Mengfei Wang 27189732 Thursday 11-12 a.m. by Alix Watkins ATS1904 – Reading the city: Literary genres – S2 2017 | Research Essay Since the Industrial Revolution, mobility and population diversity have increased in the city. At the same time, among this period, a new type of city: metropolis, gradually formed, such as London and Paris. However, except for the economic and technical prosperity, dangers were also embedded in these cities. This essay will focus on two aspects of dangers that women, as a vulnerable group, are facing to in the modern city, especially at night. Firstly, women are in danger of discrimination by exposing themselves to the night because of the social norm, which promotes this behaviour as deviant. Meanwhile, the authoritative restriction also embodies the dangerous nature of women walking on the street at night. Secondly, the danger of crimes, particularly sexual, is a predominant issue, which is characterized by greater mobility and poorer life condition. Meanwhile, women are at higher risk of being the victims of the sexual violations and crimes in the city than men because of their commodified identity. Firstly, women are facing the problem of discriminations and assaults if they adventure out at night. The cause of these kinds of danger for women in the urban area is that they may not behave like a lady, especially when they will stroll alone at night. The protagonist Shirley in Farmer’s novel Alone qualifies with both of the characteristics, which her behaviour sometimes ‘outrage[s]’ the public (61). At the first sight, Shirley depicts her multiple experiences of being discriminated either verbally or physically. She illustrates that ‘in the street...I used to know with glazed distant eyes or an assumed frown of preoccupation’ (16). More specifically, when Shirley is drinking at night on the tram station, the passers-by show their contempt towards her (61). In addition to the public discrimination, Shirley’s father also expresses his scornful assault to Shirley, calling her as a ‘whore’ because she does not obey the social norm to live like a lady, which may make him feel ashamed (73). In the analysis of a real-life situation in nineteenth-century metropolises, males were usually treated as normal for walking on the street, while females would usually receive more suspicions for being on the street alone (Wolff cited in Musgrove 159). Additionally, this pattern of danger also exists in the contemporary society. In a research conducted in India, Phadke, Ranade and Khan demonstrated the essential idea of women’s role in society is that their ‘proper place [is] to be at home’ (42). Besides, a lot of public places and facilities are closed at late night to women due to a stereotypical code of behaviour which indicates that women should not hang out at night (Phadke, Ranade & Khan 2012). Therefore, because of a prolonged stereotype for behaving properly and not going out at night, the women who try to take the risk to experience the nightlife are usually under discriminations and assaults. Meanwhile, despite of the public perspectives on women’s code of behaviour, authoritative or legislative forces also play an important role in reinforcing those stereotypical ideas, which may bring dangers to women. In the novella: Alone, Farmer portrayed two scenes of the girls being interrogated by the police or the ‘inspector’ (68). The initial one happens at the prelude of Shirley paddling in the night of Swanston Street, which a policeman hinders the girl for warning her not to wander outside so late (Farmer 3). The reason he gives is that ‘Look ‘ere, it’s not safe.’ (Farmer 4). The second scene is in the memory of Shirley, which portrays a night walk of she and her lover, Catherine (Farmer 68). They go to the dock for a night walk without any intention. However, the ‘inspector’ shows his extreme disapproval and rejection to them for appearing on the wharf again (Farmer 68). In the nature of this phenomenon, people actually intend to protect women from the potential harm at night by authoritative surveillance. However, this practice unconsciously entrenches the idea that women are not able to appear at the night, which restricts women’s freedom at night and increases their vulnerability at that time. As a real example in Mumbai, the strategy for protecting women is to isolate or separate them from the ‘undesirables’ by appointing more police at these dangerous places at night time (Phadke, Ranade & Khan 43). However, the consequences for the conduction are that the violence remains a social issue for women, and those places are still ‘inaccessible’ and ‘unsafe’ for women (Phadke, Ranade & Khan 43). Therefore, the authoritative forces that are meant to provide protection for the public including women actually bring more danger to females for the connotation conveyed through their legislative conductions. That is to say, women are still viewed as dangerous at night and will subject to the discrimination and further social harms. Secondly, the risky city crimes and sexual violations towards women are under the circumstance of mass mobility and poor life quality. In the setting of Alone, Shirley, under Farmer’s portray, is living in Carlton, which is a place of poor living conditions and high social mobility due to the migration and globalisation (1984). Meanwhile, through the interaction with one of Catherine’s friends, Shirley’s identity is discriminated as ‘an amateur whore’ for living in the slum, which is the normal living condition in Carlton around the twentieth century (Farmer 16). That is to say, people will normally view the residences in the Carlton as undignified. Moreover, the identity of women may sometimes be disrespected because a higher risk of being involved into the danger of sexual violations and crimes. Therefore, geographical and social factors will intertwine together to produce the danger in the city. Crutchfield et al. proposed that rape had a strong correlation with ‘social integration’ (472). That is to say, the higher the mobility exists, the more possible rapes will happen in a specific area (Crutchfield et al. 472). At the same time, Crutchfield et al. illustrated that mobility was actually a social context, which disintegrated the ‘relational structures, resulting in higher crime rates’ (474). Although poor life condition does not directly influence the pattern of sexual crimes, it may have oblique effect on the violations through the interaction with social factors, such as insufficient moral education and lack of gender respect. Therefore, due to the profound social mobility and poor life conditions, women being involved in these kind of situations are prone to encounter with the danger of crimes and sexual violence in the city. Meanwhile, women involved in the danger of city crimes and sexual harassments will be frequently victimised and this pervading issue is possibly caused by a commodified figure of women (Buck-Morss 121). Shirley, as a night walking Flaneuse, is highly engaged in the dark side of the city, which has inevitably courted her rapes and sexual harassments (Farmer 1984). As Farmer depicts in the novella, the sailors frequently treat Shirley as a whore when she is either paddling on the wharf or sitting in the park near the ‘North Wharf’ (68; 75). In Garner’s essay, Death in Brunswick, she also mentioned several night crimes towards women, especially the Jill Meagher case, which the woman was raped and murdered at midnight (53). According to the video record, Legge (2013) described Meagher as ‘a dark-haired beauty’ smocking under the lamplight and walking alone in the darkness. It is obvious that this conspicuous figure in the night degrades Meagher’s identity, which makes her more likely to be commodified as a whore and increases her vulnerability of being raped. Based on the idea of ‘modern subjectivity’, whores are alleged as ‘objects’ and their perspectives are rarely concerned (Buck-Morss 120). That is to say, as objective commodities, misbehaving women usually have little or even no right to protect themselves from the sexual violations because of their subordinate status compared to men. Benjamin pointed out that this kind of perspective could be conveyed through some of the Flaneur’s literature such as Baudelaire (qtd. in Buck-Morss 120). In brief, women are invariably placed in the danger of city crimes and sexual violations in the past centuries to various extents. The idea of women being a kind of commodity becomes a continuous threat to female’s security and remains a factor of danger in the city life. The notion of danger for women in the city since the nineteenth century till the present era may include the issues ranging from discriminations to crimes. In detail, there are two natures of danger towards women discussed in this essay including four specific aspects. Firstly, women are under the danger of discrimination because of social norms and consequential restrictions on the deviant behaviours. Additionally, authoritative and legislative protections actually deteriorate the danger of discrimination and assaults towards women by conveying the wrongful information that contains a gender bias. Secondly, sexual harassments and crimes are extremely dangerous for women due to the social mobility and the indirect effect of poor life conditions in metropolitans. Moreover, the dehumanized perspective on women as commodities probably causes sexual violations as a form of danger, especially in the night of metropolises. Reference: Buck-Morss, Susan. “The Flaneur, The Sandwichman and The Whore: The Politics of Loitering.” New German Critique, no. 39, 1986, pp. 99-140, Duke University Press, http://www.jstor.org/stable/488122. Crutchfield, Robert D., et al. “Crime Rate and Social Integration.” Criminology, vol. 20, no. 3-4, 1982, pp. 467-478, EBSCOhost, http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vi d=1&sid=041c1772-5c05-4b65-95a5-d97de3c2f4e7%40sessionmgr104. Farmer, Beverley. Alone. Mcphee Gribble/Penguin Books, 1984. Garner, Helen. “Death in Brunswick.” The Best Australian Essays 2013, edited by Robert Manne, Black Inc. Books, 2013, pp. 53-55. Legge, Kate. “Two Worlds Collide.” Australian Magazine, 6 Jul. 2013, p. 22, http://infoweb.newsbank.com.ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/resources/doc/nb/news/147 5B28DA45DEBD8?p=AWNB. Musgrove, Martha Jane. “The Semi‐ detached Flâneuse: Feminine Diversity in Romantic London.” European Romantic Review, vol. 20, no. 2, 2009, pp. 159-166, Routledge, doi: 10.1080/10509580902840434. Phadke, Shilpa, et al. “Invisible Women.” Index on Censorship, vol.42, no. 3, 2013, pp.40-45, Penguin India, doi: 10.1177/0306422013500738.
