About a year and a half ago, as I walked home after work at about 11 PM, I passed a couple talking about thirty feet from the entrance to my building. The woman was leaning with her back against the drivers side front window of one of the vehicles parked on the street; her bag was on the car’s roof. The man stood in front of her, close enough that she couldn’t easily move away, with his right hand planted firmly on the spot where the front and rear doors met. Clearly they were arguing, but his other hand was not raised and he did not raise his voice. Nor did she, in any immediately recognizable way, seem intimidated, though they were standing outside the circle of light cast by the streetlamp, so I couldnt see her face. They appeared to be, simply, a couple whod walked out of the restaurant around the corner from my house, which that night was hosting some kind of dance party, to have an argument. I passed by without giving them much further thought.
As soon as I walked up the steps leading to my building, though, he yelled something in Spanish and I heard what sounded like his hand being slammed, flat and hard, against the roof of the car they’d been leaning on. I stopped and listened for about fifteen seconds. It was quiet. I peaked around the tree that was blocking them from my sight and they were standing more or less as they had been when I first walked past them. I waited a little bit longer, and, when nothing else happened, walked into the lobby. Again, as soon as I did so–you’d think the timing had been rehearsed–he started yelling at her again, and this time, from the sound of shaking metal, he was hitting as he did so the alternate side of the street parking sign that was right next to where they were standing.
I stepped back outside just in time to see the two of them walk side-by-side past my building’s entrance. I stepped onto the sidewalk to watch them. He had her purse in one hand and her upper arm in the other and the slump in her shoulders sure looked to me like she knew she had no choice but to allow herself to be led away. Then, as if he felt my eyes on the back of his head, the man turned around, took a few steps towards me and said, the invitation to provoke him into more than words more than obvious in his voice, “What are you looking at?”
He was at least 15-20 years younger than I am, big, though maybe not quite as big as I am, and I have no idea what I would have done if he’d attacked me. It was late; I was very tired; my cellphone battery was dead; every light in my building was off; and I knew my wife and my son were sleeping. The last time I was in a fistfight, believe it or not, was third grade. No matter how good a fight I might have been able to put up, in other words, there was no doubt in my mind that I would be on the losing end of it. So I didn’t say anything to him.
He took another step or two towards me, “Mind your own fucking business, okay? This has nothing to do with you.”
Again, I didn’t answer.
“Look this is not between you and me,” he yelled, and I wondered if he’d woken up anyone else in my building. “It’s between us,” he said, leaning forward, pushing his chest out towards me and gesturing with his hand towards himself and the woman, who was standing, silent and unmoving, a few feet behind him.
“Then you don’t need to hurt her,” I said.
“What the fuck? I’m not hurting her.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Just go home.” It was an order he expected me to follow, not a reassurance that everything was okay; and then he turned back towards the woman, who turned with him, and he hung his arm over her shoulders, pulling her towards him and saying something into her ear as they walked down the block, neither of them looking back in my direction. I watched them for about 20 seconds, went back into my building, took the elevator upstairs and stood by the window listening to hear if there were any further outbursts, but there were none. So I made myself some tea and watched a little television to unwind before getting ready for bed.
I’m not sure that I have much to say about this story, except that every time I try to tease something out of it, I discover that it’s quite a complicated little knot. On the one hand, I do not regret stepping out into the street to be a witness, even if the couple was, simply, a couple having an argument. Nor do I think the initial assumption I made—that there was in him the threat of violence against her—was wrong. It’s much better to be wrong about something like that than not to do anything. On the other hand, though, if I was right, what good did I actually do? Nothing had happened that warranted calling the police; and if he had attacked me for “interfering,” odds are he would have beaten me up. That might have gotten him arrested for assault—if someone saw it and called the cops and they were able to catch him—but it’s not at all clear that it would have made any difference to the woman he was with.
I realize that there’s an analysis of a situation like this which says my presence shifted the focus of violence to where it “should” be in a male dominant culture, between men—and, in theory at least, a part of me agrees with that—but I’m not sure that analysis does much good if I end up bloody and beaten and he goes home and takes his ire out even more forcefully on his female companion.
When I finally got into bed that night, I kept replaying the moment when he hung his arm over his companion’s shoulders and I realized I couldn’t tell for sure if the gesture was familiar, intimate, meaning something like, Look, it’s over. Let’s go home, making his bluster towards me a simple case male posturing; or, if he was actually putting her in a chokehold, the meaning of which, I assume, is obvious. So much of what happened, at least as I remember it, suggests the second reading is accurate, but I could not and cannot be sure. And that haunts me.
Sometimes all you can do is be a witness.
Perhaps your gentle witness will prod her out of a bad situation. If a complete stranger can stand up to him, then perhaps she can stand up and get out if she needs to.
At the end of the day, they’re both adults. And adults get to make stupid choices, even if it hurts them. When I was in a very manipulative relationship, a complete stranger wouldn’t have been able to convince me to leave (had they heard some of our arguments,) but perhaps just knowing someone else cared might have improved my self-worth, and several mullings over later, might have made a difference.
I hate situations where you feel like you can’t do enough without overstepping your bounds, but in my estimation, you chose the wisest course of action. You owe your wife and children more than you owe that stranger, and what if he had been armed? Giving him pause was the best you could do.
There are moments which haunt good men and many of them have to do with just such instances as you describe, whether male-on-male, male-on-female, female-on-male, adult of either gender-on-child…
ANY discussion of these moments, these events, which deals in more than mere philosophy — and I most pointedly use the word mere in this case because theoretical violence and real violence most often lie worlds apart — immediately goes to a visceral place which is nigh impossible to discuss reasonably because whether for or against violence, the majority of people operate in the all-or-nothing zone.
Real confrontation of violence is a strange, telling thing. Fear is NOT unreasonable in that kind of scenario, whether the fear created by a pure desire for self-preservation or the fear of ending up as a victim in the almost crazed social system in which we currently live. As you said: No REAL sign, nothing undeniable, nothing concrete which demanded action on your part; and yet a doubt which was more than just niggling at the fray, enough to draw your attention.
When people speak of violence they almost always speak from ignorance. We hear constantly that violence is unnecessary, that violence is the last resort — when what people really mean is that violence is no resort at all.
I speak as a believer that violence is the LAST resort, but even the last resort is, in point of fact A resort. It is the place to which we go when all else has failed, when a situation MUST be resolved and circumstances demand immediate resolution.
Those situations are, quite thankfully, FEW; those situations are, quite thankfully, far-between.
Those situations are, most unfortunately, existent; and you were very nearly in one.
That you gave pause to watch speaks well of you; that you walked away and even now own doubts with regard to that evening… it speaks well of you BUT does nothing to resolve a long-finished situation, CAN do nothing to resolve. It’s over, it’s done.
It will always haunt you, so long as you possess a conscience, and there’s no getting around that. A part of you will always WHAT IF this to death. For that I am truly sorry, for it’s an ugly thing to live with, and we can never know for certain whether it’s even necessary or the product of a gross misunderstanding.
I myself was once full of youth, filled with piss and vinegar, and in my idiocy would have sought violence in the name of male bluster.
As time passed and I finally grew up, grew from a boy into a man, as I learned my abilities and my limitations I no longer sought violence… but I no longer shirked from perceived threats. I learned to side-step and I learned to discern when side-stepping was NOT an option (again, thankfully few times outside of actual combat).
But…
With each passing year as my physical capabilities remain yet somehow flag… as my presence remains but the physical capacity to back things up should circumstances come to violence diminishes bit-by-miniscule-bit… as that time and place draw inexhorably nearer where I WILL one day say “he was 15-20 years younger than I…”
I cannot deny the tiniest flicker of a flame of hesitation has sparked within me. I cannot deny that I wonder whether I am up to snuff, wonder at a gut level which has nothing to do with conscious evaluation.
We make choices and we live with them. You live with this one. As I said, it speaks well of you that the moment haunts you, that you wonder what might have been, what might or might not have proved necessary.
The ONLY thing you can do is to mull it over, digest it and come out the other side with some semblance of an answer regarding what you’d say, think or do in the event such a thing comes to pass in the future. Even then… moments change things in ways few will ever pause and consider adequately to comprehend.
I don’t feel there’s any shame in what you did, how you handled it, because it’s YOU and you’re the one to whom you must answer, the one who has to live with it. You’ve a wife and child who rely on your continued presence in your current state of health. For all that I could suppose what I “would have done” I wasn’t there and even I would have to admit the potential lie to myself about any such outcome, because maybe I would and then again maybe I wouldn’t. People who even consider violence (not those who KNOW but those who THINK) typically picture it in terms of physical domination, ignorantly imagining themselves leaping forward like some juggernaut, the opponent swept along helplessly in the face of an onslaught most horrific and unstoppable.
The reality, when finally confronted by someone who instills fear, by some situation of potentially violent unknown… alas, quite different. That moment of FEAR is real, that moment when you not only don’t wish to be hurt but are uncertain of whether or not you actually SHOULD be in the position of confrontation.
It’s very, very human and it wasn’t wrong to have been subjected to it. What would be wrong would be to never again consider it, to shrug off right and justice as not just concepts but beliefs, and to make excuses to oneself. You’re doing that already. The moment haunts you and you’re concerned about whether you did right or wrong. That, at least, is admirable.
It’s interesting that an unspoken principle underlying this entire post and the comments is that men *should* act chivalrously towards women and save the damsel in distress. It isn’t even mentioned because it “goes without saying”.
@OB:
I’ve heard this argument set forth before by others, and while there are people who approach it from different angles and there is NOTHING I can likely say to sway your thinking, my own belief is this:
Whether a damsel in distress (your phrasing) or a child, whether another man endangered, our HUMAN responsibility — and a fallible, harshly-judged responsibility it is which we bear — is that we should stop wrongdoing where we perceive it.
Sometimes that’s in a political arena, sometimes in sociopolitics, and all subject to disagreement.
Sometimes it really IS as simple as defending those who cannot defend themselves. If you pause to apply gender to that then you are already failing as a person.
I was yelled at just last week by a woman because I was teaching my five-year-old son to hold doors for women. While I plan to teach him to hold doors for everyone as a general rule, it is my preference to uphold certain aspects of so-called “chivalry”. None of it is hard-and-fast rules, there is no all-or-nothing aspect to it. If a woman chooses to take umbrage at my holding a door for her, I’m perfectly free to hold up a hand to halt her, step through said door myself and pull it closed behind me, thereby freeing her of my misogynistic tyranny and allowing her to go her own way unencumbered by any notion that by attempting to hold a door for her I’ve stolen a job, earned more per dollar or taken control of her uterus.
I won’t STOP teaching my son this just because ONE woman out of a couple dozen or so thus far proved to be a harpy. The other 23-ish or so women who smiled and said thank you (which is, strangely, about 22 more thanks than I generally receive for the same act) DO make up for it. He’s five and adorably cute, and thanked; I’m 44 and the majority do NOT thank me, merely pass on through because it’s “expected”. But I’m not stopping for two reasons:
1. I consider it good manners, and I’m NOT giving up my good manners because others utterly LACK.
2. That one who smiles and appreciates… it’s all the positive reinforcement I require.
I get what you’re saying; there IS a presupposition that a man is supposed to do something about this kind of situation. I am partially in agreement, partially in disagreement. It gets into some very twisted arguments and ugly, ugly grey areas.
Sadly, there are places in this world where one comes under fire regardless of action, and you can choose to see it in a light of damned if you do, damned if you don’t; or you can choose to shrug it off and MOVE ON with your life, knowing that you did what YOU could, what YOU thought correct and proper regardless of others, and let that be enough.
Some women (to get into the specifics which comprise the undercurrent of your own ire) will appreciate the gesture, others will quite readily point out that they wouldn’t need defending in the first place if not for MEN, because it’s a man doing the wrong. I once actually had this pointed out to me and there was NO explaining to the woman at the time this had nothing to do with gender, but with PEOPLE.
I don’t know whether you ever saw the move Le Pacte des Loups but there was a brief scene in there which I think describes people quite well. A father and his son disagree over the behaviour of the daughter/sister, and the son remarks about his father’s “blind eye” toward what he perceives as her inappropriate behaviour “My father sees no evil.”
The father replies “Yes… and my son finds it everywhere he looks.”
We live in a world where some women will denigrate you at every turn, will despise you for the very fact that you’re a man. It’s true, they’re out there.
What, are you going to lump them all into that category, refuse to help ANY woman because of the words and actions of a relative few? Are you going to cry because the world is unfair, because gender politics can get ugly and trite and downright disgusting? Because on some level you feel you’re getting the short end of the stick?
I wonder — wouldn’t that amount to “letting the bad guys win”…? If you allow a disgusting FEW to determine the course of your actions with regard to conduct as it applies to the vast majority (for believe me when I tell you that far, far fewer women out there have “got it in for you” than we can sometimes be led to believe) then letting the bad guys win is very precisely what you’ll be doing.
OB:
Richard cannot change the fact that he is a man. He cannot change the fact that the person he saw being yelled at was a woman.
Richard has not posted a hypothetical story. Is there any way that this actual, real-life incident could have happened without you inferring that he is thinking of it in terms of chivalry and damsels in distress, and not in terms of one human being looking out for another?
Grace
OB:
First, what Grace and Urban Sasquatch said (though I think Urban Sasquatch went a little far afield in his comment).
More to the point, though, I think that if this were really about chivalry, the truly “chivalrous” thing to have done would have been to take the man on to “save” the woman regardless of any other consideration, including the possibility that she didn’t need saving in the first place. Chivalry, after all, was never really about the “damsel in distress.” It was, and is, all about proving the manhood of the chivalrous man, about the contest between him and whatever the damsel needs saving from, be it another man or a dragon or whatever.
Also, it’s not just a “chivalry” notion that gives pause. I’ve had a couple of those times – once when I found a gigantic roll of money that I knew was one of the roofer’s paycheck, but I didn’t know sufficient enough Spanish to get it to the right person. I worried that his family wouldn’t be able to eat without that (FYI: many undocumented workers deal only in cash. This isn’t uncommon) but the best I could do was turn it into the building manager and hope they did the right thing.
Another time was when I *saw* someone slam into a divider for an off-ramp on the freeway. I didn’t stop because I was selfish – I knew that person was dead dead, there was no way they lived through it, and I didn’t want it to haunt my nightmares seeing someone mangled in the way that person had to be for that impact.
Did I do the right thing? No, I don’t think so, on either occasion. But it’s silly to think that these type of moral dilemmas are only present in the name of chivalry.
RJN, I likely did wander a bit, but something I see over and over in modern society — here, there, everywhere — is this mentality of US and THEM with regard to Men and Women rather than US and THEM with regard to Right and Wrong.
In a way it’s oversimplification, sure; but in another way, once we remove all the extraneous, under OB’s resentment of a perceived male “requirement” to rescue damsels there IS a resentment born of US and THEM and the more I see it out there the more I realize a LOT of men are allowing a few bad apples to spoil their view of women at large (women are doing the same thing, alas).
I see it as letting the Bad Guys win if one allows them to remove nobility from the human spirit, a nobility which is supposed to at least TRY to see beyond gender to the person involved.
I should point out, too, that it isn’t only men who intervene. Both my ex-partner (5’2″ of sheer ferocity when she’s annoyed, but no threat to anyone) and I (rather larger, and military-trained in unarmed combat) have intervened on more than one occasion in situations like this, more than once by stopping our car on seeing such an argument, getting out our phones, and starting to take video, while one of us phones just in case.
In each case, the man in question threatened me/her/us, and in each case, we stood our ground, because in numbers, we are stronger. If I stand up, I make it easier for her to, show her it can be done. Not make it possible – but maybe lift the burden of conceiving of getting out, if that’s necessary. Get her thinking about what it must have looked like to make us stop to help.
And, yes, the training really helps, as was my keeping a small hatchet under my driver’s seat for just such occasions. People hate hatchets, they look so awful, I never even had to raise it once, let alone use it. And, too, this is Canada, where handgun ownership is minuscule, compared to the US. A friend of mine held me back from such an intervention once, in a high-crime area of KC-MO, because I’d not thought of the possibility of armament more nasty than my solid metal cane.
Just, y’know, because I don’t think it’s about chivalry, I think it’s about shared humanity, about empathy, about not being willing to stand by, even if there might be some degree of personal risk – that sometimes, there are things for which it is worth being willing to put one’s body on the line for another human.
I can never forget Niemoeller’s words, in these situations, and can all too easily imagine it being me, as it also has on occasion (again, yay training), so I try to always step up. Not everyone’s made that way, and I don’t think there’s anything at all wrong with that. People need to be who they are without guilt, and calling the police or using your camera are excellent safer alternatives that also serve as a deterrent. We’ve known for a lot of years that by far the majority of people aren’t made for combat, and maybe that’s just a damn good thing, ne?
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