We have received at DF Diario Feminista this account of a female musician that we consider very feminist and transformative, and for this reason, and with her permission, we have decided to publish it.
Having just arrived alone in another country where I had never been before, a female colleague suggests that I have breakfast with the outstanding male violinist B, knowing that I have a conservatory degree in violin. As she is an organiser of events for international students at an official guarantee institution, I agree to have breakfast with the three of us. The night before, the violinist talks to me about having breakfast only with him and I already start to suspect that there is something that should never happen to any student. Then he tells me that we are also going to return the key to the flat that the musician L. has left him.
Thanks to DF’s articles and the scientific articles they cite, I immediately detect two actions that go against consent: the first is to transform a breakfast with a colleague I know and a musician I don’t know into a breakfast only with the latter; the second is to include as part of that breakfast going to return the key to a flat. I say I agree to have breakfast and I don’t fall into the trap of asking time and place as if I needed to meet a famous musician who could help promote me. He uses the typical tactic of not telling me time and place, believing that this way I’ll be in tension and I’ll give in.
In this type of situation, the coercive discourse that completely dominated my primary school and progressive high school meant that your peers called these harassing attitudes sexual freedom and the boys like that » hot guys», bad guys but fun to be with. Even the boys and girls bullied you if you didn’t like that game or those boys, telling you that you looked like you were from a nun’s school, that you didn’t know how to have fun, and even that you would get cobwebs. They called it sexual freedom to submit to harassment instead of freely deciding your relationships.
Thanks to DF, I knew what was going to happen and how I was going to act. As I expected, first thing the next morning, he tells me that in half an hour L will come to the flat to return the key, after which there would be breakfast. I say I’ll join her when they’re in the cafeteria. A few minutes later, L calls me asking if I know anything about B, which confirms what I already knew. The first is that it wasn’t true what B told me about meeting L. The second is that everything B was doing was to try to keep me in the flat. The third is that B was what scientific research calls traditional dominant masculinity (TDM), while L, less famous, was traditional oppressed masculinity (TOM), in other words, the one who would let himself be coerced into helping B in his harassment.
Being very clear that under no circumstances will I go upstairs, I decide that, if they create the situation in which they are both upstairs and tell me to go up and look for them, I will answer that I will wait for them in the cafeteria and, if they insist, I will answer that I see what it is all about and say goodbye. To be more proactive, I call L and propose that we both wait for B in the cafeteria. B arrives frustrated, but ready to use his last cartridge knowing that L will submit to shoot him himself. When we finish breakfast, they both tell me to go to the flat to pick up B’s things and accompany him to the station. I say no, that I am leaving. L grabs me tightly by both arms and tells me yes, to go with them. I release myself and say goodbye.
I don’t know what readers of this article will decide to do, but I will certainly spread the Feminist Diary and the scientific articles it cites as far and wide as I can to ensure that as many girls as possible know how to avoid the harassment that so many of us girls and adolescents have suffered.
A violinist.
