Content warning: discusses physical/sexual violence and rape
I’m sitting at my desk, on a dull, cloudy afternoon. I’ve just finished reading Sweat by Zora Neale Hurston — a short story, a set reading. It is about the tired Black American wife of a cruel husband who beats her out of pure hatred, for not satisfying him anymore, for being ‘too skinny.’ Eventually, his spite results in him leaving a caged rattle snake outside the kitchen door (Delia, the wife and protagonist, is mortally afraid of snakes). One night, he leaves the snake in her basket of washing for her to find. When she does, she runs out of the house and shelters in the hay barn, waking to find her husband entering the house the next morning. In the morning darkness, and unaware that the snake remains in the bedroom where Delia had left it, it sneaks up on him and bites him. Delia looks into his eyes as they both realise he is as good as dead.
Before my reading of Sweat I had finished listening to an audiobook: Promising Young Women, by Caroline O’Donoghue. The themes of this book, while in many ways worlds and generations apart from that of Hurston’s short story, carry similar messages. The protagonist, Jane, one of these ‘promising young women,’ begins an affair with her boss twice her age, one that turns sourer as the chapters unfold, and leaves Jane with a series of unexplained symptoms: rashes, hair loss, dramatic weight loss, light-headedness and, it later transpires, amnesia. She soon realises — or always knew — that she had been coerced into this relationship, worn down and taken advantage of by a man with sexual, societal, and professional power over her. As her health spirals out of control, Jane sees the violent side of her lover, one that does not care for her wellbeing or interests, and (without wanting to spoil the ending) she narrowly escapes being raped by him.
The theme of violence in both these texts was poignant to me. Yes, both are fiction, and yes, both are stories of extremes. But it goes without saying that, for so many women — too many — these accounts are their very real testimonies. Considering the theme of local and global, the distinction in this case is clear. Structural violence against women often begins in the domestic sphere. It is subtle at first; it is undercover, overlooked, and unnoticed by the outside world. It is done in private — it has to be. In a space where a man feels safe, in control, and untouchable, it is tragically easy to see how a woman can be made to feel unsafe, out of control, and so within reach of abuse and pain.
This violence, however, is not local in its occurrence. It is systemic; it has, and continues to be, entrenched in the upbringing of children across the world. Young men are taught that to be without power over something — or someone — is a weakness. Why shouldn’t they be able to take and use what they want? Young women are taught, at best, to watch out for some men, who might try to take advantage of them; at worst, that such advantage-taking is inevitable, and that it is their duty to accept it. Both Hurston’s and O’Donoghue’s narratives exemplify the violence against women perpetuated by an ingrained system of misogyny. Sweat, written in 1926, displays the pure detestation Delia’s husband has for her, manifesting as physical and verbal abuse. Promising Young Women portrays a more psychological form of abuse, a manipulative cunning which masks the violence of drunken, non-consensual sex and the slow but steady decline of Jane’s physical health — a metaphor for the loss of control over her own body.
While the works spread centuries and cross continents, and of course discuss other issues, including the unquestionable part race plays in Hurston’s narrative, they share the theme of woman-hating mentalities inseparable from their respective patriarchal societies; the power struggles, the evidence of abuse to the outside world that are not believed nor discussed. One woman, black, working-class, living in a rural community in Florida in the 1920s; another, white, middle-class, working at a marketing company in modern-day London. Both speak volumes to how little mentality, and even social attitude, has changed.
I personally am fortunate enough to say that I have not, so far, experienced abuse or violence at the hands of men. As a gay woman, I do not expect to be at risk from male violence in my own domestic sphere in the future. My experiences of cis men, while not all of them positive, have generally been ones where I have felt safe. But every woman has a story to tell. It’s a commonly regurgitated statistic, brought to public attention after the murder of Sarah Everard, that 97% of women between the ages of 18 and 24 have been sexually harassed. Of course, the perpetrators are not all men, but evidence undoubtedly suggests that men are the vast majority. I doubt you’d find a woman alive who wouldn’t be able to recall the time she was catcalled in the street, or looked up and down for far too long, or was touched in an inappropriate place ‘by accident.’ This is both a very local and a very global issue. And in order to stop the local, the global must be addressed. Before women’s homes can be safe, the world must take notice and act.