Fuck Yeah, Gender Studies!

(I spent ages figuring out that title….)

Trigger warning: violence; sexual assault.

There was something of bulge in news coverage last week concerning a story by Jo Walters at the Guardian, in which she explained why she brought up with her local bus company the issue of drivers calling her things like ‘love’ and ‘babe’. There was an awful lot of “oversensitive” and “political correctness gone mad!”-type comments from various sources (including, of course, the usual CiF rubbish) but now it’s kind of fizzled away.

What Walters’s above piece highlights is that language matters. And it does—as I have written in other areas before. Using pet or infantilising names for women is harmful.

But, for now at least, i’m happy for it to continue—for me (NB that ‘for me’, please!). Here’s why.

I’m afraid.
Don’t misunderstand me; i’m not suggesting that i endure the harm of this language because i’m intimidated. Rather, i endure it because, as i see it, the alternative is worse (as i will explain) and i’m trying to protect myself from that.

I am acutely aware that because i am a woman i am in danger of getting attacked on my way home. Between when i leave the CCTV-covered, well-lit and very public bus stop to get on the bus and when i arrive at my front door, i know that my general safety diminishes—keeps on decreasing as I move further towards the darkness of the suburbs, as i become less and less publicly visible. I know that there’s no CCTV on the buses. I know that when i alight the bus there won’t be anybody else around to see me. The street light are dim and people certainly won’t be out at this time of night.

If i’m lucky, anyway.

I know I can’t control whether there’s someone waiting to attack me. I can carry my keys jammed between my fingers like a weapon, but i know i can’t fend off an attacker. I can try to mark his face or arms so his friends or his girlfriend or his mother wonders how he got those cuts; I can try to get some DNA, maybe—but i know that fighting back could well place me in more danger. I know that might happen. If someone is going to attack me, they’re going to attack me—no amount of fighting back or rape alarms will make a difference.

But if the bus driver remembers me as the person who got on the bus, smiled at him and said hello and the person he called ‘love’ who smiled again and thanked him as she got off, maybe he’ll also remember the man he passed on the road a little further up the route heading the same direction she did. Maybe he’ll remember the other passenger who got off at the same stop. Maybe he’ll remember something.

To me, the bus driver, confined to the driver’s seat, with scheduled stops and places to be at designated times, is benign in comparison to the faceless attacker that so terrifies me. I am quite willing to be ‘love’ or ‘darling’ if it means that someone remembers where i was and at what time.

Please note that i am not for a moment suggesting that women should have to suffer the harm of infantilising and demeaning language ‘just in case’ something else should happen that makes it pertinent. Not at all. But, speaking solely for myself, since i know that there is no CCTV on buses; that people in my village don’t leave their houses that late at night; that people probably won’t respond to rape alarms, cries of ‘Fire!’ or screams for help; that there is nothing i can really do to prevent myself being attacked nor anything else i can really do to try to ensure i am visible to witnesses… being ‘love’ is worth it. I’m too afraid of the alternative not to. (And this applies during the day, too…)

So, yeah, harmful language does matter. But, until the larger problem of men harming women is addressed, i’m willing to put up with it. I’m not saying it’s okay. I’m not saying it’s not a big deal. Words really are harmful, i know that. I cannot stress this enough: I’m certainly not suggesting every or any other woman on the planet should feel obliged to endure demeaning language, much less be thankful (or something) for it. I’m not thankful. I don’t think anybody “should” anything.

Rape, rape culture—rape is hidden in plain sight. People don’t see it. Nobody witnesses shit, not even its existence! So, just for myself, in the situation i live in, i have decided that putting up with ‘love’ is something i have to do because i know i am powerless to stop an attacker, and it makes me the smallest amount less terrified every single day to think that someone might see me, see something.

And yes, i know that’s fucked up as all hell but that’s kind of the fucking point i’m making. It’s fucking fucked that i or anyone is in this position at all. But it is what it is and i have to do what i can to feel more secure.