A Woman Is Not An Object or a Prize
As a female Peace Corps volunteer, there is no escaping it.
The sideways glances, the stares that last too long in your direction, the sigh you feel leaving your body when you're asked, yet again, if you are married or if you're dating anyone- and if you're not, "why not?"
There is a lot a person can get used to and become accustomed to when living in a foreign place. I am no longer phased by the fact that my toilet is simply just a hole in the ground, or that I have to wash my clothes by hand, or plans don't work out, or a three hour long car ride could end up taking me almost an entire twenty-four hours. Those are things that are easy to adapt to.
But the one thing that I will never fully adapt to? The one thing that continues to wear on me and chips away at the patience and acceptance I have built for other things in this experience? It's the feeling that no matter what, I am constantly looked at by men as an object, and I'm spoken to as if I have a buying price.
"Where is your husband?"
"Why are you not married yet?"
"My love, I love you, I want to marry you."
"Don't you want a husband? You need to start having children"
"Please, my darling, love me. We can go back to America together."
"If I was to marry you, you would be worth 1,000 cows. I would pay your father and he would be very happy."
"Hey baby, you are so sexy."
"Why are you not talking to me everyday? Is it because you do not want to be with me?"
"He is saying that because he wants to be with you, he does not mean any harm."
Let me be clear about something here, these aren't things I have heard from just Guinean man. I've heard it in all of my travels across the world. From my creepy rickshaw driver in Cambodia who picked me up from the airport, to the safari car driver in Tanzania where I worked for a summer, to my female host mother during my rural homestay in Uganda, who told me basically that “men will be men” when a drunk neighbor came by and wouldn't leave me alone. After awhile, this gross objectification starts to get to you.
However, I think the difference for me now is that in the past, the trip always ended. I would go home and was able to surround myself again with male figures and close friends who respect me as a human being and don't look at me like I'm a walking vagina and breasts.
I was able to build those walls up again and rebuild stronger each time, so that each new foreign experience, I started to care less about the stares, the crass comments, and the creepy actions towards me. I grew, I learned how to recognize these men and these situations, and I would brush them off or I would say something really brash and straightforward like "I want a husband someday but it won't be you." or I'd ask "Why is it necessary for me to have children?". I could say what I wanted and be as cold and detached as I needed to be if someone was making me uncomfortable or was being disgusting to me because, 9 times out of 10, I was probably never going to see them again.
I had these walls, these safeguards, and these skills I gained from over a decade of dealing with men out there who feel as if myself and other women are something that is owed to them. I came into Peace Corps with that fortress of self reliance under my belt and I was ready to take on what Guinea was going to throw at me. And let me tell you, in the last 17 months, the constant objectification has been bombarded on me.
The stares from men anytime I go anywhere, the constant comments from taxi driver asking me where my husband is (or if I want a husband, or can they be my husband?), having my photo taken without my consent, having to refuse invitations to men's homes, the persistent feeling of never fully being safe in a crowded male dominated space… the list could go on, and I know for a fact most other female volunteers I know have similar stories to share with you. It's gotten to the point where many of us just find it necessary for our sanity to straight up lie about being married or engaged to avoid further questions because, after the hundredth time of hearing "So if you are not married or engaged, you need to find someone here to marry." you stop wanting to have the argument of women's rights and choices.
But, all that said and done, those are the sort of instances and people I can deal with. Sure, they're exhausting, but I built those walls on purpose and they've kept me safe here. These sort of things exist everywhere in the world; as much as I individually do what I can to change those actions and inherited traits of these sorts of people, I try not to let them affect my life.
What exhausts me in the end, are the alarming number of men here whom I've put my trust in to not act that way towards me, and then having them betray that trust. They are the cannonballs among the pebbles being thrown in my direction and they are the ones that are wearing me down to a point of burn out.
Guinea, like almost all of the rest of the world, is a male dominated society. Unlike the culture I grew up in that has adapted and begun the journey of social equality for all, many Guinean men do not see women are their equals. It’s a culture where a bride price still exists, meaning simply that a woman literally has a monetary value assigned to her and her rights, her choices, and her body can be sold to the highest bidder. It is also a culture where, for the most part, the thoughts and feelings of the males in society are seen as the only ones that matter. But because I want to get work done, and because I want to make a difference, I grit my teeth and I grin through my gut-wretching feeling of wanting to run the opposite direction. I try to make friendships, develop work relationships, and have casual conversations with the opposite gender.
...Obviously the director of a branch of a major non-governmental organization in our area who works with my health center would be willing to work with me on helping to improve the capacity building of the community. We have so much to work on and he'd be a great work colleague. At least that's what I thought until I went to his house once on my way to my regional capital, just to chat, and he told me he wanted to "marry a beautiful American woman" and would leave his wife to do so, staring at me the whole time like a vulture waiting for his chance at the roadkill. Uncomfortable, I left and ignored his phone calls after that. He's since been moved to another posting in the lower part of the country.
...Of course this guy in my community who wants to work on organizing sessions for malaria trainings wants to just work with me because he cares about what I'm here to do… unless of course he's decided that by doing this with me, it was his way of telling me how much he loves me and wants to be with me. He said this to me over text message after a campaign that we did. When I didn't answer him and I started getting his six phone calls and fourteen text messages a day for a week, I finally had the doctor at my health center get involved and the harassment ended.
...There's no way that my friend and French tutor, a young, well educated, guy, would want anything more than my friendship and to hang out- until he asks me to dump the Peace Corps volunteer I’ve been dating so I could date him and when I said no, that I just wanted to be friends, he proceeds to stop speaking to me.
I’ll reiterate again, this sort of thing happens to women in America and all over the world; I'm aware it's not just a Guinean phenomenon of culture. But when my Peace Corps service has consisted of over ~80% of my interactions with male acquaintances always leading to me hearing a comment about my marriage status, or the 99.5% chance of me being nice to the taxi driver and then giving him my number to contact him for rides later, result in him constantly calling me asking to hang out, or, when I have at least a 1 in 2 chance of a man I'm trying to develop a professional friendship with, is thinking that working with me is eventually a way to get in my pants- you really begin to question whether you’re going to be able to make any difference at all.
So, what keeps me going on days that I feel like this? And feel like venting out about how I don't think things will ever evolve in this testosterone filled space I find myself currently apart of?
Every single day is a constant struggle to keep pushing back against these norms and keep allowing myself to trust people and let my guard down- despite being hampered with so many reasons to be jaded and shut the men out all together. But the reason I don't give up is there are men who are an exception the rule. By forming friendships with these men and having them embrace that fact that I am a human being, not an object or a prize to be won, it empowers them to teach others group them how to act and behave towards the opposite sex. It gives me hope that they will be the ones to change the ways of the next generation.
I see it in my friend Cissé, who's marriage I was a part of and who has constantly been working with me to start a girls' sports club.
I see it in my Chef de Santé, Dr. Bah, who always tells me about the importance of educating women and calls me his teacher.
I see it in my counterpart Mamadou, who has never once asked me about a husband or has ever made a pass at me in our year and a half of working together.
I finished writing this, and I went and stopped by my health center and sat down with Dr. Bah. Frustrated, I explained my feelings to him about how men act here. He said something to me that gives me hope. “Les hommes qui ne respectent pas les femmes ne sont pas des hommes bons.” The men who do not respect women are not good men.
So, because of them, and Guinean male role models like them, I keep moving forward. I keep finding ways to, cautiously and carefully, let the other gender into my life while I'm here. I keep going so that, maybe one day, men like my few Guinean male friends who respect me and respect the rights and choices of women, will no longer be the exception but will instead be the rule.
