Femmy-fem-fem-feminist.

I think this research direction is going to enhance (?) my feminist-ness (watch out Marin). Tonight I left the library somewhat late and took an express bus over to bank which was supposed to leave me with a 2 minute wait for the trusty ole #7. Problem was the bus had come a few minutes early leaving me with a longer wait. I started to walk to the next bus stop to kill time, keep warm, meet the bus a bit sooner and ditch the creepy mccreepy-ton guy who was also waiting at the bus stop. Problem is he walked to the next stop too. I did this again, and so did he. Finally 4 bus stops later of this continuing to happen, he started to talk to me, asked me where I was going and just being generally creepy - I was getting ready to hit him with my bag full of domestic violence books I had just checked out (yes, I know) when finallllly the bus came. I got on and called Brad and told him to meet me at the corner of our street where the bus lets me off (which is like a 2 min walk to our house tops). Creepy mccreepy-ton got off when I made the call, maybe a coincidence I dunno. Maybe, I had just read too much tonight about gendered violence... I was glad Brad could do that for me (thanks) but, I am so pissed I felt I had to do that. I hate feeling so much more unsafe because I am a woman. I appreciate that men can feel unsafe at night on the streets too but, this fear I experienced tonight (and have before and will again) ... I don't know - I feel it is so much more prevalent amongst women - and to some extent justified. I hate to be made to feel powerless. Maybe that guy was just generally creepy and not creepy but, I would be seen as irresponsible had something happened. "Why were you out on Bank street by yourself at that time?" As if I were the one to have done something wrong. I think I need to re-read my copy of The Story of Jane Doe: A Book About Rape

"The strategy used by police to control public space, whether directed at women, youth or people of colour, is uniform. It goes like this: Make us afraid. Once you've instilled fear, it's easier to control or limit the space in which each group, each community can function. If the authorities make us fear enough and then bill themselves as protectors, their budget will never be at risk. In a traditional patriarchal society such as ours, the first articulated response to fear is to protect the women and children. The good ones anyway. The only way to do that, they say, is to increase police presence, to build more prisons and to enact harsher sentencing. The state response is to segregate the good people from the bad, both in community and on the streets.

So they warn us about the stranger rapist and then hold us responsible if we do not censor our movements, if we do not barricade our doors, our windows, our lives. If we do not live passively, poorly and without expressing our sexuality or politics.

Even if we obey their injunctions, the real violence is in our homes - wife or partner assault - continues to escalate. I don't for a moment wish to dismiss or disrespect fear. In my home province, three women are murdered by men they know every month. In Canada a woman is raped every seventeen minutes. I think that we can say that fear is a healthy and even wise response to the threat of danger in our lives, especially for women who live with racism and poverty. Especially for women who work in the sex trades or have been in conflict with the law.

We must honour our fear.

The problem is that we do not get to define it or strategize around it or implement solutions to address it.

So the next time you hear the warning don'ts or read them in the paper (and you will see them again soon) think of this more effective warning:
MEN: Stay in the house, don't open your windows or doors. Never mind that it's thirty degrees Celsius in the shade. There is a rapist in this area, so lock yourselves up.

or:

MEN: Stay off the buses. One of you is raping women, and we don't know, can't tell which one, so until we find out stay at home, do not use underground parking or take shortcuts through the park. Okay, okay, if you are accompanied by woman who can vouch for your good male status, then you can come out. Otherwise, you are in danger.

The warning above and the one we are accustomed to hearing are both stupid and outrageous and call on a large group of people to censor their lives. Our response is to laugh at one and obey the other, when it is the 'funny' one that would more effectively address the crime because it puts the onus on the offending group."

Jane Doe, The Story of Jane Doe: A Book About Rape (Toronto: Random House Canada, 2003), 324 - 325.

A CBC movie was made about her story see here I did not see it, yet, but, I did have the enormous privilege of meeting this woman last year in my Ethical Dimensions of Conflict course.