Reclaim The Night 2015

Lately, there's been a frenzy of feminist activity in my life. I don't say this as a bad thing, I relish this whirlwind of passion, anger, support and all round feminist goodness amongst myself and my peers.
A prime example of this was Reclaim The Night (2015) which took place yesterday evening in the neighbouring town of Coventry. I had never been before, and frankly didn't even know what it was until I was invited to like the page on Facebook.
From that, I typically did extensive research into what it is and what it represents. I'm sure there is a more legitimate definition, but mine is as follows.. Reclaim The Night is a march welcoming all people who identify as female in some shape or form (including non-binary folk) to join together and fight for women's rights to feel safe when walking the streets alone at night without having to consider the ever-present possibility of sexual assault and violence, which is an ongoing issue, with street harassment being a personal issue for myself and women everywhere.

In all honestly, I was not sure what to expect, and when I first arrived, there weren't many people there at all. Initially this worried me. I knew that men harassing protesters would be inevitable (and it was), and there were strength in numbers. So the more women, the less comments we would receive. To both my relief and absolute joy, around 200 women were present when the march finally kicked off at around 7:00pm. There were whistles, glowsticks, balloons, and banners with sayings such as "No Means No" and "Stop Child Grooming" just to name two. All these women came from different towns, from different backgrounds, but we all had the same motive in common. We just wanted to be respected, and feel safe.

The first time I got harassed on the street (that I can remember) was when I was 14. I was a rather shy girl outside my close group of friends. In public, I wouldn't speak unless spoken to. I was overweight, I had braces, boys scared me. I was walking home in my uniform (tartan skirt, white shirt, blue jumper) when a group of men from across the street started whistling at me, making comments about my 'school girl outfit.' I stared at the floor and sped up, feeling as though I was going to throw up. I ran home, into my room, and cried for hours.

Since then, street harassment has never been a stranger to me. I was understandably naive to think that time when I was 14 would be the only incident. I've had men trying to look up my skirt to see how long my legs are, I've had men call me names quickly ranging from 'sweetheart' to 'fat ass bitch' when I didn't respond, I've been asked if I was a lesbian when I refused to let a man buy me a drink (god forbid he's not as thrilling as he believes himself to be).

The importance of events such as these cannot be stressed enough. It is a chance to relieve all the anger and fear you've bottled up every time a man has catcalled you from his car, not taken no as an answer, made you feel invalidated, felt entitled to your body, asked you to show him your 'tits' and then told you it was a joke when you got offended, called you a 'crazy bitch', made your stomach churn when you're walking home at night in a dress and heels. The list is endless.

What I also want to talk about, and what really struck me, was the inclusiveness of the whole event. I try my best to make a conscious effort to not view feminism and the oppression of women through a white, middle class, able bodied, cisgender perspective, and intersectionality is the cornerstone of any feminist ideology I support. This was immaculately incorporated by the women there. There were transgender women, disabled women, gender fluid women, black women, asian women, and just about every kind of woman you can imagine. Before the march began, the chairman of the event made a small speech, and included this one sentence:

"There is more than one way to be a woman."

Throughout the whole evening, we were politely reminded to respect gender pronouns, sexuality, and there was disabled access in the building we finished the march in. Following that, speeches were made about how sexism affects women differently based on their identity. I want to assume that these women want to keep their stories confidential, and so I will not be sharing anything specific, but it was a definitive wake up call that I think I definitely needed. Yes, I experience sexism, massively so, but not in the same way another woman would.

For me, Reclaim The Night was not only an evening dedicated to affirming a woman's right to feel safe in their own town, but it made me feel like my view on the importance of feminism was solidified. I am a feminist, and thanks to Reclaim The Night, unashamedly so.

The Fetishisation Of Tall Women.

I’ve never thought I would be forced to write an article about this, but due to recent comments I’ve been receiving on social media platforms, I want to voice my opinion on this.

I’m talking about the fetishisation of tall women by, predominantly, men.  This is more commonly known as “Macrophillia”, and to those of you who don’t know, this involves a tall woman taking on a role as a giantess, who’s main purpose is to dominate, sexually please, and crush men smaller than them.

Because of the nature of this fetish, tall women have been targeted as a cornerstone of it, whether they are consenting to being viewed in such a way or not.

I’m bringing this up because I recently posted a picture on my personal Tumblr of me standing next to a friend of mine (baring in mind I was standing on the step above her) with the caption “If anyone doubts how tall I am, I will bend down, and show them this picture.”

In the picture, I look over a foot taller than my friend. I thought it was funny. She thought it was funny. But, to a lot of people (as I discovered shortly after posting it), were only interested because it tied into their fetish. To them, in that photo, I was their ‘giantess’ towering over others, not an 18 year old girl having a photo with her work friend.

Following this, I received some pretty strange and frankly, upsetting messages from men asking me to love them, asking me to be their giantess, asking me to wear heels and dominate them. All of these messages were on anonymous, and because of this, people’s true desires and intentions can be revealed without consequence (because believe me, there would be consequences).  

When I scrolled through the notes on this photo, I clicked on a couple of blogs, and on around 95% of them, there were pictures of women who had been enlarged to the same height as buildings, women who had had their photo taken in public without their knowledge because they had large breasts or long legs, women who were crushing men in the palm of their hand while they sported raging erections. Honestly, I felt angry, and I eventually felt too uncomfortable, and had to delete the photo entirely.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m 6’1”, and my height is something I’ve struggled with since I was around 15. To me, wearing 2 inch heels to prom was definitely up there on my top 5 nerve wracking experiences.

I want to be able to wear heels without worrying that men will either be intimidated by me, or want me to grow 30ft, tie them up and crush them under my massive feet. I want to be able to post pictures of myself on social media and tag it with ‘tall girl’ without men sexualising me without my consent. I want to be able to walk down the street in whatever shoes I want to, wearing whatever I want to, without being concerned about whether or not I’m unintentionally feeding someone’s fetish.

I do not exist to be fetishized, sexualised and drooled over. My size 8 feet do not exist to crush you in your fantasies. My height does not exist for you. Tall women do not exist for your pleasure. Moreover, women do not exist for your pleasure. Please refrain from thinking otherwise.

Tall Girl Feminism

I recently read an article by Ann Friedman called "What It's Like To Be A Woman Who's 6'2"" (brought to my attention by all the angsty tall girl blogs I follow). Being a smidge over 6'1" myself, I sank my teeth into her article faster than it takes for a 5'5" guy to give me a weird look while I'm nervously browsing the heels in Topshop.
I have been this height since I was around 15, and I've always been very self conscious of it. It took me around 4 years to figure out why.
As Friedman wonderfully put it:

"Height is associated with masculinity, and women are meant to be petite, if not a lot smaller than men are."

I think this can be traced back to male dominance and female submission. This hierarchy of power is present everywhere we look. Men are paid more than women, diet culture is a gendered problem, sexual violence is a gendered crime.
But when a woman (particularly a confident woman) is around 5 inches taller than a man, they lose physical power over them, and we are therefore frequently seen as off-putting or intimidating.
Naturally, this is something I have plenty of experience with, and it's something I come across near enough on a weekly basis.
For example, on the occasion I was brave enough to go out with 3 inch heels on, I receive comments such as...

"Why are you wearing heels when you're already so tall?"- good question. I bought these heels specifically so guys like you would ask me patronising questions when they realised they weren't attracted to me.

"You know, wearing those things can really scare guys who might be into you."- I had no idea. Wait right there while I change into my flats and censor myself to make you feel more comfortable. I want to have sex with you, I promise!

"How are you so tall?"- Well, I have this theory called genetics. I'm not sure if it'll ever catch on, though.

"You're so tall, do you wanna be a boy or something?"- Yes, random man. My height, which is completely unrelated to my gender identity, means that I want to be a boy. We have known each other for less than 3 minutes, my gender is really none of your business anyway.

A few weeks later, I stumbled upon @meninistphrases ("phrases" meaning gross dudes whining with the odd rape joke thrown in) who published a "Girl Height Chart" which is as follows:

Short Girl- to 5'4
Normal Girl- 5'5 to 5'7
Male Girl- 5'8 and up

According to this, international supermodels such as Karlie Kloss (6'1) and global superstars such as Rihanna (5'9) are in fact not females at all, despite being hailed for their talent and owning their womanhood in male dominated spaces, not to mention making a load of money from it.
Nevertheless, this tweet was favourited over 1'000 times, which may seem like a passive joke to most people, but to for me, to see so many people enjoying a joke based on a prominent insecurity of mine is disheartening to say the least.
Being 6'1 and a half does not make me any less of a woman, and if men feel emasculated because of that, attacking my supposedly 'masculine' physical features is no way to react.

Maybe we should start looking at why men feel the need to react in this way, and begin challenging it. For example, we may be able to look to hyper masculinity (the exaggeration of stereotypical male behaviour) with emphasis on strength, sexuality and dominance.
I don't mean to be a feminist bitch about this (just kidding, I totally do), but behaviour like this is a direct product of the patriarchal and toxic roles set upon the male species.
This kind of degrading activity towards the female form (particularly the acceptance of it) is to keep women compliant in the face of male superiority, and it's difficult to assert yourself in such a way when a woman is already much taller than you, wearing 4 inch heels and loving herself because of it.