a mixed up update

Roller Skating. I have a name, I'm joining up properly tonight hopefully, so I need to register a number too. I think I'd like my number to be eleventy. But how to write 'eleventy' as a number? Help me, LJ friends.

[Poll #1134573]

ION, my RSI is starting to bother me less and less, though a combination of resting my hand, workrave, and using the mouse with my left hand. I have a physio appointment tomorrow, and by then there'll probably be no pain at all, such is life.

And finally, like a story about a waterskiing squirrel at the end of the news, I give you Running the Numbers - An American Self-Portrait.
Artist and activist, Chris Jordan creates amazing images that portray America’s consumption. Chris’ hope is that his images will have a different effect than raw numbers alone. Since simple numbers no matter how large can be rather abstract it can be difficult to connect with ones impact. Whereas a visual representation of vast quantities can help make meaning of 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the US every thirty seconds or two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes.

"We're not doing anything wrong"

I got harassed again last night, this time by 2 boys, probably between 14-16, on bikes. I was walking to Angel with SL, who'd come to check out Brownies with a view to helping out, and they deliberately swerved towards us (they were cycling on the pavement) meaning we had to jump out the way.

Funnily enough¹ we'd been talking about harassment as it happened, as SL herself was bothered by a bloke last week. He'd come up to her as she walked home at night, and tried to talk to her. She, feeling rather nervous about the attention said something along the lines of 'why do you think it's ok to talk to a lone woman when she obviously doesn't want to talk to you?' to which he responded with something rather rude in Arabic, and was horrified when SL responded in Arabic, and left her alone. It left her really shaken though. We were talking about our experiences of this sort of thing, when the kids on bikes came back, this time from behind us so we didn't see them, and yelled 'BANG' as they cycled right through us, almost knocking us both over.

Made brave by daylight and the busy street, we yelled obscenities at them, they returned, and tried their best to intimidate us and claim 'we's only doing it cos you's beautiful. what's the fuck is wrong with saying 'bang' to someone? we're not doing anything wrong'.

Not doing anything wrong. Well, apart from cycling on the pavement, which is a pretty obvious one. They don't see that they are doing anything wrong in harassing two people minding their own business, and then threatening them when the two people don't just take it. But then, the first time they did it we did nothing, which only seemed to encourage them to do it again. They eventually buggered off following a combination of SL screaming at them, we calmly telling them that street harassment was illegal (it's not, not in the UK anyway, but it bloody well should be) and that I was calling the police. 'Did we scare you?' they ask. No. I say. You've fucking pissed me off you little shits. Who the FUCK do you think you are? I then pretended to be talking to the police, on the phone, at which point they shot off and didn't bother us again.

Were both left rather shaken, and full of rage, and talked about how dreadful it is that this sort of thing goes on and no one ever does anything about it. It also occurred to me that I wasn't even sure I'd want to write the incident up here, because every time I do talk about This Sort Of Thing the comments always go ridiculously epic due to a small minority of idiot men who can't understand that gender specific street harassment (that is males harassing females in a public place) is a real problem for women, and shouldn't be marginalised or swept under the carpet, or invalidated with comments like 'my arse got grabbed in a club once/some women like it and therefore it's the woman's fault'.

I don't think I've ever got quite so angry about anything like this before, to be honest. I feel like my feelings aren't taken seriously, or the feelings of the many women who reply to my entries about this with anecdotes of the countless times it happens to them.

I guess I'll have to get used to the fact that some people just Don't Get It. I'm half expecting some replies like this to this post, perhaps I'll just need to get a thicker skin about it, before I write about things like that in a public post again.

The incident above was, granted, more of an 'fucking kids' incident, it was a busy day time street, so the rape-fear wasn't there, but the thought that either of them might stab us was very much at the front of my mind.


[1] - or 'ironically' if you are a fan of Alanis Morisette who has managed to popularise the idea that 'ironically' means 'coincidentally'