Flash Back
In 2009, during my very first month in Brazil, I met up with a group of English speaking Brazilian students at a bar. At this point I knew "quase nada" in Portuguese. As I (in heals and a short black baby doll dress...yep 2009) was crossing the street with my host father towards the bar, a male motorist yelled something towards us that I didn't understand, but I understood. My host father quickly barked back at the male motorist, possibly marking the first time I heard Portuguese profanity. For a second I questioned my outfit, but my 18 year old self shrugged it off and went on to have a good night. I wish I could hug my 18 year old self.
Culture Shock
My early memories of my first time in Brazil are foggy like the memories of my early life. I always assumed this had to do with the culture shock. Like a child's first years, for an exchange student there is so much new brain stimulation with the sights, sounds, taste and smell and then on top of it all people are babbling at you and you have to make sense of it all. The first months of being an exchange student are actually really similar to being a toddler (trying new food, people think you're cute, completely dependent on nice people...I'll develop this and blog about it later). But this early memory, this one stuck with me. I don't mean to make this one incident sound over dramatic. Drive-by harassment happens all the time in the USA too. I'll get to the point.
The Walk to Campus
Every week day I walk to campus and I am reminded of that evening. As I walk for about ten minutes along a high traffic road, generally in jeans and hiking boots, I receive multiple shouts and beeps from male motorists, many of them truck drivers. A lot of the men will dangle their heads out of their trucks and cars to get a better look. The head danglers stare until they get too far away or another car blocks there view. Double beeps are common. Honestly I don't always hear the content of the shouts but "gostoso" or "delicious" is pretty common.
My 22 Year Old Self
Two months into my third stay here, I find these incidences to be completely unflattering and too common and I could go on and on about why it's unacceptable to call a human being "delicious". I don't understand the reasoning behind the beeps. What do these men gain? Do they think it's funny? Do they think they are being nice and are giving complements? Are they simply not thinking and mindlessly playing the role the generation of men before them played? I'd like to get to the bottom of this. Who know's maybe these men have a very good reason for harassing women every time they get into their vehicles.
I am bothered by this. I hope by the end of this trip I find my zen but until then I am mentally violent about this matter. I picture myself picking one of the discarded bricks or wood pieces, that are for some reason scattered all along the sidewalk, and throwing it at one of the ugly dangling heads. But I don't and I won't.
OMG! Of course I've been harassed on the streets of North America in some pretty degrading ways, but not as often or as on the scale of in India and your last thought about slapping their bobble heads with roadside wastes is what reminds me of me, so I feel a bit less crazy now, lol:
ResponderExcluirAs I would exit the woman's car onto the platform of my stop, the men's car would whizz past me choked full of heads with manicured mustaches on skinny bodies in dingy dress shirts which would all turn at the same rate to glimpse me. Many would shout things I thankfully for the most part could understand the literal meaning of. Some would even reach out, extending their entire bodies off the moving train, only one finger and one toe holding, as if to touch me. This is/was an everyday experience for any woman in India who found herself solo near a group of "common" men, but in this particular instant, I always won the mob's attention over the other ladies because I was so conspicuous with my hair, skin and big back pack in which I lugged my computer to the office each day. Oh, I indulged in gloriously vengeful daydreams of swinging my pack against the reacher of the day at just the right moment to knock his twiney body off the moving train, knowing his one touch won would be his last. Never did it, and I guess that's a good thing.
P.S. In India, It's called "Eve Teasing."
ResponderExcluirI thought about your response today and it made me laugh out loud:D
ResponderExcluirLol...glad you got a laugh! p.s. I meant "thankfully not understand the meaning of" in the above paragraph.
ResponderExcluir