Illustration from Kelly Reyes
I love walking, moving by myself.. walking to take a bus, the metro, to find my bike, to be free. My legs are my fount of power and I appreciate having the privilege to walk, to run... gives me freedom.
Until today, that I am in my late twenties, I still don't have a driving license, and no plans to have it. Why to have a driving license if I am strong enough to walk, to bike and have more focus to appreciate the all the little things in life. I love to look from the window of a public transport and search for people that I might know and scream "HOLAAAA", I also imagine other people's life’s: where they come from, where are they going, if they are having a good day, if they need help, how many of those people found happiness in life?
Ok, I am a romantic.
And I think because I am a romantic I keep walking, I keep going out in the streets and taking over this space that makes me feel free, and I decided to focus in the freedom and forget how walking was
also scary... so many times.
I started walking alone in the streets when I was around 10, before that I was always with my siblings or more friends in the park close by my Pai's* house. This summer I subscribed to capoeira, it was the first time I did real sport in my life and I used to dream about getting stronger and doing those crazy flips that masters do. I was a small chubby girl having muscle ache for the first time in my life and I always remembered this summer as my capoeira experience. It was a 10 to 15 minutes’ walk from home to the gym, I was very cautious in the way to cross the big messy streets, I was deeply proud of myself of doing it.
During those walks to my capoeira lessons I lived my first cat callings: guys putting their heads out of the window and saying things that I couldn't even understand. I knew that I needed to walk faster, use the power of my legs.
I continued walking.
From that summer on I started hearing more stories about things that happened to women when walking in the streets.
One weekend we went to one of those extremely crowded beaches with my family and my Friend was slapped in her butt by a guy that was riding a bike. She was going back home, walking with another girlfriend.
Some years after my same friend was walking to school in a long street that had curves, in one of the curves she faced a random guy, he immediately grabbed her both breasts, she pushed him away and ran to the avenue, entered a taxi and arrived to school crying. She was 16, she was in her school uniform.
For weeks she was afraid to find the guy again.
My Friend continued walking.
From there I understood that sometimes you need to run. I understood that you need to cross to the other side of the street when there is a group of guys in the same side as you. I understood that you need to check behind constantly in case someone is following you.
No one never give us women a list of all the things we need to be aware when we walk, one day we just understand and start doing all of them.
When I was around 15 I started to talk more with friends about catcalling, soetimes we shared tips to each other, I remember this one:
-When you pass in front of a building under construction you make a horrible face. ( I can remember my friend doing her performance with one eye closed and one open, the teeth outside and somehow also a bit of the
tongue and putting her face behind to have a double chin.) Also is good to put the belly as much outside as possible and the butt inside as if you were scared.
We laugh hard this day thinking how crazy it was to do all those things.
I didn't laugh anymore after the day I thought about using this tip, I was walking close by a construction and didn't noticed that 3 workers came outside and started calling me.
Is it too late to make the face? - I thought.
I looked down and walked as fast as possible.
Me and my friends were average girls, chubby, with our teenager perfections and imperfections, but in the streets that doesn’t m
atter, when you walk in the streets doesn't matter your age or if you are inside the beauty standards, just matter that below your clothes you have boobs and a vagina.
In another girls night a friend opened up her story:
-"I was coming back home, it was not late. I was waiting for the bus and started to get dark, the street was empty and the bus was taking ages to come. A young guy that was a couple of years older than me stand behind me, waiting for the bus, he stand there for 10 minutes until from one moment to the other he put his hand under my skirt. For some seconds I just freezed and he touched everything he could. After this couple of seconds I came back to life and ran away. I didn't wear skirts for years... "
We continue walking.
When I was 17 I went with my Hermano to the centrum to buy a pepper spray.
By then we were always going t
ogether in this car to school, but this semester he had an internship in another city, so I needed to walk to the bus around 10 minutes from and to home. He told me not to play with it and how to use it, he told me to always keep in the same pocket so I could easy find it if I one day I needed to use it, or even to have it always on hand prepared to use with my hand inside the bag.
Those months I always used the last advise: hand inside the bag with the spray ready to use. Fortunately I never used it, but I cannot count with my fingers the amount of times that I ran because I felt in danger, because it was too dark, because the same old man was coming behind me.
The semester passed, and I continued walking.
When I was 19 I moved again to another country, this time to study university. This city is known as the city that never sleeps.. la ciudad de la furia.
I think that there I discovered in the full meaning of freedom, there is always something to see, somewhere to go, interesting people to meet up, so much student politic movement! I was in love by a city for the first time!
Another thing to love was the amazing: public transport is 24 hours. After 12 there are less buses and no metro ... but still if you wait: a bus will come.
In there people walk a lot, my first weeks I w
as always with pain in my feet. When you directions in the street to someone:
-Sorry, do you know this address?
-Ah...si!! This is close by, you walk straight here 15 blocks and to the right you are there.
Like that you walk every day, every night. 15 blocks here, 15 blocks there, 2 hours walking in a manifestation.. that was life.
In this city I started reading much more about social topics, feminist books, and I started feeling a huge anger inside of me realizing the shitty side of the world. This anger made me see clear that I was being cat called, and for the first time I decided to react to it.
I remember the day that I decided to react to cat calling and harassment: it was almost dark and I was biking back from university to
home. I was biking one side to a very wide street and a guy in a moto came behind me, he slowed down to go as fast as me and stand just next to me, looking to my nervous face he started smiling, he did that for a couple of blocks but for me was never ending, I didn't know if he was going to kick me to fall down the bike and do harm to me, I didn't know what to expect... I knew that it did not matter how fast I could bike he would always be next to me.
After two blocks he left.. laughing of my nerves... when I couldn't see him anymore tears went down my face and I screamed with all the power I had inside.
From this day on every time I was catcalled in any way I was screaming back, showing my middle finger or just making a very angry face accompanied by the Italian/Argentinean hand gesture.
One day I was walking from my best friend's house to mine, it was a Sunday around 10 am and a man on his 60's was walking on our direction:
- Beautiful - he said
-Disgusting old man - I replied
- Marvelous - he said
- Stop talking to us! - I said
He continued saying things to us.
My friend laugh.
- You are crazy - she said.
- I am not crazy, I am mad.
Another day I was walking in one of the main avenues of the city, the sun was shining and I had my sun glasses on… I was feeling happy. A taxi driver put his head outside the window and sent me a kiss. I put my middle finger up and crossed the street as a response. He opened his door, went down of the car and walked towards me saying he would take me. I ran as fast as I could and until I found a supermarket and entered there. This guy wanted to kidnap me.
This was the last time I respond to cat callings... but I continued walking.
I never stopped feeling free in there, but you do need to learn
the rules by yourself. Also the years I was living there the big movement of “Ni una menos” started, they organized huge protest. The first one I went I remember the main topic was that the last year 1 women every 18 hours was killed in the country, killed just for being a woman walking in the street, living in her house, living.
That scared all of us, and turned into the conversation topic within friends. I heart so many stories during the protests:
-“My daughter disappeared.”
-“I was abused.”
-“I was kidnapped and scapped”
How to avoid all this misogyny?
I had some ground rules back then, in between were:
Always use comfortable shoes.
Be fit enough to be able to run fast, if you feel doubt: run.
Sometimes I ran and people looked to me like crazy, but other times people ran after me.
I continued walking. and running everytime i felt danger.
Dauring my last year of university I was having night classes, because I was working full time.
My classes were finishing after 22:00, then I was walking to take a bus, waiting for it and going out of the bus just 2 blocks away from the building I lived, in average I was entering home just before 23:00. One of those blocks i had to walk from the bus to home was dark and almost always empty, the other was the
big avenue where my building was. After those 150 meters of darkness I would arrive to a the lightened avenue, and just in front of my building was always a police man.
Those 150 meters were my last sprint of the day, after I went down the bus I was fitting my backpack very well and getting ready to a possible run.
Once just in the corner of the beginning of this street there was a guy trying to open/steal a car, he immediately felt my presence and turned to me, in his first step toward me I ran in direction to the avenue, in direction to my house, in direction of safety. He ran after me, I felt him very close.
I am not a fast person, but in this moment I used all my power. I looked behind when I arrived to the avenue and he had stayed in the middle of the block, his shadow started to disappear in the darkness. I jogged to the police man and told him to be aware of this guy.
I was living in this moment with my best friend. She hugged me hard this night.
After 8 years living in this amazing city where I f
ound freedom I moved to Europe. In general in here the feeling of safety is much bigger, I even forgot some of my past rules, but not all of the,.
The first time I came to Europe I made my first stop in Spain, the first time I was going to cross a street with no traffic light a car stopped for me to pass, well, in this moment I didn’t understand that this is what the car wanted, my mind set was still in my regular "mode" and a flash back from the taxi driver trying to go after me came to my head, I stayed there paralyzed and did a sign with my hand for the car to pass first. The people in the car were very confused, and I was afraid of them.
Now I live here for already 3 years and still have this type of flashbacks. Some months ago I was walking from my office to the centrum with a colleague from Chile, it was raining and dark, suddenly we saw a person coming in our direction, we both immediately stopped talking to each other and crossed the street, some seconds later we realized it was just a regular person with a huge jacket covering from the rain. We first laugh from our fear, she told me that she was already searching for a rock in the ground to use as a defense weapon and then we stopped to laugh and ended up telling stories where really someone tried to atta
ck us.
The culture here is more of biking, not walking, therefore if you break the norm the problems start.
When you walk you are in much more exposed, the streets were not made for walking, the cities were made by white old men.
Two very lovely sisters one day shared stories with me:
-“I live very close to the centrum, is a 5 minutes’ walk. I went to a restaurant and decided to not take my bike, it was a Friday so it wa
s quite busy around there. In the moment I left the crowded zone I noticed a guy in a bike was following me, he in this moment started biking just next to me, looking to my face, not saying anything. I faked receiving a call and talking with my partner, walked in the most lightened areas until he decided to leave. I ran.”
- “I love to walk, and I love to go out to music nights, I am always up to these type of events. The problem here is that when you walk after 12 o clock no matter how you dress people will think you are a prostitute, one night a car passed by me and turned, passed back and 3 white men screamed to me and even threw a hamburger on me.”
In Europe we also check out with our friends:
-“Text me when you are home”.
-“Arrived safe”
-“Good, now I can sleep”
Yes, we continue walking, we continue in life, we don’t lose our p
ower, we take care of each other, we learn with most shitty experiences because no one is telling us up front what is going to happen one day.
We don’t lose our freedom even if it comes in a package mixed with fear and angry: we continue walking.
Comments