We had stopped at a traffic light when out of the corner of my eye, I noticed somebody throw something out of the front passenger window of a white Holden Commodore.
“Kids or teenagers,” I muttered to myself.
Then I took a bit more notice of what was thrown. It was a colourful bag. A woman’s handbag. I watched the car with a bit more interest. The woman or teenager (it was hard to tell as she was a fair way from my car) was yelling at the driver. She opened her door and stepped out of the car.
Her one leg made it out the door but he yelled loudly and from his seat, yanked her back in the car. He grabbed a chunk of her hair and pulled it. She tried desperately to push his hand away, to prise his fingers out of her hair.
He yanked her hair harder.
She tried punching him and pushing him.
He pulled on her hair with more force.
Her leg was still sticking out of the open passenger door.
The lights turned green.
He turned left and sped down the road, one hand firmly gripped on the hair on her head and the other on the steering wheel.
Her leg was still sticking out of the open passenger door as the car drove out of sight.
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I once knowingly or unknowingly caused hurt and upset to an acquaintance. I phoned to apologise for my bad behaviour and the apology while certainly not graciously, was eventually accepted.
Or so I thought. That night, my husband got a call from this woman’s husband. The point of the call to my husband? To tell him even though I acknowledged my mistake and apologised for it, it was my husband’s responsibility to ensure that sort of behaviour from me never happens again.
You know. Because the relationship between husbands and wives is that of fathers and misbehaving little girls who need to be “put in their place.”
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When I was stupid enthusiastic enough, I would exercise at the gym morning and evening. My evening sessions went until gym closing time so the shopping centre was usually deserted as I walked through the car park towards my car. I made sure my car key sat firmly in bet ween my fingers as a makeshift weapon to gouge the eyes out of any would-be attacker. Any man in the car park was a potential rapist and murderer. I don’t think men will ever know what that feels like. To be too scared to walk on your own in a reasonably safe neighbourhood.
Because women know there is no such thing as a “safe” neighbourhood. Some are safer than others, but none where we feel truly “safe.”
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Father raped daughters for 25 years
-sometimes home is the most dangerous and damaging place of all.
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I panicked. What should I do? Should I follow him in my car, get his address and take the details to police or should I, after finding his home knock on his door and confront the man and make sure the woman was ok? I had my children in the car. If he had the nerve to act so violently IN BROAD DAYLIGHT with a woman he clearly knows, what was stopping him from doing the same or worse to a stranger calling him up on his behaviour?
I could not chance it so I memorised the car’s registration number and drove to the nearest police station.
The policeman got all my details and the details of the incident.
“I really hope she is ok,” I said as he closed his notebook.
“It’s probably nothing. Just a couple having a spat.”
“I’ve never seen a ‘spat’ like that before.”
‘You’d be surprised, love.”
I can still see her white sandal and red nail polished toes.
I wonder where she is now.
Does she feel safe?
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Marriage is not a word. It’s a sentence – a life sentence.
Marriage is a thing which puts a ring on a woman’s finger and two under a man’s eyes.
Getting married is very much like going to the restaurant with friends. You order what you want, and when you see what the other fellow has, you wish you had ordered that.
Son: How much does it cost to get married, Dad?
Father: I don’t know son, I’m still paying for it.
These jokes (and probably more – these are all I could remember) have been told as part of speeches from various weddings I have attended.
They were all told by an Imam.
And they tell us if we dare to say we don’t find those jokes at all funny that we don’t have a sense of humour.
Do they really wonder why?
