I interrupt our regular programming to bring you something I could not post anywhere else but strongly feel about. Bear with me, will you?

Last weekend, an article I wrote ran in one of Uganda’s daily, Daily Monitor. Here is an excerpt:

I hope there is something in this for us to learn. To re-learn that a woman’s body is her own and should not be used as and when a man feels like. That we should take back our bodies and not accept the assault we have settled for. That we (and the justice system) will know that a man does not have to rape you for him to sexually assault you. For us to know that we have the right to feel safe in our bodies and in our homes and in our friends’ homes without worrying about a man’s entitlement to our bodies. I hope that parents, while telling their daughters to dress decently, will tell their sons that a woman’s body is her own.

Please read the rest of the article here: Stop letting them get away with it

A friend of mine, we shall call her Dee, sent me the email below as a response to what I wrote:

“Nyana,

Just finished reading your very pertinent article. I think one of the reasons such invasion of our privacy (and bodies) eventually becomes normalised is that after a while, you no longer want to be the person that’s complaining and (or) telling them off. Telling off every boda man and every shop attendant in kikuubo eventually becomes tedious. And it can be very dangerous, too. Once, I told some guy off for touching me. You know those bu stalls of second hand clothes opposite Mukwano Arcade? Yeah, that’s where I was. I was just passing through, on my way to the Old Taxi Park. I didn’t want to buy anything, but men kept touching me. So this one guy grabs my wrist, just like that, he grabs my wrist! At first, I play it down. I tell him to let go of me. He refuses. I ask again. He refuses. So I blow a fuse and tell him off! But—guess what happened? All his bu shop-attendant buddies surrounded me. They didn’t just threaten to beat me for feeling ‘wo’, they kept asking who I thought I was, and why did I think I was too special to be touched, they also insulted me. On my way back home, I thought about what had just happened and decided it wasn’t worth it. It just gets to that point where, between threats of physical violence and letting some man touch you, you choose the latter. It’s not right and its not ideal, but that’s what happens in societies like ours.

Anyhow, I scrolled down to the comments section and look what I found from a one ‘Zigamba’:

‘There will come a time when man won’t even look at a woman ! Ugly woman are usually the ones that make a lot of noise and complaints.’

I don’t know whether to be angry or depressed or both. These are the sorts of reactions men give regarding the invasion of women’s spaces (and bodies). And the worst bit is that these sorts of reactions are much more common than we think. So, clearly, men don’ just feel entitled to our bodies, but they feel entitled to our voices. We can’t complain, without their permission. And we certainly shouldn’t complain if we aren’t good-looking. As if a ‘beautiful’ woman is more entitled to her space than an ‘ugly’ woman is. I had a long, winding conversation with a friend, about this. I think I should re-open the discussion here. Kubanga the sexism (and misogyny) in this country depresses me.

Ps. Isn’t it ironic that, at the exact same moment the poet was harassing the poet[ess], her friend, Wambui, was moderating a discussion on ‘misogyny in the media’?

Pps. For me, my beef is as much with the ‘witnesses’ as it is with ‘the harasser’. Coming out, on Twitter, to ‘support’ her and to testify to having seen it all go down, was not, in my opinion, very supportive. Because it was after the fact. I would like to have heard that the ‘witnesses’ called  him out on what he did soon after he did it. As far as I am concerned, that would have been truly supportive. No matter what he did to her, regardless of whether it was groping or touching, everyone who was present should have rallied around her (and against the harasser). The truth is that things like that keep happening because we, men and women, are all complicit. Men protect men who do these things, and sometimes women protect men who do these things. The least the ‘witnesses’ could have done was close all the doors and force him to apologise. They shouldn’t have just stood by.”
-Dee

Do uninvited touches from men count as sexual harassment? What can we do to have our spaces and bodies respected? Please share your thoughts and experiences.