The grief of what's to come

Are you feeling terrified? Me too.

I am shuffling around the house, zoning out, staring at walls. I open up a pack of sour spiders, leftover from Halloween, and I chew on them desolately. I open and close tabs, under the guise of doing some work. I wonder if I should give up, put on Rivals and pretend it’s the 1980s, that this hasn’t happened yet.

Sometimes I tell myself I am being over-dramatic, that I shouldn’t feel this so deeply, so viscerally; the result now in my stomach, in my lungs, in my racing heart.

I want to tell you about an experience I had last week. Last week, when I was a different version of myself than I am today. An unremarkable experience, that my brain keeps floating back to. I twist the memory around for a while, and then I place it back, silently and decide not to acknowledge it. I don’t want to look like I am taking this momentous, terrifying moment of history and making it all about me, me, me but there’s also something about the normalcy of this experience that helps me convey the terror I feel, that I know so many others out there also feel.

Last Saturday, I was excited to get dressed up and go out. I held my outfit in my head all week: I was going to wear my little black dress, polka dot tights, pearl-encrusted shoes and then throw my big, purple fluffy fake fur coat over the top. The coat that’s so ridiculous I often joke I had to skin a Muppet to get it.

I did all of that, and I had a really fun night. My favourite bar had a salsa DJ and there were drums and maracas, and I danced, and I chatted, and I danced some more.

On the way home, I took my phone out of my bag, and I messaged my husband to tell him I was on the way back. A standard safety precaution. In that very moment, my phone was snatched, quicker-than-Billy-the-Whizz, out of my hand.

Later, as I sat on my sofa sobbing, this was not what I was crying about.

In the five minutes between me leaving the club, and my phone being whisked out my hand, I’d told four men I was “fine, thank you, absolutely fine, just on my way home, thank you, thank you for asking, no, no I’m not interested in going elsewhere with you, just sleepy, you know, just want to go home, thank you, thank you, oh no, I know you’re so sweet to watch out for my safety but I am fine, just fine, thank you, thank you, thank you.” Some continued to follow me, only shaken off when they could see that I would not budge, that I was not changing my mind. Proving that the bravado, of only wanting to walk with me/take me to a bar/take me in a cab was simply sleaziness wrapped up in the guise of caring for my safety.  

Then, after that, in a tube carriage, that moved between busy to empty, to busy again, I became harder. “No. I’m on my way home. There’s plenty of seats, you don’t need to be in this one. I told you, leave me alone, please, I’m not interested.”

And.

“Leave her alone.

She’s asleep.

Stop touching her.”  

(photo taken for my feature, investigating the police fighting sexual harassment on the underground. Read here)

I always say I’m “pretty good” at dealing with harassment. That, if I’m friendly, laugh just the right amount and let them down gently, something along the lines of “oh thank you so much, I’m flattered, but I am married,” then it tends not to spiral. I can sit in peace. It doesn’t bother me.

But… why should I have to be “good” at this? Why has this become one of my “skills”? Why is the only acceptable reason for my lack of interest down to being ‘owned’ by someone else?

All I had wanted that evening was to wear a nice dress and have fun. Then, jangly and vulnerable, without a phone to call for help, I simply wanted to get home. I wanted to sit quietly, unbothered.

I wanted to feel safe.

I am not afraid of the man who snatched my phone. Yes, he’s a criminal but I suspect he’s aware of that fact. Whereas those men, the ones I encountered on the tube, the ones who don’t see what they’re doing as wrong, who see their behaviour as their birth-right. I am scared of them. Even more so now, as I stare at walls, wondering what is to come.  

I am afraid of that man, who sat on the seat beside me, leering into my arm rest, pushing his being onto my shoulder. Who, when I asked him to leave a sleeping woman alone, only did so, because he could get his entertainment from me. Who, sat beside me, and would not move even when I told him he was making me feel uncomfortable. Even when I pointed out how many other empty seats there were in the carriage. Who, when he eventually did move, did so to swagger down to his mates, and tell them “not to bother, she’s hard work.” Who saw me as a task to be completed. As someone not human.

This is not a particularly enthralling, or interesting story. I made it home safe, I was, eventually, left alone. You may be thinking I’m being incredibly self-indulgent by telling it all, that there’s so much worse going on for women, all across the world. I know that. I’ve worked in women’s media for 15 years, I’ve interviewed so many women about the violence they have had to endure. I know that, while I may clutch my keys in my trembling fingers, on walks home, for so many the violence awaits them the moment their key goes into the lock.

I read the news. I know that in Afghanistan women have been banned from speaking in public. That in Sudan over 130 women chose to drown themselves, to escape the threat of rape by Militia. That in America, in the states that have a near total abortion ban, women will continue to die from pregnancy complications, that they will be forced to carry unwanted pregnancies and stay in lives they do not want to be in.

But I also know that the way I was viewed by that man is part of a pattern. A thread in a gruesome tapestry, one that’s being crafted by men in power and which leads to the legitimacy of all the violence women* have had to face in the past, are facing now, and will have to face in the future.

A tapestry I fear now is only going to grow in size, and get darker, and darker, in the following years.

As

Marisa

Bate wrote in her Substack, Writing About Women.

“The message is deafening: women’s lives don’t matter. They do not hold value…

The likes of Vance and Musk, two fucking maniacs crafting this campaign, have bone-chilling ideas of what women should and should not do (ideally be silent reproductive vessels that get out the fucking way). These men are now in charge. They have the same message as they did yesterday, but now they have permission to make their message a reality. And that grants millions of men - especially young ones who spend too much time on the internet - the same permission: to live like women don’t matter.”

Or, as outlined in this Vox article, about Trump’s campaign trail targeting Gen Z bro media:

“They vote for a man who has done everything you’re not supposed to do — steal, lie, rape, idolize Hitler — because his election fulfils their fantasy that men really can get away with whatever they want. For now, it seems they’re right.”

And… it’s already happening. Of course, I know plenty of men who are just as horrified at the result as I am. But then there’s, as reported by fgrlsclub**, the comments, from Gen Z boys, beginning to appear on women’s social media, things like “your body, my choice” and “we own your bodies now.”

Then there’s Andrew Tate, a figure I’d love to ignore, but who holds a huge influence over the minds of, not just young men, but boys – with primary school teachers seeing his influence on UK school pupils. In the past 24 hours, he’s tweeted: “I saw a woman crossing the road today but I just kept my foot down. Right of way? You no longer have rights” and “the men are back in charge.” There were other examples, but even typing those two made me feel like I was injecting a toxicity into my newsletter, and I found I simply could not keep typing.

All I wanted was to feel safe on my journey home, and yet, I fear that simple ask could be slipping further and further away.

Which brings me back to the grief of it all. The reason why I have been walking about in such a dazed, dark state. I feel like many of us are now entering into an anticipatory grief. One where we know our lives, in varying degrees of extremity, will be impacted by the power of this man, even if he is miles and miles away from us. And, even if our own lives aren’t impacted by this, millions of stranger’s lives will be. I can’t turn my emotions off to that. I don’t think I should.

So, what can be done? Apart from staring at walls, chewing at tongue-destroying candy and disassociating? I don’t know for sure. I set up this newsletter as a place for us to discuss the realities of our grief, how it plays out in our every day. Not, as a place to find a solution for it, or for us to sugarcoat it, and push through saying “everything is just fine” and “it’s not as bad as we think.”

But, what I do know, is how many people are scared/angry/devastated by it all. How that sheer outpouring of emotion shows that while some are brainwashed by his words, others can only see absurdity. That there’s community to be found in this terror. That when the man on the train was harassing me, there was another opposite who mouthed “are you OK?” That the woman who was asleep thanked me as she got off the train.

There are so, so many good people in this world. They are who I cling to. We have to look out for each other, now, more than ever before.

*I’m aware that it’s not just women who will be impacted by Trump’s future policies but immigrants, the LGBTQ+ population, particularly the trans community and more.

It would be impossible to list all the damage he could potentially cause but if you’re reading this, and from one of those communities, particularly if you’re based in America, I’m sending you so much love.

** The Instagram account ran by

Chloe Grace Laws

who also has a Substack, It’s Not That Bad, would recommend subscribing.