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This will not do*
:: An editorial ::
When I first heard about Lara Logan's ordeal in Egypt, I had just dropped off Maddy at the high school.The rising sun streamed through the bare exposed trees, creating a flickering strobe-like effect of light and dark across the car's windshield as I drove through the trees' shadows. Lightdark, lightdark. Stuttering sunlight. I wept, my sudden tears taking me by surprise.
In the days since, I've listened to interviews of Egyptian women and foreign women who live in Egypt relating their own experiences with harassment and sexual assaults. It's not rare (83 percent of Egyptian women and 98 percent of foreign women living in Egypt report being sexually harassed). They poignantly express their delight that their time in Tahrir Square made them feel as equals, that most men left them alone in that crowded public square, that they had their place in that space. As democracy crept forward that week, so did the hopes of women. The news of the actions of that group of assailants (and who knows how many women experience this on a daily basis?) marred some of that hope, or at least reminded, Whoa there. Not so fast in your celebrating. There's much more distance to cross. A stuttering start to hopeful things, lightdark.
But it's unfair to hint that this kind of thing happens only in Cairo, the Middle East, elsewhere. For example, I've been remembering an experience I had while traveling in Europe as a student. In 1989, I was on a semester abroad in England. In May we took a terrific 10-day trip through Europe with certain structured meeting points for the whole group scattered throughout a largely flexible itinerary. We had eurail passes and the requirement of being in groups of at least 3 people and meeting at the appointed inns and times for group activities and lectures in Paris, Salzburg, Rome, Florence.
Late in the rotation, I was walking around Rome with two or three friends. Picture me: blond, optimistic 19-year-old Mormon girl from Utah, friendly but not untraveled or unaware. We had learned lessons along the way (don't hold eye contact or you have an uninvited follower, for instance) and felt confident in our navigating and empowered by our adventure. Suddenly, while we were walking up a crowded side street, I got separated from the others. We had been warned about groups of "gypsy children" so at first that's what I thought was happening. But then I noticed it was a group of young men who were shuffling me over towards a storefront. They shoved me into the narrow entryway to the store. I was trapped, groped and frightened. A couple of minutes later I managed to get away and found my friends. I didn't know how to talk about what had just happened nor what to call it.
I was traumatized but inexplicably ashamed, too. If I ever talked about it, it was just in sidelong, hazy references. Today I feel differently and know to call it the assault it was. Although my experience was minor compared to the extreme and violent assault in Egypt that lasted a dozen times longer, the similarities evoke complicated emotions: empathy for Ms. Logan, solidarity with women who experience this kind of ugliness, dismay that it still exists and that it is yet another area of disproportionate burden on women in already challenging circumstances, and defiant determination to make it better for my daughters. And yours. And theirs. This is me, raising my hand and saying this will not do and how can I help it get better?
Speaking of determination, one lovely and powerful spark of hope in that whole story: According to news reports, Ms. Logan was saved by a group of women who came to her aid. Oh, and Italy? Women are speaking up there as well. Go, light.
*The title that almost was: The (unfortunate) Sisterhood of the Traveling Hands. Too irreverent? I thought so.
Friday, February 18, 2011 | tagged current events, did I ever tell you about the time..., do something, editorial, women | 8 Comments 
Reader Comments (8)
I bet if we did a poll, all of us would have our own story. Some minor, some major. Mine was minor, I guess because I chose to see it that way. Others had the same experience and felt quite differently.
The summer after my freshman year in college, I was in a car accident away from home. I broke my collar bone. When I got home, my parents had moved an hour north from the home I grew up in. So, I needed a new doctor to monitor the status of my collar bone and used my aunt and cousin's family practitioner. He was old, LDS and in Rexburg, ID. He first checked my bone to see how it was healing, then he proceeded to fondle both of my breasts. I was 18, naive and just stupid, frankly. I trusted him because he was a doctor, because of his religion. I was uncomfortable and I couldn't understand why he had to touch my breasts to examine my collar bone. I had never had any of my 'private parts' seen much less touched by anyone. Doctor or otherwise. It was a bizarre experience but he was the authority in my mind, so I didn't say anything.
Fast forward 5 years and he was arrested and convicted for years of sexual assault on women.
Amen, sista. I have been following Ms. Logan with rapt horror. Unable to look away; unable to do much. Thanks for putting words out there.
Annie, that is horrible! Thanks for sharing it. I think too many women don't speak about these experiences. Not to re-live and re-experience them, but to take away their suffocating power. You are so right: this will not do!
You've written the words of empathy and sorrow I've felt for Lara Logan and so many others. Thank you, my dear friend. I am sorry for your traumatic ordeal and pray that others like you, with more eloquent words than I have, will speak out against this suffering and speak up for the women of the world and our daughters.
When I was young I thought it was just a fact of life. My rural community just seemed to breed it, my butt was always being grabbed, breasts too, inapprpriate things were said by teachers and even men in my branch.
As you g women, we just had a knowing glance about brother bell, he was always grabbing at us. In fact, he felt me up at the Chicago temple while he was working there. Good stuff.
Later, he abused my little sister and my parents caught him and I'm not so sure the line of authority in the church handled it as well as they should have.
I've had relatives and a bishop at ricks take advantage of me as well. And I have the mission stories and Europe stories. My point is, I don't think I'm out of the norm. I may have just excepted it as part of being a girl then, but I've grown up. I talk about it quite a bit with my daughters and family. I've also talked quite a lot at church about the subject.
I know we have had quite a bit of training about healthy sexuality here . I think the lds church is taking some great strides in order to create a safe dialogue.
I think on an almost daily basis, about the victimized women of the world, where rape is part of the process of war and conflict, marauding and machismo, or just a fact of life whenever a woman dares to walk out in public. I'm so sorry about your experience in Rome. It is certainly a glimpse into what so many women have to go through regularly. My heart aches, with yours, for these mothers, daughters, sisters and friends. It is unacceptable and something must be done. I know that people like Joan Chittister, a Catholic activist nun, who is on many an international council of/on women, work tirelessly and boldly for needed change not only to protect, but to change the mentality of men in power or men who use even the little power they feel they have to overpower and assault innocent women and girls. And the next horrific layer of this travesty is that often in the cultures of these countries, the woman is then blamed, shunned, vilified, maimed, stoned. It is the worst kind of offense, and ugly and unacceptable. It rankles my very core. How can this be? How can I help? Sisterhood of the Outraged - unite. Let's speak out and for these sisters. And let's hope that democracy, in whatever form it comes to Egypt, will be accompanied by a new way of seeing women - as equals. Otherwise, it isn't really democracy. It is a patriocracy. (Not really a word, I guess, but it will do.)
Brilliantly written.
Oh, my. Rochelle and Martha, I think you're right. It happens much, much more than we talk about or realize. Thank you for sharing your stories here, too. I know it's not always easy to press "publish" on these kinds of things.
Mom, exactly right. Thank you for passing along to me some of your sense of rightness and sense of outrage at unfairness. Love you.
I really do wonder: how can I help? Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas?
And thank you all. What lovely and amazing women you are.