Breathe
By Areli Paz Trejo
Harassment: strange feeling that you are not in the right place, or with the right people to feel safe.Sexual violence: daily, recurrent, visible and ignored.Impotence: frustration of not being able to do anything, you swallow it and if you don't digest it it hurts you.
How many times have you been sexually harassed, I am often asked by communication students or friends who, as time goes by, want to know some truculent story about my time in various media.None, ugly women are not harassed, neither at work nor in the street," I used to say. It was a way of joking. I know, bad joke, but then we go through life making mistakes that over time you understand, of course my friends, those of us who went through the same media, remember stories saying that it was harassment, but I didn't see it.
Maybe because of my character, my brutal way of responding to bad comments saved me from some people who might have been interested in me.
I have always been an advocate for women when they are in danger or feel vulnerable, most of the time things work out and they usually recognize that they are being victimized.Also, I have stories from the other side, women who honestly recognize that they use their sexuality to get "something". It's up to everyone to decide how they struggle in life. But when it comes to the weaker ones I will be there for them. Not because they can't defend themselves, surely they don't know they can.
Those who have been harassed, because this has happened on both sides, although we prefer to see only what happens to women. On both sides they feel vulnerable, weak, subdued, they are in pain but do not know what it is.
At the age I am, I became afraid, the time came for me to feel vulnerable and harassed. Every morning from Monday to Friday I leave home to go to the gym, 5:50, running in a hurry for the 6 o'clock class, in my frenetic life I had not understood that in a corner there is usually a man who seems to be waiting for someone or waiting to cross the street, I had not noticed him, I knew he was there, I always felt his glances and the little sound that someone makes when he wants to get your attention "pst, pst". Obviously, I never turn around and pretend not to listen. Mistake.
This day I left 5 minutes earlier, I didn't go running and I gave myself time to walk, to take a deep breath. On that corner and with the darkness still on, this guy decided it was a good time to drop his pants, yes, just like that, just like that.He slowed me down after prancing to catch my step, he didn't touch me, he dropped his pants, he made me see him.
I stood still, in seconds ten thousand actions to take happened to me, the first one was to run, before giving him a blow, to scream? Nobody would have helped me.his expression was mocking, I can't describe his face or his features, but I understood that he was waiting for an answer and I gave it to him: "you dropped your pants-boy" and waters, this is the last time you come near me, next time I'll tie your balls with the same pants-boy", I tried to be threatening and it was the only thing I could think of. When I felt safe, I turned around to see if he had followed me. I wasn't scared by the fact of seeing him without pants, I was scared to think that I could defend myself, but how many could not and there, petrified in the dark, can be raped without anyone noticing. Obviously my brain thought of minimizing it by using the word pant-cito, to tell him what you have is useless and yes, to rub it in that his smallness is mental. But it helped me to release the frustration and helplessness of knowing that every day men are lurking around who want to scare you, seek flattery, want to please themselves or subjugate women.
Harassment can be in plain sight and we don't notice it, we become accomplices or we believe that something can never happen to us. I remembered the times he tried to make me turn around with his noises, but I ignored him, that's how it happens in everyday life, women and men ignore warning signs that reveal true intentions.Minimizing it doesn't erase it.Confronting it heals and prevents it, now that he is out and about I will be alert and he will have to watch out because for him there is already a bit of contained fury.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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