Stop telling women to “just say no” if they’re not interested and being harassed.
On the night of January 22, 29-year old Janese Talton-Jackson was shot to death on a sidewalk by a man who was angry because she refused to give him her phone number upon request. Her story is sadly reminiscent of Mary Spears’, who was killed in similar circumstances in 2014. Every few months stories like these make it into the news cycle, even though related harassment and assaults are happening every day in the US and elsewhere. When stories do surface, people express surprise, sadness and outrage, all of which seem to dissipates in a heartbeat. If there is more prolonged criticism, it often falls along racist, ethnic, nationalist, classist lines, despite the far greater prevalence of attacks on women by men in their own peer groups
Women can and do say no, sometimes successfully and in ways that are empowering. When we do, people applaud us, cheer us on, make videos that go viral. But, every single time we do so at great risk.
No, taking naked pictures doesn’t mean I consent to sharing them.
No, I don’t want to perform oral sex on a stranger.
No, I don’t want to be married to you anymore.
No, what I wear doesn’t give you rights to sex.
No, I don’t want to send you naked pictures.
No, I don’t want to see your naked picture.
No, I don’t want to see you anymore.
No, I don’t want to get back together.
No, drinking doesn’t mean I consent.
No, I won’t go to the prom with you.
No, you cannot share that picture.
No, I don’t want you to touch me.
No, I don’t want to live with you.
No, I don’t want to have a drink.
No, you’re abusing your power.
No, I don’t want to talk to you.
No, I want to keep this baby.
No, I don’t want to date you.
No, I want to go to school.
No, I don’t want to smile.
Street harassment doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Women everywhere, whether consciously or not, have to be vigilant about a broad spectrum of violence: street harassment, sexual assault, stalking, and both stranger and intimate partner assault. One in three American woman has experienced domestic violence. One in six is stalked. An American woman’s chance of being sexually assaulted is one in five, one in three if she is Native American.
Women. Can’t. Say. No. “Just tell him to you aren’t interested?” is a sorry and entitled display of really not caring what happens to the person you are talking to. The list above is long, but edited down. How many women have to die because they say “no” before this is taken seriously as a matter of public health and women’s rights?
I’m saddened by Janese Talton-Jackson’s brutal killing. But I am enraged that attacks like this happen all the time and we continue to ignore the connective tissue. Last month, a man, angry that a woman had rebuffed him earlier in the night, knocked down the front door of her apartment and, when he found she wasn’t home, grabbed her three month old puppy and threw it out of a third floor window. Last week, a man was sentenced to two years in jail for attacking his spouse with a hammer. Another was arrested for attacking his girlfriend as she tried to attempt leaving him. And yet a third was arrested after killing his wife for wanting divorce. This week, police in Florida are trying to locate a man who has been serially harassing women real estate agents while they work.
In some countries, the most violent attacks against girls and women involve acid throwing, in others, like ours, its more likely to involve setting a woman on fire, ashappened in Pomona, California on Christmas Day. If it had happened in, say, India, chances are you would have heard about it. That might sound like an outlier, until you begin to look and see similar cases in Maryland, Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri,Oregon. Clearly all these women weren’t subservient enough and just as clearly, no mainstream media outlet is keeping track.
Damon Young writes about this from his perspective as a man and a father, here.
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