In loathe with certain men of New York
Why do some men believe they have the right to blatantly objectify women?
This morning, I was on a near empty subway car headed to Sunset Park to do some reporting. The only other person in my train car was a man sitting all the way at the other end. He was listening to music on an iPOD.
When the doors opened, another man got on. He sat directly across from me and openly stared. When I looked up from my newspaper, hoping he would feel embarrassed and look away, he just kept staring and chuckled this disgusting "heh heh heh" kind of laugh. And then he kept right on staring until the next stop.
I was made to feel so uncomfortable that I got off the train two stops early and walked 20 blocks (one mile) to my destination.
This happens everywhere, not just in the city and certainly not just to me. But it never gets any easier. I once heard a story about a woman who was so uncomfortable about the comments men made as she walked to work that she bought a car so she could drive to work instead.
I don't know who is to blame. Is it the media? Parents? Society in general that makes it acceptable for this kind of behavior? I wonder how these men would feel if they were stared at like a an animal in the zoo and frightened to tears.
But what can we do? I felt like screaming at this man, kicking him, telling him what a poor excuse for a person he is, but I didn't. I got up and got out of a bad situation because that's what I was taught to do. But what happens when he does it to the next woman and the next? What if it becomes more than uncomfortable stares?
How can you deal with a problem that is too subtle to define by law, yet so pervasive that it affects women's daily lives? I wish I didn't have to always be on high alert on the subway and on the street, but I always am.
A robot in Columbus Circle
This is an observational reporting piece I wrote today for Reporting and Writing 1 (RW1). The assignment was to write a story without talking to anyone. Here's what I found while venturing around the city today:
A man is doing “the robot” in Columbus Circle.
It is lunch hour on a fall Monday in New York and the slender young man, wearing a crisp, light blue shirt tucked into navy dress pants, black shoes and sunglasses, is dancing to music only he can hear. The buds in his ears connect to a music player in his pocket. His light brown hair is stylishly spiked with gel.
The robot dances with snappy movements facing the southwest edge of Central Park on his own personal stage, the base of a huge stone statue that features several human figures with arms stretched upward. Though the platform is less than a foot tall, it lifts the robot above the rest of the world, and the statue makes an impressive backdrop. The inscription reads, “To the freemen who died in the war with Spain that others might be free.”
Around the robot, tourists tote I Heart NY plastic bags, snap photos on their cell phones and are hawked by men selling carriage rides. Pigeons scrounge for their daily sustenance amongst the loungers who lunch. A man approaches everyone sitting in Columbus Circle, some twice, some even three times, begging them to “help a homeless man.” On breaks from begging, that same man imitates the robot, laughing loudly and shouting with a group of men sharing a bench behind one of the food vendors.
But even as New York swings and sways around him, the robot’s movements remain stiff and precise. He is most impressive when he moves several body parts at once, pivoting back and forth on his heels, while keeping his upper body, head and neck perfectly aligned and immobile. He does a surprising Elvis-like hip gyration without ever coming out of robot mode. When he loses concentration, which is rare, he shakes his hands out like a weight trainer preparing for a big lift.
A man who had been sitting beside the robot reading the newspaper suddenly notices him. He looks around with wide eyes and shares a glance with another newspaper reader. Both try to go back to their papers, but keep quickly glimpsing up at the robot. People passing by give the robot extra-long looks, but generally keep moving. Few stop to openly gawk.
When he pauses to take a short call on his cell phone, the robot becomes human. He chews on the gum in his mouth and paces, pausing occasionally to do an abbreviated robot move.
The robot moves from the left to the right side of the statue now, perhaps to get out of the hot sunlight. He settles into a spot behind a man sitting and smoking a cigarette. The man doesn’t seem to notice the robot behind him.
With his arms out to the sides and bent downward and his legs firmly planted, the robot begins to shake, as if malfunctioning.
Suddenly a man approaches. He appears about the same age as the robot and wears a sideways navy baseball cap, a denim jacket and black athletic pants. The robot takes out his earbuds and speaks to the man, who seems to be a stranger to him. While they chat amicably, the man tries his own robot move. This is the first time the robot grins.
Then the robot’s new fan walks around to the other side of the statue, but is back quickly, drinking from a 2-liter bottle of Pepsi, to watch the robot as he begins his dance again.
The robot is more adventurous in his movements now. He shuffles his feet back and moves his arms as if he’s rowing a boat. He does the moon walk.
Then he stops.
The robot is frozen for several long seconds.
A gust of wind makes his button-down shirt billow in the back.
Then slowly, he begins his movements again. Feet shift, arms snap into place.
The dance ends, and the man, who had been watching the robot with intensity, applauds. The robot doesn’t notice or if he does, ignores him.
The man approaches the robot again and this time a lengthier talk ensues. After awhile, the new mentor seems to grow tired of his protégé. He fingers the earbuds dangling at his chest and steps back when the man, doing another imitation move, gets a little too close.
“Well, I gotta get back…” the robot’s voice drifts to a bench across the walkway. The protégé gets the hint, and walks away shaking his head.
Earbuds in, and the robot comes to life again.
Columbia J-School: Day 37
So I lied about the frequent posting thing. Now more than two months have passed since my last post (when I vowed to post more often) and I'm trying to get in the groove again. Anyway, Andrew has a blog now and he's already made about two dozen posts (!!!), so I have to catch up!
A month of my 10 months at Columbia is already over. I feel like I've already learned so much, especially about finding stories and thorough reporting, two elements of journalism I felt I was most lacking. It's jarring to realize that there are some parts of this work that I'm not so great at (ie. standing up for myself when PR people yell at me, walking up to strangers and just chatting, etc.), but I'm happy I'm learning all this now and not when my job depends on it.
Right now I'm working on a story about a waterfront park that's in development in my beat neighborhood (Sunset Park, Brooklyn). My professor wants ambitious pieces, which is great, and he's really pushing me to get better. Instead of just writing about the park, he gave me the challenge of finding two other parks in the city, one that was successfully completed and another that was promised and never built. My story (if all goes to plan) will be a cautionary tale about how just because the money is there, the battle for the park might not be over. This definitely isn't my dream story. I much prefer writing about specific people's lives than city planning and governmental funding, but obviously this is something important to the community and will affect people there in the long run, so I know it's a story worth writing.
I'm also on the hunt for a subject for my Art of the Profile class. I need to find a person who will give me significant access over the course of the semester and begin meeting with them, interviewing them, and watching them as they do what the do. I'm hoping to write about someone in the arts (a writer, musician, artist, or actor), but I'm not sure where to begin to look for one. The person has to be in New York and not a celebrity (my professor is quite vocal about her opposition to celebrity journalism, the "I'm sitting at lunch with Angelina Jolie, look at me, I am so wonderful" kind of stuff). Any suggestions would be helpful!
In the meantime, I'm also compiling info for my Master's Project. That's the long magazine-style piece we have until March or April to write. I'm pretty sure my piece will have something to do with religion, but I'm not certain on the specific topic quite yet. I've already conducted one preliminary interview, and I'm starting to read a book on a certain religion I'm not familiar with and may end up writing about.
My other classes - Law and Critical Issues - are also surprisingly difficult. Law is a huge lecture class taught by two Columbia law professors, in which we discuss Supreme Court cases having to do with journalism. Slogging through cases the night before class is not fun, but I am glad we're forced to learn this stuff. Critical Issues is a part lecture, part discussion class where we talk about ethical issues for journalists. Last week, the topic was the relationship between a journalist and source, and I have to say the class left me with more questions than answers. Every journalist has a different set of ethical guidelines they adhere to, and so many people in class voiced their divergent ideas.
But I still feel like I have no clue what to do when a source asks me, "What do you think?" or "Who told you that?" Any thoughts on that - journalists and non-journalists? When you think about the ideal journalist, one who is fair and ethical, how would that journalist respond to questions like that?
