Inspired by this wonderful post on the F word ‘Why do you think it is appropriate to grope me?’ I would like to recall an incident that happened to me and some friends a few weeks ago. An incident that joins the dots in my mind, that stands out as just one example of how this rampant misogyny goes unchallenged in our society and that does who do challenge it are often met with antagonistic defences, belittled and attacked themselves.
We entered the MtoGo shop at Liverpool Central station, to access the ticket office. Immediately on our left, at eye level as we walked into the shop, the first thing we noticed, was a display of lads mags. As feminist activists returned from a discussion that included the question ‘Why do we need feminist today?’ we were fired up and pissed off. We decided, as a small protest, to turn the magazines back to front so their overtly sexualised and objectifying covers were not on public display. We were told to turn them round, we reused, explained it was a protest. We were then challenged rather rudely by the member of staff on duty. I think we hit a nerve, he was certainly rattled by our little protest beyond his rather pathetic complaint that he’d be so put out and inconvenienced by the 30 seconds it would take him to turn them round again, we were told ‘it’s not a public place I wouldn’t come into your house and do that, turn them back’ and generally subjected to an adolescent whinge from an adult man. At no point were we offered advice on how to send in an official complaint. At one point my friend who was purchasing a ticket from the man in question was refused her ticket by him in a ‘jokey’ way, she told him to stop ‘pissing about’.
We thought nothing of it, we left and went through the barriers. Five seconds later we were accosted by security and told our friend who had ‘insulted’ the member of staff could not travel. We asked what the problem was, we were refused an answer, after further inquiry it was stated that she ‘had upset a member of staff’ by using ‘obscene language’, we asked for confirmation of what was said and were refused. After speaking to the manager, to whom we recounted the entire story, and being rudely told off for our small protest and offered excuses such as ‘other shops sell them’ ‘you don’t have to look at them’ in a highly antagonistic and down right bloody rude manner ; essentially we were told our account would not be believed and that her staff’s account would be. We offered a full apology to the staff member in question, who refused to accept it and continued to be rude and antagonistic to us and suggested ‘there are plenty of buses you can get on’ when it was confirmed we were still refused travel despite posing no risk to anyone apart from a few magazines (which were left undamaged) .
After reading the linked post, things are slotting into place. We obviously upset the guy, not by turning round a few magazines, but by challenging his privileges. We upset the managers by asserting that we had a right to feel upset and uncomfortable around publicly displayed sexist and objectifying material, material which fuels a culture of sexual harassment and violence towards women.We challenged the status quo.
We challenged a visual and written culture which makes it OK to reduce women to body parts to be consumed for male pleasure. A culture which makes men thinks it’s OK to yell at women, phrases such as ‘Hey you suck my cock!’ or ‘look at the arse on that!’ and ‘hey love you’re wobbling a bit there’, to be called a ‘bastard bitch’ when I refuse the advances of a creepy fuckwit.
FYI all the above have been personally directed towards me whilst out minding my own business in Liverpool city centre, the area served by Central station and it’s lads mags on prominent display. In fact I have been harassed by men on the station platform, with no staff around to complain to lest I exit the platform and miss my train.
This is a culture which makes it OK for men to grab random body parts of women as a ‘compliment;’ to dance too close to women and follow us around a club after we have moved away and said ‘no’ multiple times, to stroke our hair without asking after we have again said ‘no’ and moved away. A culture that thinks it’s OK to ‘get women bladdered’ to ‘get off with them’ (essentially date rape) a culture that assumes you are ‘asking for it’ if you dress or act a certain way, or just dare to exist as a woman.
All this stuff is connected, all this stuff is why I am so angry a public service treated us so badly when we made a point about a public display that objectifies half their customers and excuses harassment and abuse by others. All this is why I get so angry every time I see a magazine like ‘Nuts’ or ‘Zoo’ which treat women as commodities to be used and abused by their reader, every time I see a poster on city streets offering women for sale directly or otherwise, every time I feel threatened and unsafe due to a man behaving like he has a right to my body and my time despite my obvious refusal, every time I have escaped a ‘near miss’ situation, every time I hear from a woman who has not escaped, every time I see an image or article that EXCUSES and ENCOURAGES such behaviour, every time I see women disbelieved and insulted; branded ‘bitches’ sluts’ and ‘liars’ told they ‘asked for it’ or ‘deserved it’ when they speak up about abuse they have suffered.
Every time women are reminded this society does not view us a s fully human.
If we had turned round ‘Homes and Garden’ or ‘The Economist’ in protest at extortionate house prices and various capitalist ills for example, I doubt we would have been treated like this.
