Still Taking Back the Night

After that enthusiastic last paragraph of my previous post, I feel more than a little annoyed to report that the empowered feeling lasted less than 24 hours.

In an older book, Alice Schwarzer described her dream of a utopian society: one where a woman can walk by herself after dark and not shudder at every noise. I hear her on that one. We're very far away from that.

I visited friends on Saturday afternoon and took the train back at 10pm. By the time I was on my train, it was dark, and my compartment was nearly empty. I hoped it would stay that way, but was disappointed: with about 45 minutes left to go, two obviously drunk young men got on the train and sat down close to me. Their conversation was loud and though I tried to concentrate on my book, I couldn't help but listen.

- We just slept in the same bed, man. I was all sweaty and drunk, nothing happened.
- She doesn't like you like that.
- She will. I'm going to the club next weekend, I'll dress up a little. If I have to pay ten bucks to get in, I want to get some sex out of it.
- She doesn't want to sleep with you, man.
- So? Doesn't matter. I want to sleep with her.
- *chuckles*

At that point, I seriously considered switching to a different compartment. Who wants to listen to talk like that? But I didn't want to draw attention to myself, so I stayed put and hoped they'd just leave soon.

They got off at the next stop. When I looked up again a few minutes later, I realized that they'd been replaced by a man in his 50's who was sitting across the isle from me and stared at me for the entire last 10 minutes of the trip. Every time I looked up, he was looking at me. When I finally got off, he did as well, and I hung back a little. Didn't want him to see where I was going.

On the walk from the station to my home, I walked past a Thai restaurant. The lights on the roof terrace were still on, someone was watering the plants. I walked around the water stains on the concrete, but I was suddenly showered by the hose, anyway. I looked up, and the man on the terrace grinned at me and hooted. Then he directed the hose at me again. I kept my head down and walked faster. I told myself that he would've done this to any passer-by. It had nothing to do with me.

The guys on the train weren't talking about me, and maybe they were joking. And the old man might not have been staring at me at all, maybe he was lost in thought. And the guy on the terrace was probably just having some fun and would've sprayed the water at anyone.

But you know what? Guys don't have to think twice about these things. They can sit on a train in the middle of the night and read their book rather than worrying about the intentions of the people around them. And they can walk home in the middle of the night and not wonder about the motives of others.

When I used to live in Italy, I took home the last train nearly every weekend, and I developed the habit of spying out tired-looking men in rumpled business suits bearing carry-on bags. When we got on the train, I'd sit next to them. My theory was that they would be most likely to leave me alone. Until one night, one of those tired businessmen pulled out a porno magazine, positioned it so that I could see it, and turned the pages slowly, looking up at me every time before he focused on the new picture.

Guys don't have to come up with complicated theories to feel safe in the middle of the night. But we do. And it's exhausting and frustrating and frightening and plain FUCKED UP.

The night still isn't ours. And in a society where we're continually reminded that we're equal now, like it's a gift we were graciously granted so we'd shut the hell up with our whining, I'm not sure how to go about claiming what's mine.