A week ago, as we drove to drop my toddler to preschool, I noticed a car behaving strangely. It appeared to move slowly at one point, but then would rev up suddenly. I told my driver to avoid the car, by either slowing down or driving past it quickly. As we drove by it, I peeked inside the car and a disheveled middle-aged man was in the driver’s seat. I casually remarked that from the looks of it, the man was either stoned, or drunk. My driver laughed and said that we (read men) never notice these things. I responded by stating that women nearly always have an eye out for these things because we are conditioned to observe the behavior of individuals particularly men when in any public space.
As I reflect on the incident, I think about how men do not perceive threats in a similar fashion to women. While navigating Karachi streets, there is always the fear of mugging, of rash, reckless and frankly obnoxious driving. But as a woman driving on the streets, there is also an additional anxiety of ensuring that no one is following you if they notice that you are driving alone, or if you get into an accident, you will primarily be blamed because a woman was driving the car. Our senses are always heightened, our moves more guarded and careful, we avoid dark streets, prefer to take the longer routes to our destinations. And this is just not in public spaces where men exert power over women and their bodies through their mere existence. Our private spaces are also not secure.
In the private domain, women have to reckon with additional dangers. In our professional lives, we have to be guarded if some man is extremely friendly with us, or extra helpful. An alarm bell rings for us if we are in a closed, secluded environment with a male colleague. And of course there are few people who are likely to believe women when they come out with their stories of sexual harassment, of violence, of threats and intimidation against them.
But all of these are everyday instances, with some news of harassment and sexual violence perpetrated against women making the headlines and then disappearing very quickly. Towards the end of April 2024, the 2020 rape conviction against the disgraced producer, Harvey Weinstein was overruled in the New York court of appeals due to a legal technicality. The judge who ruled for the 2020 conviction ‘unfairly’ allowed inadmissible evidence which included testimonies from women against Weinstein based on allegations not originally part of the case.
As a result of this, what has transpired is that due to this error, a new trial would have to occur. And while Weinstein is still held accountable for charges leveled against him in a separate case in Los Angeles, the stance of the New York court speaks volumes about how women’s testimonies and their voices continue to be unheard, misinterpreted, or simply ignored. Especially if the evidence concerns a powerful White man.
Weinstein is hardly a free man but what this specific ruling conveys to countless of women who came forward as a result of the #MeToo movement is that it is always the word of the powerful against their own. And that on the basis of a mere legal technicality, a court decision after four years could be overturned simply because a powerful state actor and the legal system are part of a system that seems to trivialise women’s lived experiences, their voices, and their testimonies.
What it also does is that it will freshen the pain of these women, who would have to endure another trial, of having to prove themselves in front of a system which is rigged against them especially in the post Roe v Wade era.
The consequences of this overturning extend far beyond the survivors of those who were sexually harassed by Weinstein or any other powerful male elite. It also transfers a dangerous message to other women who have the audacity to roam around the streets alone because guess what, no one is going to believe your word if you come forward with an allegation of sexual assault, or harassment. It speaks volumes of how little the physical safety of women matter, let alone the emotional repercussions on them due to such incidents. After all, when instances of significance are trivialised, it is easy to dismiss the additional cognitive overload that women experience when driving in a cosmopolitan city, be aware of multiple dangers, and never fully relax. What a First World problem!
However, as one of the survivors put it, ‘Our truth is not overturned,’ women will continue to speak their ‘truth.’
The writer is our Managing Editor and Assistant Professor at CBEC-SIUT.
