Friendly Greetings?

A group of us are walking down to the waterfront on a sunny Saturday. We walk towards a man yelling “Sea Point, Sea Point, Sea Point,” trying to recruit passengers for a taxi (which is really a van that functions more as a bus) headed to the Sea Point neighborhood of Cape Town. He is facing us. He stops fares for a second and points at me. “I am in love with you!”, he yells, before returning to his cries of “Sea Point!!”

Anna and I often try to explore during our lunch breaks. One day we decide to head towards the Observatory neighborhood, about a 15-minute walk away. We have to walk along Victoria Road, the main drag in Woodstock, and—never having walked it before—we notice some stares and feel a bit uncomfortable. At one point we pass by a man who, though not appearing to have noticed us, whispers “Stunning” under his breath when he is directly adjacent to us on the sidewalk.

Its 8:20 on a Thursday morning and Anna and I are dropping off our laundry before work. A group of men are standing in front of the laundromat. One man decides he likes the way we look. “Ooo lovely ladies! Good morning, good morning, good morning. Look at you!” We ignore him, but he persists. We try to walk up the stairs, but he blocks our way, continuing to taunt us as we skirt around him to a use a different set of stairs. I am glad he is not there when we come back out 10 minutes later.

We are walking back from the gym at around 7 am. We hear a call from behind us–“Good morning ladies!” and pretend we haven’t heard. “Gooood morning ladies!” he calls again. A group of five middle aged men slowly bike past us up the hill. One man jokes to his friend about our lack of a response: “You should have said ‘Good morning darlings!’”

We are walking back from our lunch break. A man says “Good afternoon ladies” in a voice slimy with innuendo and hidden meaning as he eyes us up and down. When we don’t respond he snaps in our face to get our attention and repeats, “Good afternoon ladies” in a more aggressive tone.

Yes, some of these stories are fairly comical. I found myself laughing on the phone with my mom over the man who was “in love with me” or the guy who whispered “stunning.” However, some of these situations made me feel disrespected, uncomfortable and downright angry. I know that street harassment is something that women face daily both in the United States and across the world. Yet it has been in South Africa that I have found myself confronted with street harassment on a significant scale for the first time.

It is also a place where certain actions and comments are frustratingly difficult to pinpoint as harassment because I am aware of the existence of cultural differences between the US and South Africa. During my five weeks here I have found that people are friendlier to each other, that in general there is more interaction between strangers on the streets and that there is a certain way of interacting that is playful and teasing. These differences (if not truly cultural differences then at least perceptible differences between Oakland, CA and Cape Town, SA) have presented me with challenges in responding to what I would normally clearly identify as street harassment or inappropriate comments.

It has left me wondering, what is South Africa’s culture of friendliness and playfulness and what is harassment? Is it rude when I don’t respond to men I don’t know who say good morning or good afternoon in the streets? Should I be irritated when a visitor to our office makes a comment about our bosses keeping “better company” these days in reference to me and my female coworker or attempt to swallow my discomfort? How do I move throughout South Africa remaining aware of my safety and yet also remaining open to new interactions? How can I begin to remember that when I feel like my body is constantly being appraised and evaluated, other women in South Africa also face this daily and at potentially much greater levels? How do I identify where a line might exist between striving to accept a cultural difference and realizing there might be certain cultural differences I cannot accept?

Unfortunately, I don’t really have answers to many of these questions. Even writing this blog post I struggled to identify exactly what I was feeling or what my core takeaways may be moving forwards and returning home. I have realized that even though I am writing from a place of discomfort and anger, in reality I occupy a place of privilege in relation to many South African women. I am able to access and inhabit spaces where I am not faced with street harassment. While some comments have been made to me I have never felt afraid of physical violence or assault. Ultimately at the end of my two months here I will return to the United States and, whether or not I am aware of or faced with similar situations, the quandaries and the issues that I am currently grappling are likely to remain in South Africa. However, I refuse to let my ability to leave South Africa stop me from attempting to answer these questions during the rest of my time here.