Chavisa Woods - 100 Times: A Memoir of Sexism

TIMES

A MEMOIR OF SEXISM

CHAVISA WOODS

SEVEN STORIES PRESS

new york oakland london

Copyright 2019 by Chavisa Woods

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Seven Stories Press
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www.sevenstories.com

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Woods, Chavisa, author.
Title: 100 times : a memoir of sexism / Chavisa Woods.
Other titles: A hundred times
Description: First Edition. | New York : Seven Stories Press, 2019.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019003613| ISBN 9781609809133 (paperback) | ISBN
9781609809140 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Woods, Chavisa. | Rape--United States--Case studies. |
Victims--United States--Case studies. | Sex crimes z United States--Case
studies. | Sexism--United States--Case studies. | BISAC: BIOGRAPHY &
AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Women.
Classification: LCC HV6561 .W66 2019 | DDC 362.88092/520973--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019003613

Printed in the USA.

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preface

In this book , Ive cataloged one hundred formative incidents of sexist discrimination, violence, sexual harassment, assault, and attempted rape Ive experienced from childhood to now, to paint a clear picture of the impact sexism has had on me throughout my life.

All my life when Ive tried to talk to men about sexism, my main obstacle has been trying to convince them, quite simply, that it exists.

Ive exhausted myself trying to get men to understand that sexism is something that actually has a critical and near-constant impact on my life. When Im trying to convey this to a man who is questioning me, I usually start by telling a story; often, one of the stories Ive included in this book. I recount an instance of sexual assault or harassment in detail. Many men then counter these narratives by telling me about one time when a woman smacked their ass at a bar, or made an overt come-on to them. But, these men tell me, they didnt mind it. The implication being, I am overreacting to an incident that has an equivalent in the lives of men.

But Im not just talking about things I didnt mind or things that were invited, and Im not talking about one or two times. Im not talking about ten or twenty times. Im talking about at least one hundred times. Actually, many more.

When I talk to most women about these things (and we do talk about it often with each other), there is an immediate understanding that the sexist incidents are part of an endless stream of experiences weve learned to endure as a built-in aspect of female life.

I struggled to write this introduction. I asked friends and fellow writers what they thought I needed to cover in the introduction, and I had a list of topics I wanted to be sure to clarify.

I was told that I should give some sort of warning, or note that if you are someone who has experienced multiple, brutal incidents of sexual assault, harassment, violence, and discrimination, maybe you shouldnt read this book in one sitting. I do not shy away from clear and sometimes graphic descriptions of the things that Ive experienced and witnessed. This includes homophobic, sexist, and racist slurs, among other forms of verbal violence. I was asked what I hope women who are already aware of the sexism we face every day would get out of reading this book. I do hope that there is value in hearing another womans story, and in knowing that you are not alone in your experience.

I was having difficulty contextualizing everything I wanted to convey. I wanted to be sure to talk about why I havent named any men who harassed or assaulted me in this book. Ive left many of these descriptions quite anonymous, actually. Ive done this partly because I believe that public persecution and punishment of individuals has huge limitations when speaking of changing a larger, systemic social issue, and I have seen that all men have been socialized to participate in sexist behavior. Though there are a handful of men described in this book who are serial sexual predators, and who I have named within my community, and to people who need to know that they are dangerous, none of these men (who are serial sexual predators) are particularly powerful or famous, so, in the context of this book, naming them would only be sensational.

I wanted to tell the reader that, while it may seem odd, a few of the men described in this book are still dear to me. I dont necessarily think of every man who has hurt me with sexism as a monster. And I think that is something specific to sexism. Most women have lived with a dyadic relationship with men all of our lives. Weve always known that even the men we love the most view us, and often treat women in general, as something other, something less than. This has to change. I have been waiting for it to change all of my life. And now, I am demanding it. I may still love some of the men who have treated me in sexist ways, but the way women have been treated for all of human history, and even to this day, is unconscionable, and unforgivable.

I wanted to be sure to clarify that I know that all women have to deal with sexism from the time they are born or come out as/transition to being women. I wanted to make sure I made clear that trans women, queer women, and straight cis women alike have to bear the burden of sexism.

Above all this, there was something else I wanted to weave in, something that always evaded me when I searched for words to describe it. I began writing about the feminist texts Ive read that have granted lucidity to my journey toward awareness of how my experience as a human has been defined by the fact that Im a woman. Ive struggled to find the ability to name the murky obstacles on my craggy path, which have remained invisible to so many, it seems, because they are as intermingled into our existence as water particles in misty air. It is difficult to realize that the precipices you are attempting to surmount arent what cause you to slip. Rather, the condition of the atmosphere itself is to blame for the slickness that disallows achieving a certain foothold.

What is this atmosphere, though? What is this thing? I believed it had something to do with a conceit of ownership of all women, by men, couched in a camouflage of supposed intimacy. It was hard to put into words, but it seemed to have something to do with old tropes like the yin and yang, of some assumed harmony between men and women, where each has a certain role, which translates into a feeling of individual women owing all individual men something, a certain type of sweetness, affection, and intimacy, which is so often used as a means for individual men to invade and control individual women in countless ways.

I was struggling to eke this out, so I picked up a book by one of my favorite feminist writers, hoping it would jog something in my mind; get me writing on a good track again. The book I grabbed was Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit, which Id already read once. I put it in my bag and headed to a meeting. On the subway, I opened the book, and immediately became aware of the gaze of the men around me. I felt like their eyes were burning holes through the cover, which is a basic blue square with no image, just the title printed in large, white letters, like a billboard, MEN EXPLAIN THINGS TO ME. I kept my head down, and quietly read my book, trying to ignore the tension the imposing title seemed to be creating. Then, after only a minute of silent reading, a mans finger planted itself in the middle of the page of my book. He was pointing to the words, Women Strike for Peace.