brain.

My stomach grows heavy as concrete as I turn slowly.

My eyes land on the speaker and I restrain the urge to scream.

She stood there, natural hair in an afro, glasses atop her nose, as if expecting me to smile wide and join her in her fruitless attempt to garner support midday on a progressive Ivy campus. I resisted the urge to cock my head sideways and insult her effort.

I usually ignore the comments (“seasoned” Brooklynite that I am, brushing off the catcalls en route to the subway). But this was different. The situation, my emotional fatigue, her tone. I couldn’t gather the words fast enough, but soon came face to face with her.

If only she knew, I thought! That a black body lying prone, hands up, could have very well been my brother. My father. My student. The person I love simply because the police are threatened by the color of his skin as it glistens in the sun when he reaches for his driver’s license at the traffic stop.

If only she knew that I’ve organized with others at Howard when Trayvon was shot, when all of this came into focus. That I sought the comfort of my mother when Zimmerman was acquitted, and that I’ve been numb ever since. That the killing of black women isn’t the priority right now in this country and that I’ve been dismissed in conversations when I try to assert my right as a woman of color because of the fairness of my skin.

Excuse me for not wanting to donate my money, my mental energy, my exhausted emotional state to your organization. Excuse me for not being ready to address the trauma I face when I hear about yet another civil rights violation. Excuse me for not allowing your anger about standing on the sidewalk in 95 degree weather affect my resolve. Excuse me for not letting your guilt-inducing tactics sway me into wavering on my stance.

So I’m not ready to sit down with you near the end of my lunch break (after I’ve spent all morning creating ways to engage my black and brown students in discourse about their lives and before I scroll through my feed for the umpteenth time, trying the scores of images of black bodies in the street).

Because even though I’m not ready to take the action that might suffice in your eyes, I am in front of my black and brown students day in and out, collecting the strength to look them in the eyes and say that they are worth it. That they matter.

I want them to understand who they are and why their presence in their communities is important. I want them to feel valued and know that their voices can be loud enough to enact change. I want them to see things from another perspective, so hopefully they can understand that we are all more similar than different.

A normalized culture of violence against women

 

During my first trip to Taipei, Taiwan, as I marveled at the clean and efficient metro system and wandered around the city, something felt different. I’m used to attracting attention as a traveler when I go abroad, usually because I’m taller than average and no one can pinpoint my exact “ethnicity.” Most people (especially Germans) seem to think that staring long enough will reveal the answer on my forehead. harassment

I anticipated this in Taiwan, but I didn’t have that same feeling of being “watched” on this trip. No one noticed me, at all, and I shared this observation with a friend of a friend who is from Taipei but has also traveled and lived outside of the country.

“I can walk around late at night here with no problems. I always feel safe, no matter what time it is.” Any time of night? In such a large city? Indeed, I learned. Taiwan is famous for its “night markets,” small sections of streets filled with food and clothing vendors open until late into the night. Both locals and visitors flock to the vendors to indulge in fried, skewered, and steamed Taiwanese specialties as they bargain over other goods along narrow alleyways.

My friend mentioned that sexual harassment in the U.S, including “catcalling,” is pretty notorious. Everyone knows it happens.

When I recounted how often I opt for taking a cab as opposed to taking the subway late at night, or how I, without fail, attract attention of men on the street when I leave my home, I got very angry.

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It seems unfair. Unfair that as a woman in a modernized country, I  worry about how I look, how I dress, what I say (or don’t say) because it could put me in danger. Unfair that boys are not (always) taught from a young age to treat women as humans but as prizes to be “gotten.” Instead, a girl is told to dress respectably and then grows up to second guess her outfit before stuffing mace into her clutch, “just in case.”

Why is sexual harassment and violence against women such a normalized instance of American culture?

We’ve come to accept the mindset so much that government agencies have now adopted it unconsciously. In a seemingly well-intentioned campaign to warn women about fetal alcohol syndrome, the CDC shamed women into thinking that their alcohol use has some unlikely, even implausible, risks.

Risks of drinking for any woman include “sexually transmitted diseases,” “injuries/violence,” and “unintended pregnancy.” Huh? I thought sex caused pregnancy and STDs, not binge drinking (which, of course, isn’t a healthy habit to develop anyway).

The idea that women, solely, are at fault for the violence that others commit was conveyed during the recent Zika virus scare. (Go here for a NY Times article by a Brazilian woman who articulates this point much better than I can.) Several South American countries have advised women, in an attempt to prevent birth defects, to avoid “getting pregnant.”

Something’s off about that advice: it neglects to mention a man’s role in causing pregnancy.  It isn’t as if women are spontaneously impregnating themselves; men are impregnating women. However, there hasn’t been a national call from Brazil for all men to remain abstinent for 2 years. That would be ludicrous, right?

If South American countries, many of which are predominantly Catholic, had health care systems that provided women with consistent and safe birth control options, this advice wouldn’t be so far fetched. However, birth control can be difficult to come by in many other countries and the stigma associated with these methods stems from the heavy religiously influenced background of South American countries.

Reversing this incredibly biased perspective on women starts with removing the stigma around women and sexual health. This begins with parents having open conversations with their children. It continues when men avoid shaming women for their bodies and sexual health. And it looks like women and men treating each other equally in society and governments doing the same.

(UPDATE: The CDC has taken down the infographic after criticism and Anne Schuchat, the principal deputy director of the CDC, defended the agency’s intentions, told The New York Times, “we weren’t as clear as we had hoped to be.”)

 

3 things holding us back from gender equality.

“A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle” -Gloria Steinem 

Gender Roles 

Women are people. Seems obvious, right? Sure, each society has its different ideas about femininity and masculinity; in some places women are expected not to wear pants while sex “sells” in the United States.  But the way we are trained to view gender (yes, we are brainwashed to believe gender is a social construct) says so much about our treatment of women and men. Many people struggle with the concepts of asexuality and fluid sexuality. Deconstructing these ideas in this post would take way too long. But possibly the most detrimental and destructive perspectives are those that don’t allow for men and women to be complex beings. 

Men play sports                                   Women wear makeup

Men work regular jobs                         Women are caretakers

Men don’t cry                                       Women are irrational 

Men propose to women                       Women should marry 

Men own                                              Women are objects

I’ve had countless encounters with people around the world during my solo travels where they expected me to be “owned” by a man in one way or another.

“You’re traveling alone? Where’s your boyfriend? Aren’t you afraid to travel by yourself?”

The easy way to avoid these conversations is to laugh it off and agree that yes, I am still young and sure I still have time.

The difficult thing to do would be to say “No! I’m actually not interesting in conceiving children at this time or in the future. I am interested, however, in earning my PhD and improving the lives of children, who already exist, in a meaningful way. (She’s cold, they would say. She’ll come around and change her mind soon.)

The difficult thing to do would be to hold the conversation about gender roles with those with which we are closest: parents, siblings, good friends, and older relatives.

The difficult (and perhaps dangerous) thing would be to stop on the street when men choose to catcall us and ask them why they chose to use monikers like “baby” and “gorgeous” to refer to us. And no, it isn’t simply a compliment.

Oh wait, some of us are trying that already. Like agreeing with compliments from men; turns out that only gets us labeled as vain and “full of ourselves.” *sigh*

Dissension among the ranks

If I could shake every one of the young girls at my school and tell them to stop tearing each other down, I would never have time to teach. It’s enough that they encounter boys who take out their hormonal uncertainties on the self confidence and will of their female counterparts. It pains me to see 11, 12, and 13 year old girls bully and harass each other with their hurtful words. With the additional factor of technological communication in this generation, it’s hard to believe girls today have any self confidence at all.

And it’s not just an issue among children; women of all ages are QUICK to tear another woman down if she poses a “threat” in some way. Whether it’s those social constructs that have been pounded into our heads since birth to view other successful women as competitors, this mindset is toxic to the survival and success of the female community.

Some feminists are also hesitant, for some reason or another, to include the LGBTQIA community into their call for equal rights. How can we tear down other women who are fighting for the rights of all of us? Does our sexual orientation really matter in the fight to be considered as people? Really…?

Unfortunately colorism is another issue under the dissension umbrella that we face. The history of the feminist movement in the US has largely ignored and excluded a HUGE population of women that were struggling for a vast majority of their rights. Unfortunately, the fight for equality among women of color is two fold: you’re both not white and not male. It doesn’t surprise me that women of color don’t consider themselves feminists because of the movement’s sordid history at the turn of the 20th century. Womanism was born out of this division, but unfortunately some women of color continue to feel disheartened by the idea of seemingly having to put their gender before their race.

The stigma of feminism

Even Beyonce couldn’t make this popular. Unfortunately, the stigma regarding feminism is bra-burning-man-hating-P.M.Sing-rage-filled-lesbians who can’t help but to disseminate their pamphlets about why men are evil.

No, in fact we’re quite friendly. Or not. We’re doctors and teachers and lawyers and pilots. Or not. Sometimes we’re stay at home moms and mechanics and librarians and astrophysicists. We cry in public. Or not. We like sappy romantic movies. Or not.

Feminists come in all shapes and sizes. Some of my best male friends consider themselves to be feminists because they believe in the social, economic, and political equality of people.

So what’s the secret to hurtling our society towards complete gender equality? There might not be 1 answer, but there are baby steps we can take. 

Have open conversations with people who truly don’t know any better.

Take a deep breath before you pass judgement on someone who thinks all feminists are lesbians.

Unless they’re Pat Robertson. In this case, run.

And seek out resources, because you’re not in this alone! It can be difficult to talk with people about a subject you might not be well versed in. It’s even more frustrating when people THINK they are experts when they primarily speak from illogical and broad claims. Despite the scary world of internet conversations out there, safe spaces for women exist (BTW, you should go back and click on those links 🙂 they’re pretty awesome) that allow for open conversations.

Build each other up

Encourage the women in your life to be happy. Even if you don’t agree with all of their life choices, guess what? It’s not your life! You have your own to live and we all deserve people in our space who lift us up instead of passing judgement. Seriously, society oppresses us enough.

“There is no such thing as a single issue struggle because we do not live single issue lives.” -Audrey Lorde