I’m on a run and up ahead a man unzips his pants, pulls out his penis, and starts to ahem, enjoy himself at my expense. There’s the butt grab and the breast squeeze and the lewd gestures and crude comments. I won’t bore you with gory details, unfortunately you may have your own.
What am I talking about? Sexual harassment, if you haven’t yet realized.
I lived in the Horn of Africa for over twenty years and the only person I have ever heard give a presentation on sexual harassment was myself. It is time to start talking about this issue. It is something almost every woman will experience and many men as well.
A survey mentioned in The Guardian newspaper said 41% of respondents identified harassment as the number one issue facing women in the humanitarian field.
I don’t have statistics on expatriate women and sexual harassment but I’m a runner, so I’ll use these stats to highlight how pervasive this is. From a Runners World survey of over 5,000 women, these are things women reported to have experienced while running:
84% have experienced verbal harassment
36% have been followed
63% were sexually propositioned
4% have been physically assaulted
45% no longer run in certain areas because they fear for their safety
16% have felt threatened enough that they feared for their life
I would personally check a YES or a #metoo beside each one of these.
I recently attended a conference and in one of the group sessions, a woman shared this story:
“One of our young, single, female staff was sexually assaulted while walking in the streets in her host country. She had also experienced harassment several other times. What can we do to prepare women for that kind of experience abroad? Should we teach them Taekwondo?”
To my utter surprise, the seminar leader said, “Great comments,” and turned to the next person who had their hand raised. That person said something about using dating apps while living abroad. And on and on things went, never again addressing that first question about how to prepare women for harassment and whether or not women should learn Taekwondo before moving to a foreign country.
Excuse me?!
Maybe I missed the point of the seminar. Maybe the point was to give people a chance to raise sticky issues and practice asking questions about them. Maybe the point was to let people hold a microphone. Maybe the point was to see how many questions could be asked and not answered in a certain space of time.
I wish I had been able to grab that woman afterwards. I have ideas, and they aren’t Taekwondo, necessarily, though if someone wants to learn, awesome.
Was the woman’s comment ignored because the people running the seminar were men? Did talking about sexual harassment make them uncomfortable? Well, buckle up y’all. Time to get uncomfortable.
Men need to be part of this conversation. Not including them would be like not including white people in a conversation about racism. Even if they don’t actively engage in sexual harassment, they need to teach their sons, their male coworkers, and they need to know what their female coworkers and wives and daughters face. Sexual harassment can lead to PTSD, trauma, fear, anxiety, anger, shame. It can limit a woman’ productivity, longevity in a place, and ability to thrive or contribute. I can also testify from my own experience and that of coworkers, that when the men around us take my experiences seriously, support us, and contribute to solutions, the women are encouraged. Also, men and boys do experience harassment as well.
And, this is not an expat women issue. Local women experience this, too So: to be clear, while I’m talking about sexual harassment of foreign women, this is not a foreign women’s issue. It is for men and local communities too. And not just foreign white women. We need to be able to talk about these experiences, hold the stories of our female friends, and understand the many and complicated layers, including race and class and nationality, involved with harassment.
I know women experience harassment in their home countries as well, but when a woman is outside her natural culture and native language, when she already feels exposed, when she maybe hasn’t yet developed support structures or doesn’t know the emergency response protocols, when she does not innately belong in a place, when she doesn’t know how to protect herself or how to respond culturally, there is a vulnerability and added trauma to harassment. The fear factor increases, the ability to bond with the host country decreases, the sense of isolation and helplessness is powerful. Add to that the reality that she is there to serve: you’re supposed to like it here, you can’t vilify the people, you chose this life…and there are complicated emotions swirling around the experience of harassment.
This quote from Jia Tollentino on Fresh Air, captures the experience well. She is the author of Trick Mirror and writes for the New Yorker. She worked in Krygyzstan for the Peace Corps and endured pretty intense sexual harassment. She said, “You’re there to say, I’m here to serve you. You’re there to say your life is more important than mine, your happiness, your wellbeing is more important that mine. That’s how I wanted to live there, those wires got crossed. Krygyzstan. I’m here to serve you but the men want to subjugate me and render me powerless. But you can’t honor that…You’re there to live life in a way that honors the local culture and community.” How do you speak out against something when you are there with this mindset? She goes on to talk about complicating factors of being a guest, political issues, etc. The lines are blurry between what we should do and what is intolerable.
Harassment isn’t going away. I’m not going to give suggestions on how to avoid it. But, what do we do when it happens? How do we respond when someone pinches our daughter on the ass, when someone brushes their hand on a coworker’s breast, when a friend is pinned against the wall in the market and groped? How can you prepare the women you work with for the harassment they might experience?
We need to respond on multiple levels – personally, as team members and team leaders, and organizationally.
One. Identity.
Women must have a robust theological understanding of their identity. For me as a Christian, that means their identity as hidden with Christ in God. It means helping them develop an unshakeable conviction and experience of being created in the image of God, imbued with innate worth and dignity, having value, being precious, and being deeply loved. This does not change. No matter what happens, this is rock-solid true. It is also true for Muslim women and Buddhist women and Jewish women and secular women…Beyond our faith identity, there is also our identity as coworkers or family members. As the director of our school, my husband sets the tone and he has to take the care of staff seriously. Our teachers and other staff belong to the community and we look out for each other and support each other when something happens. This might mean going to member of the board or an influential local person to make a report at the police station. It means being certain that within the organization, harassment is unacceptable as well.
Two. Talk about harassment.
TALK ABOUT IT. For crying out loud. I have rarely heard this issue brought up to be directly addressed in a training or an orientation unless I bring it up myself. It is going to happen. Don’t ignore the issue. Don’t just say teach them self-defense. I’ve talked about it with my daughters from when they were young. I’ve hosted dinner parties with women specifically to address it. When I hear about an incident happening to someone, I reach out to her. Break the silence.
Three. Have an organizational policy.
Something that lets women know who they should address a complaint or issue to, something that acknowledges this happens and that explains what the available support services are: counselors, debriefing options, police contacts, etc. One thing that can make it hard for women to talk about this with their organization is that if they appear to be struggling, their job could be on the line. Or they may fear being pulled from their position. I have this fear from time to time – if I admit that something was traumatizing, or challenging, or that I don’t like this aspect of the culture, will I be told that I should leave? I don’t believe leaving is always the right option. Sometimes, yes, but with that hanging over as a potential first resort, a woman who is otherwise content and fulfilled and wants to stay, might not admit to the hard things, until they explode.
Four. No Shame.
Emphasize that there is no shame when harassment happens. One of the best ways to do this is for the boss or leader to share their own stories, to be vulnerable. Shame may come from many places. When harassment is not openly addressed, there is the unspoken assumption that it isn’t a big deal, get used to it. You got used to the heat or the dust or the language, so just get used to the hand on your breast, the pinch, the leering, the comments. It didn’t hurt did it? You don’t have it as bad as so and so… Or why waste time talking about something that will never go away? Or, if I bring this up, someone will think it’s my fault. I shouldn’t be running. I shouldn’t have worn that. I shouldn’t have gone there. If that were the case for why I’m harassed than I should just die because it happens in the car, in the street, at the store, when I’m covered and when I’m not and when I’m alone and when I’m with my husband or with a local friend.
Five. Take it seriously.
Let women know you will take this seriously. Could be in the organizational policy or simply stated, but let them know that you will involve the police if necessary, that you will take their complaint to heart, that they will not be blown off as overreacting or too sensitive.
Six. Local practical advice.
If you know the culture into which the women are heading, offer practical tips specific to their host country. For example, in my context it is perfectly appropriate to shout, to react strongly, to ask for help, to go to the police. There are also certain places to avoid after dark or while alone, locking doors, etc. In other countries, a woman would never go to the police but might engage a helpful bystander.
Seven. Engage with local women.
Find out their experiences and their responses, figure out a way to partner and to find solidarity with them.
Eight. Bystander response.
If you see someone else being harassed, don’t be a silent and immobile bystander. Use these five D’s, taken from an article in Runners World and modified by me. (and here is some wisdom on when and how to intervene)
Direct. Speak directly and forcefully to the person harassing. “Hey! That’s not okay. Leave them alone.” In Djibouti, I say in Somali, “Hey! Shame on you. God is watching you.” Things like that.
Distract. Interrupt the incident before things get worse. Pretend you know the person being harassed, ask her directions or the time, say hello.
Delegate. Find someone else to intervene, like an authority figure. In Djibouti, this might be a guard nearby or someone else simply walking past.
Document. Take out your phone and snap pictures or video. Be discrete about this. Give the images to the person who was harassed and allow her to decide how to handle it.
Delay. Harassment often happens quickly (hello rock to my head or hand on my breast or bottle dumped on me from a car) and you can’t react in the moment. Still, if you see something happen, check in with the person who was harassed. Make sure they are okay. Acknowledging it right away, and that it is not okay, can have a powerful impact on the other person in helping them know they aren’t alone.
Spiritual
The Bible is full of stories of the sexual assault of women. We are not alone. We love the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We also love the God of Sarah, Hagar, Keturah, Rebekah, Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah. These three men referenced in the catch phrase God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is the same God of these eight women who were their wives and concubines and God is their God, too.
God sees, listens, and responds to these women.
We have stories of the Levite’s unnamed concubine, raped to death. Tamar, raped by her brother. Another Tamar, abandoned and then used by her father-in-law. Esther, trafficked straight into the king’s bedroom. And God was with each of them, even unto death. This is the God who sees us and who will fight for us, who gives promises and God’s very own presence.
This is where we draw our strength and courage and identity – from being daughters of the God who sees us and the God who is with us and the God who will fight for us.
Friends, on a recent podcast episode, Bernie and I (Amy) had a conversation with Rachel Pieh Jones about sexual harassment on the field. Clearly this is not a light topic, yet it is an important one to talk about. Though the majority of sexual harassment occurs against women, we also know that men can experience it, both genders witness it, and it can happen to our children. We do not mean to open up wounds and if taking this survey is not what’s best for you right now, we respect that!
This survey is 100% anonymous. Thank you for sharing what you’ve experienced and maybe haven’t been able to talk about it, possibly out of fear for what might happen. Global Trellis will share the anonymous findings with you, and hopefully we can all learn from each other. Thank you, thank you. This survey will be open through the end of January 2025.
Wow. What an important topic! Thank you for open talk and for ideas on what to do. My experiences as a tck and as global worker add a resounding agreement that we need to be taught what to do.