You Have a Gift to Hear: A Performative Text Exploring Embodied Sexual Harassment

Abstract

This text adopts characteristics from autoethnography and performative writing to investigate the embodiment of lived gendered experiences. It attempts to emphasize the sensations of sexual harassment as understood through rhythm; specifically, the use of repetition as a type of rhythmic performance. The author describes how for almost three years, while she was a graduate student, she struggled with being sexually harassed by a fellow student, and in an unsupportive academic environment. The author feels that this text, which was prepared while she made formal charges against her harasser, helped her cope with the intensity of the moment. The author shares her story and tries to illustrate how that particular event dealt with the contrasting emotional and sensual sensations of her current gendered identity with her past embodied gendered identity. This manuscript is meant to be experienced as a text; therefore, to avoid disruption of the flow of the work it does not contain any direct writing about theory.