See no evil, hear no evil

For the last 5 years, I have traveled to New York City to attend a conference at the UN called the Commission on the Status of Women which aims to make gender equality a lived experience by women worldwide. Strides to end violence against women and strengthen the participation of women is at the core of this work, so the irony of the experiences I am about to share is not lost on me.

I want to clarify that my personal experiences of violence are exceptional and that I mostly live a very safe and secure life. Yet as I listened at CSW to women talk about the need to redefine traditional definitions of peace and security, I remembered that I too can relate to their experiences, and that my tendency to trivialize some of the experiences I have had are symptomatic of a much larger problem. My stories are no secret, but nor do they regularly come up in dinner conversation, so they will be new to many who read this post.

The first of my stories took place in Rome in 1995, when I was 17 and away for a class trip with my school in France. It was our last night in Rome, and I decided to go for a walk. About half way through my walk, a man stopped me to talk. The ensuing interaction, which you can read about in more detail in 'Traffic', involved two men pursuing me on foot and in a car for what I can only guess was an attempt to abduct me - whether to rape me, or for sex trafficking or for some other purpose - I will fortunately never know. As I was running away from my would-be abductors, I happened to run into my classmates who had decided to go for a walk, prompting the men pursuing me to abandon their chase. I tried to explain to my classmates what has happened, but I had a hard time processing what I had just experienced. I never reported what happened that night to the police, and in the years that followed, I found myself second-guessing that this had actually taken place. It seemed like it was out of a movie. To this day, I have no proof that any of this happened.

The second story took place in 2006 on my second night in Istanbul when I was 29, and a month into a year of travels. I wanted to visit the Beyoglu district where I hoped to listen to folk music, but was having a hard time finding a place to go. I was getting harassed when I entered places on my own, so I was about to get a taxi back to my hotel when a young man who seemed nice enough stopped and asked me to join him for a drink. I decided to say yes, and he brought me to a place that was playing folk music. At the end of the night, he invited me to go have a drink in the park and "watch the lights." I thanked him for the offer but politely declined, and said I wanted to get a taxi, so he offered to walk me back to the taxi stand. En route, in a darker area when no one was around, he suddenly turned around, punched me in the face, pushed me on to a pile of garbage behind a staircase and tried to pull down my pants. I began to scream - screech is probably the right word - as loud as I could, kicked him hard in the balls, and bit his hand as hard as I could. I have often prayed since that I gave him gangrene.

When he pulled his hand away, I was able to regain my footing, and he became scared that someone had heard my screams, so he stole my money and ran off.  It took me a moment to notice that my mouth was bloody, and still more time to realize that one of my teeth was missing. When I managed to find other people on a nearby street, they called the police. When four stern male officers who spoke no English came to pick me up, they couldn't understand why I was reluctant to get into their police car. They brought me to the hospital, where I was forgotten. Eventually I was brought to the police station, where I filed a police report. The investigator wanted to catch the person who did this to me, and - to his credit - was visibly frustrated that I was not willing to give up my prepaid 5-week tour through Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Egypt to stay alone in Istanbul in attempt to identify the perpetrator who probably preyed on tourists. Apart from the cost and insecurity of this option,  I rationalized that staying there was letting my attacker ruin my trip and would give him more power over me and my decisions. When I tried several months later to get a copy of the police report from the Turkish police for insurance purposes, there was no trace of it.

The day after my attack, I learned that in order to replace my lost tooth - since the roots had already died by then - I would need to stay in one place for 3 months to get an implant. That is when - for the first time - I started crying. I have never really understood why something so superficial would be a trigger. Perhaps with an experience so overwhelming, I needed to process the small things before I could begin to tackle the attack itself. Perhaps I also perceived that the physical reminder of the attack - and the resulting whistle from the shameful gap in my teeth - would make it harder to forget. I'm not sure.

In the months that followed, I experienced panic attacks - including a very dangerous scuba diving incident - and I dealt with constant illness, including stomach viruses, a chest infection that lasted three months, a case of giardia, and more antibiotics than I have ever known. In December 2006, I landed in Cape Town, where I had lots of friends and no energy. I decided to forgo my tentative plans of continuing on to Asia, and instead stayed in Cape Town to recover, spend time with my friends, and volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, while completing the $5000 procedure to replace my missing tooth.

These were two clear incidents criminal acts by strangers and I consider myself very lucky in both cases to have gotten away without a worse outcome. I am aware that even if I was able to find the men responsible for these crimes, I would have no way to prove what had happened to me, much less that they were the ones responsible. Both incidents impacted on my life in different ways, but I am resilient and have been able to move on. No one wants to go through something like that, but having been through it, one learns things about yourself that you can't learn any other way. I took some comfort in learning that my instinct was to fight like hell.

More recently, I experienced another more subtle form of violence involving a former co-worker. This person has been a work reference and an invaluable connector for my current work, so it is a relationship I have wanted to maintain, despite unwanted advances which were mostly harmless at first. About 3 years ago, this "friend" became more aggressive. I told him I was flattered but not interested, and while his advances persisted, they always made me uncomfortable. We don't live in the same city now, so when I visit, I have tried to enjoy my time with him and ignore his advances, but I always find myself feeling on guard.

On my most recent visit, I decided to invent a boyfriend to help fend off his advances. It didn't work at all. On the first night, he just ignored what I had said and tried to hold my hand, touch my leg, and kiss me. I asked him to stop. The next time I saw him, he was at it again. After repeatedly telling him no, I experienced an onslaught of verbal abuse aimed at dismissing my agency as a woman. "So what if you have a boyfriend - you're going to dump this guy anyway" and "I'm attracted to you in your absence but not in your presence - you're way too high on yourself" and "get over yourself - I'm in love with someone else" and "you should stay at my place tonight - your place is so far away - you can sleep in my room and I'll stay on the coach" and - after trying to kiss me and me pushing him away - "sorry! sorry! sorry! we are just buddies" which was quickly followed by another attempt to kiss me again - and finally "you're over-reacting" and "you're making a way bigger deal out of this than necessary."

At this point, you would be forgiven for wondering what the f&*% I was thinking and why I ever put up with this. I have a hard time answering that myself. I also couldn't understand how he could have so many intelligent friends, including women, who were willing to look past his behavior.

It was at this point that I realized that I was part of the problem - because I was one of the people who tolerated his actions - "I should give him the benefit of the doubt" and "I don't want to lose him as a reference" and "he's had a stressful week" and "he drank too much" and "he's hurt because I rejected him" and "maybe I gave him mixed signals" and "maybe I over-reacted." But the fact is that I said no over and over again and he would not stop. He has one objective in mind and nothing I said mattered.

I doubt even today that he could admit that he has done anything wrong, much less take responsibility for his actions. I would not tolerate this behavior from anyone else, and I know that by treating him as a friend, I enable and normalize his behavior and open myself up to this or worse again. I now see that I need cut him out of my life and I am quite frankly embarrassed that it took me this long to come to this conclusion.

There are many reasons for how I ended up here, but I think what it comes down to is that I like to be believe in the goodness of the people I call my friends, and believe that they will respect my wishes. I need a lot of proof to the contrary before I believe otherwise. I got it in spades this time. It was a stark reminder that patriarchy is still alive and well and breathing even at home and even among my "friends" today.

Yet the fact is that my experiences are minor compared to those of many women and men who cope with different and more sustained forms of exploitation and violence, both physical, sexual and psychological. I have the choice to leave and stop answering his calls and I can call friends and write blogs about my experience without fear for my safety. Many women (and men) experience similar or worse and never have that luxury.

My visit to CSW this year reminded me how painful these experiences can be for survivors, especially when they are forced to suffer in silence, with no chance of justice. It reminded me how these traumas can affect not only your quality of life, including physical and mental health, but also the lives of those you love. It reminded me of women who must cope with unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, not to mention stigma and rejection from families and communities. How violence - or even the threat of it - can affect your ability to do your job, engage with colleagues, or enjoy a day off. It reminded me that survivors become mistrustful, including of male-dominated security institutions and justice systems that prioritize evidence and all too often re-victimize survivors. It reminded me that violations can happen anywhere - at home, in a bar, at work, at church, or on sports teams; it can happen during peace or conflict; at home or during displacement; in repressive regimes and democracies; in peacekeeping operations and at police stations; and anywhere that unchecked power exists. And above all, it reminded me how very important it is for women to become leaders in shaping the policies and decisions that will help secure our future.

It is perhaps one of the greatest shames of our era that in 2014, there is still so much violence in our lives, both physical and psychological. With one in three women experiencing violence in her lifetime, it is inevitable that violence affects people you know and occurs at the hands of people you know, even if you don't know who they are.

As both a gender equality advocate and someone who has escaped violence relatively unscathed, I believe that I have a duty to remind us all that this fight, which all too often lives in the shadows, is far from over. We ALL have a role to play in interrogating why violence occurs, how we enable it and what role we can play in preventing it. So that maybe one day, we will all be able to experience our own understanding of what it means to live in peace.