This has been building up I am afraid. If the gun was already pointing into my temple, a message from my friend Mags was what triggered the shot. She wrote to me about her response to a WhatsApp Group. An inbox full of messages shaming a boys cricket team for playing like girls. In response she sent the group this video Run like a Girl.
Of course the retort from The Group: silence. No doubt they formed another Group without the dissenting voice. Stand up to the bully and you’ll get punished. Cut off usually. But as I read on a napkin in a padstal just outside Paul Roux: ‘“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.
And so for Mags, and all the wonderful soft gentle women I know, who run despite what everyone says, or who just try to get through the day in whatever way they can, the gun went off, and this splattered out.
We can start with the feet, but choose any body part really and don't worry we’ll move up quickly. Some people don’t have any feet because maybe they got chopped off or they had polio, or their feet just didn’t grow nicely. Some people only have one foot. Anyway, I have two feet. Which is very useful. I can use them to walk and run with. When I was about 11, a close relative once told me my feet were the only attractive part of me. I hadn’t asked him the question: “how attractive or unattractive do you believe me or my feet to be?” or “if I was on the internet which bit would you click on?” He just decided to tell me.
When I was growing up I had to wear built up shoes because of my high arches. But luckily high arches are fine for ballet. Pink shoes with ribbons crossing at the ankles look beautiful even on feet with high arches. I pirouetted around the house watched Swan Lake and Coppelia and my dad played me the music. Then when I was 13 I stopped. Apparently I have knock knees. Apparently my bum started to stick out too much. I didn’t ask if this was the case. Someone just decided to tell me.
Now I use my feet to walk and run with. I do this not because I am an athlete or even for one second believe myself to be an athlete. I don’t win races – although Mags does – run like a girl and see if you can catch her. I am always near the back. But running makes me feel better. It is how I survive life on earth. One foot, next foot. Over and over again. Breathe in breathe out. Sweat a lot and get very very tired. Then fall asleep and start again tomorrow.
But every time I put on my running shoes I steel myself. Because every time I go running, someone comments or whistles or hoots or shouts, faster Auntie.
In the same way as I have never asked anyone whether they think I have attractive feet, neither have I asked a person the question: Do I look beautiful while running? Once at a large dinner party a man I knew looked directly at my chest, and said the problem with running is it makes your boobs saggy. I had not asked him what he thought about running, nor its effects upon a body. Nor was I interested. Once someone said I looked like an awkward giraffe when I ran. Once someone said I looked like a penguin. Once at another party a man described to a rapt audience how seeing me slope along the streets of Glenwood had dramatically altered the vision he had of what running was, forever more. Everyone laughed. I felt like crap. But someone said I was being over-sensitive and had I forgotten about having a sense of humour.
Why is so much shaming necessary? When will it stop? It makes people feel like shit. Why, when people see soft non-athletes running do they not say, well how wonderful? Even OMFG I saw Mags and Jess running around the park and if they can do it, anyone can do it, would be fine.
What if all those women shamed to their couches got onto their feet and stepped out? If the streets were booming with the thud or even the shuffle of tender bodies with red faces breathing and sweating. Feeling better. Feeling supported.
Because unless something more than silence happens in the face of all this outright nastiness, our daughters will stop doing what they love. My 11-year-old daughter and your 11-year-old daughter will soon get a lot sadder and a lot quieter. Google it if you think anything has changed. Between the age of 10 and 12 girls’ confidence plummets. They will stop trying to be in the cricket team, they will stop eating and they will feel like crap. As all the shaming messages they have had to bat off (like a girl) all their lives start to sink in. And then every day will become about about doing what they do, despite it all. Just stop it. It is really not that hard.