Lot's Wife Edition 4 2021

Lot’s Wife • Edition Four
Women Like Me
Words by Tehseen Huq
Content warning: sexual harassment, mentions
of rape
Lot’s Wife • Edition Four
Art by Kat Kennedy
When I was nine years old, my mum sat me
down and gave me a lecture on all the different
ways men can and will want to hurt my body
and how society is sure to blame it on me.
Her sombre voice laced with a threatening
undertone petrified me. I didn’t understand
much of it back then. I wondered if boys were
also on the receiving end of such warnings.
My innocuous mind could not comprehend
how my body, as a woman, could be such a
problem.
I thought I’d forget what she said as time went
by, that this was just one of those many stupid
things that she was unnecessarily paranoid
about. But society didn’t let me forget as I grew
up. In fact, society induced a debilitating fear
in me. I constantly looked over my shoulder no
matter where I was or what I was doing.
My body is an object of desire and also an
object of flagrant criticism. The paradox is
incomprehensible. I remember holding my
dad’s hand as I walked home from school. I
remember the wandering eyes of two middleaged
men. I remember their lurid stares as
their eyes traced every inch of my body. I was
six. My brain didn’t register how I was feeling
as the hair on my body stood erect. Now I
know what I felt was fear, pure unadulterated
fear.
I think of the time when I went shopping with my
family and I could instinctively feel someone’s
lascivious gaze on me. I turned around, but
not fast enough. I felt a hand brush my back. I
flinched. I told a friend from school. She said it
happened because I didn’t cover up properly.
As if me wearing jeans and a t-shirt warranted
a touch without my consent. As if my body is
just a vessel without life, simply there to entice
the perverse male gaze.
I remember the newspapers strewn across
the coffee table in my living room, all with
conspicuous headlines of rape cases.
I remember watching the news which showed
families of rape victims crying hysterically.
Demanding justice. Begging for justice. I saw
vulgar comments on social media, comments
that made me shudder with revulsion. People
berating and debasing the victim. To them,
the emancipation of women is unfathomable.
I struggled to love my body. So did my female
friends. It’s hard to have a healthy relationship
with your body when you are surrounded by
so much negativity. Every time I hear the news
of another rape victim, it’s as if I can hear their
cries. But all I can do is commiserate and hope
I’m not the next one in line because, after
all, what can I do? I can’t change society’s
mindset in a day or even in a few years.
Such misogyny has been embedded in our
culture for generations. A generational curse
of normalising the segregation of women. Of
viewing women as second-class citizens.
I dream of monsters with beguiling eyes
chasing me. Their malevolent laughter echoing
through a dark forest. I run as far away as
I can but I can’t escape. They grab me with
their filthy hands. I’m impotent in their grasp.
I’m a prey in a hunter’s net. I see a girl in a
tattered red dress, her clothes barely clinging
to her body. Her hair is disheveled and her
face is smeared with mud. Her virulent gaze is
directed at the monsters. But she knows that
she is powerless. She can’t help me. Her gaze
swings towards me and I don’t know if she’s
pitying me or welcoming me to her world. She
is simply a spectre, a spirit stuck in a limbo.
And when I’m dragged to the depths of
oblivion thrashing and screaming, I think
I hear a squeaky voice laced with fear: “I’m
sorry”. I don’t know if I imagined it.
Perhaps, she was another soul of an angel
gone too soon from this world. She was
someone’s daughter, sister or friend. She was
someone.
My heart aches. I wake up in a cold sweat,
struggling to breathe.
Sometimes, I also have pleasant dreams. I
have dreams of us living in a world where
women are treated equally and equitably. A
world where a woman in a powerful position
of leadership is considered just as valid as a
man in that same position. I dream of a world
where women can embrace their sexuality
and their sexual prowess. Where women
are no longer subjugated or chained to the
norms of patriarchy. They have a myriad of
opportunities and can be anything they want.
It’s a world where rape is no longer a possibility
because women are given the respect and
bodily autonomy that they deserve. They
travel with alacrity, and being alone on a
highway in the middle of the night does not
scare them. The gender pay gap does not exist
either. In this utopian world, women are strong,
confident, and they live with intrepidity and
free will.
I want to say that as we continue fighting for
our rights, perhaps we’ll see a world like that.
But we still have a long way to go. I was born
in a country where women are still tortured,
raped, denigrated, and denied basic rights
and respect. Once I moved to Australia, I’ve
seen a massive difference in the way women
are treated here. But I believe that we can’t
have a moment of reprieve until the entire
world can say with conviction that women are
safe everywhere – in every corner of the world.
I am not free until every single woman is free
to live without fear and apprehension.
Fighting for our rights is an endless battle
but we owe it to ourselves and to the future
generation of women. We must stand in
solidarity and remake the world into a
place where women feel secure and can
unabashedly chase their dreams, and pursue
their destinies.
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