In Iowa: Locker room banter for some, appalling reality for others

When I was an intern for The Gazette, back in 2007, I wrote about a man known around Iowa City as 'the groper.” This assailant would approach women walking in public places and grab them, putting his hands in unwanted places, reaching under clothes and at times even pulling down skirts or pants. When the women screamed and struggled, he ran. This continued for months.

For my story, I interviewed Iowa City women about their reactions as reports of the groper piled up. 'Women are carrying a brick in their purse,” one young woman told me. Another said after finishing shifts at a downtown coffee shop, she ran to her car with a rape whistle ready between her lips.

The majority of men are not sexual predators, but women have to live their lives prepared to meet those that are.

I remember when, after I got my driver's license, my mother showed me how to hold my keys between my fingers so they could be used as a weapon.

'Then you can tell the police he's the guy with the scratches down his face,” she said.

When I left for college at the University of Iowa, she gave me a container of pepper spray to carry in my purse.

I was taught to never let a man bring me a drink I didn't see poured. I was taught to pretend to be talking to a friend on my cellphone when walking alone at night - when a man approached, the tactic was to say loudly, 'Yes, I can see you now!” and wave wildly at the imaginary friend, the implied witness. I learned how to twist my arm to break an attacker's grip.

For a short time after college, I volunteered answering the crisis line for the Rape Victim Advocacy Program in Iowa City. Confidentiality is important to the crisis line's efficacy, so I won't repeat those stories here, but the things I heard are seared into my brain. Advocates also went to the hospital when sexual assault survivors were sent there, a task I took on only once, and I will never forget the bruises on that woman's arms.

Going to a friend's house the other night, even though she lives just a few blocks away, the moon was bright and the weather was warm, I drove. I made that choice remembering a walk I'd taken on a bright Saturday afternoon a few months ago, when a car slowed to a crawl on the street next to me, and the two grown men inside promised, 'We'll be back to pick you up later, baby,” before laughing as they sped off.

Statistics say 1 in 5 women will be raped in their lifetimes, but virtually all of us experience the catcalls, the uncomfortable comments and shouted threats, and far too many are familiar with the physical intrusions of a man standing too close or reaching an unwanted hand into our physical space.

These things shape women's experiences in ways we have unfortunately come to take for granted.

What men need to understand - the good men who do not assault women need to understand this, too - is that all of these stories, all of these experiences, work their way through the fabric of women's lives. They are not regulated to 'just words” or 'locker room banter.”

They are our reality.