TRIGGER WARNING.
I was so proud to watch the millions of women (and some men) across the world unite to stand for equality and women’s rights yesterday. In the face of a man who has boasted about sexual abuse and dismissed it as ‘locker room talk’. A man who has gotten away with it to become the President of the USA. If I could have marched with them, I would have (there wasn’t one in the country I live in). This is why this protest is so important to me:
When I was around 8 or 9 years old I was taking a bus home from school. The man sitting next to me was reading his paper. His hand then fell onto my leg and with every jolt of the bus, it rode higher up my thigh. Pushing my school uniform up with it. I froze, terrified. It felt so uncomfortable. But I didn’t know what to do.
With the next bump, he pulled his hand away. Until it scraped my thigh again and again. I was so young and confused. Was he doing this on purpose? Or was he just reading his paper, innocent of what his hand was doing? I know the answer to that now.
When I was 11 or 12, a little old man smiled at me at the bus stop. He did this every day, until one day he started talking to me. I felt sorry for him. He was lonely, he said. Then he asked if he could touch my ‘Mit’. I didn’t know what that word was, but I got his meaning. I got up and ran away. He followed me, until he couldn’t keep up.
My mother took me to the police station. I identified him immediately from some photos they showed me. He had escaped an institution for sexual offenders. They arrested him when they found him waiting for me the next day.
Still aged 11 or 12, my teacher let me leave school one day, to go and collect my lunch that I had left at home. My best friend accompanied me. As we were walking along a man beckoned us over to his car. I thought he wanted to ask us for directions somewhere. But he was masturbating. I didn’t understand it then. I’d never seen a penis before. It frightened me and we ran.
I knew the little old man before him, had turned out to be quite dangerous. So, we went to the same police station to report this man. I was proud of what we’d done. But later that day, my mother was called into the school. I was an ‘attention-seeker’ they told her.
When I was in my teens, I’d ride my bike with my neighbourhood gang in the park across the road. We all knew to be wary of ‘the man in the cream car’ who often used to follow us around.
When I was 16, my friends and I were walking along a coast trail to get to a beach. A man appeared out of nowhere from the bushes. He was naked and playing with himself.
When I was 17, the father of the child I was babysitting put his hand on my leg and ask me for sex, as he drove me home.
When I was 18 I was walking down a lane. A man appeared and grabbed me by the arm. He pulled out his penis and started pushing my face towards it. I screamed, broke free from him and ran.
When I was 22 and seven months pregnant my husband put his hands around my throat. He squeezed hard, with a cold, murderous stare. ‘Die you c***, die!’ he said. I came to as he was dragging me across broken glass, of things he had shattered before. When I managed to escape, barefoot and with blood trickling down my legs, a couple of neighbours saw me. I was in shock, but none of them helped me. The police later charged him and served him with a restraining order.
When I was 23 I heard a tapping at my window, almost as soon as I’d turned off the light to go to sleep. A quiet ‘tap, tap, tap’ above my head. I pulled the blind across, thinking it must have been one of my friends. A man was masturbating in front of me. My bedroom wasn’t where you’d expect it to be. He had to have been watching me.
I thought perhaps it was just back in my day that this kind of thing happened. But then last year, aged 54, it happened again. I was sitting on a bus in HK, when a man sat next to me and appeared to fall asleep. Then his leg pushed hard against mine and he unzipped his pants. This time I was unafraid to say no and shouted at him. He leapt off the bus.
When I was in my twenties, my girlfriends and I were together having a drink. We started to compare incidents like these. Every single one, bar none, had had men accost them or flash at them. One had even been gang raped as a group of girls taunted her and egged the boys on. I was not the only one. But as with me, most of these events went unreported.
And now we have Donald Trump, the most powerful leader of the free world. A President who has boasted about being a sexual predator. A man who is proud of the fact he can kiss women without asking. Proud that he can grab women by the p***y because he is famous.
I am still shocked that he has got away with this. I am stunned by how many women still voted for him. What message does this give to our sons and daughters? That the kind of things that happened to me and my friends is acceptable? Sexual harassment and abuse is okay?
This is why I was marching with those women in spirit yesterday. It’s 2017. Yet nothing much has changed. We still have to fight for equality and women’s rights. We cannot let things like this go unchallenged.
If you need further help or counselling, please refer to the following (or the equivalent in your country):
AUSTRALIA:
1800Respect: 0800 737 732 https://www.1800respect.org.au
Lifeline: 13 11 14 https://www.lifeline.org.au
UK:
National Domestic Violence Helpline: 0808 2000 247 http://www.nationaldomesticviolencehelpline.org.uk
Paladin National Stalking Advocacy Service 020 3866 4107 http://paladinservice.co.uk
US:
The National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233 http://www.thehotline.org
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