He was very large and strong
This is a horrible story that Sarah Beamish tells:
Tonight I got into a confrontation with an apparently famous (I didn’t know this) local man named David Zancai. He was very large and strong. He got onto the subway and started storming around, yelling, doing pushups and roaring, and ranting about how “ladies” and “girls” need to “keep their knees together” and “stop showing their monkey” to men on the subway. He went on for about five minutes about why men shouldn’t let their girls out of the house dressed in spandex, and the male pedophiles and rapists and voyeurs wandering among us and how women and girls are responsible for such men’s reactions to them and “know what they are doing” when they dress in yoga pants and other tight clothes “because men are only human.” He was extremely loud and intimidating and very invasive of others’ personal space.
He then began walking up and down the subway car, dragging behind him a huge banner with a woman’s bare legs, commenting on individual women’s clothing and appearances and shaming them for anything revealing. He began to repeatedly target a girl who looked about 17 and was dressed in a tight workout outfit, yelling at her and shaming her for how she was dressed, pointing at her groin and breasts and telling her he could “see her monkey.” She was clearly very upset by this and kept staring out the window trying not to make eye contact with him or cry. I was horrified at this and looked around at the men to see if any of them were going to respond (most of the women were frozen in anxiety or fear that this guy was going to target them next and were trying not to call attention to themselves). None of them were doing anything.
Then he went to move toward her and yelled that he was going to take a picture of her and “her monkey”, and went to take out his phone. She was so scared and humiliated and began to cry immediately. At this point I got up and walked down the car and stood in front of her to prevent him from taking photos of her. He began yelling at me about “what right do I have to stop him from taking photos” and how “this was for my own good as a woman”, and I turned my back to him and began talking to her, asking what stop she was going to, telling her I was going to stay with her and that I was sorry this was happening. He began getting very verbally aggressive with me so I turned and went through a few minutes of yelling back at him to leave us alone and stop acting like an asshole, ignoring him, continuing to block the girl with my body so he couldn’t see her, etc. Still no one did anything, other than a couple women close to me telling me not to talk to the man – they were clearly afraid he would come over.
They got out at the next stop, but he followed them. They got into the next car, but he followed them.
I got in front of her again. The man was storming down the car toward us, continuing to yell, and the girl began to cry again. I began yelling at him repeatedly to “leave her alone and get off the train”, and telling others around us that he had been harassing her. Other than one woman who quietly asked the girl if she was okay, no one did anything. This went on for another minute or so until a woman came up to me and quietly told me who this guy was and that he had a long history of bothering people on the subway, had sexually harassed her while she was in her teens, and that he was banned from the subway.
He ended up getting off one stop before the girl. I stayed with her nearly till the end of the subway line. When we got off, the girl and a few women thanked me for intervening. The girl was clearly terribly shaken up. This entire time, not a single man other than that harasser had said or done a thing.
At the end of this, I stood and talked with a woman who had watched part of this, and the discussion was really disturbing. She said “I’m glad you helped her, but you’ve got to admit he has a point. I know she’s just young and doesn’t know better but hopefully now she has learned her lesson and will carry a wrap with her so she can cover herself up.” I said that he was the one who needed to learn a lesson (hopefully that he has no right to police women’s appearances, but at the very least that he should keep those views to himself and not harass girls and women), and that that girl had every right to ride the subway with the expectation that she would be treated with basic respect.
I then headed back on the subway towards home, shaking with adrenaline, realizing how scared I had been the whole time that he was going to hurt me. When I got home I googled the guy and found out that he’s a cult figure around the city, has been the subject of a graphic novel, a Vice article, a documentary, etc. He is often talked about like a humorous, kooky, and even endearing person. Unsurprisingly, he has some serious mental health issues due to an accident that left him in a coma, and some serious issues with women probably connected to his girlfriend apparently leaving with their daughter after he became ill (which given the behaviour I witnessed, was probably a good parenting call). He is banned from many places.
His story sounds like a sad one, with some good lessons for how we as a society deal with mental illness. But that’s not my point here. I’m sharing this so that girls and women in Toronto know that this guy’s unstable behaviour extends into sexual harassment and that you may very well not be safe around him. I’m sharing it to express my anger that I had to put my own safety in danger to protect that girl, which I have had to do so many times before in similar situations over the years. I’m sharing it to call out all the men who did nothing, not because I expect men to fight him or otherwise live up to some kind of “masculinity” standard, but because I do expect that they will use their privilege and power in a situation like that to, at the very least, ask the girl if she was okay, ask me if I was okay, tell the guy to leave her alone, put their bodies between her and the man, push the alarm strip, take a photo of him for helping her to make a report if she wants to, acknowledge that the situation is even happening, SOMETHING, because it is totally understandable that the women in the situation may be in fear for their own safety in the presence of a man who is aggressively and exclusively targeting them because of their gender.
He has a Wikipedia entry, which does indeed mostly portray him as a quirky Toronto eccentric.
Wow.
Wow.
I’m actually a bit shocked. Shock is probably why I’m writing a comment. The shock is interfering with my rational faculties.
I used to live in Toronto, and, for a while, many years ago, I would see this guy all the time. Zanta. The first couple of times I saw him, I was uncomfortable, to say the least. But I developed a “soft spot in my heart” for him.
“Quirky Toronto eccentric” was the category in my brain that he was filed under. He always wore a Santa hat, and shorts, and no shirt… regardless of the weather. He made a whole lot of noise, and not a lot of sense. He would (wearing only shorts and a Santa hat, in the winter, in Canada) do push-ups in the middle of busy city streets, holding up streetcars.
He seemed to be disruptive, inconvenient, misunderstood, a bit crazy, and, most importantly, harmless. (And this was all after his head injury and custody problem).
I never saw anything like this. Though I can’t say that I was or tried to be an expert on him, I did see articles about him, and even a couple of youtube videos of him (again, from years ago) doing exactly what I saw him do in person.
I’m just shocked. I’m shocked to hear he did this. I’m a bit more shocked to hear that no one on the subway hit the “emergency” strip.
For various reasons, I’m less shocked that no one (other than the person you quote) said anything to the guy…
I’d be afraid the guy would hit me. From what I’ve seen, guys like that won’t hit a woman in public, but he would almost definitely hit someone that he thinks is a man in public. If I was alone, I probably wouldn’t do anything, but if i had a friend or two with me, I’d be much more likely to stand up to him.
Men and women getting involved in this situation are not risking the same thing.
This is a ‘psycho’ and he will almost certainly fight any man who stands up to him, and as he does this often will be good at fighting. The situation will escalate once he has “beaten” the first man to get involved.
Unless a man thinks that they can instantly disable the guy, staying out of it until the last minute is the least harm they can do.
Dear Matthew Ostergren:
I totally get the fear of getting hit. And, after a moment of thought, I know (or at least, suspect) that when you say “if I was alone”, you mean alone without your friends, not alone with him. My first thought was “well, if you were alone, it wouldn’t be a problem… unless you were a young female who wasn’t properly covering her “monkey”.
I envy you a bit, since I can’t really imagine a situation where I’d be more able to act if I had a couple of my friends with me. I don’t really have friends. But I digress.
What I’m about to say isn’t about any hypothetical situation with friends. (Or in my case, hypothetical situations with hypothetical friends).
The fact that people weren’t alone on that subway might, in a sense, be a why no one did anything.
What I didn’t say in my last comment–though I alluded to the fact that there was more to say about this in my last sentence–is that I don’t think that people in situations like that fail to act because they are uninterested or even unwilling… and I certainly don’t think that no one acted because everyone supported what was going on. I vaguely recall a first year psych course that included something about “diffusion of responsibility” and “pluralistic ignorance”.
If there are many many people around who could do something, and if they don’t know each other or what’s going on, they might think “well, it’s not my place, it’s not my job, all these other people are here to do something” and “well, I don’t really know what’s going on, and I’m looking around and no one else seems to be worried…. so it’s probably not a problem…. or if it’s a problem someone has probably already called the police… etc”
One thing that bothers me about a situation like this, where people with privilege are silent and criticized for doing nothing, is that… it’s quite possible that if a person with privilege does do something in a situation like this, they will be criticized for hurting, not helping, the less-privileged.
There was a case in the news relatively recently where a white woman on public transit in Australia intervened to yell at a man yelling at a muslim woman. She was praised by many. But also criticized… for not letting people speak for themselves etc. And I won’t disagree with that characterization. I can try to find a reference to the case if anyone wants. What I did just try to find was another case of a subway fight which I saw on the news a while ago…
It was a while guy using his privileged to intervene. Being a white guy probably helped him here. And he can’t be accused of reinforcing racist or sexist stereotypes by speaking for others. This moment inspires me to intervene in a conflict to protect someone, without speaking for them. And I don’t need friends to do it. All I need is a snack…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erlw-ODVZxU
@ 3 anon1152
Allow me:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2015/04/oh-no-not-a-white-saviour/
As usual, our host was on the case.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2015/04/stacey-eden-is-a-mensch/
Yikes. Horrible story indeed. There have been a number of incidents on public transport in Australia involving racism, Islamophobia and xenophobic abuse. Sometimes people have stood up and taken video (phone) recordings which has helped and in a few cases at least the racist abuser has later been charged with offences as well as socially publicly shamed.
See for instance : http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2014/07/03/4038371.htm
One thing that bothers me: he’s supposed to have been banned from the subway for harassing passengers in the past.
So where was any enforcement for this ban? Why didn’t the woman who knew he’d been banned slip away and report it to someone? Why don’t they have some employees doing platform security who would have recognized his face and told him he had to leave before he got on? What is a ban if no one knows what to do to and there’s no security?
I’m shaking after reading that, and while I read it, was thinking, “I’d like to think that I was the sort of person who’d intervene”.
But I know that – almost certainly – I wouldn’t.
As with Matthew, this is substantially out of a fear of getting hit. I don’t want anyone harassed, but neither do I want anyone hit, especially if that anyone is me. This is not a noble sentiment, but it’s not exactly an ignoble one, either.
And – per Anon1152 – it might be that his being a white guy helped him a bit. I’m not convinced that it’d make all that much difference, though, for a number of reasons. First – judging by his Wikipedia entry – he’s physically intimidating. I’m going to guess that that’d make much more of a difference; and it’s aggression contributes substantially to that intimidation. (I dunno. I’m weedy and have never been in a fight; I’d try to avoid confronting anyone.) Second, there’s plenty of circumstances in which women behave abominably, and noone does anything either.* This might be the drunk racist on the bus, or the parent screaming at the child in the supermarket. We’ve all seen it, and we’ve all done nothing about it.
(When it comes to the drunk racist on the bus, by the way, this is where male/ female stereotypes come back to bite us. Guys are expected to be strong and capable and brave and all that kind of stuff, right? But – amazingly – I’d wager that, faced with an aggressive drunk of either sex, everyone is intimidated. (Probably. As I’ve admitted, I’m a weed; everyone’s like me, right?) The flip side of privilege is that there’s a hero expectation; and it’s equally bullshit. The average human make is bigger and stronger than the average human female, but our noses break just as easily; and if there’s a chance that our noses are going to break… well, there we are. There is privilege associated with sex and violence – so the average human male doesn’t worry as much as the average human female when walking home at night (though he does worry); but in cases like this, I’d wager that he’s just as freaked out. Nor does it matter that the average male probably doesn’t have to feel (as) intimidated, because that’s not how it works.)
But here’s where I think you’re right: it is much easier just to pretend that things aren’t happening, or that they’re none of our business. Norm Geras called it the contract of mutual indifference. I like that phrase. And it’s multi-layered: it means that if Smith or Jones reneges on their contract of mutual indifference, Brown and Robinson will be indifferent to that, as well as to each other and to Smith and Jones as individuals.
It probably doesn’t take all that much to make the world a lot better for everyone. But who wants to be the one to make the first move? Not many.
*NB – I’m not trying to play the whatabout game here. Rather, it’s just that there’re lots of instances in which a token human behaves in an abominable way, and noone does anything; at at least sometimes, that token human happens to be a woman. Not always, likely not as often. But for the sake of the point I’m struggling to make here, all that matters is that it does happen at least sometimes.
It’s a shame none of the men on the train did anything. A couple of them could have at least asked the guy to calm down
One thing remarkable to me here: how this guy effectively seems to make a business (or hobby?) and a life of this. This is his ‘art’? From reading the OP, I’d initially been thinking of this as a sad case of the system (and just about everyone else) yet again failing to cope terribly well with mental illness… But… Erm… Now, reading a bit more about this guy, I dunno. I’ve seen woefully uninteresting self-aggrandizing asshole ‘artists’ in a few media doing the bitches ain’t shit routine. ‘Woman cover yourself’ hardly seems any more charming here.
I see he has a lawyer interested in protecting his artistic rights. This particular performance, I think, probably runs afoul of a few statutes on harassment. Perhaps this lawyer should be kept busy on this, too.
As to people not intervening: back in the area of the system not dealing terribly well with people with mental illnesses of late (it’s been an ongoing theme in the media here some decades), a lot of them winding up on the street, to cope or not on their own, with little support, I begin to think the sad reality is: maybe knowing how to intervene and de-escalate is going to have to become a taught life skill for a lot of us, a little like first aid. I must confess: had I been on that car, I wouldn’t have known what to do. either, and would have been worried about just making it worse, if I tried to get in the way, so I’m not sure how I judge anyone else…
So I figure this may become necessary whether or not we can improve the systems that actually treat people with mental health issues. How to talk someone down until you can get official services engaged.
And, of course, even if we can’t get everyone exhibiting potentially dangerous behaviour off the street, we can get the poisonous ideas some of them pick up and amplify at volume 10 put away…
That’s one thing I find kinda funny (and by no means funny ha hah), here: that Zancai in this case was repeating some standard order ugly misogyny which, were the rest of his behaviour less unhinged, would probably be even more unapologetically endorsed by others around him. And I’ve noticed this a few times myself: people with mental health issues repeating and amplifying such social poison. Were I a not terribly nice person (and, oh, right, frequently, I’m really not), I’d ask people still oddly taken with these ideas just how they figure they might sound coming from a man doing pushups on the subway. Just something for your consideration, seems to me. But anyway, it’s also quite something, I think: someone who’s behaviour is that socially outside still gets support from someone, if he’s repeating the right ‘woman, cover yourself mantra’. ‘He has a point’? Umm… No. Actually, as Ms. Beamish points out, he really hasn’t. And, just so we’re clear, no one looks much more sensible to me, saying that, clerical collar or no, pulpit, or no, pushups or no.
I’d intervene. I’ve intervened before. In fact, the only times I’ve not intervened have been when my husband has been with me and, evidently terrified for my safety, has prevented me.
It may be different in the USA, but in the countries where I’ve lived there seems to be just as much fear in men as there is in women of encountering violence. It’s just the kind of violence is different (the men, generally, aren’t afraid of sexual violence).
In response to the men who say men lose more by intervening: how do you know? I hear this all the time, but often I have seen that when a man intervenes, it does shut the man up. He might be as scared of you as you are of him, and by not at least reaching out and saying something to the girls, you might be emboldening him. I realize it is a risk to take, but to say your risk is greater than the woman’s is to assume something we can’t be sure of: that he won’t hit a woman.
I am a woman. I have been hit by a man (men). This is not something we can be sure of. All throughout the world there are men hitting women, and not always women they know. And yet men can still sit there in their comfortable privilege and say she is at less risk than he would be. The idea that she was “safe” from anything other than verbal abuse is a dangerous idea.
Besides, with verbal abuse so excessive, and for such a young girl, how can you possibly defend the men for not at least pulling the emergency stop?
I think the answer is more wrapped up in the conversation the writer had with the woman afterwards. Deep down inside, there are a lot of people who agree with this man, even though they wouldn’t go to the extreme of violently accosting women on subways. They will content themselves with disapproving looks, or an inner dialogue about how “some people dress in public” or sharing the story with their friends or family later – “hey you should have seen how this girl was dressed on the subway. Can you believe that?”
One big problem is that, as a society, we do not think that a woman has a right to dress how she wants (this often extends to men, too, as we tend to be very critical of overweight men in muscle shirts, for example). We believe we have the right to police other people’s clothes and behavior, and we apply this with a great deal more stringency to women than to men. Women who dress “like a whore” are “asking for it”. Why come to the girl’s aid when secretly you may be agreeing with him? I would say that is why his reputation is as a quirky eccentric rather than a dangerous abuser, because he is targeting something that makes a lot of people uncomfortable – women dressing how they wish to dress, sitting with their legs comfortably instead of squishing them together to make sure no one gets any ideas, etc.
The Wiki thing is very strange. The man is obviously a public hazard, but there is no mention of him being a sexist harasser. But he’s been banned from several spaces for at least 10 years.
His behavior absolutely warranted a police call. He is supposedly already banned from Toronto public transportation buses. As a public nuisance, and seriously mentally ill, there is NO reason for him to be permitted to act out in the confined space of a transit car.
He seems to be very intimidating and belligerent, the pictures of him shirtless and Santa-hatted are disturbing enough. As reported, he is oblivious to disapproval or remonstrance. Near me, in San Francisco, a few months back, a man was stabbed nine times for the ‘offence’ of ASKING a street-harasser to stop.
It would take more than individual vigilantism to handle a character like this. I hope the Toronto authorities are forced to take action by this incident.
Yes. I’ve been physically attacked by mentally unstable people in downtown Seattle more than once. Minor attacks, and both were women…but it wasn’t nothing. (I called the cops both times. Feeling guilty both times, but decided public safety required it.)
I was ~10 when I first started regularly riding the Toronto subways on my own. That was way back when it was called Toronto the Good, and I “only” encountered a handful of gropes/inappropriate touches over the years. I’ve since moved to Ottawa and only ride the TTC a few times a year these days, and I suspect I’m about old enough to be invisible anyway, but I’ve never experienced or witnessed anything like this incident)
What Sarah Beamish did to defend the teenager was courageous and praiseworthy. But my mind is utterly boggled as to why no one else (man or woman) thought to push the alarm strip (which halts the train and summons the police), especially since it would have been a rather low-risk action given that Sarah was distracting the assailant’s attention. Did no one think it was a sufficiently serious incident to warrant stopping the train? Or was it that most of the men (and even women) there really thought that Zancai “had a point” in his tirade about appropriate attire?