This picture was taken in front of the St. Peter's Basilica in Rome when I was 20. My friend Sharon and I were doing the backpacking-in-Europe thing with friends and she couldn't get in to the Sistine Chapel because she was wearing a mini skirt. I was wearing a mini skirt, too, but had the good fortune to have also worn a matching pair of pants (okay, so it was a top not a miniskirt, but it was the 70s and I was young and had good legs and could get away with wearing indecent clothing at the time.) The photo shows Sharon with her mini dress and my pants as we took turns seeing Michelangelo's masterpiece.
Within 24 hours of that picture being taken, I was groped on a crowded Rome street in broad daylight. It happened in a flash and as I stood there shocked the groper faded into the flow of people around me. I burst in to tears and as my friends comforted me a little old Italian lady stopped to ask what was wrong. She could have been anywhere from 50 to 80; short, she had a figure that only eating a ton of pasta can form--a typical Italian matriarch if there ever was one. I don't know how she understood what my friends told her but she did, and I watched anger darken her face. Her voice rose and she turned to the mass of humanity walking by, jabbed her finger in the air and launched into a verbal tirade , scolding them one and all for what had happened to me.
I still remember how much pain the assault caused. Absent any wound, bleeding or aggrieved nerve endings, it was surprising how raw the experience was. This woman who stopped soon melted into the crowd, too, as my friends carried me off, but I'll never forget how grateful I was to her for showing that she, too, was assaulted by what had happened to me. No matter that what happened was part of the Italian male culture, not only at that time, but to this day. She didn't once make me feel like I'd "asked for it" by the way I was dressed. She was outraged on my behalf. I felt taken care of by her defense and it helped me recover quickly from something that would otherwise go unpunished.
The press coverage of the assault by the head of International Monetary Fund on a maid last week in NYC reminded me of what happened in Rome. Reading about how rampant this sort of sexual predatory behavior is in France, how accepted it is in the European business environment, is truly shocking. Women, it seems, feel voiceless after such assaults. Many women, it appears, accept it as the cost of doing business; some, like Strauss-Kahn's wife apparently, seem to view it is as acceptable behavior.
So even though I can't say for sure what that very caring, angry woman said all those years ago, I'm gonna take a stab at paraphrasing her words: Shame on you, Dominique Straus-Kahn. Look what you've done. Look who you've hurt. You have money and power, yes, but you had no right. You had no right.
2 comments:
Wow.
Excellent Read.
I want to show Phoebe this, along with your 70's Photo.
Phoeb. is in Ecuador now for 2 months. If you have facebook you can see her pics. her family. I know BJ and Josh are her friends.
m.
Since I was one of the friends with you in Europe this story was of special interest. Just last October I was back in Rome for the first time since our trip in 1971 and I related another part of this "indecent" clothes story to my wife and daughter. I am not sure if you remember this but one of you, probably Vicki (and looking at what you and Sharon were wearing it must have been) was wearing a top with bare shoulders. She was not allowed into St Peter’s for much the same reasons as Sharon. I either volunteered or was talked into giving up my shirt so that Vicki could put it on over hers and go in. I can still remember sitting shirtless and embarrassed on the steps of St Peter’s. You may have had great looking legs (and you did) but my chest and abs were never much to show off. This is one of only a few memories I have of Rome back then.
The other part of your story I am sorry to say that I do not remember. But then it was not as personal as it was for you
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