The List

This blog was planned to be about how there is limited protection/support for harassment or sexual assault victims in nightclubs. I was going to give you a lovely piece on how the SIA does nothing and requires nothing when licensing companies to train security staff with regards to preventing and reporting sexual assault. In fact, one of those training companies told me that any mention of sexually related crimes was paid “lip service” during their training programme.

But then I realised what a silly feminist I was being, because why should there be a cultural shift away from our bodies being seen as fair game when we all know how easy it is for women to prevent sexual assault and harassment. Here’s a helpful list:

• Don’t wear short skirts
• Don’t wear jeans
• Don’t show cleavage
• Don’t cover up your cleavage
• Don’t wear a burka
• Don’t wear a hijab
• Don’t wear hot pants
• Don’t wear heels
• Don’t wear boots
• Don’t wear school uniform
• Don’t travel on the bus
• Don’t travel on the tube or any train
• Don’t go to work
• Don’t walk down a street at night
• Don’t walk down a street in daytime
• Don’t jog publicly
• Don’t cycle
• Don’t love sex
• Don’t hate sex
• Don’t be drunk, especially not “too” drunk
• Don’t take drugs
• Don’t be alone
• Don’t be with female friends
• Don’t be with male friends
• Don’t be in mixed company
• Don’t go to the supermarket
• Don’t love men
• Don’t hate men
• Don’t go to bars
• Don’t go to nightclubs
• Don’t dance
• Don’t go on holiday
• Don’t fly
• Don’t be single
• Don’t be married
• Don’t date
• Don’t be gay
• Don’t wear make up
• Don’t leave the house without make up
• Don’t eat in public
• Don’t be thin
• Don’t be fat

I had some help compiling this from @WeekWoman and @opinionatedpavs on Twitter during a particularly liberating rant session (apologies if others were involved and I missed you). I then added to it via a brief glimpse at the Everyday Sexism project and Hollaback London. Feel free to add your own; this is about helping women change their behaviour in order to avoid harassment after all. It really didn’t take a lot of work to find places/situations where women and girls are being harassed.

Perhaps there is some perfect balance of wearing the right thing, being in the right place, with the right people and acting in the right way that will prevent sexual harassment. Certainly being in the wrong place at the wrong time will mean that you are partly to blame for being assaulted. So, once we have eliminated all of the above, what is left? Stay in, don’t answer the door and never interact with another human being, ever.

Or maybe, just maybe, we could start to address the culture that perpetuates the myth that all women, everywhere, are sexually available. That we want this attention, are flattered by it, dress in order to achieve it and are constantly asking for it. Because (and I hate to burst bubbles), that’s simply not the case. Some women, on some occasions, might enjoy male attention, might even dress to achieve it. But it is illogical and dangerous to extrapolate that to all women, all the time. How is a school girl on the bus asking for it? Why does sitting opposite you on a Tube give you the right to stare at a woman’s tits? How does a woman being in the same bar as you give you the right to put your hand up her skirt?

Let’s repeat it again and for the record… She’s not here for you.