Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Yacoubian, Part Deux (Warning: Tangentially related rant to follow)


Blake and I went to see "3amarat Yacoubian" again last night, but this time we went to Cinema al-Tahrir, which is just down the street from our place. The theater is huge! We sat up in the balcony which was pretty well-packed considering that the tickets cost more than twice as much as those on the main floor (25LE vs 10LE). I understood so much more of the dialogue this time around, which was a great relief, but there were still several key scenes that I didn't get at all. I'm going to go see it again with a native Arabic speaking friend next week, so we'll see what I get out of it after that. Maybe by the end of the summer, I'll have the whole damn thing memorized.

One of the themes of the film deals with the subject of harassment of women, something that I happened to be discussing with several male friends the other day after the New York Times published a story on women being harassed or flashed on the subway. Many of the women interviewed noted that they did not respond in any way to the harassment for any number of reasons: shock, fear of reprisal, fear that they might be responsible for this unwanted attention, not wanting to upset children who were present (but, they assume, unaware of the situation).

As someone who has been harassed and physically assaulted in public places all over the world, I was totally dismayed. Primarily, of course, that perpetrators of harassment even think this sort of behavior is acceptable in the first place, but also that women feel unable to protect themselves or voice any sort of response.

There are, of course, many different levels of harassment which call for different levels of response. I, for one, generally try to ignore verbal harassment of all kinds unless it is persistent or extremely offensive or inappropriate (my tendency to walk around plugged into my iPod helps).

Physical harassment, however, is a whole 'nother bag of chips in my book. I've made it a personal rule *never* to let this sort of behavior pass unless doing so would escalate an already dangerous or threatening situation.

I recounted to my friends the story of how, one night in Sana'a (Yemen), I was walking home with my two flatmates - a man and a woman - when a local man walked right up to me and grabbed my crotch. On top of that, he didn't even keep walking, he just stood there! We were all so shocked, for a moment, no one moved. I thought, for whatever reason, that my male flatmate might step in, but when it became apparent that he was not going to move an inch, I took matters into my own hands, despite my disgust at even having to touch this criminal. I grabbed the man by the collar and proceeded to shake him and hit him while I yelled at him loudly in both Arabic and English. Eventually, he ran off, chased by another local man who happened to be walking by and was furious when I explained to him what had just happened.

I told my friends that I was upset and disappointed that my flatmates did not step in to help or protect me, and then asked them what they would have done in that situation. While most agreed with me, one male friend argued that he wouldn't have done anything for the following reasons: (1) such behavior is part of the culture in this part of the world and nothing you can do will change that, and (2) it is more important for him to get a female companion home safely then to pick a fight that might put her in danger. He also noted that "girls like to see their boyfriends beat up other guys" as some sort of explanation for why I was incensed that my flatmate (not boyfriend) didn't step in to help.

First of all, I find the first argument completely insulting, racist and, dare I say it, Imperialist. The idea that any man anywhere in the world somehow thinks it is acceptable to grab a woman's crotch in the middle of a public street is quite possibly one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. You can give all the culturalist explanations you want about how western women are viewed whores in other parts of the world or how this sort of disgusting behavior happens to local women all the time, but what kind of message does it send when a woman keeps quiet and moves on after a complete stranger gropes her?

As for the second point, is violating a woman's physical body in this manner not a threat in and of itself? And the whole sexist notion that a victim of assault would want to respond to the threat so she can realize her fantasy of having a man come to her rescue? You have got to be kidding me. Clearly notions of respect, honor and dignity have nothing to do with it, right?

It just makes my blood boil when people try to rationalize this sort of behavior, and that we as women are expected to suffer it in silence.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think part of the problem is what women talked about in the article: how does one respond? We're all taught what to do if someone tries to rape us. Anything less is seen as "no big deal" by men and women alike. It's a longer mental process to figure out that, yes, a grope is a big deal and screaming your head off is a perfectly acceptable response.

Wed Jun 28, 07:44:00 AM GMT+3  

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