I recently came across a rare and fascinating online event. Sparked by an essay entitled Schrodinger’s Rapist, an extended, agonizing and enthralling discussion erupted. By the time it was finished, thousands of comments had been written by hundreds of authors across dozens of web communities.
The essay that set everything off – subtitled ‘A Guy’s Guide to Approaching Strange Women Without Being Maced’ – deals with the socio-sexual politics of men attempting to strike up a conversation with women in public places. The author, a woman, explains:
“When you approach me in public, you are Schrödinger’s Rapist. You may or may not be a man who would commit rape. I won’t know for sure unless you start sexually assaulting me. I can’t see inside your head, and I don’t know your intentions. If you expect me to trust you—to accept you at face value as a nice sort of guy—you are not only failing to respect my reasonable caution, you are being cavalier about my personal safety.”
Having lived these last six years in Vanuatu, a place virtually without strangers, I found the discussion fascinating and troubling. As anyone with eyes can tell you, the rate of sexual violence is appallingly high. And yet, if you were to wander through Port Vila, you’d have to look carefully to see the signs. At first glance, Vanuatu really appears to be one of the happiest places on the planet.
And, peculiarly (I dare say perversely), it is.
I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to write this column for two weeks now. I find it terribly difficult to reconcile the constant fear in which far too many women live with the ready smiles and laughter that punctuate daily life. Compared to the distant and downright cold nature of human interaction in North America, it seems that Vanuatu’s moniker of ‘Untouched Paradise’ is well deserved.
A few days ago, I arrived in South Africa, a country with notoriously high crime rate and equally appalling rate of sexual violence. A recent report discussed on SABC, the South African national broadcaster, counted 71,000 reports of sexual violence between April 2008 and March 2009. The presenter expressed her astonishment that the number was so high, only to be told that because such complaints rarely resulted in police action, the real number was almost certainly nine times higher, possibly as much as twenty.
Surprised? You shouldn’t be. It’s quite likely that the ratio or reports to actual incidents is similar in Vanuatu, if not worse.
So why, then, are Vanuatu’s communities such open, lively and light-hearted places? Why don’t women cower in fear? Historically, it wasn’t always so. In his 18th Century visit to Vanuatu, Captain Cook reported seeing no women whatsoever. They were all in hiding. Early 20th Century anthropologists reported that Big Nambas women in Malekula were held in lower esteem than pigs. They were not even given names.
The emancipation of women and their entry into public life is a fairly recent phenomenon, by all accounts. Certainly, they had little input into their choice of partners, living quarters and of course livelihood than they do now. Seen in this light, the brave steps taken by crusaders like Grace Molisa spanned centuries of development.
One of the authors of the South African report on sexual violence stated that the greatest impediment to reducing sexual violence was the difficulty of beginning a dialogue in which men and women could speak – and be heard – on equal terms. If the heated discussion that Schrodinger’s Rapist sparked is any indication, even in the most developed societies, engagement and understanding between men and women is a rare commodity indeed.
Which brings us back to the ostensibly friendly laughter and cajolery that punctuate so much of daily life in Vanuatu. I am forced to conclude that the reason that laughter and predation can co-exist is that they don’t really have any relationship to one another. Smiles and laughter don’t do anything to preclude rape, battery and sexual assault; they do, however, make the rest of the time liveable.
The only lesson we can take from the disparity between the chilly nature of North American discourse and ni-Vanuatu warmth is that it didn’t have to be that way. That’s cold comfort for Americans; it’s impossible to unwind the clock. The distance between strangers cannot easily be reduced.
But for Vanuatu, South Africa and other nations, the lesson is still there to be learned, should we so choose. As this newest generation of young women comes of age, we must do what we can to ensure that a dialogue arises between men and women that is as robust, engaging and yes, heated if need be, as that which followed the publication of other seminal documents concerning women’s right to safety in public and at home.
We need to learn from those who have gone before and avoid, if it’s at all possible, letting the chill of distance and fear seep into our daily lives. Not because it reduces sexual violence, but because it makes the rest of our lives liveable.
- Graham Crumb