Upon learning that I am traveling alone, as a woman and on the Greyhound bus of all places, the most common reaction I receive from friends, family members, and strangers is something like, “Wow, do you feel safe?” I’ve had friends express their uncertainty of me couchsurfing with strangers, and others wondering about the safety of stations located in “sketchy” cities.
My answer? Of course I feel safe. I’m on a bus with numerous other people, there’s always an outspoken driver who has seen it all and doesn’t tolerate crap from anyone, and illuminated bus stations are available to wait around in. Even if those brightly lite stations are in bad parts of town the worst thing I can see happening is me becoming depressed by my fellow downtrodden passengers’ exhausted faces. Most people on these buses look resigned. They don’t look like they’re there to meet women. The likelihood of something happening to me is less than the likelihood something would have happened to me in Pittsburgh, where I would walk .8 miles in the dark from the nearest bus stop to my house at 9:00 PM after my co-op shift.
So in short answer, I feel fine. Call me naïve, call me whatever you want, but when reading articles daily about sexualized violence against women, I think of all people I am well aware and concious of the violent world I live in.
I don’t want to live my life in fear. I won’t live my life in fear. But if I were to choose fear in my life then it shouldn’t be traveling by bus that I should be afraid of.
That’s where I believe Mennonites (and other communities of people) must change their belief about the culture of rape. Rape perpetrators can be strangers. But rape–and just general male creepiness–is more apt to happen within homes, parties, and events. According to RAINN statistics, approximately 2/3 of assaults against women are committed by someone known to the victims and 73 percent of sexual assaults are committed by a non-stranger.
I’ve had two significant experiences with sexual abuse/male creepiness, which someday I will write about more thoroughly. One when I was three or four years old, which I’ve been open about since day one of launching this site. The other, less “serious” in nature, when I was 20. Both experiences happened within Mennonite communities, within family homes or with high school friends. I didn’t expect either, and I felt deeply ashamed of both. Both experiences were lacking an open dialogue about the situation.
I don’t want to project falsehoods upon Mennonite communities, but I can’t help but think and ask: How many women and young girls have experienced creepers at Mennonite conventions? Mennonite colleges? Mennonite churches? Within their own family’s house? As women, how many times have we been confronted with the awkwardness of a man’s sexual advances but, because it was in a safe community, felt less apt to call the men out? And where as a community do we have places for women and girls to go when such events do happen? Because let me assure you, they do happen.
I have much more to say on this subject, both of how both men and women tend to play down male creepiness, and how the culture of rape that we live in today is deeply manipulative and destructive to women. This is just some food for thought. Responses are welcome, in form of comments or posts. Let’s turn this into the dialogue we’ve been lacking for so long.