Run over by patriarchy ...

Last week I was hit by patriarchy.  

I was riding my bike, it was about 7:30 in the morning, still dark, but I had red lights and a wide reflector across the back of my bike.  I was riding by our university, on a wide "sharrow" road, shared by bikes and cars.  A string of cars had passed me without incident; the last car in the string, evidently driving as close to the curb as I was, struck me on my left hip and sent me flying into the air, torquing my whole body, until splat! gravity landed me on the pavement.  I looked up, expecting to see brake lights, but the car that hit me didn't even pause.  

There is no way the driver did not see me, but there is a way the driver might have been distracted from paying attention to me, whether driving high on BC bud (not unusual in Vancouver, even at that hour of the morning) or texting.  What was most infuriating is that the thump of my body against the driver's car did not bring the driver back from his distraction and have him hit his brakes to see what he had just run into.  And yes, I am assuming it was a man.

I was hurt, my bike was hurt; neither of us broken beyond repair, but both needing attention and, for me, healing time.

I say I was hit by patriarchy, and I am being metaphorical, both for the physical injury and the emotional injury; such an event stirs not only flashbacks but self-doubt:  should I have had even more lights?  should I have been on the sidewalk with the pedestrians rather than the designated bike route on the road?  should I not ride my bike at all?

This is how patriarchy works, threatening women with menace, and the menace is effective because we know the threat is actualized into violence, to the point of death.

In Canada, every four days a woman is killed in an "act of domestic violence", which, to be clear, means she is killed by a man who is considered to be her "intimate partner".  That statistic was said to be one woman killed every six days, but this year the statistics worsened - or, it has been that bad for a while but the statistics have just caught up.  Or, more likely, the statistics are worse, with unsolved or unproved murders of women, and this adjustment is a current guess.

What makes patriarchy's menace optimally effective is if the threat is unpredictable.  This week, a man walked into a local school and stabbed two girls, killing one of them.  He is being described as a homeless drifter, likely with mental health issues, from another province, but not much else is known about him at this point; the police are asking the public for information.  Let's be clear, though, and remember that, whatever gets said about this incident, what must remain foremost is that a man stabbed two women.  It was not an act of "domestic violence", the girls were not out in the world somehow "provoking" a man's unwanted attention; these were school girls at school.

Any act of violence is, at the very least, a transgression of a boundary.  Patriarchy has no respect for women's boundaries.

A boundary means "this is my space; if I choose to engage with you, I will reach out to you."  Patriarchy barges right in.  Patriarchy may be smiling as it forces down the door, may be pretending benevolence, or - I love this one - it is here for our own good, but it is like the dog owners with unleashed dogs who proclaim "he is friendly!" and "he never bites!" as the blood runs down your calf from the dog's teeth marks.  

And this is what transgenderists do when they claim that they are women and demand access to our spaces.  Barging into a woman's space proves that you are not a woman.  It betrays your menace.