Read please. And we have to learn how to really help women like this. Its easy to teach big strong men. The challenge is in teaching others. And I’m thinking ok, if you told this to my mum I would gut you myself (well I’d like to, but I’d fail because of the ninja skills disparity). I would gut you for putting her in danger, for teaching her to try and win a fight she just can’t win instead of minimising damage. But that concept – accepting you’ve lost, minimising damage – just doesn’t seem to fit your head. There’s my friend who got raped by her partner who had her in a double wrist lock. She thought both her wrists were going to snap, so she stopped struggling and found the place where the pain was minimal at both ends, and she kept together through it and when he was done and got off she got his ass hauled out of her house by the cops . For over a decade I’ve been trying to find a better ending, the magic bullet that could have got her out with less damage, and I haven’t been able to. And I think she did so well to stay as safe as she could, with nothing broken or permanently damaged, but you shake your head and tell me the story of that UFC fight where the guy got his arm dislocated, and kept fighting, and won. And you say “this sort of determination has to be trained!” Determination? But the fight had a referee who was going to stop it if things got too bad. And you get angry because “you know the difference between self-defence and sport”, and lecture me about the psychological damage from not resisting. And I think to myself of the psychological damage from hearing your bones snap, of not being able to wipe your own ass for a few weeks, and still getting raped - but I keep quiet. And you ask if I have been attacked, and I have, but I can’t tell you how many times. I haven’t kept count; I don’t know which ones would count. I haven’t died or got badly hurt so maybe none do? But you say they all do, because it shouldn’t happen. I must have been giving out really bad victim vibes. And I try to explain that no, that’s how it was in that time and that place, that was the life we were living and to be me was to be a target – not a victim, but a target. You can take the “victim” word and shove it up your ass. I couldn’t change what I was; I couldn’t be a tall, strapping male like you. All I could do was keep my ass as safe as I could and accept some mishaps as the price of my freedom. If you wanted the freedom you accepted the risks. But you shake your head because no, it’s all about assertiveness and empowerment and I’m missing the point. And I’d like to tell you about the bus to our school that no girl ever took, because that man was on that bus, the man with the wandering hands who stood too close and whispered things. So we walked a bit further and got on the other bus, because it saved a lot of trouble. That’s how it was, and if you tried to report it you’d get asked what had happened, and you’d have to say nothing, because in that place, in that time, if you didn’t get hurt it was nothing. Even if they tried to hurt you but didn’t manage, it was nothing. Something bad had to happen for it to count. You couldn’t get someone arrested over failing to hurt you; I know because I tried. And I’d tell you my story and that of my friend who reported that flasher, and the policeman asked what he was wearing, and she said “white socks” and was thrown out of the station for making fun of them, even though it was true. But you are saying that we must report, that it is our responsibility. That if we don’t report something, even an attempt, then we are partly to blame for any future attacks. We are partly to blame because we could have stopped him but didn’t. And I want to hit you so hard that those words will be sucked back in your throat and never come out again, because you don’t know who you may be talking to, because you could be telling a victim that she is guilty of causing more victims. And I know that’s not how it works anyway, because it’s hard to make it stick, and if you can’t make it stick they’ll just put you through the mincer and spit you back out shaking their heads. Do you know what it’s like, to be poked and prodded by well-meaning strangers when all you want to do is curl up in a ball and die, die yesterday, die before, and then be told that there’s nothing they can do, that they can’t help you, that he will get away with it? And even if it’s so bad that you can make it stick and you go through the process they can refuse to prosecute if they believe you won’t be able to “withstand the rigours of the trial”, that you will collapse and so will their case. Do you know this? Do you know that they can give up on you, not to waste time and money, and leave you just a little more damaged, with your faith in the system shattered – the system that is your only strength, because you’re smaller and weaker than him and you always will be. But you say that’s not true, that we can prevail, and you’re teaching us stuff that we ought to be able to work, stuff that some of us can do here and now. And I think that’s great, but here there are no consequences to messing it up. If I fumble my joint lock or don’t punch hard enough it won’t mean the difference between life and death. You are telling us nothing about risk avoidance or damage control. You are telling us nothing about how to pick our battles and when to admit defeat. With you it’s just fighting until victory or death. I’d rather get robbed than get stabbed. I’d rather get hurt than get killed. (I’d rather get raped than get killed – can I think that out loud?) I’d rather not get either, but if I have to pick I choose not to die; I choose to limp my way out of there. But your goal is to win, and to teach us that we all can win, and I just can’t buy it. I can’t buy the likelihood of my victory at all times and in all circumstances. I am not willing to sign up to victory at all cost. I need you to tell me that there are things I won’t be able to do, that it’s just how it is, that I have to play the hand I’m dealt. I don’t see the realism in this “reality-based” system – maybe my realism is your fatalism, but look at me: I am half your size, twice your age, and a woman. The type of violence and conflict I am likely to be exposed to is completely different from yours, and the best solutions for dealing with it are likely to be just as different. I could tell you how it is for someone like me, if only you would listen; but you don’t. There is no acceptance of my reality here, the reality of all these other women looking at you, looking up to you. Your reality is based on years of training and experience. My reality is only based on being me, living my life. There is no theory behind it. And this is starting to feel crazy-making, because your reality is so strong that it’s obliterating mine, that all the things I have seen and have done and I know in my bones start to fade into impossibilities, misapprehensions or mistakes. And then it’s over, and I go home. And I know that I should feel stronger, safer, more able, but I just feel confused and disappointed that I can’t be like you, that I can’t play the game by the same rules and with the same strategies. And in a few weeks’ time I might try this all over again, because maybe I’m crazy but I still hope that there is someone out there who can teach me, teach us as we are, rather than just endlessly teach himself in public. Someone who can listen to our stories, see things from our point of view, enter our reality, accept our limitations and challenges, give us skills we can use to live to fight another day, and deliver us from evil. Amen.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Mar 2014 21:57:39 +0000
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