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Walk: Sex politics: How genuine is gender
*Felicity Duncan, Itch Vol 1 Issue 3
October 2004

It's so heavy walking around carrying these breasts, this cunt this milkwhite skin. In my neighbourhood whitepeople never walk, so when I walk I am a curiosity. A curiosity to blackpeople walking, and a curiosity to the whitepeople who drive by. I am not especially beautiful, and when I walk I wear loose pants and shirts, and sneakers. I am not especially beautiful, yet when I walk men will not leave me alone.

When whitewomen drive past me they stare with mingled dislike and disdain -- as if by walking I am a whore, or a fool, or a poor girl. When whitemen drive past they stare unabashedly, twisting their necks to watch me go by, hooting at me as if I'm a sideshow. Cunt and tits, that's all they see, cunt and tits and narrow waist, cunt and tits and long legs. I'm not especially beautiful, yet they hoot and leer. I wish with powerful wishing I could be invisible on these walks -- all the pleasure of walking is drained out of me by the glares and stares and leers and hoots.

When I walk with my milkwhite skin and my breasts and my cunt, I am a target of staring for blackmen. I walk past blackmen in pairs, alone, in groups. And they shout at me, mutter things, leer and stare. They tell me I'm looking good, they tell me I mustn't go, they tell me I must stay and talk. The worst are the silent men, who just stare and stare, now at my face, now at my tits, now at the zipper on my pants. Stare and stare.

I've been attacked three times by blackmen. First, when I was eight years old a blackman chased me, and stole my shopping packet filled with sweets, and tried to drag me by the arm. I shrieked and I was released, and I had to go for therapy before I could walk into a shop alone again. Second, last year a blackman smashed my window while I sat in my broken-down car waiting for the AA. He reached in and punched me in the head, tried to pull my jeans off, pulled out my belly-ring, shouted awful things at me that make me dirty to repeat. I kicked and screamed and stabbed him with my keys, I made red blood run from his head in streams. He also took my bag, a handbag this time, and ran away. Third, this year a blackman smashed my window again, while I waited for a robot to turn green. He dived into the car, and I pulled off, smashing into the car in front of me. He slid out the window, he took my bag again.

And so, as much as I try to fight it, fear bubbles into me when I see a blackman. I have known many kind and wonderful blackmen. I have been taught by brilliant blackmen, my classmates numbered among them smart and lovely blackmen. I work with blackmen whom I like much, my closest friend at work is a blackman. But I am still afraid. I don't want to be afraid, I hate being afraid, I rail against being afraid, but am still afraid.

When I walk and blackmen stare at me, I wait for them to punch me in the head, or grab my arms and drag me, or steal my bag. I don't want to wait for that but I do.

I cannot walk with my breasts and cunt and milkwhite skin without fear. Because I have been too-often attacked for these curses. I can't escape them, they weigh me down wherever I go, they mark me and write target on me. I cannot walk with them and be fearless because the world has taught me that breasts, and cunt, and milkwhite skin are punished. Punished with pain and blood and invasion.

I am so tired of carrying these things, this cunt, these breasts, this skin, this fear. These bruises written onto my skin and breasts and cunt. The scar tissue there. It is so heavy and I am so tired. I want to throw myself into invisibility. I want so badly for men to leave me alone. I do not want to be a mouse for the chasing, a peach for the picking, a cat for the catching.

All else that I am is ignored, written over by cunt, breasts, skin. I am a reader, a writer, I have studied for years, I earn my own money, I pay my own way. I have won scholarships, I have traveled, I have overcome obstacles. I have seen my mother crawling through my house lost in her world of dark and light, giggling at nothing, worn down by the long weight of cunt, breasts, and skin. I have seen my mother laid on a milkwhite hospital bed, not recognising me.

My fear is exhaustion now; I am reduced to hiding in the dark, sleeping in the day, fearing to stop my car, fearing to walk anywhere. I am trapped in a prison built on a thousand years of cunts, breasts, and skin, punished for what nature has written onto my body.

Because the truth is, it all counts for nothing. All my work, and learning, and caring, and fighting, all the effort I put into the world, all the petitions I've signed, all my earnings and hopes and dreams and abilities. All of it counts for nothing at all when weighed against cunt and breasts and milkwhite skin. I am nothing in this place, just a target, just a walking invitation to violence and hatred older than me, older than stone.

Only women bleed. And on my walks blackwomen are my friends and my only consolation. They suffered before me, and they will suffer after me, but they have room enough to pity my suffering. Only blackwomen smile at me without darkness in their eyes, only blackwomen talk to me without hatred in their throats. But I'm so far divided from them that we can only toss one another sympathy from across the street. It isn't enough for me, and it isn't enough for them. Men have always hated women, and always will, and we will always be marked and targeted. When I greet blackwomen I see the truth of that in their eyes. Knowing what it is to be hunted and hated. Knowing the weight of breasts and cunt. Knowing how hard it is to walk without fear.

*Felicity Duncan is a writer.
felicityduncan@yahoo.co.uk

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