This post was prompted by Reflections:Two Worlds in One.
It is arround midnight, and Claudia is calling me on the phone. Can you come down to the taxi stand with some money? I can’t find my purse, she says. Sure, I reply. Put on a shirt, fetch wallet, keys, door, elevator, door, iron bars, out onto the street. Cars, hookers, drunks, the taxi stand. Not there? I wait, another taxi stops, there she is. I open the door, hand her the purse. The old fat man mumbles something, I don’t understand it. She opens the purse, CHF 10 is not enough; the only other bill is a CHF 100 bill. She looks for coins, but no good. So she hands him the CHF 100 bill. He mumbles some more. Searches for change. I still don’t understand him, smile at her instead. It takes a while. I think to myself that maybe he’s not happy because of the large bill. Reminds me of the other time Claudia got mad because she was berated by a guy and she had told me about it back home. Her punch-line at the time was “money is money, if he doesn’t want it, he doesn’t have to take it – we can pay with any denomination we want”. I also think of the other time ages ago when service was slow in a Mexican restaurant and I had enough time to count all the small change in my pockets and we wanted to pay with them, and the old hag brought it all back and said that she didn’t believe it was correct that she didn’t want to count it, so we had to give her a bill instead. Hah, those were the days. We were young then, and didn’t berate *her* – money is money after all!
Finally Claudia gets her money, put I see now that she is pissed. She climbs out of the car, I hold her hand, she presses homewards. I’m surprised, didn’t want to take the money, eh? You didn’t hear him, she asks? Nope, I say. He was complaining all the time: God damn in the bar they always have exact change but in a cab, they think they can pay with large bills. Gna gna gna! Surprised, I stop. What? Why didn’t you tell him to shut up? Worse, he even gave himself a tip because the change was not exact, she says. Whaaaat!? Let’s go back! No, she says, come on. You can’t believe how angry I am. Old fart! Asshole! Dumbfuck! Grrrrr! I stop again. I can’t believe you’re telling me this. *You* let him go for berating you like that? And now you’re so angry? What should I have done, she asks. You should have told him off, I say. What if he had just driven on, she asks. What, you’re affraid of being kidnapped on this crowded street, with me waiting at the open taxi door? I can’t believe you didn’t even tell *me* what was going on! *I* would have told the sucker off! And on in went for a few mintes. Then we calmed down.
Why am I telling you this?
Because I’ve seen this a few times now. People have much less respect for Claudia. She’s smaller, she’s a woman, she looks cute. And she’s more affraid to speak up than I am. Everybody else seems stronger, bigger. There’s danger lurking in dark alleys, in cars, from strangers. But she doesn’t care much. Sure, she hates it, and will tell me all about it. But in the situation, she just accepts it as a given. That’s how the world is. There’s no fighting back. Relax, she says.
That’s the point. She tells me about it, I imagine the situation, and I can’t believe my eyes and ears. He said *what*!? He did, and kept following me until Helvetiaplatz! I get an incredible adrenalin rush, when she tells me these stories. I feel the urge to hurt somebody, to make them apologize, to just punch them in the face real hard, to twist their arm until I hear them weep. In “my” world, this never happens. Strangers are wary, quiet, polite or grumpy, but rarely provocative. The very few times I felt provoked – maybe once a year or every two years – never escalate. Like dogs, men automatically seek their distance. Like barbarians ready to strike, we move cautiously and respectfully. You never know what happens, and you never know how many friends there are, and how strong they are.
When I hear how women are treated by men, however, there are just a dozen scenes a day that nobody would ever *dare* pull off in my face. Sleazy remarks by a fat punter, an old geezer pinching her bottom in the crowd, a drunken ass blocking her way back to the bar from the toilet... Stuff that would result in violence amongst men is just endured by women. It’s part of “her” world. I’m not supposed to get all worked up. But by telling me about it, elements of “her” world cross over into “my” world, and since it is not actually happening right now, it is too late for me to react. I can’t *do* anything about it. That’s the source of my frustration and my anger.
#Reflections