The public space responds to the same dogmas as the rest of the world: it is governed by unequal, often gender-based principles. Most women around the world share the experience of being verbally attacked, of being sexualized by the gaze of others in a sometimes particularly violent way when they walk in the city. Personally, I started being addressed by men (often triple, even quadruple or quintuple my age) when I was 10 years old. As I got older, and was approached less and less, I often had the impression that what excited men when I was little was the naivety that emanated from me. They smelled the prey and came running.
I left my small Ontario town for Montreal these last few days, a quick trip to attend a conference. Seeing Montreal regain its comfort in the summer heat was an interesting experience. In 24 hours, I was approached twice in the metro by men. I chased them away quickly, slightly irritated (can I listen to my music quietly, please), not threatened at all. While I was walking downtown, a woman who was working on the construction of a section of sidewalk decided to greet everyone who passed by, and I was touched by her diligence. When I walked past her a second time after shopping, she said “have a nice day, my dear” instead of “have a nice day” the first time; it reminded me of what I always loved about the United States, these ladies I encountered in a customer service context, who called me honey Or sweetie, a caring, affectionate and at the same time a little anonymous look. As I walked towards the station where I was going to take the train to return home, that was precisely what I was thinking about, about what big cities, where I no longer live anymore, engender a kind of living together, sometimes forced and unpleasant, and sometimes surprising and light.
I was pulling my small suitcase on wheels when I passed a group of around fifteen people in the street. They took up all the space. Going around them would have required me to stop walking, to change direction. I froze. I waited for them to move a few centimeters aside to let me pass. It seemed to me the most basic politeness for an imposing group of people to give way to a single person pulling a suitcase. Furthermore, for years I have been inspired by scientific articles showing, since the 1970s, that sharing sidewalks is gendered. Women take up less space in urban space, are more often jostled and must then give way: when a woman passes a man, statistically, it is almost always she who pushes herself to let the man move forward, straight ahead. Contrary to what my socialization taught me, I no longer try to make myself seem excessively small in the city. So, in front of this group, I didn’t hold back.
Not systematically giving way has already earned me little angry or questioning looks, but nothing major: I continue to give priority to the elderly, to those with disabilities. Common sense. However, this time, it didn’t go smoothly: one of the women in the group started yelling at me. The man who had to take a step to the left so that I could continue on my way told me “it’s not okay, it’s not okay”, as if I had literally just spit in his face. I was a little scared, I didn’t look at him, I continued on my way. Sometimes, small dissidences create unsuspected results, are more political than we think.
I hadn’t done anything wrong, but, to say it with Lori Kern in Feminist city, “once built, our cities continue to shape and influence social relations, power relations, inequalities, and so on.” Me, a young woman with brown skin, all dressed in jeans, passing people who looked well-dressed, I should undoubtedly have, according to standards to which I do not subscribe, left them plenty of room so that the relationships of each other remained unchanged. power. I said to myself: for them, I am probably the one who does everything, the girl who washes their hats, not the one who gets passed up. Barely a human. Now, I learned that I too, in the city, have the right to walk without splitting myself into four pieces. To walk straight ahead of me.