"My titty is for me"

November 25th through December 10th marked the international ‘16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence’ devoted to raising awareness about violence against women around the world. Though such campaigns tend to go by unnoticed by those of us back in America, they are usually a big deal for NGOs in the developing world, who often use the time to launch advocacy and community involvement campaigns.

This is certainly the case in Liberia, and I was happy to get back from my trip home to the U.S. in time to attend the last day’s events, including a parade around my town organized by IRC’s Gender-Based Violence program. Having no idea what to expect for the day, I was nevertheless excited for something new—particularly something that would get me out of the office. The morning of the parade, I donned my “complet” that I had made for Siya’s wedding (my friend calls this my “African lady outfit”) and set out for the town square. There, I met up with my coworkers and the forty or so community members that had come out for the parade. Everyone received bandanas inscribed with IRC’s logo and “16 days of activism,” which most of the girls wore as kerchiefs over their hair, and I naturally followed suit.

After about an hour of waiting for everyone to arrive and get organized, my coworkers let us know that we were finally ready to begin. Two teenage girls with megaphones then started to lead a song about not beating your wife, and the parade started to move. After only a few minutes of the first song, however, the parade leaders decided to switch to something much more upbeat. As we moved in two single-file lines, everyone started dancing as they marched. I couldn’t quite make out the words at first, so I tried to listen harder. After some momentary disbelief, I burst out laughing. The words to the chant were as follows:

My titty, my titty is for me – Don’t touch it!
My tumba (aka butt), my tumba is for me – Don’t touch it!

After a dozen or so rounds of these lines, the chant leaders added something along the lines of “If you see my titty, it is not for you, you must pass by it,” and then “If you see my titty, and you want it, you must ask for it.”

Needless to say, this was pretty much the most entertaining song I have ever heard in my life. It was also obviously the crowd’s favorite, most of whom not only chanted along but also enthusiastically shook or gestured to the body part referenced in each line, quickly followed by a finger wagging to passersby as we came to the “Don’t touch it” line.

In addition to laughing at the song’s hilarious lyrics, I could not help but feel a personal connection with the words. This was because I was recently the victim of a “titty grab-and-go” of just the sort referenced in the song! While innocently chatting with friends at a recent party hosted by the UN in my town, a Pakistani peacekeeper came up behind me, reached under my arm, and to my great surprise, grabbed one of my breasts. He then quickly continued on his way across the room, in an apparent attempt to pretend it wasn’t him. Since I was not exactly expecting to have some random guy grab my breast out of nowhere, it took me a second to digest what had just taken place, and I stood there for a moment with a rather puzzled look on my face. Unsure whether I should smack the guy or whether I should just let it go, I ultimately decided the situation merited the former. Yet since I was not entirely sure that I wanted to risk a scene, what resulted was a very halfhearted and thus awkward slap that turned out more like a love pat than an angry, this’ll-teach-you-to-grab-my-breast-you-asshole slap. So much for being a bad ass I guess.

Looking back, I am more inclined to laugh at the incident than get upset by it (particularly since the guy wasn’t remotely threatening and actually was pretty pitiful-looking), but since I was not the first woman to suffer a fly by groping by an errant and under-sexed peacekeeper, the UN human rights officer made the commander of the Pakistani battalion have a talk with his men about what constitutes appropriate versus inappropriate behavior around Western women. Now that I have heard the titty song, however, I cannot help but grieve that the captain was not able to use the song’s words of wisdom to get his message across: My titty is for me—Don’t touch it!