Hello. If you’re opening this and want a quick summary of
what I’m going to try and tear into on a 3 page Microsoft Document, here are
your takeaways:
1) Don’t rip out other people’s tampons in public.
Dickhead.
2) Black womxn’s lives, experiences, voices,
health, safety and wellbeing matter.
3) Natalie Simms is a victim.
Exhale.
Immediately, I want to make a disclaimer. I am a white, cis-gendered,
heterosexual woman. I’m pretty much as vanilla as they come on the whole ‘identity
politics’ front and I most certainly am not trying to amplify or elevate my own
voice above others' when it is not what the world needs right now. Instead, I’m
learning and trying to verbalise a conversation I’ve been having in my own head
over the course of the weekend, putting it down on paper. It’s by no means
perfect; it’s a work-in-progress. But I want to listen and learn and do my bit.
I’ve seen random, opened – both used and unused – tampons
and pads in public plenty of times before. In changing rooms (bleurgh, that was
always a fond surprise), on public transport, in the park behind the bushes.
Whatever. Just one of those things you kind of roll your eyes at, make a comment, then move on with
your life. Sounds weird to say that I have never really thought much
about the person who removes it, but it’s true. I doubt many of us really do.
Now, saying this, imagine if I was to walk into the middle
of Leicester Square or Piccadilly Circus and pull out my tampon in front
of everyone. You could imagine the horror. No one is going to move on with
their day. No one is going to stand and nod and thing “yep, just a normal
Saturday afternoon round here, absolutely nothing wrong with that woman pulling out her menstrual cup/tampon/pad whatsoever.”
Of course not. And this is in Central London, where most eccentric things go
overlooked. But at least that would be me pulling the string out. I would have
some sort of control.
On Friday evening, I came across an article on a mindless
trawl across the internet when I really should have been ironing some clothes. And
it shook me to the point where I went to bed thinking about it, dreamed about it,
then began the next day – you guessed it! – thinking about it. It’s gotten to
the point where I’m writing and scrapping and retyping because no words seem to
do it justice.
I’m ashamed to admit that I only learned the ins and outs of
Natalie Simms’ story last night. But, if I’m honest, I couldn’t think of a more
appropriate, culturally significant timeframe to be learning of her experience.
Natalie Simms was the victim of yet another horrifying
display of police power in the US back in 2016, when an officer publicly
searched her in the middle of a busy car park, pulling open her pants, her underwear,
and taking out her tampon. The female police officer, Mara Wilson, is believed
not to have had a warrant to search Simms and her car, along with the five
other male police officers who were overseeing the search.
The police believed that Simms might be in possession of
illegal drugs. Simms, as a matter of fact, was sat outside on the curb of a car
park, enjoying the sunshine, whilst she waited for her boyfriend. Her car was
parked merely feet away.
As natural as periods are, with the conversation surrounding them become
more frequent and normalised in the public sphere, I could probably still guarantee that
no one wanted to see Simms’ bloody tampon as they drove or walked by –
especially Simms herself.
Periods are shit. We get it. From the blood to the irritability
to the cramps, sometimes the side effects can be pretty brutal. However, I don’t
know about you, but I was never taught that humiliation was a symptom of
your monthly cycle. That distressing encounters with police officers was
something to keep in mind. I don’t know. Maybe it was just me?
Accounts from Simms and onlookers say that the officer had
demanded Simms to spread her legs, promising to “just look.” Simms co-operated
and told Wilson that she was on her period and felt uncomfortable with the idea
of someone, you know, inspecting her bleeding vagina (completely understandable, surely!)
Everyone present was aware that Simms was on her period. But Wilson proceeded
to break the promise she had stated moments previously, ignoring Simms’ comments,
and forcefully pulled out her tampon.
Simms was, quite obviously, mortified and questioned Wilson’s
actions. Wilson’s laughable response? “I don’t know. It looked like it had
stuff in there.”
What? Lol, a woman on her period looked like she had
something in her vagina? Ground-breaking. Revolutionary. Never been seen or done
before.
Wish I could say that story ended here but it doesn’t. I won’t
go much further into things (link to the story can be found below) but after further
inappropriate touching, comments on Simms’ pubic hair and an anal search, a
traumatised Simms was left by the officers in the car park upon the realisation
that she possessed no contraband.
Clearly violated, Simms never received an apology from
police. She sued the city of San Antonio, Texas, in 2019 – three years after
the incident – and received a settlement of $205,000.
Now, this isn’t a post about normalising the period
conversation and such, though I’m not shying away from the topic. If you know
me, you know I never really have! 😊 Instead, this post comes at what feels like a
particularly appropriate time, given the BLM movement and systematic racism ingrained
in our institutions, particularly those in the realms of law-enforcement.
Despite resigning from the force in the wake of the
incident, Wilson still stands by her actions and has gone on to admit this
publicly. I can’t help but hear this and feel my stomach twist into knots
because - and, again, maybe it’s just me - I don’t think any amount of money could
possibly restore Simms’ dignity and mask the blatant abuse of power demonstrated.
On the one hand, I get it. People shove all sorts of shit
and baggies and whatnot up their arse all the time. Searches, in the correct environment
and under the correct circumstances, need to be conducted. I respect that. What
I cannot respect is the public humiliation of a woman without the proper
consent and paperwork to declare a full body cavity search. What I cannot respect
is the violation of black bodies, especially black womxn’s bodies.
I came across @michaelabalogun’s account on Instagram last
week and I’ve trawled through her page so many times I’ve lost count. Please go
and take a look at it; she’s incredible.
Her primary focus is on the dismantling of the negative
image of female blackness that is ingrained into the world in which we live,
using Moya Bailey’s misogynoir as the underpinning of her cause. Bailey,
a queer, black feminist, coined the term to explain the intersectionality of racism
and sexism which manifests itself in stereotypes, cultural appropriation and
the racial bias we see all over the world.
I think of Bailey’s term and I think of Simms and I wonder
how much body autonomy and dignity is really worth in our law-enforcing institutions.
What does it mean to look at a person through both a human lens and through “the
eyes of the law” (I’ve always hated that saying. The law doesn’t have eyes. The
law isn’t a living, breathing, blinking being ffs h8 u forever Immanuel Kant). The question of autonomous agency at the hands of an establishment,
an ‘objective’ agency, is one that often plagues me.
For womxn, it goes beyond law and legislation. Bodies are
typically seen first as objects of sexual desire; personhood is an afterthought
(I am speaking generally here, when I say this.) Then, take a black womxn and take
Bailey’s misogynoir in “the eyes of the law” and all I can think of are
the harmful ways black female potential is chiselled away at until it is left destroyed. From the adultification and sexualisation of young black
girls to the mocking stereotypes that simplify the value of black women’s personhood,
the toxicity of racial bias diffuses into the air, across the landscape, and poisons any hope for a
womxn’s black bodily dignity from the outset.
The devaluation of Simms’ black body in that car park in
2016 is just one offence of many. I know that the emotional storm that’s churning
in my stomach as I write this is nothing compared to the trauma Simms experienced
that day. I’m white; the way I move through spaces afforded by the
privilege my skin colour brings is something I have always taken for granted. I’ve
never had to worry about my skin colour and what that does to my agency when
confronted with an ‘objective’ law-enforcing agent. And that’s not fair.
It’s just unjust; it’s as simple as that. Womxn matter.
Black womxn matter. Black womxn’s voices, black womxn’s bodies, black womxn’s
stories, experiences, education, healthcare, safety, wellbeing all matter. Simms’
loss of dignity that day in 2016, only to result in a payout and a lack of
apology, echoes the reduction of the complexity of black womxn’s personhood in “the
eyes of the law” and it makes me l i v i
d.
Natalie Simms might have won her lawsuit but there isn't any real justice from where I'm standing; Wilson and the other officers never faced any legal repercussions. This isn't good enough. I cannot speak for Simms but I'm pretty sure I'm not alone when I say these people need to be held accountable to the full extent of the law they are supposed to enforce. "In the eyes of the law," surely they were wrong. But idk; maybe the law blinked and she missed it. Periodt.
