A conversation about creeping

[lydy]

So, I got creeped on the other night. Predictably, I didn't like it. In fact, it made me several different sorts of furious. But what it didn't make me was afraid. And this caused me to think about all the various conversations I've been hearing lately about harassment, creeping, and so on. Almost all of them talk about safety. We talk a lot about how women are much more likely to be raped than men, that women spend a lot of time worrying about their physical safety, about the incontrovertible fact that women are on average less strong than men. Somewhat related, we talk about how women are socialized to be more passive, but usually in contexts where what we're really talking about is women being less able to protect themselves. We talk a lot about wanting women to feel safe.

You know, I felt perfectly safe the other night. At no point was my physical being in any danger. The guy in question was 20 years older than me, a bit frail, and I had on call a large male co-worker. The guy doesn't know my last name, my home address, and I never had any doubt that my management would support me if I needed to do something drastic. There was, at least in my perception, no actual safety issue.

I was, however, intensely angry at being treated that way. It had nothing to do with being afraid of being raped. It had everything to do with someone acting like I wasn't a real person. Creeping revolves around trying to limit or circumvent someone else's choices. It has to do with attempted coercion, and with assuming that your target's preferences are at best obstacles to be overcome, and basically immaterial to your own wishes. And being subjected to this makes me very angry. And I think it's very reasonable for me to be angry. But I feel this nagging worry that I should have felt unsafe in order to warrant this level of anger.

I don't want to derail useful, necessary discussions. I don't want to undervalue the necessity of people feeling safe in their environments. But it seems to me that there needs to be some sort of acknowledgment that physical safety is not the only thing that is important, and that women have the right to exist in environments that are more than just physically safe. That we have the right to be treated as adults, with the right to make real choices, and that our choices are valid even when it is not directly concerned with physical safety.

It is distinctly possible that I am just not aware of these types of conversations. I hope that's true. But I'm not aware of them. And I think that I am not expressing myself as clearly as I would like to on this issue. Anybody want to help me clarify my thoughts? Point me to some conversations about this? Weigh in? I am definitely looking for input, here.

Comments

[elisem.livejournal.com]

What you are describing makes sense to me and sounds familiar. Like, familiar from the inside.

To be specific: After Jim Frenkel did the thing to me that I reported him for, I noticed a trend in what some people were saying to or about me. They referred to how horrible and damaging the incident must have been for me. Some of them seemed to practically insist on the damage, and on how much fear it must have caused me too. I began to wonder if there was a weird sort of points system whereby some particular and significant amount of damage and/or fear was required in order for it to have been legitimate harassment in their eyes.

I talked about it with Juan and a friend later. "It's like they all assume that I was crushed by the experience -- or require it, even!" Juan snorted and said that he had talked to me on the phone the morning after it happened, and in his words, "You did not sound crushed. Incredulous and pissed off, but hardly crushed."

So yeah, kinda what you said, here.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm. After a certain event at the meeting at our house, people were extremely concerned for me, having to deal with it. I was a bit perplexed at this, as I was not at all upset, just somewhat sad at having to tell someone to leave our home.

I guess it's a human trait to think that everyone reacts to a situation as we ourselves would react. Some people--not all!--then take a different reaction as either (1) meaning it can't possibly have happened/been as bad as the person says or (2) being implicit criticism of ME. That is, there can be only one way to react, and either my way is right, which means the other person didn't experience what they say they did, or my way is wrong and I am a failure even at being a victim.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Me, I was just grateful that the person who had to deal with the unpleasantness was someone who could do so competently and at little cost to herself. So very grateful that it didn't hurt you, too.