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I don’t know many Haligonian women who don’t have a story. A story where they define how this city, supposedly so friendly, can turn on them. I know I have a few. Sometimes I ferociously list them off when people talk about how gender violence is a thing of the past. But that’s not what I’m talking about today. This is where I talk about what telling those stories leads to—more sharing, more stories and the need to create as safe spaces as we can for women.
Women need a break—a reprieve—from Halifax and its bullshit sometimes, and they can find it in each other. I grew into a woman in Halifax. I came here four years ago when I was a kid fresh out of undergrad. I had a lot of hope for this community. Instead, the city started to pick away at me. The micro-aggressions were just that—so subversive that I couldn’t understand why I felt less worthy or uninvolved in a place that I desperately wanted to be a part of. That is, until I realized that I could rely on other women to be there for me.
It started in a very ad hoc way as I began to understand that other women had these issues too. Then I came to the revelation that women are quietly working to carve out their own space. They’re fighting a losing battle to gain some ground that others don’t see. Conversations in the bathroom, the photocopy room, the kitchen and the playground are sacred to women. Sometimes it’s frivolous—sometimes it’s lifesaving. Both are empowering and important.
Safe spaces for women (or, as someone rightly corrected me recently, “as safe as they can be spaces”) are integral to the health of Halifax. It’s at bricks-and-mortar places like South House, university women’s centres or Adsum House. It’s at Rebel Girl Rock Camp. It’s at the GIRLS conference at the Mount. It’s at Ladies Beer League. It’s on your basketball team. It’s at the #PROLOVE rally. It’s the relief you feel when Hollaback! tweets asking if you’re OK when that guy yelled about how he’d “tear you in two if he got a hold of that ass” at 6pm on Spring Garden Road. It’s in “girl gangs,” with “besties,” and on the WIT902 message board.
These spaces make their members, communities and the city a better place for everyone. This is compromised when others make light of them, or worse—make fun of them.
So, if you’re a man and you’re reading this, you might be wondering what you can do. Move over! Make room! Space is a zero-sum game and women need to be there. Make room for women at your board meetings. Make room for women in your conversations at work. Close your stupid legs on the stupid bus and stop taking up one-and-a-half seats while women squirm with their legs crossed to make up for it. Because when it comes down to it, that space is for half of us, and you’re taking it away.
And when we want our own space? Leave us alone. Don’t “let us” have it. It’s not yours to give. Women are entitled to feel good and safe speaking about the very times when they don’t feel good or safe here in Halifax.
Sarah’s a community builder who’s got a history of sticking her nose in things like advocacy for people who need it, feminism and her phone. One time her debating coach called her “bitchy” in front of the whole team and there was no looking back.
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This article appears in Dec 18-24, 2014.
Area Gal derides “Feminazi” term; Demands Lebensraum.
WTF is ‘a community builder’ and what is the pay ?
Area Man uses False Equivalence to Label Safe Spaces Lebensraum; Is a Giant Turd Baby.
LMFAO Natasha – is that what your grad class posts on it’s RiotGrrrrrls FB page?
My graduating class was full of self-involved dudes with an inflated perception of their own ~*intellect*~, such as yourself.
Bye, basic.
Bye, sweetie♥
In today’s episode, Ivan makes a new friend.
Thank you for the lovely prose. Its really nice to know there are more people out there that are concerned about the issues in society and conversation is (i am certain) the best way to get through the rough patches. Healthy discussion, occasional rants, and listening ears. Thank you.
In an otherwise excellent article, Sarah writes: “Women need a break—a reprieve—from Halifax and its bullshit sometimes… I grew into a woman in Halifax. I came here four years ago when I was a kid fresh out of undergrad. I had a lot of hope for this community. Instead, the city started to pick away at me.”
If I may quibble (and recognizing that I’m a guy and can only speak on this issue with a limited perspective) this isn’t a fight for women and concerned men in Halifax; this is a national and international problem, and we need to remember that fact. Both so as not to lose perspective and start hating our city for no good reason (it’s not Halifax’s “bullshit,” it’s bullshit that knows no borders) and to remember that the problem can’t be solved by moving to a different town. It must be fought locally, nationally, and globally. (Witness York University’s terrible string of on-campus rapes frecently, or the University of British Columbia’s “rape chant” controversy, similar to SMU’s. )
Let’s blame the perpetrators, not our city, which is no worse—nor, it must be said, better—in these regards than anywhere else.
While this does address what happens to women in their day to day it doesn’t offer many solutions. This seems to be rallying for more women’s only spaces and groups over making shared spaces better for females to exist in. It suggests for me as a man to get out of the way and make room so women don’t have to cross their legs.
A better solution would be creating a voice of collaboration. If someone is bothering you or you see them catcalling, belittling or generally being a douche bag to someone else than speak out and tell them to quit “Bagging” (see: douche bag, see: empty sack, see: sack of shit).
As 51.7% of our population you need to stand strong together but you don’t. As a gender you belittle and cut each other down rather than stand up for one another. The author is calling for more meetings and more places to rally in but you’re not all on the same team so working together is going to be impossible.
Embrace a slogan, a derogatory term and shame men whom you deem to be the problem. You have to be strong, stand up for yourselves and each other and have a voice when you see something is wrong. Create allies with enlightened men to help you fight your oppression and have them shame the meat-heads who are the real problem.
Creating more women only spaces is not going to solve your problem. It works great as a support method but it will never change a douche bags view of you, they’ll just keep on bagging.
Totally agree with Pigeon. This is an HRM problem how exactly? I’ve lived or worked in dozens of different places – it’s all the same. Actually, it’s often much worse in other parts of the world than it is in Halifax-Darmouth-BedfordSackville-Nova Scotia-North America, so count your blessings that you actually live in Canada.
Also totally agree with SirHalifax. The solution is not isolation, and having “safe spaces” for women, it’s in engagement with men in the workforce and in society and in the family, and stepping up. OP (Sarah), quite frankly – and please take no offense – but you sound a little weak. My Mom and my sisters take no shit off anyone, and they’ve carved out and defined their space, in conjunction with men. Sounds like you want to have a safe non-man haven dotted here and there across the city. Good luck with that approach – it’s defensive and counter-productive.
By the way, “close your stupid legs on the stupid bus”? Aren’t you getting a bit hysterical? I’m personally 6’2″” and when I ride a bus I’ll do whatever I want to feel comfortable. It’s not a signal to women that I am trying to invade their space – I just don’t want my legs to get crippled.
I just want to add that while I retain that initial criticism that the piece seemed to blame Halifax especially as some sort of hotbed of misogyny, I refrained from prescribing solutions or criticizing Sarah’s other observations, as some other posters have done. I honestly don’t feel that it’s my place. (Okay, the close-your-legs-on-the-bus comment was maybe a bit much—as a guy, I’ve been squashed into a corner or forced to stand by clueless leg-spreaders, too.)
After all, I’ve never had to sit in a classroom with a bunch of people who’ve joked about raping me. I rarely feel frightened walking down a dark street. I don’t have to parse the difference between an appreciative glance and a potentially threatening, male-gazey leer. And I don’t get unconsciously (but obviously) excluded from conversations or decisions at work due to my gender.
For what it’s worth, it also seems to me as if Sarah wasn’t demanding man-free zones, but demanding that men be aware of the ways in which their behaviour may sometimes be creating a threatening or belittling environment for women. Telling her she needs to toughen up is a way of saying “I don’t have to change, you do.”
This is the same person who is paid to raise money from alumni for the school who chants hate about women?
Ho-kay. Watch out for the fall from that high horse.
RE: This is the same person who is paid to raise money from alumni for the school who chants hate about women?
Ho-kay. Watch out for the fall from that high horse.
Is Sarah expected to quit her job because of men being disgusting? Should no women work at SMU now? Should everyone quit altogether? Please explain your logic here because I’m currently embarrassed for you.
mally: I think getting paid to promote a university with such a long-standing history of misogyny to alumni to encourage them to give money is absolutely the opposite of creating a safe space for women.
Pigeon, thoughtful comments. I’ll stand by my observation that she does need to toughen up a bit, just my opinion, and I may be way off base as to how tough she already is. In any case, re-read the article: I parse English quite well, Sarah was more or less demanding man-free areas and zones…quite emphatically.
I’ll add this too – I’ve worked in a bunch of environments – manual labour, the military, and professional. I’ve rarely in my life seen a woman threatened or belittled because they are female – what I have seen is that they get the same treatment that the guys get, and some of the more sensitive women don’t like it, and think it’s belittlement and harassment. There are so many women in the workforce now at all levels that are strong, and take no shit, and men do listen to them. Let yourself be cowed or intimidated, and that’s *your* problem. You think inassertive men don’t get equally browbeaten by female or male superiors who they fear?
Let’s forget about the bus business. 🙂 Fact is, if we want to bitch about bus space, there’s as many women (if not more) as men on buses that plant a bag next to them on the other seat so as to preclude someone sitting next to them.
Pigeon, I’ll grant you that neither you nor I need to worry too much about walking through dark streets or parks at 2 or 3 AM, but that’s not really a male-female issue. The predators will go after a scared-looking male too.
As a followup, the more I read the OP’s article, the more I think to myself that it’s not long enough. There are too many observations, unchallenged and without examples, one after the other. Even opinion pieces usually include the odd verifiable fact, the pieces that the opinion is built upon.
Things like multiple “subversive” “micro-aggressions”. Exactly what the hell is a subversive micro-aggression, besides being a nonsensical term that actually conveys no meaning whatsoever, but has the virtue of sounding erudite. In the interests of fairness, it shouldn’t include men’s admiring glances, in the workplace or on the street, at a well-dressed sexy woman…because after all, women do exactly the same thing when they see a good looking man. It shouldn’t include overheard ribald or lewd comments that are not directed right at a woman face to face, because women do exactly the same thing in private. It shouldn’t include being ignored, brushed off at work, or being insulted or neglected at work, because exactly the same thing happens to men. So one wonders what a “subversive” “micro-aggression” actually is.
As for safe spaces, whether physical or psychological, I doubt that there is a shortage of them. To be more precise, I doubt that – with the exception maybe of walking through a dark park at 2 AM – that women lack “safe” spaces – physical or psychological – in comparison with men. The OP reels off a list of events, places and circumstances that she considers to be “safe spaces”, then complains that there aren’t enough of them. I wonder what she thinks that most men have in comparison – does she seriously believe that we’re big-time advantaged in that regard?
Since she never said, it’s impossible to tell whether the OP’s narrative also stems from bad relationships or the current lack of one. This is not being judgmental, but if she’s had bad relationships, that introduces a lot of bias, and if she’s not currently in a healthy one, her focus is going to be rather narrow.
Finally, there is no more BS here in Nova Scotia – say in HRM – than there is anywhere else. And using the word “community” is fraught with invitations to misinterpretation. Do you mean a location-based “community”, like a village or subdivision or apartment complex, where most of the people don’t even know each other? Do you mean an ideology-based virtual community, where people get together because of shared beliefs – well there are probably a few thousand of those in NS. I do love the phrase “I had so much hope for this community” – that is so condescending. What community was that exactly? I’ve lived here in NS most of my life since the 1960’s, and I’ll be damned if I could identify any substantial portion of Nova Scotia – or anywhere else – as a “social” identity-based interactive community, where everyone knows each other, does regular visits, has kitchen parties etc. Those days are long gone.
Help Help I’m being oppressed!
Imagine if a guy told a woman to “close your stupid legs on the stupid bus” MISOGYNIST!!!!
Is the author always this whiny?
Terrible writing. Vapid, stunned, whiny, and pretentious. I’m a man, and I figured out what I can do without your suggestion: Ignore you from now on.
Hi, I really enjoyed your article. However I found your name calling of IVAN SONOFABITCH devalues the point you are trying to make. Once people begin insolency, their original thoughts become overlooked.
Hopefully in the future, you will choose cultivation, instead of disrespectful callowness. I appreciate when the person rises above the childish person who slung the original insult.