#4

This isn’t “normal”.

By Sid Watson. Edited by Ruth Hetherington.

Illustrations by @graphic.jod

TRIGGER WARNING: this article explores issues of sexual assault and violence towards women.

In truth, I don’t really know how to write this article, so please forgive me if my communication is clumsy; this is new territory for me. A few days ago I attended a vigil for Sarah Everard, a woman who was tragically murdered just over three weeks ago. Following this, there has been a national outpouring of grief and a cry for systemic change, and the vigil was a reflection of that need for change. For me it was a deeply moving experience, filled with so much pain, grief and anger, but simultaneously it brought a great sense of community and support; but it left me in a state I didn't expect. Though I don’t consider myself even a victim of sexual assault I began to question to what extent all women are victims of sexual violence and its indirect impacts.

I think before hearing their stories, I didn’t quite realise how normalised sexism and sexual assault is, and how often I’ve experienced it, or at least acted differently because of the threat of it. I knew I’d been catcalled and honked at, once even rubbed up against by a drunk man on the tube; and those experiences were distressing and demeaning in the moment, but I had thought that they hadn’t really impacted me - at the time I just believed that's what happened to women. I think some part of me thought that because my experiences were small in comparison to the countless women who have been raped or sexually assaulted in much more traumatising ways, I hadn’t really experienced sexual abuse or even really sexism. But as I listened to their stories, I began recalling experiences that

“as a society, must change; because this isn't normal and we cannot be subdued into thinking that it is.”

suggested otherwise: complaining how I wish I could go for walks at night alone like some of my male friends did, but that obviously I couldn’t; calling a friend when walking home along a less populated road at 6pm; paying close attention to the route my uber driver was taking me, just in case; stopping myself from going to the beach alone because it was getting dark; making up stories about my 6ft 4 rugby-playing boyfriend so drunk men in the taxi line after a night out would leave me alone; I even took a Krav Maga (self defence) class for three months in preparation for travelling with two other girls in South America. And every girl I know has stories like these, and worse: experiences of being limited, told to stay home, or cover up more, or take an uber just in case, or not travel by ourselves, or not get so drunk, or carry our keys between our fingers as a weapon. And these aren’t even stories of actual assault! They’re just how we defend ourselves against the fear of being assaulted.

My point is that I was shocked to realise how many decisions I, and every woman I know, make based on fear of sexual abuse or violence against us because of our gender. Even more, I couldn’t believe how naively unaware of this I was until this point: it was so ingrained in me I had never given it a second thought in 20 years. I finally saw how relentlessly, depressingly normal this treatment is, it's entrenched in our very psyche. But it shouldn’t be and it doesn’t have to be! I don’t know where we go from here and I certainly am not qualified to provide a comprehensive answer to this staggering problem, but I do know that we, as a society, must change; because this isn't normal and we cannot be subdued into thinking that it is.