78 lines
4.3 KiB
Plaintext
78 lines
4.3 KiB
Plaintext
WOMEN FIGHTBACK
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is the contraFLOW column dedicated to true stories of personal
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heroic 'fightback' experiences by women. Send in your victories
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against a misoqynist boss, fucked political comrade or abusive
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scumbag for inclusion in a future issue c/o K.M at contraFLOW. You
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can be phoned if you'd rather just tell your story rather than
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write it out. Keep on fighting back.
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Emily's Story
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"I was visiting some friends in Los Angeles and decided to go for a
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jog. It was getting near dusk and I found my way to a park that my
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friends had warned me against, saying it was a dangerous,
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gang-banger hell. I totally hate feeling restricted from any place
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and especially hate letting fear control me so I went anyway. (I
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still hate letting fear control me.) The park was all overgrown and
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covered with semingly hundreds of little paths leading to
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who-knows-where. I guess a lot of homeless people made their homes
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in the bushes and nooks and crannies. At the time I started my jog
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though, I didn't really see any peole. It felt prety abandoned.
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At some point while running down one of these overgrown trails I got
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this creepy sensation about me. ("Trust your instincts" self-defense
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classes teach.) I thought, "If I were to ever get raped, here..." I
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came to a dead end and swung around to head back and at that moment
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a guy jumped out of some brush about 50 meters in front of me, stood
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in the narrow path, hands on hips and stared straight at me.
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Something inside me clicked and I knew t-h-i-s w-a-s i-t. I had
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nowhere else to run so I rean straight toward him hoping when I got
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there he'd move and let me pass, all the while my mind was thinking
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a hundred things at once. "Stare him in the eyes, don't let him know
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you're scared. Fight!"
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I got up to him, really terrified but overcome by a survival
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instinct and when he reached out and grabbed me I knew I had to
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resist. It was beyond frightening, him trying to wrestle me to the
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ground and me kicking and hitting him in all the places self-defense
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instructors say don't work. (But the main thing self-defence
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instructors push is that resisting *at all* is vital, that rapists
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look for victims they think will be easy, non-resisting.) He wasn't
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saying anything but seemed surprised by my reaction, and he started
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hitting me back but seemed confused by it. I wanted to scream but
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absolutely could not. At some moment, about the same time I was
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finally remembering some flickers of self-defence moves (but still
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not being able to enact them) my voice kicked in and I just started
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screaming "I'm going to kill you motherfucker!" and things like
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that. I think that scared him because it might have attracted
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attention if anyone was around to hear it and he finally let me go
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and backed off, hands above his head in a show of surrender.
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I ran off and was in a completely freaked out state, not believing
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that that had just happened to me and not knowing what I should do
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about it. In my fucking oh-so-political way, I decided not to call
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the cops because *I don't believe in that system of 'justice'*, and
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because it might have meant the end of a lot of people's homes in
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their shanties or whatever in the park with the guy probably not
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getting caught anyway. In the end I felt satisfied that I had fought
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him off and thought that might have scared him enough to try
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attacking another woman again. He truly looked more terrified by my
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response in the end than I think I even felt. I only wish I had got
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it together to make warning fliers to other women to post around the
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park, but I didn't.
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On a final note, as a matter of mental self-preservation, about an
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hour later after I had calmed down a bit five of my friends and I
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went back to the park and exact spot of the attack (it was dark by
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now), me with a baseball bat and a stance that said "I will maim you
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bad if you are here." I didn't think he'd be there but I just needed
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to be back there to reclaim my space I think. It made me feel
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strong. The not-good bit was the reaction I got from so many friends
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and family when I told them about it, lots of folks saying "You
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shouldn't have been running alone in such a place." (I should do
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whatever I want to.) This reaction even came from anarchos and
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feminists, people who should have known better. This made me feel
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super crap, was the only cause of any of the tears I shed over it. I
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wish folks could figure it out."
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