I’ve always felt pretty safe on my runs, before and since I started my running streak (which you can read about in this previous blog of mine). I’ve gone through periods where I’m a little paranoid, usually after a news story about someone getting mugged or assaulted while out on trails, and then I get myself some pepper spray to take with me until my annoyance at carrying something extra during my runs outweighs my paranoia about the potential for someone to attack me during a run.
Obviously, Mollie Tibbetts’ murder got my attention. That something so horrific could happen to someone just out for a run so close to her home (and my home–Brooklyn, IA is just over an hour’s drive from where I live) is hard to fathom. And then I vacillate between denial and terror that something similar could happen to me. The denial reminds me that I went through R.A.D. (Rape Aggression Defense) training when I worked at the campus police department when I was in college, and the officer in the RedMan suit (see an example of the suit below) told me that no one had ever hit him as hard as I did. He said he could really feel it through the pads. So I’m safe, right? And then my denial tells me that I’m a woman entering midlife who’s carrying more weight than is generally accepted as desirable in society, so nobody would choose to abduct or assault me. So I’m safe, right?
http://www.redmangear.com/xp-instructor-suit.html
But then I realize that, even with such specific training, details of which I remember almost 20 years later, I would likely be no match for someone with a weapon. And then there’s the guy who comes into my workplace and seems to come to me for help whenever I’m there, even if it means walking past a couple of my coworkers, and has called me “beautiful” more than once. And then I read things like this commentary piece, called ‘Take it as a compliment.’ The conversations around sexual misconduct and fat bodies by Jessi Roti in the Chicago Tribune (May 18, 2018) which remind me that, “After every new case, experts remind us that sexual assault is about power, not physical desirability or the sexual acts themselves.” And then I don’t feel so safe anymore.
So, I’d like to ask you: my family, friends, neighbors, and anyone else who randomly stumbles upon this blog to do three things:
1. Think very carefully about how you view women.
If you find yourself wishing harm to a woman because you feel rejected by her, get help. Honestly, if you feel any animosity towards a woman for not reacting positively to your advances, you might want to seek the advice of a therapist. Actually, let’s back up even further–if you’re often making advances, especially if you usually get negative reactions to them, maybe just knock it off. Look, I know it doesn’t feel good to hear that someone’s not interested in you. It’s happened to me, too. But after years of online dating and getting called all sorts of nasty things (“pretentious bitch” is the most memorable) by various people–wait not “people”, men specifically–when I simply told them I wasn’t interested in dating them so as not to waste my time or theirs, I know now that it must not be uncommon for some people to think that way. But here’s another really important thing that I know: no one has an obligation to be interested in you. I hear people–again, men, not all people–talk about being “friend-zoned” or saying that girls don’t like them because they’re “too nice and girls only want to date jerks”. But an article from The Everygirl by Julia Dellitt entitled, The “Friend Zone” Is Real, but Not What You Think (July 24, 2017), addresses these kinds of situations. Among many, MANY other relevant tips in the article, are these helpful reminders, “…the whole thing is not necessarily anyone’s fault. It’s just how life goes sometimes. There’s no reason to feel guilty for not liking someone back, and there’s no excuse for guilt-tripping someone into being with you.” I’m going to post that again, but this time in all caps, just to make sure you caught that: “…THE WHOLE THING IS NOT NECESSARILY ANYONE’S FAULT. IT’S JUST HOW LIFE GOES SOMETIMES. THERE’S NO REASON TO FEEL GUILTY FOR NOT LIKING SOMEONE BACK, AND THERE’S NO EXCUSE FOR GUILT-TRIPPING SOMEONE INTO BEING WITH YOU.” So, treat women as actual human beings, not as something you want to possess. And call others out who don’t seem to get this concept.
2. Don’t be that guy.
You know that guy. Like the one who calls me “beautiful” when I’m at work. I’ve noticed that he only does it when no one else is within earshot, which tells me that he knows it’s probably not okay. And, for the record, I do think he’s harmless, but that doesn’t mean I’m comfortable with it or that I didn’t purposefully walk around the parking lot while talking to my husband on the phone until I saw this guy drive away when I happened to exit the building at the same time he did once, because I didn’t want him to know which car was mine and/or chance him following me. I remember a time, years ago, I was in line at Sub City and the guy in front of me asked if I had a boyfriend, because “…if you don’t, you should”. I told him that I did, and that I was on my way to meet up with him. I was lying, but it made me feel safer to say it. All I wanted was a damned sandwich, but no–I had to come up with a lie, and take stock of who else was around, and made sure I waited until he’d left before I went to my car, because you just never know. And these are just two examples from many, many more from this one girl’s life. So, to the guys who say things like #NotAllMen, or say that they’re afraid they’ll be accused of sexually harassing a woman if they talk at all, just stop. And then read this post by Meredith Bland at ScaryMommy.com called, Men Are Super Bummed They Can’t Hug Women In The Office Anymore. It has some more good info for you.
3. If you REALLY care about women, pay attention and try to make sure you’re not doing something that might make a woman nervous.
This is what I originally meant for this blog post to be about, but when I started writing, I realized there was more to it. On my daily runs, I usually stay pretty close to home, which happens to be on the outskirts of town where, apparently, people find reasons to stop their vehicles on the road often. Not long ago, there were three separate instances of this happening within a half-mile of me, in less than a week, just when I was out running. One morning, a car stopped on the road, stayed there for at least 30 seconds to a minute, turned around in a driveway, stayed on the road for another 30 seconds to a minute, and then finally left. The second time, on a different day in the afternoon, a car stopped on the road, the driver’s side door opened, I couldn’t tell what they were doing, but the car stayed there for probably a couple of minutes at least, then they just shut the door and drove on. The third time, I was out with my dog, and was paying more attention to how she was walking on the leash than my surroundings, when I noticed that a pickup had stopped right around the corner from me and just sat there for several minutes until it pulled away. What these people were doing, I have no idea. Maybe they were checking GPS or maps, trying to figure out where they were. Maybe they were returning important text messages or phone calls. Maybe they were enjoying the quiet of the country. Maybe the guy who opened the door thought he was going to barf, and stopped and opened the door so he could barf outside his car. Again–I have no idea. But that’s the point–if you see a woman walking or running or just existing, alone, please don’t do anything that could be perceived as threatening. You know that you’re not a threat, but we don’t, and we automatically start assessing the situation and scanning the environment and forming exit strategies when things like this happen, and that’s exhausting. Just yesterday morning, I was out before sunrise with my dog, and I took her down the road a little ways because she has a pretty reliable poop spot. I was walking her back towards the house when, out of the darkness between where we were and our house, I started hearing a man’s voice. I thought a man was talking to someone else at first and went on high alert. Then I heard the whistling from the Scorpions “Wind of Change”, and saw a figure emerge from the darkness, and I realized it was just a guy who wanted to run on a country road in the dark without a light while listening to power ballads from the early ’90s without headphones…probably. But I had no way of knowing that he was coming until I heard his music, and by then he was already almost within spitting distance. To be fair, I was out on the country road without a light, too, but I was a couple hundred feet from my house, and I was just trying to see if my dog needed to poop. So, after we passed him, I hustled my pup back to the house, while constantly looking over my shoulder, eyes straining in the predawn darkness, trying to make sure he was still heading away from us, and locked all the doors as soon as we got inside. And then, a few minutes later, I could have sworn I heard someone come up our front steps and try the storm door handle. My dog heard something, too, so I’m not completely paranoid, and it was probably a feral cat or something, but because I was startled by a man in a place where I normally feel very safe, I spent about 5 solid minutes sitting perfectly still in my living room, listening for any other sounds which might signify that something nefarious was afoot.
Interestingly, the no-light running guy got me to wondering what that song is all about. I’ve heard it a hundred times, but I never really listened to the words before. For anyone who doesn’t know, the Scorpions are a German band, and this song was written shortly before the fall of the USSR. According to the article called, Scorpions’ ‘Wind of Change’: The Oral History of 1990’s Epic Power Ballad by Richard Bienstock in Rolling Stone (September 2, 2015), “…its origins trace to the former Soviet Union, and specifically the Moscow Music Peace Festival, a two-day “hard-rock Woodstock” staged in August 1989…” “…the festival was a triumph (if not without drama behind the scenes), and it inspired {Scorpions’ vocalist, Klaus} Meine, who had grown up in the looming shadow of the Iron Curtain, to begin writing “Wind of Change.” At a time when there’s so much political unrest in this country, some of the lyrics seem strangely apropos.
Chorus:
“Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow share their dreams (share their dreams)
With you and me“
And that bridge:
“The wind of change
Blows straight into the face of time
Like a stormwind that will ring the freedom bell
For peace of mind“
You can listen to the whole song (and watch the official music video which includes some interesting news footage from that era) here:
Anyway, I know that there are a lot of things in the world that need fixing. And I know that some of you probably think that women are treated fairly and are respected well enough and don’t need any help. And I know a lot of you have seen or read things like this before. I’m really not saying anything new. But, as André Gide (who, according to Wikipedia, “was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (in 1947)”) wrote in Le Traité du Narcisse, “Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.” Well, I assume he wrote it in French, but whatever–it’s valid no matter what language it’s in. So this is just another reminder to all of us to do what we can to help each other be (and feel) safe in a sometimes scary and depressing world. And I can’t speak from the points of view of other marginalized groups (people of color, immigrants, the LGBTQ community, people of different religions, etc., etc., etc.), but we need to help them all be and feel safe in this world, too. And we need to keep talking about it until these things are said enough that real change can happen.
growingmoxie.com 