Public Property, Public Trans, and Privilege

Every time we have a discussion around here about how women's bodies are treated as public property, female Shakers always provide a plethora of examples of having been subjected to everything from inappropriate touching to sexual assault on public transportation. And every time, there are always a couple of guys who are totally shocked, because it's just completely removed from their experience as men. (And a few times, we've had a guy or two who was dubious, once even outright accusing women of lying, because the stories were so plentiful that he couldn't believe this whole world of abuse existed without his knowing about it.)

So, I thought I'd pass on this little tidbit with a nod back to those previous conversations:

After conducting a month-long citywide survey, Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer has released findings that nearly two in three subway riders have been sexually harassed in the New York City subway system. Two-thirds of the 1,790 respondents to the questionnaire were women, but the findings reported both women's and men's responses. Women comprised 99 percent of the 10 percent of respondents who reported having been sexually assaulted and of the 63 percent who reported having been sexually harassed.

Think about those numbers for a moment. If 99% of the people who said they'd been sexually harassed were women, and 2/3 of the entire group had been sexually harassed, and 2/3 of the entire group were women, that means that virtually every single woman who took the survey had been sexually harassed at least once on the subway. But almost no men had.

That's the difference between being a man and a woman. That's privilege.