What traveling with a man taught me about street harassment

What traveling with a man taught me about street harassment

I sat on the stairs of our Airbnb studio, lacing up my sneakers for my first run since leaving London four months ago. As I tied the bow, I thought absently, "I hope I don't get bothered."

And then it occurred to me: I hadn't been harassed in four months, and the only reason the thought had occurred to me was because I automatically associated running with street harassment.

My initial explanation for the four-month reprieve was "Men are different here" - and maybe they are, but there's another factor that might offer a better explanation: Every time I was in public, I was with Peter. From hiking, biking and diving to relaxing on the beach, Peter was by my side, unknowingly providing me with “protection” that I don’t normally have.

Believe me, it angers the feminist in me to say this (“I have a husband to protect me”), but the difference was surprisingly clear. Of course, without spending time alone in the Pacific, I can't say for sure whether the quiet is due to Peter or just a more polite culture, but I can say one thing for sure: it's bloody awesome.

I noticed that my life in London was somehow harder. I felt hazy as I walked the streets, more awake, more restless. It wasn't fear or paranoia as such; more of a cloak of caution.

It is said that men are more vulnerable to physical assault on the streets, and I'm sure the statistics don't lie, but what the statistics don't show is the mental toll that most women carry in their daily lives.

Sometimes the harassment isn't that bad and I can joke about it:

Two men just yelled at me from opposite sides of the street. In the end it looked like they were going to hit each other. I wish I could have coded it. – Kia Abdullah (@KiaAbdullah) September 17, 2012

Sometimes it's seemingly harmless, but still annoying:

Men, just because it's seemingly as harmless as "nice" and you say it quietly doesn't mean it's not harassment. — Kia Abdullah (@KiaAbdullah) August 3, 2014

And sometimes it's absolutely disgusting, something many men have never experienced. Earlier this year, Laura Bates (founder of Everyday Sexism) wrote an article in the Guardian. In it, she describes a patchwork of harassment as a “week of little pinpricks.”

When Peter read it, he commented mildly, "Wow, she's unlucky." After reading the first paragraph, he probably had the reaction that many other men - intelligent, worldly, good-natured, gentlemanly men - also had. I explained to her that no, she wasn't unlucky.

That's the way it is. I've told him some of my scarier experiences over the years (most of which pale in comparison to other women's experiences).

There was the 20-year-old guy who followed me to school on his bike and kept threatening to rip my underwear off. I was 14 years old. There was the middle-aged man who asked me to watch his van while he knocked on someone's door to ask for the bathroom - and then went into a corner and started masturbating. (Two months later, the same man approached me on the street with the same request. I left as quickly as possible.)

There was the guy who followed me out of the subway station at 11pm and tried to stop me as I rushed for a taxi. There was the group of teenagers who had a megaphone in their car - a megaphone - and who, when I didn't respond to their sexual comments, shouted, "Oh, come on! Look at what you're wearing!"

I hated myself that day because the first thing I thought was, 'Okay, it's red, but there's no cleavage and I'm wearing tights so I have no leg' - as if cleavage or leg excused her behavior. It was the same dress I was wearing when a man walked by and said "tits" under his breath. I threw the dress away that day.

Not having to deal with this bullshit and all the other seemingly harmless offenses in between made me realize how damaging it is, how unfair. These last four months of freedom have taught me that what I accept as life in London is unacceptable. I'm not yet sure whether this realization, this newfound intolerance, is good or bad.

All I know is that I'm not looking forward to finding out.

Mission statement: Atlas & Boots

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