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Stacks of research and yellow U.S. calling cards littered my desk in my Toronto apartment as I tried to piece together what contributed to my generation of women becoming the most victimized age group in Canada when it came to inter-partner violence. I had chosen the topic for my thesis in my final year of my Master of Journalism program at Ryerson. It had been two years since I moved away from London to start the next chapter of my life, and five years since I last saw Joshua. Now, in my early twenties, I was still working through the trauma of our relationship. I wondered how long the emotional wounds would last; I still felt its shadow over me, and yet now that I was finally ready to get counselling, I had aged out of most programs’ period of eligibility for survivors of violence. I was searching the internet for where to find help, when I came across the Statistics Canada study about young women’s rates of victimization. I wanted to find out why this was happening, and I wanted to speak to women, especially the ones like me—in a post-secondary school, who knew the red flags and cycle of violence, who had the support of their family but still ended up in an abusive relationship. I wanted to know if they still carried that trauma with them too.
I put call-outs on social media and asked friends and former professors to circulate it. Dozens of women in university contacted me, wanting to share their stories. I did hours of interviews. We cried and we laughed. We spoke openly and honestly. Sometimes we sat in silence. The interviews were emotional and draining, and yet all of us, strangers to each other, had been connected by these moments that had changed our lives.
There were so many: a student whose chivalrous boyfriend started to control her clothing, body, and friendships, then stalked her when she broke it off; a quiet girl who stayed with her emotionally abusive boyfriend because he hadn’t hit her—until he did; a polyamorous young woman who couldn’t afford to move out of her abusive primary partner’s house; a woman raped by the man she had just started dating; a woman whose friend-with-benefits orchestrated her gang-rape; a woman who was repeatedly assaulted by the father of her child and held at knifepoint (she’s still in hiding with her son, who she named after an angel).
Experts explained to me that the independence of moving away from home also creates a fear of confiding in or relying on parents for help; that friends are just as uneducated and uncertain about what constitutes violence. Concerned professors who teach courses on violence against women told me the students who participate the most in class are the same ones who come to their office hours to ask if what their boyfriend did was abuse. They wondered why there were so many services for sexual assault when inter-partner violence is just as common.
I also came across Gaye Warthe, the Chair of the Department of Child Studies and Social Work at Mount Royal University in Calgary. In 2010, she created Stepping Up, a peer-facilitated dating-violence prevention program for post-secondary students in Canada, which she called the first of its kind in the country. She listed a variety of reasons why university-age people are at risk of violence: being unsure about what constitutes abuse; societal beliefs about the superficiality of young people’s relationships; the delegitimizing of university relationships by society and health care providers because of the belief that students are always having the best time of their lives; and, most importantly for young women, not seeing their needs represented in current domestic-violence resources such as shelters, which young women believe are for women who are married or have kids. We also talked about the funding gap: programs for teens are prevalent, but they end at eighteen. Other programs are funded to cater to married and cohabitating women, who are often older. Funding for violence intervention and prevention in the demographic I belonged to was sparse.
Few resources exist to help young, university-age women wanting to leave their partners in the aftermath of an assault. So, we turn to our friends, but they’re just as uninformed as us. Some of us turn to our parents, but often they can offer nothing more than to suggest going to the police. Police may press charges if they take us seriously—if we are the “ideal” victims. Otherwise, reports will collect in a file until it’s too late. We’ll be told to call back if he does something to us again. We accept this and wait—watching over our shoulder when walking home; installing a second lock on the door; gripping a key between our fingers on the way to our car—hoping he doesn’t show up again. Hoping he doesn’t kill us this time.
* * *
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Somewhere between wishing for death and hoping for justice, I fought for life.
Three months had passed since I last saw Joshua, and I had barely left the house. From my bed, I scrolled through my Facebook feed, which was bloated with photos of people jumping into pools in backyards and at all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean. Everyone had gone on without me. And as my nineteenth birthday passed—a miserable, uneventful day—I made one wish: I would not let another year of my life go by like this again.
I needed to move my body. It was heavy to carry around, a toxic sludge of anger and anxiety. I decided to try a hot yoga class. The studio had a dark wood finish and large mirrors, with heat panels across the ceiling that glowed orange-red. The sweltering heat was unbearable; I couldn’t breathe, and I slid around on my cheap mat the whole session. But it was the most in touch I had felt with my body in a long time. I could feel every itch on my damp skin, every drop of sweat that trickled down my jawline, every breath enter and leave my lungs, like I was purging months of sadness. In that discomfort, I felt connected to myself.
I went to yoga nearly every day, pushing myself to more challenging limits. I got a job that I loved, and I started to come out of my shell again, seeing my friends and spending time with family, wearing my shorts, skirts, and dresses, my bare legs free and sun-kissed in the summer heat. I dropped Social Work to pursue majors in English and Women’s Studies. I wanted to learn about the ways that the patriarchy harms women long before they are even hurt; how it trickles into our daily lives, how it changes us. And now I had clarity about what I wanted to do after I graduated: I wanted to write about women, the subtle and explicit ways that we are under constant attack socially, racially, economically, and politically, and how these all work together to maintain our oppression. I also added a Certificate in Writing so I could start working on my portfolio. I made a promise to myself: I would never again let anybody stop me from living my life the way I wanted.
My outlook had completely changed: life could be taken at any moment, and now I knew that. I mourned for the innocence and naïveté with which I had moved through the world. Whether I was ready or not, I had irrevocably changed.
In the last week of summer, I packed up my things and moved into the new, charming baby-blue house that Taz and I were renting in London. We painted our rooms—mine a calming lavender and Taz’s a rich, hot pink—and put up artwork and tapestries around the house.
It was our home, and there were no rules—no parents, no boys, no curfew. I was ready to have the best year yet, to take another shot at being a fun, careless nineteen-year-old.
Most of all, I was ready to start doing what students in London were best known for: partying.
The Necessary Survival Guide for Token Students
The Token Friend
WHAT TO EXPECT: You are the only thing that stands in the way of your white friends’ love of rap music. And they sure do love the word nigga. In fact, they are just dying to shout it out when their favourite Kendrick Lamar song comes on. When your white crew gets turnt at a club or kegger, they’ll approach you like a child wanting permission to watch another hour of TV and ask if “it’s okay to say the N-word,” which puts you in a difficult situation. Say yes and live with the decision you made when your friends take every possible opportunity to use it. Say no and you become the bitch that killed their vibe.
They may also refer to you as their “Black friend,” making you the vessel through which they become cultured; and by as
sociation, you become an honorary white person (and they won’t let you forget they’ve gifted you with this honour). In taking part in this friendship, you’ve unknowingly signed up for a lifetime of inappropriate, offensive, and unfunny Black jokes, which your friends think they are entitled to make. When they meet another Black person at a house party, they will try to set you two up even though you don’t even know each other. They will watch from afar to see if you get on. It’s like being surrounded by farmers waiting for their two horses to sniff each other and mate.
HOW TO DEAL WITH IT: When people see you hanging around with your white friends, it may evoke feelings of pity or sadness. Ignore this, they think you’re being held captive. They’ll wonder if you’re whitewashed, or worse—brainwashed à la Get Out (you might be, but that’s for a different book). Don’t let friendship stop you from unleashing hell when your white friends start their sentences with “I’m not racist but…” or letting them know that being friends isn’t an invitation to touch your hair (why do they love to do that?) and talk with a Blaccent.
party
gastritis
The first rule Taz and I learned in second year is that partying in London is always justified. There isn’t much else to do in the city, so you drink for just about anything: good grades, good (or bad) sex, an interesting conversation, bumping into an ex, finding a lottery ticket on the ground, Alexander Keith’s birthday. You drink anything, too, as long as it’s potent enough: coolers, whiskey, rye, rum, tequila, any kind of questionable mixed drink. But vodka was our drink of choice. We didn’t stay in touch with many kids from our dorm floor who were having house parties and keggers, but that didn’t bother us—we still had Malcolm, who came out with us sometimes, and there was a whole outside world when 11 p.m. hit. By the end of September, we had gotten into a groove: after class we’d come home, nap, shower, shave, and get ready to go out. As we pre-drank, and I played the songs from my curated party playlist, we’d do our hair and makeup and pick an outfit. Then we’d run out of the house—lipstick tube in mouth, one stiletto in hand—to catch the last bus of the night at 11:21 p.m. The driver always slowed down; he knew we were coming.
Sometimes we bar-hopped, heading down to Jim Bob’s, where someone wearing plaid was guaranteed to throw up on me; Joe Kool’s, a bustling bar full of mature clientele; the Ceeps, an infamous student hangout where the parents of current students met once upon a time; Cobra, a short-lived techno club full of good-looking Arabs and Italians; or our favourite, Jack’s, where the cheap drinks and packed dance floor were a hit with students and locals alike. It was one of the only places that played hip-hop, and so it was one of the few places where we saw faces like ours—at least on some nights. Each weekend, it was full of people who we came to recognize as regulars, whose names we never got to know.
At Jack’s, we had a place to go, to look forward to. The attention we received as some of the only women of colour on nights out felt advantageous. We were a duo, known as the two brown girls (or two Black girls, depending on who said it). If we got separated, strangers pointed us in the direction of each other. The bouncers let us cut the line. If a guy wanted to buy one of us a drink, he knew he’d have to buy two. When a hip-hop or dancehall song played, groups of men would swarm, standing around us in a circle, their arms outstretched, whistling, grabbing, waiting for a turn that wouldn’t come. We were the “Mary Kate and Ashley” when the DJ played “Niggas in Paris.” The brown twins. The dark ones.
We danced and sang all night, our hair matted to our foreheads, screaming like the white girls around us when our favourite song came on. We’d realize where we were, that we didn’t have to go back home, that we no longer had to dream of this moment, this freedom, and Taz would grab my hands, her eyes wide and glistening. “We’re here,” she’d say, almost on the verge of tears. We wore our anticipation of the night in the goosebumps that ran across our skin; in the one-night friendships that always felt like they could thrive outside those walls; in the bravado of flirting with someone cute; in the agency to regularly take part in a scene that, back home, was usually reserved for special occasions. We were running free and wild in the night, completely unrestrained and uninhibited. I never wanted it to end.
We looked forward to the walks home, where we’d meet more people or eye-roll as groups of men followed, begging for just a minute of our time. If we were broke, we’d stand by the Little Caesars and flirt with anyone holding a box of pizza, a surefire way of getting a slice. If we could tolerate the long line of drunk people at Giorgio’s, we’d get our own. We’d head to the food truck parked by the train tracks on Richmond Street, and catch up with the older Greek man who always gave us extra garlic dip. But most nights we’d eat at the Indian restaurant up the street, run by two young Sikhs who made the most delicious curries. It was always empty at that hour, so we would sit and chat with them while we ate.
This was our new routine. There was so much excitement, so much possibility, so much to look forward to every night. We could do whatever we wanted, wear what we pleased, be who we were. Taz and I had felt invisible for so long. But under the bright lights and with the sheen of sweat on our dancing bodies, we were two girls who were more seen than ever before.
* * *
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By the time the chilly November air arrived with the southwestern front, Taz and I were partying nearly every day. Some Fridays, we pulled all-nighters at a club, then headed to grab our bags so we could catch the first Greyhound bus back home. When we saw our hometown friends, we’d tell them tales of nights out: the parties, the people, the freedom. They’d say we were living the ultimate life. When strangers asked if Western really was a party school, we’d enthusiastically confirm.
This new world gave me a chance to try my hand at casual dating, and I was seeing a few guys I met at bars. But even that couldn’t stop me from thinking about Joshua.
I functioned throughout the day, busy with school, but at night his presence lurked in the darkness, reminding me that I was spoiled goods, that no one would ever love me after being in a relationship like ours. Each time I went out and wore the clothes he would hate, drank more than he would want, flirted with a new guy, it felt like a defiant fuck you, like I was capable of moving on and he had no power to stop me. I drank more and more each night, trying to drink him into oblivion, trying to drink myself into the arms of someone else.
After the assault, the way I perceived men had changed. As a painfully shy and introverted teen, I had put men on a pedestal. But now I equated men with pain, which somehow made them seem more human, approachable. I both wanted to date men and stay far away from them, a complex and conflicting, post-traumatic response that frustrated me as much as it did the men I was involved with. One moment, I was giving out my number to a guy I was interested in; the next, I was cowering in the corner of my room when he called. I found it impossible to recognize a normal interaction when I was irrationally suspicious of everything. Drinking was a way to numb myself to my unpredictable emotions, though it was in vain; the terror always set in.
I didn’t want to get hurt again, so I closed myself off to being open and vulnerable, stopping any chance at a healthy relationship before it could happen. And despite my lack of trust in men, I was desperate to prove that my relationship had not ruined me. Against my better judgement, I dove head first into anything that seemed to have a fraction of a possibility, ignoring the mixed messages, just so I could prove to myself that I could move on, just like Joshua had.
I gravitated to men who were selfish and emotionally unavailable. They were there at night when I needed them, without pressuring me for a commitment. To reward them for their non-intrusiveness, I maintained the illusion of being passive, letting them walk all over me, listening to their problems, being the “cool girl” they were searching for.
Each time the tequila settled and the familiar dread of sobriety hit, I hushed it with more alcohol. I couldn’t st
and being alone with myself, with this anger and fear that was so devastating. I wanted to be a normal functioning girl again, a carefree girl, a happy girl. I wanted to stop hurting people and myself.
I wanted it to be like it was before, but there was nothing to go back to.
* * *
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After leaving London’s Club 181 on King Street in the fall of 2002, a Black female student noticed a white man standing in front of the bar as she tried to hail a cab. She was intrigued by his shirt, decorated with skulls and writing in a language she didn’t recognize.
Curious, she approached him. “What does your shirt say?” she asked. His friend, another white man, came over and got in her face.
“What the fuck are you talking to him for?” he yelled. Quickly, she backed away, telling them that she was leaving. They grabbed her; the man in the skull shirt punched her in the face.
They walked away from her, as she bled. The man in the shirt turned back around. “And the shirt says, ‘I hate motherfucking niggers.’ ”
Ten years later, just a few blocks away, Taz and I were outside Jack’s after a night out, looking for a cab. Two white men were standing at the side of the building smoking a cigarette when they started hitting on her, following us as we walked down the street. Taz tried to turn them down politely.
“We just want to talk to you, what’s wrong with that?” one of the men, muscular with a blond crop, said as he grabbed her arm.
She was losing her self-confidence in the face of their aggression. I stepped in. “Can you leave her alone? She’s not interested.”
“No one’s talking to you. We’re talking to your friend,” he said harshly in his Eastern European accent.
“Well, she doesn’t want to talk to you. You can see she’s uncomfortable.” I put my hand on Taz’s back to guide her away. He let go of her arm and turned towards me, inches from my face. His laughing friend half-heartedly held him back.
They Said This Would Be Fun Page 11
