The politics of personal space

On Friday a woman on the train repeatedly slapped a disabled man. She then spent twenty minutes of train ride justifying her actions very loudly to all of the other passengers and trying to recruit others to support her reaction. Need she have done this?

The man in question is a frequent train beggar. He is partially mentally disabled and is also physically disabled. He walks up and down the train kissing, shaking the hands of, and hugging passengers, with or without their consent, and then does a second round around the train asking for money. Sometimes he gets a good reaction and other times he gets a bad one. According to another lady on the train he gets on around 6am and gets off about 8pm every day, and spends all day begging in this way.

The woman in question was a passenger I have not seen before, though that by no means means that she is new to the train system. On Friday evening before the event happened she was holding onto the hand rail above her, and SMSing with her free hand. She appeared to be thoroughly in her own world. Until the disabled beggar came up to her from behind and hugged her, whilst quite vigorously rubbing her breasts.

She turned around and slapped him once, telling him to bugger off. She then began to shout that nobody should do that, and he shouldn’t give people a fright like that. The beggar glared at her but continued up the train hugging other passengers. On his way back he walked up to the woman who had hit him, gave her a very clear once over and pushed his face close up to hers. She then hit him again, three times.

He left the train without a sound. In my opinion her action was justified. A man came up behind her, groped her boobs and when rejected deliberately tried to annoy her by “getting up in her grill”. It was clear to all of us on the train what had happened.

But she spent the remainder of her journey justifying herself. I wonder if it was because he was disabled (though it was pretty clear that this was more a boob fondle than a gentle hug) that she felt the need to explain herself? I wonder if it was because she had been surprised by how quick she was to react with violence, rather than trying to talk to him? I wonder if it is because she felt the eyes of the other train passengers on her, and remembered that women are not supposed to react violently?

He harassed her, she hit him, he left, she was left behind to justify herself.

Soon other people on the train were expressing their anger at this man. “Why do they let him on the train?” “He knows what he’s up to.” “Why hasn’t someone done something?” This one act led to a current of animosity, directed (in this instance) at a beggar. Nobody was speaking to one another, it was more of a collective grumble that continued to grow until I got off.

It was extremely interesting.