How Much Room Are We Allowed?
I read a story recently about an older woman on a plane. The man in the middle seat was spreading into her space and, according to the account, explaining that because she was small and he was six foot two, he needed more room than she did.
Apparently, her seat came with an allowance based on body size.
It might seem like a small thing. An uncomfortable flight. A rude passenger. But it landed alongside some conversations I’ve been having lately, and I kept thinking about that explanation. He needed the room. She could make do with less.
How much of our lives do we spend being expected to make do with less?
I’m 51. I know women have more opportunities than generations before us did. I can appreciate that progress and still be tired of things I thought we would have moved beyond by now.
Recently, I heard someone I care about discussing an alleged assault. The conversation turned toward the woman’s choices. Why had she put herself in that situation? What had she expected? Hadn’t she, in some way, asked for it?
I pushed back. What if it were a wife? What if it were a daughter? A sister?
Then the situation was different.
That answer has stayed with me. The woman being discussed was already somebody before I asked that question. Why did imagining someone familiar change how much consideration she deserved?
I believe in personal responsibility. I think our choices matter. I also think the person who crosses a boundary is responsible for crossing it. Agreeing to one thing doesn’t mean agreeing to everything that follows.
Yet so much of the conversation seems to return to what the woman should have done differently. We can spend a remarkable amount of time examining her decisions while giving far less attention to the decisions of the person accused of hurting her.
And I’m tired.
I haven’t experienced a sexual or violent assault. I have experienced men putting their hands on me in ways I didn’t want or consent to, as a teenager and a young woman. I don’t need to share every detail to say those experiences belong in this conversation.
When I think about moving through the world as a woman, I think about situational awareness. Knowing where I am and who’s around me. Keeping my hand on my drink. Thinking about going out at night and making sure I’m with someone or in a group.
Those precautions become familiar. You learn them, practice them, and carry them with you. After a while, they’re simply part of going somewhere.
But familiar doesn’t mean effortless.
There’s energy involved in always paying attention. In considering what could happen and how to avoid it. And there’s something especially maddening about hearing that same responsibility handed back to a woman after she says someone harmed her.
She should have known. She should have left. She shouldn’t have been there.
At what point do we ask why someone else thought they could ignore her boundaries?
I don’t want to write an indictment of men. I want to be able to talk honestly about my experience as a woman. That includes the unwanted touching. It includes the precautions. It includes pushing back in a conversation with someone I care about and discovering that their answer changes when the woman in question becomes someone they love.
I’m comfortable with that person. I still disagree with what they said. Both things are true, and I think those conversations matter precisely because they happen among people who know and care about each other.
I keep coming back to the woman on the plane. Her size was offered as an explanation for why she could surrender some of the room she’d paid for. Someone else’s needs were treated as more convincing than hers.
A crowded seat and a violation of consent are very different things. But that little story gave me a question I haven’t been able to put down.
How much room are we allowed?
Room to be comfortable. To make a choice. To set a boundary and expect it to count. To talk about what has happened to us without immediately being asked what we did wrong.
After 51 years of this shit, I am exhausted.
I can be grateful for how far women have come and still expect more. I do expect more. And I’m tired of hearing that the answer is for women to be more careful.
With Love and Exhaustion from Mabank,
Brandy
