It’s Not A Compliment / Schrodinger’s Rapist

I read an amazing piece a few weeks ago about street harassment which explained in clearer terms than I have ever encountered, the experience of a woman when a man street harasses her. You see, we are acutely aware that you could just be a perfectly ordinary, kind person, who genuinely just wants to make our day with a surprising compliment. But you could also be our rapist, making his first move. And in that instant, you are simultaneously both of these things in potential – a little like Schrodinger’s cat. Hence the metaphor of describing a street harasser as Schrodinger’s rapist. Here is a poem I’ve written in response to that, and about street harassment more generally.

 

It’s Not a Compliment / Schrodinger’s Rapist

Whether I’m walking to work or out with my friends

Taking my sister to the hospital or having coffee with my Grandpa

Men will think it’s OK to call out at me

To grab me

To shout about me to their mates and to strangers passing by

It’s not a compliment.

 

Pyjamas, Bikini, Burka or Sundress

You really couldn’t care less

But please hear me when I tell you

It’s not a compliment.

 

Your persistent insistence yelling “get yer tits out, love”

The fact that you chose me to talk at

Gawp at

Means nothing.

It’s not a compliment.

 

Doesn’t matter if I’m having a bad hair day, if it’s a Thursday, Funeral Day, good day, slow day, show day

You will still shout at me. Grab at me. Talk at me. Gawp at me.

It’s not a compliment.

 

It’s a curse.

I don’t want your opinion, thanks

I don’t need your thoughts

I am who I am, ta

And that’s fine with me.

I need to get where I am going

And you are standing in my way.

 

You are Schrodinger’s rapist.

You are the kind, gentle man, with no agenda, who just wanted me to know how pretty I looked today

You are the stranger looking to sweep me off my feet

You are the victim of a dare by your callous mates

You are my attacker

And you are my rapist.

You are all of these things,

And none of them.

 

But if I make the wrong call

If I give you the benefit of the doubt and then you do rape me

Well then it’s my fault.

For taking the wrong street

For wearing the wrong clothes

For being the wrong woman

For making the wrong call.

My fault.

Not your fault for raping me.

 

So forgive me, kind stranger, when I ignore your calls and keep walking, head trailing the floor, fingers clasped at keys

Forgive me.

Because you are Schrodinger’s rapist.

And society will shame me and blame me

If I judge it wrong, and you rape me.

 

So please have the decency to understand how difficult that call can be for me

And if you are angry that I would assume the worst of you

Don’t be angry with me.

Be angry with society

For shaming and blaming women when we make the wrong call.

 

And fight with us, for our overwhelming right

To walk down the street

Not constantly calculating the risk profile of every man we pass

Not constantly aware

Of Schrodinger’s Rapist.

The Visitor’s Book

As some of you will know, I am recently back from a visit with my incredible Grandparents. This is the first of a string of poems that will soon follow, built out of my various ruminations when I was there.

The Visitor’s Book

In an old cottage in Shropshire, in a garden of life,

There is a visitors book.

The book spans history and it spans stories

From 1987, to 2013

Through cottages Herb, Cart Barn and Spinning Wheel.

But the time I knew it best was at 10 & 11.

 

You can tell a lot from a person by the contents of their visitor’s book.

In this one I learned of my family

Of their generosity

Of the fecundity of their lives and their love.

Hospitality, you see, is not a chance thing; no random motion of the universe.

It’s in the genes.

 

Because when people think, these days, of the older generation

All they really see is a wall of intolerance.

“Well, you know, you can’t really expect more of that generation. It’s the way they were brought up.”

Except, that is, that the owners of this book don’t conform to that ignorant, generalised stereotype.

 

People often remark of me that they find remarkable my internationalised attitude

My summer spent offering asylum to those seeking it.

But it’s not remarkable.

For in this Shropshire visitor’s book, you will find its blueprint. In this book which belongs to my Integrity Anchors.

Visitors from Bangladesh, from Nigeria, Nairobi and New York. From Korea and Kenya, and from every corner of this land.

As I flick through pages I see flashes of stories and stories

Of Sunday lunches and country walks, of conversations and ruminations from worlds not vastly different from our own.

There are voices in those pages, captured for posterity.

For motivation and inspiration.

 

When I reach 1993 I even here my own voice calling back to me:

“Ga Ga Ga” it says in the comments section of a first lone visit from a new baby granddaughter.

My mother always did have a funny sense of humour.

 

My whole life is in that book.

It’s a part of them, and a part of me.

Our history.

All in the weather-worn, love-adorned pages

Of the visitor’s book.