Gender & Sexuality

Opening up after being told to close my legs for so long

September 13, 2020

I used to love visiting my family in Zimbabwe as a child. My cousins and I used to run around outside, none of us caring how hard we threw the basketball we used as a dodge ball at each other’s bodies. Or about the pain we inflicted as we indulged in a game of slap tag – which, for the record, was as vicious as it sounds. 

It was a beautiful time in our lives. Each of us without a care in the world. Each of us enjoying being mischievous backhand-swinging children, with nothing better to do than test the limits of each other’s pain threshold. Glorious. Dare I say, some of my fondest memories.

Though my recollections of Zim aren’t all so light-hearted.

I remember one day, my gogo (which means grandmother in Shona) called me and all my female cousins in for a ‘chat’. I’m assuming someone must have just started their period, as we were subjected to the most confusing sex not-sex talk of our lives. One in which my gogo awkwardly stumbled over her words, repeatedly “umming” and “ahhing”, before giving up with a huff and simply stating, “Vhara makumbo ako”.

Translation: don’t have sex because “you will get chlamydia… and die!”  

Just kidding. Though, the real translation is arguably not that far off.

“Close your legs”, she said. That simple and that blunt. Just close them.

She told us that as puberty began its descent on us, our bodies would change and our newly formed figures would cause Men to look. Though she didn’t tell us what kind of look it would be, just that they would and our response each time was to simply… close our legs; her tone suggesting that reaction would avert their gaze.

I didn’t know it then, but I’d later go on to dislike that phrase with a passion the more I heard it. And I was constantly hearing it.

It’s the thing my gogo would say to me whenever I sat with my legs crossed on the floor, warning me that regardless of my clothing, I couldn’t sit like that in the presence of Men.

It’s the statement I often heard in the shaming of Women for having sex. “Close your legs, you slut” or “She opens her legs for anyone” being the way that young Men spoke about Women before they even truly understood the implications of their words.

It’s also often the phrase that society uses to blame Women for falling victim to sexual assault. Judges, during rape cases, asking Women in court: “Close your legs?” and “Why couldn’t you just keep your knees together?”  as if no Woman, in an attempt to escape her attacker, has ever tried.

I didn’t know it then, but the phrase would go on to have a lasting impact on my life. However, it wasn’t the only one. It had a friend and its name was “Go and put on something longer”.

My gogo was always keen to remind a teenaged me that I couldn’t get away with dressing how I did in the UK in Zim. She was forever commenting on my skirts – that she called ‘belts’ – shaking her head as she asked me if they had run out of material at the clothing factory. I giggled every time; it was such a gogo-ish thing to say.

But she wasn’t the only one saying it.

There was also my mother who, like her mother, would always insist that I change into ‘something longer’ whenever we had male guests coming to the house.

And then there was my father, who was always ready to battle in the war against revealing clothing. I remember him once telling me that my outfit of choice for own clothes day was inappropriate. I was in year 9 at the time and had decided to put on a pair of tights with black shorts on top; a combination I was made to replace with jeans.

(Side note: why were shorts and tights ever a thing? Someone please, why?)

Right before I lost the battle, I remember my dad and I engaging in a heated back and forth, one in which I demanded he explain to me exactly what it was about my attire that was so inappropriate. Though I didn’t need his response. Even at age 13/14, I already knew the answer and it had nothing to do with me. No, it always went back to that conversation with my gogo. It was always about the ‘Men who look’. And all this policing was their attempt to avert the eyes of these Men.

Gogo, mum, dad; you would think that was enough, but it didn’t stop there. It went on to aunts, uncles, family friends and more. Each one telling me not to bare my legs, cover my shoulders and to avoid showing too much cleavage.

It didn’t stop there, but I ignored them all; I even changed back into my shorts and tights after my dad dropped me off at school (shhh, don’t tell him). But I knew, even then, that if there was someone who had to change in this story, it definitely wasn’t me.

Though I admit, I did eventually cave.

I remember the day I finally did as I was told without hesitation. It was because I was afraid. We were in Harare when my aunt warned me that I’d run into trouble in town if I didn’t dress properly. She told me a story about a Woman who had once been ‘skimpily’ clothed in public. As a result, Men had ripped off her clothes and stripped her naked in the street, only to later ask her: “sei usina kupfeka?”

“Why aren’t you dressed?”

I reflect on that story every time I go to leave the house when I’m in Zim or South Africa. I remember it being told to ‘protect’ me, but really all it’s done is further oppress me. Because from then on, all I had in the back of my mind was fear.

Fear of assault; it has made many a Woman change and many a Woman feel guilty for the day that they didn’t. As if what you’re wearing is an explanation for why something so terrible could happen to you.

‘Go and put on something longer’, much like its old friend, is used as a tool to lay fault in the hands of Women who are forced to be survivors. But the harsh reality is, not all of us survive sexual assault.

Today I look back at that initial conversation with my gogo and I remember her words.

“Men will look”, she had warned. Still, for the life of me I can’t seem to recall the boys ever being sat down and told not to look at Women, not to touch us, not to knock down the doors to our temple and disturb our peace.

I don’t recall anyone ever telling the boys not to go around sticking their body parts in places that they didn’t belong, just that as girls it was our responsibility not to be the place in which they stuck them.

But, it is not the responsibility of Women to cover their bodies with the aim of avoiding sexual assault. It is the responsibility of Men not to assault Women.

That’s the talk we should have had. And not just the girls, but all of us.

“We teach girls shame. ‘Close your legs. Cover yourself.’ We make them feel as though being born female they’re already guilty of something. And so, girls grow up to be women who cannot say they have desire. They grow up to be women who silence themselves. They grow up to be women who cannot say what they truly think. And they grow up — and this is the worst thing we do to girls — they grow up to be women who have turned pretense into an art form.”

– Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

And on that note *Sips Tea*

1 thought on “Opening up after being told to close my legs for so long”

  1. Very interesting, well articulated piece. I totally agree that the messaging needs to change – instead of policing women, shift the responsibility onto where it truly lies: men need to respect women’s boundaries and bodily autonomy, no matter the circumstances. Let’s start teaching and enforcing this.

    Reply

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