I Used To Be Ashamed of Being Groped on Public Transport

Now I make a scene to let others know there’s nothing to be ashamed

I was ten or eleven when my mother sat me down and explained that public transportation is full of creepy men who would try to cop a feel of women. She wanted to pass on the rules of survival she had learned over the years before letting me loose in the society.

Avoid sitting next to a man unless there is no other option. Try to position yourself as far away as possible from a man if you are standing. Stay on alert if, by any chance, you end up sitting or standing next to a man. If a man tries to cop a feel, move away from him.

But for all the survival guides I was given, nobody ever told me it’s never my fault if a man tries to grab me on a bus. Nobody ever told me I have the option to confront the man harassing me. Eventually, I learned those lessons on my own. But it took a long road of shame, guilt, and anger to finally get me there.

As a lower-middle-class family, most of our transportation needs were fulfilled by public transportation: either a bus or a train. I started taking buses on my own when I was eleven years old. Most of them were 10-minute rides from the small town closest to our home when I was returning home from school.

Despite how short the ride was, it never failed to house enough creeps to give me a first-hand lesson on dealing with men who think a woman’s body is theirs to grab at their leisure.

Since that very first day my mom went over the rules, I felt an intense shame whenever I found myself on the receiving end of a man’s unwelcome touches. I blamed myself for being naive enough to not identify the red flags, for not doing enough to prevent the harassment.

My instincts screamed at me to fight back, to make a scene and put the man to shame. But I wasn’t brave enough to draw that much attention to myself, nor had I the experience of someone setting an example of a confrontation in front of me.

So I stayed quiet, near tears, paralyzed at the moment, deep in shame, and refusing to show I was affected to save what little dignity I had left.

I imagined these elaborate scenes in my mind, where I would stand up to the man groping me until he had to get out of the bus out of shame. Sometimes, I gave advice to my friends on how to react to a such situation, pretending to have acted out on my imaginary plans. I told them to never take harassment silently while continuing to do exactly that in reality.

One day when I was fourteen, I took the same bus ride from the town to home. But this time, my mother was with me. The bus was packed to the hilt, we were both standing, trampled among other passengers, swaying from one side to the other as the bus sped up and slowed down abruptly without a care for those who were inside.

At a certain stop, a few passengers got off the bus leaving open a single space that allows you to get a breather while still standing. I jumped at the chance to get there. My mother grabbed my hand and tried to say something, but I didn’t understand what she was saying, I was in a hurry to get to the open space before someone else.

It didn’t take long after I settled for the man behind me to push his groin to my backside. I felt it. I wanted to move, get away from him. But I was already falling into the abyss of shame, paralyzed to the place. Now I understood what my mother was trying to say. In all her years, she had somehow developed a sixth sense I didn’t have to guess the man’s intention when the space first opened up.

Until the end of the ride, my mother tried to pull me away. But I didn’t move. And she never spoke up, never said a word to rescue me from the creep behind me other than trying to pull me away.

There’s a road a few hundred meters long from the place we get off the bus to my home. That day, on this road, after we got off the bus, my mother started the tirade I remember quite well to this day.

I remember how she told me I asked for it by moving to that empty space in the first place. She was angry because I didn’t move. And I got the point that everything that happened was my fault. Why didn’t you move? Are you a whore?

I silently listened to her biting words. I couldn’t open up my mouth to say, “No, mom. I was too ashamed of myself”.

The first few years, I was ashamed of myself every time I thought of that day. I was ashamed of being naive, not being strong enough to do something to get out of that situation.

Then, it turned to anger. She was my mother; I was just fourteen. Why didn’t she speak up, tell him to f*ck off, and save me? I was angry at her for leading me to believe a pervert’s actions were my fault. I was angry at her for not being strong enough to stand up to him. I was angry at the way she thought.

Now, I know, she acted the way she was taught to act by this society. She was repeatedly told how it’s ultimately the woman’s fault when she is groped, harassed, and raped. She was taught to never make a scene, to silently withdraw. Maybe, she learned from her own experience that speaking up rarely worked.

I forgave her eventually. I still wish she acted differently, believed differently. But I understand now, it wasn’t really her fault.

It’s ironic how two women ended up on the black and white scale of what went down while the man was spared a passing thought in the aftermath.

It took me a few more years following this realization to work up the courage to confront, make a scene.

I’m still not perfect. I take too long to give a man the benefit of doubt and not accuse someone innocent. But 9/10 times, I end up regretting the time I wasted doubting my instincts. I’m still trying to learn the lesson that a man’s feelings are not more important than my survival and safety.

Though no one has the right to blame a woman for not fighting back, it does make a difference if you fight back. Our individual and isolated fights won’t be enough to rid the world of creepy men, but if the girl I was at eleven had seen you fight, it would have shown her that there was another option than silently taking the abuse.

If not for you, fight back for the girl I once was. For there are many others like her not wanting to feel so helpless and dejected in face of harassment in their daily lives.

Above all, tell her that it’s not her fault. Never her fault.