Harassment Class
Sexual harassment made for a keen discussion topic amongst the female Fulbrighters & company. Until I got to a 5-star hotel & a population of wealthy men—men closer to my own socio-economic bracket—this issue has happily not come up for me here.
Traveling with a husband, & in cosmopolitan areas, cuts down your chances of sexual harassment in any case. The worst I received in Indonesia was mild commentary from bands of resting ojek (motorcycle cab) drivers, who will toss remarks from the shade as I walk by. It’s southern-Italy lite: “I love you! Marry me. Pretty baby, do you want to cuddle?” Things like this. Just about every western woman has heard this here. Usually I ignore it & walk on by.
Obnoxious as that sounds (is), these are not dangerous men. They are not going to touch me or even get up. These guys are a little bored & likely under the vague impression, as many people are here, that all westerners believe in “free love”. A concept made even more exciting by its ambiguities.
The ojek guys don’t have a plan, they probably just want to see what the bule girl will do. When I’m in the wrong mood it can be annoying (or drive certain people I've met into a rage), but it’s not threatening.
Sometimes what they say is so over-the-top (to me) that it's almost funny. Sometimes I smile & open my hands with a gesture of: You've got to be kidding me, guys, at which they tend to shrug & smile back, as if to say: Hey, it was worth a try. Then we part ways. It's not awkward. Twice, when the mood felt right, I played for laughs & got them: No, I love YOU. No, you cuddle with him, he’s much prettier than me. I can't marry you now, I've got to meet my husband by noon.
These foolish lines may only get laughs & not cause offense because I’m an alien. People write off odd behavior to the mysteries of cultural difference. If I’m reacting strangely to them, well that's expected of a bule. Everyone's intentions are friendly enough & maybe that's all that matters. For my part, it’s a little easier for me to brush aside harassing commentary from ojek drivers (than it is, say, from a colleague), because we are from such totally different cultures, separated by race, class, religion, language, socio-economics....
What’s harder to take is the sexual joking that I’ve seen at public forums & on television talk shows, where the all-male commentators make friendly but gently demeaning, objectifying jokes about the pretty looks or availability of a woman in the audience or even a panel member, as was more common in our own culture a generation back. The people involved are more familiar to me culturally. They dress more like me, have academic degrees, & speak in the cadences of international television. Audiences laugh & that’s the bar of a joke's success, but to my ears its sexism seems inappropriate & regressive. I feel more free to judge it, & I do.
Then I got to the hotel. Being in a 5-star, western-style hotel, I wore white sandals & a brown skirt that I’ve only worn inside of such hotels because it falls just above my knees. It’s not a sexy skirt, just higher than my ankle. Lots of (Christian) women wear such skirts & tighter pants on the street, but I’ve been playing it more conservatively here.
As I crossed through the wide lobby, which had several groups of international guests milling about, a middle-aged, Asian business man with a brief case & an expensive western suit squared to me, to catch my eye. Then he delivered a long, sexually malevolent, head-to-toe glare whose dominating power, judgment & predatory fantasy was as obvious & physical as a blow. When he’d finished, he watched me.
I have not had someone do that to me in a long time. And to do it so brazenly, in public...An outrage welled up in my stomach & into my chest. Forgotten curses in Indonesian & Arabic sprang to mind. The capacity for violence tingled in my palms. The presumption of it, the debasing, malicious intent....The anger stayed with me for the rest of the evening. Perhaps exactly as intended. I hated being so vulnerable to this.
In the moment, I did not stop walking or even change my stride. I’ll never be half so graceful, but Italian women once taught me to keep my chin up, my pace even & not to meet the wolf’s eye--no matter your desire to drive it out.
I could feel his eyes on my back all the way up the hall.
It’s hard to explain the effect of such a thing to people who have not experienced it without seeming overly sensitive. A single look, like a single word, is given force by its tone & intent. But it gains much more force—made into a deed—when it’s sent by someone who claims power in your home turf.
All things being equal, no ojek driver could deliver me such a look, even possessed of greater malice. He could frighten me, but he couldn’t manage such a personal violation with just a look. Wherever we were from, this business man & I, our cultures--our class--intersected a little here in the lobby of an international hotel, where we were not really in Indonesia.
Have you experienced any harassment here in Jakarta? the women asked me later that night. Besides the ubiquitous ojek men, they meant. They wanted to know as some would be here a while.
No, I said, still seething. I haven’t. Not in Indonesia.
Traveling with a husband, & in cosmopolitan areas, cuts down your chances of sexual harassment in any case. The worst I received in Indonesia was mild commentary from bands of resting ojek (motorcycle cab) drivers, who will toss remarks from the shade as I walk by. It’s southern-Italy lite: “I love you! Marry me. Pretty baby, do you want to cuddle?” Things like this. Just about every western woman has heard this here. Usually I ignore it & walk on by.
Obnoxious as that sounds (is), these are not dangerous men. They are not going to touch me or even get up. These guys are a little bored & likely under the vague impression, as many people are here, that all westerners believe in “free love”. A concept made even more exciting by its ambiguities.
The ojek guys don’t have a plan, they probably just want to see what the bule girl will do. When I’m in the wrong mood it can be annoying (or drive certain people I've met into a rage), but it’s not threatening.
Sometimes what they say is so over-the-top (to me) that it's almost funny. Sometimes I smile & open my hands with a gesture of: You've got to be kidding me, guys, at which they tend to shrug & smile back, as if to say: Hey, it was worth a try. Then we part ways. It's not awkward. Twice, when the mood felt right, I played for laughs & got them: No, I love YOU. No, you cuddle with him, he’s much prettier than me. I can't marry you now, I've got to meet my husband by noon.
These foolish lines may only get laughs & not cause offense because I’m an alien. People write off odd behavior to the mysteries of cultural difference. If I’m reacting strangely to them, well that's expected of a bule. Everyone's intentions are friendly enough & maybe that's all that matters. For my part, it’s a little easier for me to brush aside harassing commentary from ojek drivers (than it is, say, from a colleague), because we are from such totally different cultures, separated by race, class, religion, language, socio-economics....
What’s harder to take is the sexual joking that I’ve seen at public forums & on television talk shows, where the all-male commentators make friendly but gently demeaning, objectifying jokes about the pretty looks or availability of a woman in the audience or even a panel member, as was more common in our own culture a generation back. The people involved are more familiar to me culturally. They dress more like me, have academic degrees, & speak in the cadences of international television. Audiences laugh & that’s the bar of a joke's success, but to my ears its sexism seems inappropriate & regressive. I feel more free to judge it, & I do.
Then I got to the hotel. Being in a 5-star, western-style hotel, I wore white sandals & a brown skirt that I’ve only worn inside of such hotels because it falls just above my knees. It’s not a sexy skirt, just higher than my ankle. Lots of (Christian) women wear such skirts & tighter pants on the street, but I’ve been playing it more conservatively here.
As I crossed through the wide lobby, which had several groups of international guests milling about, a middle-aged, Asian business man with a brief case & an expensive western suit squared to me, to catch my eye. Then he delivered a long, sexually malevolent, head-to-toe glare whose dominating power, judgment & predatory fantasy was as obvious & physical as a blow. When he’d finished, he watched me.
I have not had someone do that to me in a long time. And to do it so brazenly, in public...An outrage welled up in my stomach & into my chest. Forgotten curses in Indonesian & Arabic sprang to mind. The capacity for violence tingled in my palms. The presumption of it, the debasing, malicious intent....The anger stayed with me for the rest of the evening. Perhaps exactly as intended. I hated being so vulnerable to this.
In the moment, I did not stop walking or even change my stride. I’ll never be half so graceful, but Italian women once taught me to keep my chin up, my pace even & not to meet the wolf’s eye--no matter your desire to drive it out.
I could feel his eyes on my back all the way up the hall.
It’s hard to explain the effect of such a thing to people who have not experienced it without seeming overly sensitive. A single look, like a single word, is given force by its tone & intent. But it gains much more force—made into a deed—when it’s sent by someone who claims power in your home turf.
All things being equal, no ojek driver could deliver me such a look, even possessed of greater malice. He could frighten me, but he couldn’t manage such a personal violation with just a look. Wherever we were from, this business man & I, our cultures--our class--intersected a little here in the lobby of an international hotel, where we were not really in Indonesia.
Have you experienced any harassment here in Jakarta? the women asked me later that night. Besides the ubiquitous ojek men, they meant. They wanted to know as some would be here a while.
No, I said, still seething. I haven’t. Not in Indonesia.
posted by Anne E. Campisi at 3:05 PM
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