Shereen Ali

The in­ter­net hash­tag #Lifein­Leg­gings start­ed in late No­vem­ber in Bar­ba­dos, and since then it has re­leased a tor­rent of (large­ly younger) women's sto­ries and brief Twit­ter anec­dotes, all based on un­cen­sored per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ences of wom­ens' de­mean­ing ex­pe­ri­ences at the hands of men. (Old­er women, it seems, don't use Face­book or Twit­ter so much, or are more ret­i­cent about pub­lic shar­ing of pri­vate ex­pe­ri­ences.)

The sto­ries or brief state­ments be­ing shared are dis­turb­ing.

From in­sult­ing heck­ling on the road, to ha­rass­ment at work, to sex­u­al abuse of girls and rep­re­hen­si­ble be­hav­iour of vic­tim-sham­ing and pro­tect­ing male abusers through a con­spir­a­cy of si­lence, some of the shared ex­pe­ri­ences are graph­ic, and they paint a dirty, vi­o­lent pic­ture of T&T and Caribbean so­ci­ety.

The anec­dotes re­veal that even though many T&T/Caribbean women may live in­de­pen­dent­ly, and may have a good ed­u­ca­tion and a job, in the trans­ac­tions of dai­ly liv­ing they must still deal with per­va­sive sex­ism, gen­der prej­u­dice en­trenched deep with­in the cul­ture, and ac­tive ill treat­ment from many men.

Such men may rou­tine­ly de­mean women, see women as in­fe­ri­or, and feel they have the right to con­trol them, use them or abuse them.

The heart­felt na­ture of the neg­a­tive ex­pe­ri­ences be­ing shared on #Lifein­Leg­gings has trig­gered some heat­ed pub­lic dis­cus­sions in re­ac­tion to is­sues raised.

Is­sues in­clude ver­bal and phys­i­cal ha­rass­ment of fe­males by men; vi­o­lence to women by men; sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion of fe­males by men; a per­ceived rape cul­ture in T&T and the Caribbean; and the cul­ture of shame and si­lence with­in fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties, a cul­ture that of­ten pro­tects male abusers while sham­ing or fur­ther trau­ma­tis­ing fe­male vic­tims of abuse.

'Not enough be­ing done'

The T&T Guardian spoke by phone last week with Ronelle King in Bar­ba­dos, the co-founder of the so­cial me­dia hash­tag #Lifein­Leg­gings, to ask her why she start­ed it.

"I start­ed the move­ment based on my per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ences with sex­u­al ha­rass­ment and sex­u­al abuse," she said.

"It be­came a break­ing point...most move­ments come from a break­ing point of in­jus­tice, with not enough be­ing done about it."

So she con­tact­ed her best friend, Allyson Benn, with the sug­ges­tion to start a move­ment to cre­ate a safe space for women who have been sex­u­al­ly ha­rassed or abused, to share their ex­pe­ri­ences.

The hash­tag idea was born, with Life in Leg­gings cho­sen as a catchy name.

King com­ment­ed that "ur­ban women are con­stant­ly thrown un­der the bus" when peo­ple say their mode of dress in­vites abuse.

"That's not true. Sex­u­al ha­rass­ment has noth­ing to do with your cloth­ing... To per­pet­u­ate that myth is very, very harm­ful: it vic­tim-blames the ac­tu­al vic­tims of sex­u­al ha­rass­ment and abuse", in­stead of hold­ing the ac­tu­al abusers ac­count­able for their ac­tions, said King.

King feels the so­cial me­dia hash­tag is ex­pand­ing in­to a grass­roots move­ment.

"It lit­er­al­ly took off the next day," said King, with women post­ing from Bar­ba­dos, Trinidad, Ja­maica, the Ba­hamas, An­tigua, St Lu­cia, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Guyana, Be­lize, and oth­er places.

Do­mini­ca soon start­ed its own hash­tag–#L�v�Dom­nik–which trans­lat­ed from Cr�ole, means "Stand up/Wake up Do­mini­ca" (see http://em­brace­do­mini­ca.com/blog/leve­dom­nik/ for abuse sto­ries shared there).

And par­tic­i­pants are al­so com­ing from the US, Cana­da and the UK, said King. "We've got pings as far as Japan and Chi­na," she com­ment­ed.

The pop­u­lar­i­ty of the hash­tag has led oth­er groups to weigh in, in­clud­ing the Bar­ba­dos group Gays, Les­bians and All-sex­u­als against Dis­crim­i­na­tion (B-GLAD), whose co-founder, Ro-An­n­Mo­hammed, re­cent­ly told re­porter Ker­ri Good­ing:

"The #Lifein­Leg­gings hash­tag is more than just an­oth­er so­cial me­dia trend.

"What it is do­ing is ex­pos­ing the in­sid­i­ous­ness of misog­y­ny with­in our cul­ture and its ef­fects on women and girls from all walks of life, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tions and all so­cio-eco­nom­ic back­grounds." (Loop News, post­ed De­cem­ber 15).

King, in her in­ter­view with the Guardian, not­ed that ill-treat­ment of women hap­pens all over the world, but our own his­to­ry plays a unique role:

"It's a glob­al prob­lem. But I be­lieve our ex­pe­ri­ence with­in the Caribbean dif­fers a lit­tle from the in­ter­na­tion­al, be­cause of our colo­nial past and how women were more seen as prop­er­ty than as peo­ple," she said.

"Our cul­ture re­al­ly al­lows grown men to sex­u­al­ly abuse young girls. Es­pe­cial­ly mini­van (or maxi taxi) cul­ture... And when those things come to light, you hear: 'She too faas. She force-ripe.' They don't ever look at the fact that these un­der­age girls are raped be­cause they are too young to give con­sent."

(Con­cludes to­mor­row)