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Today, "Qian Feng was exposed to sexual assault" on Weibo hot search, following Wu Yifan's criminal detention on suspicion of rape, more and more women choose to stand up and expose the sexual assault they have been subjected to.
However, this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Sexual assault, indecency, bus sneaking, street attacks, workplace sexual harassment... In the "girls don't be afraid" - specializing in the public account background of women's safety science, there are a large number of shady events that have not entered the public eye, they will receive sexual assault-related confessions and reports almost every day, some are a few words, some are sprinkled with hundreds of words, such messages are constantly piled up and folded in the background, becoming a continuous +1.
There are so many comments why don't you read them? Tong Yao, the principal of "Girls Don't Be Afraid", even questioned the intern's work attitude because of this, and the other party replied: Because I am too afraid.
The victims are not only women, but also men. Yet many more under the iceberg choose silence.
This is the fifth year that "Girls Don't Be Afraid" has done women's safety science content, and in the past few years, they have written 732 original articles, covering women's physiological science, self-protection skills, legal rights protection, revealing black births and so on.
We talked to the "Girls Don't Be Afraid" content team, Tong Yao and Mulan, about the stories they heard and saw, and they hope to make young people safe from fear through more case sharing and prevention guidelines.
The stories they tell are not only about how to effectively solve the safety problems encountered by girls, but also about how to face the evils of this society and the small but comforting kindness.
<h2>How hard is it for a girl to grow up safely? </h2>
On April 5 this year, the fourth anniversary of the establishment of "Girls Don't Be Afraid", the editorial department launched a month-long "1,000 Stories Collection Project" to collect true stories of girls in the workplace, in the family, and in various intimate relationships. What they didn't expect was that almost 10 percent of the 678 readers' letters were about the molestation and sexual assault girls they had encountered when they were minors.
Mulan still remembers the afternoon of reading the manuscript, she sorted all the letters into a folder, and when she opened them one by one, the whole person was trembling, and the goosebumps on her body rose again and again.
In those simple texts, the girls are accusing their village of uncles who are fifty or sixty years old neighbors, their grandfathers, stepfathers, uncles, uncles, cousins...
At first, it was shock and disbelief, then it turned into anger, angry and wanted to scold people, and finally Mulan calmed down, wondering if she could do something for them.
"To be able to speak out about this matter and dare to let more people see it is actually a kind of reconciliation, to get some comfort in her heart, so I think the most basic thing we do is to let her have an outlet, let strangers give her kindness, even if it is to say I hug you." 」 Mulan said, "A person who says I don't need your pity, but when everyone says hug you, and then you see a girl who has a similar experience, but she is still very positive and uplifting, for the hurt girl she will feel that she is not so lonely, and this is what we can do." ”
Publicly "exposed" out, many of the stories in "Girls Don't Be Afraid" are particularly gloomy and cruel. Just like the meeting whiteboard in their 90 square meter bright and simple office that does not match the overall atmosphere, it reads: false genital warts, genital warts, egg donation, bumps, Prince Charming syndrome...
"Girls Don't Be Afraid" Topic Board After a Meeting of the Editorial Board
These are the words involved in the daily selection of "Girls Don't Be Afraid", and they are also the content they hope to popularize and expose to young people.
Some girls will take it off when they see it, and they will say it's terrible.
There was once a girl who had to check off and re-follow Tong Yao's B station account once a month on average, and there were at least 10 repeated actions in the middle, and Tong Yao wondered, "I would like to interview her about what kind of mental journey she has in between?" ”
The "Girls Don't Be Afraid" team currently has 11 people, most of whom are girls, and several men will join them.
The post-90s girls are the earliest founders and have been engaged in women's safety research for 4 years. Mulan after the 80s is another content editor-in-chief of "Girls Don't Be Afraid", and has been a financial reporter for 12 years before joining the company at the beginning of the year.
Why give up decent financial work and switch to dangerous and unflattering content? Her former colleagues didn't understand.
Mulan doesn't think so. "In the past, I interviewed people who were worth hundreds of millions of dollars, talked to them about business models, and said things that most people don't need. In "Girls Don't Be Afraid", I think it makes sense that we can even help 100 girls to let them know what menstruation is, let them know that they will get pregnant without a condom, and let girls in remote villages know the most basic sexual knowledge. ”
How difficult is it for a girl to grow up safely? In the "Girls Don't Be Afraid" newsroom, they have done a statistic, so far, what are the security issues that editors who don't be afraid of girls have experienced.
Editors sort out the security issues they've encountered
There are so many such things that most people just don't say it.
To date, they have written 732 original articles, and their "Women's Safety Guide" covers the safety of women in all aspects of their work and life, which is available for girls to consult at any time.
They are happy that it's not just women who follow them, but also 18% of male readers, and nearly 130,000 male readers are reading their articles. One male reader commented, "I want to help my girlfriend and future daughter focus on these issues." ”
<h2>Silence after pressure, find an outlet for vocalization here</h2>
Just after Ali's sexual assault incident was exposed, the readership of "Girls Don't Be Afraid" exploded, and one of the girls shared her experience.
Her story epitomizes the thousands of young people who have suffered sexual harassment in the workplace: many times due to external pressure, women are unable to speak up, or they have to pay a huge price after speaking.
When the girl was in the intern stage, she was assigned by her hospital to study at a well-known tertiary hospital, where she was led by a chief physician of surgery and a medical doctor who returned from studying abroad.
The work of surgery is very stressful, a surgery often takes several hours, after the operation, the professor often drives a joke, and the girl accepts it with a big grin.
Once after surgery, the professor said that her shoulder was sore and asked the girl to give her shoulder a massage, because she felt that it was a public place and not a private space, and the girl also accepted.
After that, the professor often praised the girl for being beautiful, and began to have physical touch while speaking, sometimes patting her shoulder and sometimes wrapping his arms around her shoulder.
Until one time, when a doctor from the same department was leaving the hospital, the professor organized everyone to eat a casual meal together. The girl at the table was drunk during several rounds of toasts, dizzy and unable to open her eyes, and lay on her stomach on the table to rest. Suddenly, she suddenly felt a pain in her neck, and someone bit her neck. She sat up straight in an instant, leaned her chair against the wall, and unexpectedly, the professor leaned over again with wine, pulled up the girl's arm and took a big bite, and also threw herself on the girl's thigh, and one hand went to the base of the thigh.
The girl photographed the bitten arm
The girl was frightened and woke up, and she desperately pushed the professor away, ignoring the shoes that had been torn off during the struggle, and finally ran out of the private room to take a taxi to escape.
The girl wanted to report it, but she only had two channels to complain to the hospital's personnel department, but the other party was an authoritative returnee professor, who was an informal intern, and there were similar precedents before and finally disappeared. Or it is reflected in the original unit that sent her to the commission, but the unit will most likely not offend the big hospital of this cooperation for her.
The girl finally gave up, and she hid this grievance deep in her heart. Until "Girls Don't Be Afraid" wrote her story through interviews, the comments section once again sparked a big discussion, some people shared their experiences of sexual harassment as men, and some people called on everyone to create an anti-workplace sexual harassment environment.
Sociologist Shen Yifei mentioned in the book "Seeing the World through Gender" that the essence of sexual harassment is power, it is a kind of behavior that obtains sexual benefits through its own power, and the vast majority of sexual harassment is not because of liking, but because it can.
Therefore, to solve sexual harassment, it is necessary to establish a supervision and punishment mechanism against sexual harassment from the system. At the same time, for individuals, "girls don't be afraid" also wants to tell all professionals, "Meat strips are not allowed, physical touch is not allowed, and the wine table is even more impossible." Every time you tolerate it, it will make the other party more inching forward. ”
There is a set of standard theories known as "Cooper's six levels of sexual harassment" in the world, which divides sexual harassment into six levels, and the lowest layer is called "praise beauty", which is some praise for the appearance, body shape, and sexual characteristics of the victim.
Some comments will say that this is not too overcorrected, but Mulan said: "If it is a compliment between friends, I think it is acceptable, but if in the workplace environment, you go to work today the opposite sex boss said, Ah you are so beautiful today, I think most people will feel that it is an offense." I dress beautifully for myself to see, not for you to see, to praise I hope you praise is my ability to work. ”
<h2>"I went undercover in a female black mass of 300 people" </h2>
There is another group of people, also silently watching "girls don't be afraid", they are police.
Among the many columns that girls don't be afraid of, there is a column called "Black Skin Manual", which specializes in exposing the inside story of black birth related to women's safety, which has now been the 48th issue, and the past topics include: undercover drug trading group, exposing the overseas pornography industry chain of Chinese students, secretly visiting fetal identification agencies, etc. Many police and media practitioners will also look for clues from it.
In one issue, their undercover QQ group exposed a group called "top family". The so-called top people refer to those who harass and molest women through physical friction on buses and subways.
The girl in charge of the investigation infiltrated five such QQ groups, each with three or five hundred people, in order to avoid the censorship of the platform, they often shifted positions, and there were multiple backup groups, the group name is called "Chinese Dream", or "so-and-so university substitute group".
Source: Girls don't be afraid of the newsroom
They like to go to the bus and subway during rush hour to commit crimes, because it is crowded and easy to start. They usually test first to see how the other person reacts, and if the girl just endures or just avoids it, they will continue to be unscrupulous.
A master's thesis of the Central University for Nationalities, "Space, Body and Neglected Women - A Survey of 1,000 Women on a Bus", shows that in the face of sexual harassment, most girls react as follows: stare at him, leave silently, kick him and step on him, loudly rebuke him, and only 2.1% choose to call the police.
After committing a crime, they will share their harassment process in the group. Aim at the target, stalk the girl, stick it up, film the whole process, and send it to the group to show off.
Even some sexual harassment videos will be uploaded to the Network, and the top families have established an industrial chain from sexual harassment, stealing to selling videos, and they make a profit by packaging and selling video resources and building groups to collect group fees.
After the article was issued, "Girls don't be afraid" put a message at the top: I hope that everyone will see that some girls are molested, do not ignore it. It's best to take pictures to preserve the evidence and stand up bravely in solidarity. No one is an island, and mutual protection can prevent these perverts from stirring up trouble.
Behind the screen, 723 strange men and women praised it.
<h2>"We told girls not to be afraid, but we were also afraid</h2>."
Recently, "Girls Don't Be Afraid" has a new member to be hired, but Mulan is worried.
This girl is a fan of "girls don't be afraid", she just graduated and wanted to come to "girls don't be afraid" to apply, but felt that she was not capable enough to go to a company to study, and then she wanted to go to the boss to give her a salary increase, she still chose to come to "girls don't be afraid", she said she wanted to do a more socially responsible job.
Mulan said that she felt ashamed, "I am really afraid that she has been looking forward to it for so long, and she will be disappointed when she finally joins, because she will find that the original "girls don't be afraid" will also be afraid and entangled, and we have a lot of things that we dare not do." ”
After the article exposing the "top family" was issued, the girls investigated by the undercover QQ group were discovered by the people in the group, who exposed her QQ number, frantically scolded her privately, and deliberately changed their group name to "Girls don't be afraid". Since then, the girl has never logged into this account again, she silently deleted the record of this number, checked her personal information on the Internet, and changed some addresses to fake, but those insults still sink in her heart.
Other times, they have to go through a lifeline. Once, an editor of "Girls Don't Be Afraid" received a text message from an interviewee in which a depressed girl said she wanted to commit suicide. The editor happened to be in the shower, and when she came out of the bathroom to see the message, she found that 40 minutes had passed. She panicked.
She frantically called the girl and everyone associated with her, and no one answered. In this short 15 minutes, she thought about all the worst possibilities, whether a living life would be lost because of her negligence. She was so scared she was going crazy.
Later, the girl answered the phone, she said that she was rescued by a stranger passing by on the bridge preparing for suicide, and she asked the editor, why didn't you respond when I needed you the most? The editor cannot answer.
Later, the editor went to receive psychological counseling, not only to relieve her depression, but more importantly, she wanted to learn from the counselor, if the next time she encountered a suicide call for help, how to deal with it, what she feared was that even if she picked up the girl's phone at that time, would it lead to the final tragedy because of her unintentional words.
Because of the large number of negative news exposed to every day, last year, "Girls Don't Be Afraid" posted a solicitation on the public account, hoping to seek more professionals who can help women's safety. Within 12 hours of the release of the call, about 1,000 entries were received. They come from all walks of life, including lawyers, police officers, prosecutors, doctors, registered pharmacists, sociologists, women's federation workers, media people, psychological counselors, and so on.
Girls don't be afraid of the professionals recruited by the newsroom
Tong Yao pulled more than 200 of them into a group, and when she needed professional counseling such as law and psychology, she would ask the volunteers in the group for help. Some other readers have asked, if I don't have any professional expertise and no special female safety experience, can't I help?
Tong Yao said: I want to tell them that whether men or women, they can pay attention to the topic of women's safety and speak and discuss for women's safety, which is actually a kind of power in itself. Because the next step in being expressed and discussed means the possibility of being resolved.
In the editorial department of "Girls Don't Be Afraid", there is a "Book of Town Numbers", called "The Other Half of the Sky", and Tong Yao will take it out and turn it over every once in a while. This book is about some shocking women's problems in Asia, Africa and Latin America, such as sexism, sexual violence, misogynistic values, domestic violence, virginity complex, etc., so that some women there are still in the purgatory of the 18th and 19th centuries.
The two Pulitzer Prize winners show readers not only the plight of women's survival, but also the power of self-awakening in women.
Tong Yao very much agrees with a sentence in the book: women are not a problem, but a solution; the girl's suffering is no longer a tragedy, but an opportunity.
(Tong Yao and Mulan are pseudonyms)
This article is from the WeChat public account "Houlang Research Institute" (ID: youth36kr), authors: Yang Liu, Wei Weizi, 36Kr is published with permission.