Electric Fence Zine: Mauritius

For those of you who haven't received the memo, street harassment is both pervasive and incessant in Mauritius.

Apart from the daily dose of hissing and leering that I am exposed to, I've been groped by a bus driver, harassed over the telephone by police officers, followed from the market, flashed at a dance club, and most recently, attacked and very nearly sexually assaulted. In a span of 5 months, I have had more experiences of sexual assault than most women accumulate over a lifetime and nothing prepared me for this.. not the Fulbright Foundation, not the Embassy, and not even my experiences of being harassed back home.

The cast of characters are partially new as well as partially old and familiar. They include construction workers, street corner drunks, curmudgeons, as well as motorists (sometimes driving with their children in the rear), married professionals, men on bicycles, doctors, bus conductors, as well as young persons still in their 20s.

One of the things that has unified all of my street-harassers up to date is the fact that all of them have been Indo-Mauritians. Coincidental? Hardly.

My theory on street harassment in Mauritius is a cultural one, concerning in-group and out-group dynamics on the Isle. Namely, I believe men abide by limited rules of decorum when dealing with women from their own ethnic communities, but behave lawlessly when interacting with women of different origins... particularly Black-African and Creole women.

How else to explain the fact that the same Hindu men who leer, stalk, and hiss at me and my White roommate allow sari-clad women pass by totally unperturbed? Or the fact that not a single one of my three dozen harassers has been a Black man?

What is important to note about this hypothesis is that it stops short of indicting Indo-Mauritian culture as being defective in and of itself. Instead, my contention is that the tenants of respect which govern interactions between Indian persons typically are not applied to interactions between Indians and non-Indians.

As a result of all this, the streets and sidewalks of Mauritius are lawless. Indo-Mauritians articulate their desire for non-Indian women crudely and brazenly ... whether it be hissing at them, soliciting them for sex, grabbing at their bodies or, at worst, tearing their clothes off in the middle of the street.

My second cultural explanation for harassment in Mauritius is that racist and misogynistic stereotypes about black women are pervasive. The one time that I was foolhardy enough to invite a male acquaintance over to watch a movie on a Friday evening, the night ended with him begging to stay the night and looking surprised when I turned him down flat. Mind you, he's Muslim, and prior to soliciting me for sex, he explained that Muslim dating in Mauritius is more or less a formal courtship supervised by parents, where hand-holding is about as intimate as things get. Hmm... makes you wonder why with me, he practically came with his bathtowel and toothbrush.

I will allow that some of this is a problem of nationality, and the way that American women are cast in the blockbuster films that are bootlegged and viewed by Mauritians at a dizzying rate. Apparently, we are ravenous consumers of sex, and there's simply no such thing as "not interested" or "not now." However, the perceptions of Americans that exist in so-called socially conservative countries like Mauritius hardly displace race from its place of prominence in my thesis.

If we erase race as an explanatory factor, how do we explain the statements of the law enforcement officers who handled my case? Consider the following exchanges:

(Police Officer speaking in regards to the bus-driver who groped me)
Officer: "Oh, he probably just thought you were Malagasy. You know, a lot of them are prostitutes"
Me: "Actually, he knew I was American."
Officer: "Oh geez, what a monster!"

And how about this one? (said after my latest case-- essentially an attempted rape)
Officer: "Oh you know, he probably thought you were Creole."

Whatever the intent of these statements, they imply that Black and African-descendant women (sex worker or otherwise) are incapable of being sexually assaulted because they are naturally promiscuous. Thus, we (here I include myself) consent to sex, groping, and unsolicited touching by mere fact of our race. Even whilst putting up a fight...

According to the police, the problem isn't that Black women in Mauritius are systematically denied the right to refuse sex like their Indian, White, and Chinese counterparts, the problem is that I am being misread as one of them.

Thinking about all this has me thoroughly exhausted, so that's all for now. However, more commentary to come. Stay tuned...

Labels: assault, street harassment, women's issues

Posted by east of madagascar on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 8:07 PM | Permalink