‘Every day is filled with ‘unexpected violations’ – Unwanted touching and the Intersection of Gender and Disability
Started in 2018, Private Places, Public Spaces is a Sussex-based project led by Dr Hannah Mason-Bish and Dr Amy Kavanagh aimed at documenting the experiences of disabled women and non-binary people with intrusive behaviours, harassment and unwanted touching in public spaces. Through the collection of personal stories, the research project has been exploring the nature of these interactions and the ways in which they might affect or limit disabled women and non-binary people’s freedom of movement. In this piece, Dr Hannah Mason-Bish shares with us how the project came about and the early findings that have come out of it.
In the era of social distancing, not touching strangers is a given. We are now actively encouraged to stay away from people and respect the boundaries of others. Yet for disabled people, this message is somewhat ironic. For years, many have experienced the unwanted touching of a stranger when out in public space and found their boundaries and voices ignored. For disabled women and non-binary people in particular, this touching can be relentless, grinding and sometimes dangerous.
Back in 2018 Amy Kavanagh was writing about her experiences as a visually impaired woman navigating public space while using a white cane. Under the ‘Just Ask, Don’t Grab’ hashtag, she began documenting her daily interactions with strangers and encouraged others to do the same. Experiences included being dragged onto public transport, men touching her breasts while pretending to ‘help’, people kicking or hitting her white cane and strangers asking personal and impertinent questions about her disability. Hundreds of other disabled people did the same. Meanwhile, I had been researching hate crime and street harassment for many years and noted that the experiences of disabled women were often missing from academic and public discourse. While we knew a lot about how women might be catcalled or abused on the streets, disabled women were often overlooked or silenced – an issue that writers such as Imani Barbarin and Emily Flores have noted. Yet we know that women with a disability or long term illness are nearly twice as likely to experience sexual assault. So working together, we decided to encourage disabled women and non binary people to document their stories on our Wordpress site – Private Places, Public Spaces. Within a few weeks, over 70 people had done so and their stories were incredibly revealing.
We included non binary people because their experiences are equally often underrepresented in research. Many might present as femme and as such have stories that they wish to share.
The Daily Grind
By far the most common theme that emerged was the exhausting and common nature of the unwanted touching that participants experienced. Often described as ‘grinding’ or ‘constant’, participants expressed the frustration of not being able to leave their home without knowing whether or not they would be touched that day. The nature of these intrusive behaviours included being leant on, being sexually assaulted, being lifted or pushed and grabbed or being spat at. Also common was the inclusion of personal questions such as about how they had ‘ended up disabled’, how they had sex or jokes about their ability to move around. Sometimes members of the public act out of a curiosity based on the perception that disabled people need help or view them with pity, disgust or hostility.
Intersections of Gender and Disability
Women’s bodies are observed, critiqued and assessed as they move in public space. A wealth of research has talked about the ubiquity of street harassment across time and place and the measures that many women put in place to avoid it. For participants in our research, their unique experiences as disabled women and/or non binary people demonstrated the importance of an intersectional understanding. For example, some talked about how men would use their power to dominate them such as by grabbing their wheelchairs and forcing them onto a bus. Others reported men forcibly ‘helping’ them across the road by taking their arm and touching their breast while doing so. They would have their bodies commented upon, be questioned about their sex life, what they were able to do or about being out without their boyfriend or husband. The female disabled body was critiqued, assessed and touched without permission. A further point that many noted was that when they declined the offers of help from men, they would often be met with hostility or anger. Participant Neira talks about a man grabbing her wheelchair causing her to be in a dangerous position, yet he was ‘sure he had performed a rescue’. Jem talks about a man who propelled her onto a train despite her protests he happily walks off thinking ‘he has done his civic duty’.
Additionally, there is a gendered dimension to the emotion work that disabled women are expected to do. From the research, we noted that it was quite rare for the participants to respond with anger to the intrusions they faced. Many commented on the need to be polite and not an ‘angry disabled person’ or that they felt they had to educate the stranger about their behaviour. This was compounded for disabled women who reported that they could not react with anger because sometimes they were in a vulnerable position and didn’t know whether the situation would escalate. Anya noted this frustration “I wanted to tell her to ‘fuck off’ but since becoming disabled, I can’t run away from a fight so have to be polite, but then I am angry at them but also at my body as I can’t defend myself”.
Impacts
The impacts of unwanted touching on the lives of our disabled participants were varied. Some noted that they would live a smaller life, or squash aspects of their personality so as not to stand out. Others took more serious measures such as not going out alone or not going out at all. Many participants commented on how they felt that they were being treated as an object without agency. Denisha said “I often feel that I am infantilised as a disabled woman, that there is a perception that I am unable to judge situations for myself, that my body is somehow public property, and that I should just be grateful for having complete strangers paw at me. I’m frustrated at how often my words go unheard – I feel robbed of my agency and independence”. The silencing of the voice of disabled women and non binary people was clear. If they challenged the stranger doing the touching, they would often find their calls went unheard.
We are now moving to the interview stage of the research project and of course reflecting on how in this era of Covid-19 these experiences might be changing. Anecdotally we can see that the problems persist and that disabled people are still being moved out of the way, pushed or scolded for not distancing. The message from our participants is summarised by Alyssa here – “ I’ll never forget the realization that I can expect everyone to laugh at me and no one to support me when I am harassed in public. There is nothing I can do to force people to see me as a human being and respect my boundaries. It is hell.“ The research has revealed that members of the public need to pause before intruding on the space of a disabled person. They should think about their actions and seek consent before touching them. They should listen when a disabled person says ‘no’ and allow them to move freely in public space without unwanted intrusions.
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Dr Hannah Mason-Bish is a Criminologist and Director of the Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Sussex. She specialises in researching hate crime policy, with a focus on gender and disability. Her current research project examines how disabled women experience non-consensual touching when navigating public spaces. She tweets as @DrHannah.
