Today, I was placed in a very unique situation. Today, I was able to (in a controlled and non threatening environment) confront two of my harassers.
First, the backstory—
I was picking my husband up from his office, which he was in the process of remodelling, and needed to use the ATM. Luckily, there was one located some 100 metres away that I figured I could dash to while waiting for him to come out. I had pulled out my cash and noticed my husband leaving the building, so instead of standing on the road waiting for him (it was just starting to drizzle down), I decided to head back to where our car was parked. My husband was probably about 50 metres behind me by then.
En route to the car, I noticed two young men were walking towards me, and experience told me to brace myself, as their laughing and leering meant I was most likely in for some type of harassment. I had to pass them on my way to the car, and even if I stood still they would have passed me anyway, so I did what most women would do in this situation— put my head down, didn’t make eye contact, and kept walking.
Sure enough, the moment I passed these men, it started.
“Hey sexy” one of them shouted, as the other giggled. A few more profane Sinhala words followed, which I didn’t hear particularly clearly, because by then they had walked a few feet away. (Yes, street harassers rarely harass head on. They usually wait until they have passed you by, so you can’t really confront them).
In any case, I whirled around angrily (as I generally do), and had just started to ask them what their problem was, when I noticed them exchanging words with my husband. This was a little confusing as I knew my husband was too far back at the time to have heard or noticed their brief exchange.
“No, I’m just heading out for a while. I will be back soon,” he told them (in Sinhala). It took me a while to figure this out, and then it hit me.
“Are these your baases (construction workers)?” I asked, loudly, from where I was standing.
When the men noticed me talking to my husband and, I suppose, figured out that we had some sort of relationship, they briskly walked off back to the building.
After a few more confused questions from both our ends— “Who are those guys?” “What happened?” “Are you kidding me?” etc. my husband called his contractor and told him what happened. The contractor, who was quite appalled at the situation, asked us to please come back to office.
It must be said, that at this point, I really wasn’t feeling like confronting these men. I know, I know, for someone who is always harping on to everyone I know about harassment and misogyny in Sri Lanka, this was the perfect opportunity to tell them off. But to be perfectly honest, I was tired. By then, my anger had ebbed away to sadness. It was the third time I had gotten harassed that day, and it does take something out of you.
Anyways, after a firm pep-talk from my husband about how nothing will ever change if we take this sort of abuse lying down, I had shaken myself out of my funk and headed in to the office wondering how best to approach this situation.
I was upset, of course, but I didn’t want to shout at or scold these men. Despite the unfairness that women face on daily basis, I do know that much of it stems from ignorance— not from men purposely trying to hurt women, but from men not thinking about a woman’s feelings at all (in some cases at least). What I hoped to do was ask them why they did it, and try to explain to them the type of hurt it causes. I figured that if I want change, then I need to reason with them, not just yell at them (which would probably cause them to get defensive and not understand the situation).
The contractor spoke to me, and after a embarrassed and sincere apology, had the man who shouted “sexy” apologise as well. I’m going to type out our conversation as I best remember it. Of course, the whole conversation did take place in Sinhala, but I will type it out in English.
Baas 1: (Looking quite bashful and downcast) I’m very sorry, madam.
Me: Could you please bring your friend and come join me outside. I would like to speak to you both for a moment.
(He left and came out with his friend, who looked at me very defiantly.)
Me: Listen, I know that for you’ll this kind of thing is just a joke, but you must understand that it’s very difficult for women who must face this kind of thing every day.
Baas 2: (Aggressively) What? What? What’s wrong with what we said?
(By this time the contractor, who was observing this situation from afar, pulled Baas 2 away. I could hear him being told off, and decided to continue my conversation with Baas 1, who seemed more receptive)
Baas 1: I am very sorry madam. It was just a joke. I didn’t touch you, so I didn’t think it was a big deal.
Me: You might think words are not a big deal, but wouldn’t you be hurt if your boss, for instance, came now and abused you in filth?
Baas 1: Yes, madam, very sorry. But for us it was just a joke.
Me: Don’t you have a mother, or a sister? How would you feel if someone treated them the way you treated me?
Baas 1: I know madam, I really am sorry. It was just a joke. Since I didn’t touch you (said while gesturing to his chest), it’s just a joke.
At this point, this is what stuck out to me the most. That he kept saying that it was a joke, and nothing particularly serious, because he didn’t grope me.
By this time, my husband’s colleagues had joined us, and after filling them in on the situation, I left. At the time I left, Baas 1 continued to be very humble and apologetic, and Baas 2 went inside the office and glared at me from a distance.
After I left, Baas 1 had also spoken to my husband, and apologised profusely, repeatedly saying “I never touched her,” and “I would have never done this if I had known she was your wife.”
Baas 2 had aggressively approached my husband’s business partner, asking him what his problem was.
Well, to cut this long story down some, after a talk with the contractor about the type of people he should hire in future, both baases were kicked off the project.
(Just some disclosure here, that I didn’t ask for them to be kicked off the project. I don’t think that would have helped them understand the gravity of harassment. But my husband, his business partner, and the contractor all believed that this was the best way for these men to understand that there were repercussions for their actions, and that at least this way they would think twice before they harassed someone else in the future.)
And while there’s a part of me that hopes a lesson was learned, a large part of me knows this to be untrue. Let’s reflect, for a moment, on what they said—
“We didn’t touch you, so it’s just a joke.”
Sad, but a common understanding amongst most Sri Lankan men (and even some women). We live in a society where a common leisure time activity for young men is to walk the streets of Colombo in groups, shouting rude/lewd comments at women. And women are just supposed to grin and bear this, because it isn’t physical.
I guess we haven’t come to terms with the concept of verbal abuse, and why it’s such a big deal, but the bottom line is this— even if it is just words, these words make women feel unsafe and objectified. It hinders our mobility, and our basic ability to function within our own society.
“I would have never done it if I had known she was your wife.”
The comment, I believe, that angered my husband the most. Sure, I was lucky to be the boss’ wife the one time these guys got caught. What about all the other women these men have victimised? I guess they aren’t sorry, because well, they didn’t get into trouble over that.
But what struck me here was that he assumed that my husband would not have cared if it had been some other woman. And this is not untrue, because it’s generally what has happened in my experience with Sri Lankan men. There have been multiple times where I have been harassed, in crowded areas, with plenty of other (unknown) men in sight. Not one of those men have ever stood up for me.
Doesn’t it say a lot about our society, that everyone on the road will stop what they are doing and run over when they see a car accident, but no one will give a second glance at a woman who is being harassed?
An important thing to note, I feel, is that street harassers fall largely in to two categories—
1. Perverts with psychological issues, who physically harass women by groping, leering, masturbating in public, flashing, and other attacks of a sexual or physical nature.
2. Men who feel that shouting comments of a joking or sexual nature is a fun, alpha male type pastime that they can do when they are with friends.
Obviously the harassers in my story fall in to the second category. The perverts that belong to the first category should, whenever possible, be turned in to the authorities. My second category harassers, on the other hand, approach harassment with the ever corrosive “boys will be boys”/“all in good fun” mentality, which I see is so prevalent within our Sri Lankan culture.
What saddens me though, is that despite my trying my best to explain to my harassers the type of damage their words can do, I don’t think I did a very good job. They didn’t leave that situation enlightened, or with a better understanding. They honestly saw no harm in what they did, and thus, believe themselves to be faultless.
So to me, it begs the questions, what can we do? How would we explain this in a way that it would be understood? How do we even begin to explain to men that what they grew up thinking was harmless, is actually quite harmful?
If anyone has a success story with enlightening their harasser, it would be great if you could share it. I think we would all benefit from learning what we could say, not to fight with the person, but to combat the deeply engrained mindset of people who harass women on the streets (or anywhere else for that matter).
[A few more things I want to note for the sake of full disclosure—
This type of harassment is barely scratching the surface of the type of harassment that many women face. In fact, when simply categorised against various harassment I have received over the years, it can easily be classified as ‘mild.’ However, the reason I am writing about it is simply because I had the opportunity to talk to these men afterwards. This provided me a rare opportunity to understand the psychology behind what many men view as an innocent activity.
I did receive a comment on my previous post discussing the elitist nature of the way I (and some of my readers) apparently tend to view harassers. Once again, I am writing about an isolated incident. Yes, in this instance my harassers were construction workers and from a specific socio-economic group, but there have been plenty of instances where I have been harassed from people of different backgrounds and more affluent socio-economic groups as well. I just have not been able to have a civilised conversation with them to be able to write about it afterwards.
I feel it’s also worth mentioning that one of my husband’s colleagues was extremely surprised when he heard this story. The reason for his surprise was because he had the opportunity to have a chat or two with these baases before, and found out that they were deeply religious. Baas 1 (who shouted “sexy”) was even saving up money for a religious pilgrimage, and also had very conservative views society. I am not going to mention the religion, because I feel that would distract from the topic of harassment, and also push this conversation in a direction that would not benefit any of us. But I did think it was interesting, that even those who considered themselves to be of a sound moral standing would still think that there was nothing wrong with these particular actions.]
To Colombo, With Love 