On Bravery

Every day, or almost, I see an article describing women as brave for speaking out about harassment or rape. I myself have been called brave by a good friend because I wrote about the fact that some idiot once grabbed my ass when I was out running.

Apparently, there is a lot of shame and victim-blaming going around, and this is why women don't talk about these things, and why women who do are brave. I say apparently not because the shaming and the victim-blaming isn't true (it obviously is, just look at any of the rapes that have been reported in fraternities in the past year, or at the fact that women are being told to stop drinking to protect themselves), but because I wasn't brave, and a lot of women who I know have spoken up weren't brave (this isn't to say all of them aren't, just that a lot of them are not).

Now, some will say "you don't think you were but actually...". This isn't true. Bravery is the quality of someone ready to face and endure danger or pain; showing courage. When I spoke up about the fact that a man had grabbed my ass, that wasn't brave: I wasn't ready to face and endure danger or pain, because I didn't expect to endure it. I knew (or at least I felt, and I was proven right) when I spoke up (and I didn't even think of it as speaking up, I was just talking about something that happened to me) that no one I knew would tell me "you were looking for it". That no one would ask "what were you wearing?". Obviously, when I say I "knew", what I mean is that I would have been surprised if anyone had. I wrote about it in my blog and I received positive responses all around. No one said to me "you deserved it". At the time, I didn't tell my parents, because I didn't think it was such a big deal (it pissed me off, and broke my run, but the guy didn't physically hurt me) but mostly because I didn't want to worry them. Not because I was ashamed it had happened. If I thought I was in danger or that it would happen again I would have told them.

It's a good thing that more people are speaking out about rape. It speaks volumes to the work being done by a lot of people to stop invisibilising abuse, but also, in a lot of cases, it reflects a, perhaps small, change in our society: less people are afraid to speak out. More people feel safe enough in their environment to speak out. More safe spaces for people to speak out are becoming available. And this last point is perhaps the most important.

I think more and more women are feeling secure about reporting stranger rape and stranger assault. Although horrible attitudes still exist and victim blaming exists, I honestly believe that things are better in terms of safety for people who speak up than they were two or five years ago, if only because more people are speaking out. However, more needs to be done. Safe spaces need to be created for people who have suffered assault to speak up, specially for people who are in situations where speaking up puts them in danger (people who are suffering abuse from a friend or their partner or someone in their family). Means have to be provided for people who are in these situations to get out of them, but with utmost respect for the victim (I personally think that coping with rape and assault are very personal things, I disagree with people who insist that others have to speak out, although I do wish everyone could speak out and feel safe about speaking out). 

Now, there is a (small?) problem with this. If I get raped, I report my rapist, it goes to trial and he is declared not guilty, and then I continue to call him a rapist, I can be accused (and found guilty of) slander. This is how the justice system works, and I would never agree to change it (a person's life shouldn't be ruined because of a false accusation, even if that means that guilty people get off). However, I somehow feel that even if I can't call out this person publicly, there should be spaces (support groups are the obvious ones, but also personal conversations with friends) where this should be ok... The fact that I think this horrifies. Basically, I'm saying that I can't call someone a rapist in public if this person has been cleared, but I can do so in private if I want. There is a huge problematic in this: when does the private become public? But there is also an element of safety: if I know that someone is a potential danger because that person has hurt me, but declared not guilty, is it really slander to warn my friends off that person? I don't know the answers to this questions. I know what I would do personally, and I know what is fair, but I also know how the law works and that we don't live in an utopian world (or even in a non-utopia where there is a simple way to prove if someone has raped someone else or not).

Bravery is a big word. It means standing up to something, speaking out knowing that by doing so you are putting yourself in danger. I am not brave. Very few people are. And contrary to popular believe, that is not a bad thing. In a perfect world, people would not need to be brave to speak out for social justice, because that would be the norm. In a perfect world, speaking out against social injustice would never put you in danger.