Hey Baby, How's Your Day? A Diary of Interactions With Men

BY PAIGE TOWERS

"Wow, you look delicious," he says.

It’s the first warm day of March and I’m standing on a busy corner, waiting for the light to change. I’m going home after a doctor’s appointment on the Upper East Side—walking north up 2nd Ave. The stranger who called me "delicious" is now directly beside me looking me up and down. I don’t turn to look at him but I can see him in my peripheral vision; he’s white, middle aged, wearing a suit, carrying a briefcase.

I take my phone out of my purse and text my husband.

"What is going on?" I write. "I’m being harassed constantly today. Maybe it’s the warm weather?"

The man begins to lick his lips and I’m triggered; the hair on my arms rises, my heart rate speeds up. With barely a thought, I pivot and start walking west. It’s noon and I haven’t eaten yet today; I’d planned on stopping into H&H Bagels, which would have been only one more block away on 2nd if I’d continued on my original path. But I must get away quickly.

"I want to get some of that pussy!" the man yells out at me as I walk away. I don’t look back.

Later I wondered why I didn’t turn, face this man and talk back to him. It’s unclear, but I think in that moment I was simply too tired and hungry. I was also just flat out overwhelmed. During that 35-minute walk back from the hospital to my apartment, four men commented on my appearance and/or expressed what they desired to do with me. At least five men either whistled or made some sort of tongue clicking sound in my direction. Well over a dozen men checked me out in an obvious manner—one man even leaned over and blatantly stared at my crotch for a prolonged time as I walked by.

"How you doing today?" he asked my crotch. I didn’t respond; nor did my crotch.

It didn’t matter that I looked professional, that I wore my hair in a low bun, wore a jacket zipped all the way up to my neck, black pants, flat boots, and a scarf that my husband’s mother brought home from India—I was somehow still a target.

("These pants are too tight to wear out, I guess?" I said to my husband when I got home.)

In the past I have talked back to men who harass me on the street—sometimes successfully, sometimes not. I have received quick apologies or caused men to flee the scene. I have also received extreme verbal aggression, threats of assault and have been followed. I am unsure what the best strategy is—to talk back or to ignore and avoid?—but generally I try to follow my instincts, even it leaves me feeling upset with my self-perceived weakness later.  

Thus, in light of the fact that street harassment can sometimes feel like a losing battle, I’ve found another way of dealing with it. After being inspired by other women’s online accounts of men objectifying them on the street, I took to Tumblr last year by creating a blog called "Interactions With Men." It has little readership; in fact I rarely post it to my social media accounts as—I’ll admit—I’ve been discouraged by a lot of online backlash from non-feminist men (and a couple of outspoken non-feminist young women). But it’s still a way for me to record these events exactly as they happen, and there’s something empowering about that, especially considering that men on the street have sexualized me—like many other women—since age 12 and really even before, and I’m really tired of it.

What I do is carry a pocket-sized journal and pen with me at all times, and if I have a negative interaction with a man in which I feel objectified or talked down to because of my gender, I jot it down exactly as it happened. (I also occasionally just use the "Notes" function on my cellphone.) Of course, I don’t record every instance. In fact, I record very few of them, mostly—I suppose—because they happen all the time in small ways. But when an interaction immediately hits me in the gut and leaves me feeling angry or discouraged or sad, I find that writing it down exactly as it happened helps alleviate those negative feelings.

For instance, "Interaction #3" on the blog is a short entry, but it records a scenario that many women have experienced—a male stranger wanting a woman to smile for him and then turning cruel when they ignore his request. I recorded it as this:

August 2014. Vagrant man. Corner of 14th St. and 6th Ave.

Man: Smile for me, sweetheart. 
Me: …
Man: C’mon baby. Just one smile. It’s a beautiful day today.
Me: …
Man: I feel sorry for you. Really, I do. I fucking do.
Me: …
Man: Stupid bitch. 

It’s not lost on me that these situations are not so much interactions as they are simply, well…me being targeted and objectified by some guy. For them to become true interactions, some would say that I must do more than frown, ignore and/or walk away. Yet, my silent protest against men constantly watching and commenting on me as I move through what is perceived to be free and public space feels like the most common interaction there is: the man exerts a sense of control over the woman, the woman holds her head up and continues by, protesting through her silence. After all, do we really gain freedom and power in public space if we constantly have to be talking/fighting back? What about those times when I just want to run out and grab a quick a lunch, or want to get home after a long, stressful day?

The blog has deviated a bit in purpose as soon as I started it. My original intent was to just record the way some men talk to me on the street, but very soon I found myself wanting to write more. The way that men can sometimes talk to women—the talking down, the talking over, the "mansplaining"—these instances all left me feeling disempowered in the same way that being sexualized by a stranger on 2nd Ave. does, and sometimes even more so.

In "Interaction #5" I wrote about a security guard at a college I used to work at who loved to explain things to women, as if he was the keeper of great knowledge. When he once started to tell me about running, he neglected to listen to me repeatedly telling him that I’ve been a runner for over 15 years and have even run a marathon.

"I promise you: if I can do it, you can do it," he said at end of the interaction, still somehow refusing to hear the fact that running is a major part of my life.

In "Interaction #9" I recorded an interaction I had with a man during a business lunch in which he literally explained Amy Schumer to a female coworker and me. We both tried to jump in to the conversation as Schumer is a huge idol for both of us, but he continued to talk over us.

Here’s an excerpt:

Me: Yeah, she—
Man: It’s like, she doesn’t care what she looks like at all. She just gets up there, and doesn’t care if she’s overweight. She’s just…here’s the thing about her…(Takes sip of beer.)
Other woman: To me, Amy Schumer is a new kind of role model. She—
Man: Here’s the thing. (Sets down beer.) Amy Schumer…it’s like…She. Doesn’t. Care. And I respect that. Like, she doesn’t care what she looks like.

By the end of the interaction, it was clear that the man thought he was being feminist by pointing out that he thought it was cool that Schumer doesn’t care that she’s not pretty (in his eyes)…thus still commenting on the way she looks, instead of—I don’t know—commenting on how incredibly brilliant, funny and accomplished she is. (Or at least allowing us the chance to do so.) And yet, while I wanted to call him out on his behavior so badly at the time, the sad reality is that had I done so, I truly believe that it quickly could have turned into a conversation about the end of my position with that particular company.

I’ve made records of interactions with a male family member, a co-worker of my husband, a co-worker of my own, a deliveryman, a handyman, random men on the street, that white guy in the suit.

It’s a risky decision, I realize, as I could alienate someone close to me, or someone who has influence over my professional career. Yet, although many—no, most—of my interactions with men are neutral or positive ones, the scrutiny and misogyny I often feel during everyday activities, like boarding the subway or sitting down at a meeting, is a reminder of how far we have to go. And I’d like to make a record of where we are right now.

When I got back to my apartment after my doctor’s appointment on that warm day—still hungry, still overwhelmed—I wondered at what point I would be able to walk through public space "normally;" when would I be able to simply move forward, privileged to my own thoughts and enjoyment? I felt relief to be out of the spotlight, sure, but I was seriously defeated. So, I took out my journal, jotted down the details of a couple of those interactions that had happened on the walk home, and put them on the blog the next day.

It’s an imperfect tool, but with this blog I can, at least, provide a tiny amount of evidence to my reality. I continue on with little purpose other than wanting to provide a testimony of what being a woman can mean, although I do hope that it serves as a reminder that it’s okay not to agree with the system, with the culture, with the way things are. We can choose to talk back, or not talk back, but either way misogyny is happening—in a vast range of ways—and I have a record of events to prove it.

---

Paige Towers is a writer based in New York City, and her work has appeared in Bustle Magazine, The Baltimore Review, McSweeney's, Midwestern Gothic, Prime Number Magazine, Barnstorm Journal, Catch & Release: the online literary journal of Columbia University, So to Speak: a feminist journal of language and art, BioStories Magazine, and many more. You can view more here.

When You Get Raped By Your Cab Driver, But The Police Ask If You're Sure It Wasn't Consensual

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

Rape culture: when your friend is raped by her cab driver and the police question whether or not you were asking for it.

In a major metropolitan city, there's plenty of things to fear. Among them? Cab drivers. Many of us have encountered the driver who tells us we’re pretty, asks if we’re single, wants to know if we live with someone or asks for our phone numbers. It’s uncomfortable, it’s frightening, and it needs to stop. Simply put, this behavior should be illegal rather than commonplace.

A friend told me the below story:

*Mary took a cab home--pulled over by her friends--because she was inebriated. She woke in the cab driver's bed without any recollection of what happened, with her body oddly positioned on top of a towel. As an object. When she managed to get out of his apartment, go to the hospital and ask for a rape kit, she was told to wait because there wasn't enough proof it "wasn’t consensual." Mary tells me that this cab driver (who she calls Sandy), who was employed by the city of New York, wasn't convicted because the District Attorney took a rapist’s word over hers.

***

When Mary and I talk on the phone, she tells me it is crucial to tell her story in order for change to ensue, in order for the government and for everyday people to understand that a woman’s word means something, that silencing others is a sin on par with rape itself.

***

There was more than enough evidence to lead anyone to believe the cab driver was a rapist. When Mary was put into a Brooklyn cab by two friends, they explicitly asked the driver to take Mary home. Mary was inebriated, as many are when they take a cab home late at night, and so her friends made her repeat her address to the driver several times. There was no indication that Mary knew the driver or desired anything but to get home safely.

What Mary vaguely remembers is someone buying beer, and according to her police report, "pouring liquor or some substance down my throat," as she was "in and out of consciousness." What she next remembers is waking up "extremely confused" with "no idea why or how I had gotten to this location or who this person in the bed next to me was." Mary was distressed, still not sober, and panicking.

Over the phone, she told me her body was "still in pain." This is a jarring sentence to hear. Because what happened to her was real; the physical pain will eventually end, but the experience of being manipulated against your will can never be undone.

***

When Mary went to the Emergency Room at Mt. Sinai in Queens at 3pm, she sat alone for the most part, without the offer of any food or water. Two officers finally arrived at 6pm as per the Hospital’s request, and they were aggressive, according to Mary, suggesting without her memory of the incident in question there could be no prosecution.

Mary told me, "I was stunned with how poorly these men treated me in my hospital room. They pressured me to drop the case and tried to tell me it wasn’t a rape case, and that if I was drunk, that maybe I had 'gotten friendly with the cab driver' while I was in the car."

She continued, "I was so distraught, I couldn’t believe the officers were insinuating it was my fault…[they] didn’t believe anything I told them, and were being so dismissive and aggressive. I even told them I had two witnesses who put me into the cab alone with the driver...they still insisted I didn’t need the rape kit. I insisted I hadn’t gone [with the driver] by choice, that I had been taken advantage of while I was blacked out, and that it was a taxi driver who had done this…[in his] house in Queens."

Because Mary was drunk, her case wasn’t taken seriously--and this outcome isn’t news. Women have long been taken advantage of when inebriated or drugged. Despite the many victim-blaming mentalities out there, transitive theory does not suggest if one drinks, one consents to the possibility of rape.

"They said since I had been drunk I had no idea where he had taken me or what borough I’d been in," Mary said. "My doctor at Mt. Sinai was extremely upset with how they were treating me, and they called Mount Sinai’s Sexual Assault And Violence Intervention Program (SAVI) to have an advocate sent to help me and make sure I was being treated ok."

SAVI’s mission is "dedicated to validating, healing and empowering survivors and their supporters to lead safe, healthy lives through advocacy, free and confidential counseling, and public education."

Despite SAVI’s efforts in supporting Mary, the police (the only presiding power) didn’t believe Mary until she semi-remembered signage she thought she saw that night. Only then did they confirm with the location services map on her iPhone, which indicated when she’d been picked up and for how long she was in that location (his home).

The next day, the cops found the location services information to be enough "proof," so they had Mary call her rapist from the Queens Precinct. The detective asked Mary to "act like I knew we had sex, and just ask if he used protection and see if he would say anything about me being passed out to try to get him to incriminate himself over the phone, which would be recorded over the police system."

When she called Sandy, she asked if they’d "slept together," to which he answered yes. Mary told me it was painful to hear that Sandy’s admission, though suspected, was devastating. Mary had actually been raped.

"I then asked him why I wasn’t able to recall anything and he said I was passing out…the detective was writing me prompts of what to ask him so I asked if I had passed out totally, and he claimed I passed out 'during sex' and he kept saying 'don’t worry about it,'" Mary said.

If a person takes you against your will and has non-consensual sex with you when you’re incapacitated, that it is rape shouldn’t be up for debate.

Judging by the FBI’s revised definition of rape, "Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim," there should be no room for misinterpretation, and yet there is--along with shoddy police work, held up by the foundation of rape culture.

By New York state law, what Mary’s cab driver did was certainly first or second degree rape, given the mental incapacity to provide consent, along with the kidnapping. How much more real does this get?

In the end, the detective told Mary the District Attorney had dropped the case on account of there being no real proof (as her rapist simply had to say something to the effect of 'she wanted it') and that was it.

***

The reality is, many rape allegations aren’t taken seriously.

Recently, a woman was raped at the popular Happy Ending Lounge, a bar even I frequented for years as a literary host. With its dimly lit bathrooms and somewhat hidden downstairs areas, it scares me to think of the all-too-real possibility of the situation--a situation any of us could be put into. The cops, instead of taking the victim seriously, claimed she was a party girl. And, even if she were drinking and "partying," does that mean she deserves to be raped?

In 2015,  there were 851 reported rape cases in NYC (an increase from last year), with rape in car services on the upward trend. In February this year, a Brooklyn woman was raped in the back of a cab. This came at a time when Uber and Lyft drivers assaulted dozens and dozens of passengers. Mary’s case is one of many.

What happens when walking home is too unsafe? When the subway is unsafe? When taking a bus is unsafe? And when the person paid to drive you home changes your life forever?

***

Why are victims still being silenced? Is it because we teach people to wear protective, anti date-rape nail polish rather than teaching them not to rape? Rather than enforcing very real punishment for rapists? Does the problem stem from the idea that rape is only rape when it’s violent? Is it not widely accepted that rape takes various forms? On television, and in books, is it too-often reduced to compulsive desire or fantastical dominance? Or, is it much more likely we blame the victims in our smug, sexist righteousness to prosecute the whore? Are we too busy making jokes about it on TV?

Mary explained how even after going to the hospital, she felt there was no real advocacy. She felt like there aren’t enough emotional resources available quickly, and more importantly, how any support she was given paled in comparison to the poor treatment by the police. She felt she was not heard.

She wrote in her police statement, "I want help in having someone actually investigate this crime…the suspect was not apprehended and is still driving a cab around the city with no repercussions. This is dangerous for me as he knows where I live and I am very scared for my safety, and for other women’s safety. If he got away with this once with me with NO repercussions he will probably do this again and that is not acceptable. I do not understand how this does not qualify as kidnapping and rape, and I also do not understand why the case was dropped due to what the suspect told police."

Whether you are telling the story to a counselor, the news or your friend, your voice matters. Whether you are sharing this story or another one, your part in the conversation matters. As Pepper Elliott, who was assaulted at Happy Ending, said, "I really do believe social media is a powerful platform that can be a catalyst to these types of changes in perception, which eventually result in changes in behavior. I think that potentially the result of me being this vocal about my experience will at least elicit minor changes in the way those who are close to me might think or act and those changes might permeate the minds of others."

Please reach out to the following resources if you or someone you know needs support:

National Sexual Assault Hotline: 800.656.HOPE (4673)
RAINN: http://nownyc.org/service-fund/get-help/rape-sexual-assault/
SAVI: http://www.mountsinai.org/patient-care/service-areas/community-medicine/areas-of-care/sexual-assault-and-violence-intervention-program-savi/services
The New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault: http://www.svfreenyc.org/survivors_emergency.html
NYS Department of Health: https://www.health.ny.gov/prevention/sexual_violence/what_to_do.htm
The New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault: http://nyscasa.org/get-help/crisis-centers-by-county/