Bogwitch

by Mary Dickson, 1996

Still relevant, always. 

Because of our gender, we must constantly think about how to be safe. Fear proscribes how and where we live, where we walk, where we park, where we sleep, eat and travel. As women, we know there are some things we cannot — or rather, should not — do, some places we should not go. We’ve seen the movies, we’ve read the articles, we know the statistics. The media is our collective storyteller and the story it tells us over and over again is that there is no safe place — not on the roads where we drive, on the streets where we walk, not even in the house where we live. We feel at risk because we are.

…

Novelist Margaret Atwood writes that when she asked a male friend why men feel threatened by women, he answered, “They are afraid women will laugh at them.” When she asked a group of women why they feel threatened by men, they said, “We’re afraid of being killed.”

…

It’s not that women are perpetually frightened or immobilized by fear. Rather it’s that we know we must constantly be wary. We look over our shoulder in the parking lot, hold our keys in our hands as we leave the building, check out who’s in the elevator, lock our windows even on a sweltering summer night — a hundred small gestures that become second nature to a woman. We take precautions a man never considers.

…

To illustrate, she relates the story of a male student who slept in a passageway of the Great Pyramid in Egypt. “I will never experience that. I am a woman. I am not stupid enough to believe I could ever be safe there. There is a world of solitary adventure I will never have. Women have always known these somber truths.”

This is why in my travels alone through Asia I always had to be inside by dark, why I can’t stop to help people on the side of the road, what cuts my homeless ministry opportunities in half, why I can’t go running outside on seasonable nights, why I try to look angry or talk to pretend people on my phone in parking lots & at gas stations.

Once, when X-Men 2 was in theaters, I went to a Tuesday night showing & found myself alone in the theater, which was great.  Until three guys, reeking of marijuana, came in & sat one on either side of me & one directly behind me.  Moving to avoid several physical intrusions into my personal space, I answered their queries by lying about having a boyfriend, suddenly remembering something I had to do at home, declining to tell them where I lived, & leaving in the middle of the film, shaking all the way out.  I reported the situation to the manager, who, since they weren’t currently smoking joints in there, didn’t care.  When I got to my car, I nearly bit my steering wheel through I was so angry & scared.

Once, at a Shell near a university campus, two guys approached me from around a darkish corner & asked if I wanted to buy some bargain perfume, offering me a sample whiff from a little open bottle one held out.  I declined as politely & nonconfrontationally as I could, and quickly left.  I really don’t want to know if that urban legend is true or not.

This is why I take jiu-jitsu (well, and because it’s fun).  I don’t have a gun because I’d rather die than kill, but I do usually carry a serious knife.  I honestly don’t think I’m overly fearful, and I hope this doesn’t sound too melodramatic.  I go about my life with a reasonable amount of confidence, and 95% of my interactions with men are pleasant & civil.  But there will always be a part of my brain alert to the possibility of danger. 

…At least I don’t have to worry about raptors.  This year.*

*lighthearted jest to lift the mood