Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Archives for June 2009

Chicago's Superstars Address Harassment on the CTA

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I’ve long admired the anti-street harassment work of the Rogers Park Young Women’s Action Team (YWAT) in Illinois (for example, a few years ago they held a citywide Day of Activism against Street Harassment). Their current work to address harassment on Chicago’s public transportation makes me admire then even more.

Photo from the Sun Times
Photo from the Sun Times

The YWAT recently surveyed 639 CTA riders, mostly young women, and found that over half of the respondents had been sexually harassed on the CTA and thirteen percent had been sexually assaulted. Of those who had been harassed or assaulted, only 9 percent said they filed a complaint with the police or CTA. Supporting the low reporting rate, there were only two recorded incidents of criminal sexual assault on the whole Chicago transportation system in 2008. Via the Chicago Sun Times:

“Ronnett Lockett, 20, a Northern Illinois University student and another member of the group, said one problem is that women might be frightened and not know how to respond. Ads on trains would help people know what to do, Lockett said.

The group also wants CTA employees and police to be trained in how to deal with harassment. …

CTA spokeswoman Noelle Gaffney said the agency takes these things ‘very seriously.’ But riders who feel threatened have to speak up, she said.

‘Should a customer feel threatened at any time as the result of another individual’s behavior, they should notify the rail operator immediately via the use of the emergency call button,’ Gaffney said.

At L stations, customer assistants or security guards are on duty during service hours, Gaffney said.

And CTA buses and many L stops are equipped with security cameras networked to the CTA’s control center, Gaffney said. Some stations have already been renovated to include brighter lighting, and the agency is in the process of installing more security cameras.”

The YWAT is holding a poetry slam about sexual harassment on the CTA to gather more stories about harassment and open community dialogue about this problem too many women and girls face. The event will be held on June 27.

I’m glad they are continuing to address the problem of harassment and assault in public spaces (like buses and subways) that women in their community face simply for being female.  Their work will make a difference.

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Street Harassment Round Up – June 14

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New Feature:

  • Visit the Stop Street Harassment Website’s “Map It” page to see where various street harassment incidents have occurred – click on the pushpins to read their stories. (Note: if the pushpins don’t show up at first, try refreshing your browser once or twice. Not sure why this is happening but refreshing eventually makes them show up). Submit your story.

Stories:

  • On this blog, a young woman in London, Ontario, Canada, tells how a boy slapped her on the backside from his bike while she was running. Her anger at the harassment led her to write an article about street harassment for her college.
  • On Holla Back NYC, a contributor tells how a man groped her under her dress while she was buying a Metrocard at the subway!
  • Holla Back DC! has a contributor post from a woman who used to be catcalled every day in her neighborhood and one day a man followed her and threatened her by saying her address and saying he’d come find her, so she better not go to sleep!

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem!

In the News:

  • Emily May of Hollaback NYC wrote an op-ed for New York’s Metro newspaper about how harassment and other misdemeanors must be included in the MTA’s crime count because without subway transparency, the crimes will continue unabated.
  • In Salt Lake City, UT, a man was arrested for groping two women (two different incidents) in public. The police fear there may be other victims and encourage any to come forward.
  • In San Francisco, CA, a man was reported to police for sexually assaulting women on the Muni transit system. Anyone with tips about the man can call (415) 553-1651.

Upcoming Events:

Street Harassment Resource of the Week:

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You think you’re better than me?

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“Stuck up bitch, don’t let me catch you on this block again”

This week, I read Melinda Mills’ 2007 master’s thesis “‘You talking to me?’ Considering Black Women’s Racialized and Gendered Experiences with and Responses or Reactions to Street Harassment from Men.” (An aside: I think I like Hawley Fogg-Davis’s “A Black Feminist Critique of Same-Race Street Harassment” (2005) better).

Something Mills wrote about which was new to me as far as the experience of women of color is how she (mixed race: black and white) and a few of the ten black women she interviewed have been called “white bitch” when they reject the advances of black men on the street. She says:

“For many of the black women who refused to respond to a variety of men’s attention, they often faced accusations of being another race, presumably because women perceived as the same race as the harasser would have enough respect to respond to a man of the same race. Thus, when black men interpellated black women as similar, familiar, and likewise, but the black women hailed as such rejected this interpellation, the black men attempted to restore their black masculinity by interpellating these women as white. For example, a black-identified (though admittedly black and Latina) woman noted that she faced accusations of being white simply because she refused to respond to the unsolicited attention of a black man” (Mills 77).

Reading this reminds me of a story someone shared at a NY Street Harassment Summit I attended in 2007. The young woman identified as being half white, half Chinese. An African American man was harassing her while she was outside on her lunch break. She said it happened so quickly that she didn’t have time to respond to him before he called her a “white bitch.” She said her first reaction was, “but I’m mixed” before feeling frustrated and upset about the whole incident.

I’ve read about white women being called “white bitch” immediately after they ignore or otherwise reject a man of color’s advance whereas before he hadn’t mentioned their race.

The usage of “white bitch” by men of color toward women of different races is very interesting and it does seem to imply that these men equate “white” with “stuck up” or women who think they’re better than them. In fact, these women in all likelihood don’t think that at all, but instead they simply don’t want to be approached and harassed by a random man on the street or the subway, etc!

Similar to the issues Mills addresses in her paper, today I came across a slideshow on YouTube called “Why do Black men harass Black women in the street?” The creator also talks about how badly black men have reacted when she’s ignored or otherwise rejected their advances on the street, in particular she notes how ignoring a catcall can escalate the incident to verbal and physical violence. She has had men say the following to her after she refused to give them her phone number:

“You think you better than me?” “Fuck you shorty, someone needs to cut your face up!” “I could have that ass if I really wanted it” “Stuck up bitch, don’t let me catch you on this block again” and “You are an ugly whore.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnCV9r1X134]

Those responses are frightening and disturbing in so many ways!

She states that young black women Adilah Gaither and Tanganika Stanton were both shot and killed by black men because they turned down their advances. The next slide says, “And Black men wonder why we cross the street when we see them coming or standing in groups.” The last slide says, “You don’t have a monopoly on all Black women! Black women are tired of your ape-like aggression on the street. LEAVE US ALONE…”

Also similarly, different women in Tracey Rose’s documentary “Black Woman Walking” touch on how black men target them for harassment. One woman (at around minute 7) says she usually ignores the men, acts like she doesn’t hear them, or is polite. She said, “I’ve heard about women getting hit over the head with bricks because they rejected dudes on the street and so I kind of limit my comments and say, oh, no thank you.” Another woman (around minute 7:20) says that “it’s not so much the fear that you’re walking and you’re afraid and you’re looking over your shoulder during the day, it’s the, okay, if i don’t respond right, what will happen then?”

Clearly, not all black men harass black women or pose a threat, but there does seem to be a common experience among many black women that they expect to be harassed by black men and that they are fearful of how those men will react – will they escalate to violence or insults – should they reject their advances. The answer to the question “why does this happens?” still seems to be at large…

What are your opinions and/or experiences?

[Disclaimer: I’m white and I’ve been harassed by white, black and hispanic men and men in a few different European countries while traveling. I’ll never know what it’s like to be a woman of color harassed by men, particularly men of the same race. In my street harassment work, one of my goals is to understand and represent as many experiences as I can but I recognize that my white perspective and privilege is always present and unfortuantely it can be a barrier to my ability to achieve this goal.]

[And another aside, I just discovered that Hawley Fogg-Davis published an article in Politics and Gender in 2006 based on the presentation she gave in 2005 which I cited above. Not sure why I didn’t find it before. It’s available in its entirety online.]

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You think you're better than me?

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“Stuck up bitch, don’t let me catch you on this block again”

This week, I read Melinda Mills’ 2007 master’s thesis “‘You talking to me?’ Considering Black Women’s Racialized and Gendered Experiences with and Responses or Reactions to Street Harassment from Men.” (An aside: I think I like Hawley Fogg-Davis’s “A Black Feminist Critique of Same-Race Street Harassment” (2005) better).

Something Mills wrote about which was new to me as far as the experience of women of color is how she (mixed race: black and white) and a few of the ten black women she interviewed have been called “white bitch” when they reject the advances of black men on the street. She says:

“For many of the black women who refused to respond to a variety of men’s attention, they often faced accusations of being another race, presumably because women perceived as the same race as the harasser would have enough respect to respond to a man of the same race. Thus, when black men interpellated black women as similar, familiar, and likewise, but the black women hailed as such rejected this interpellation, the black men attempted to restore their black masculinity by interpellating these women as white. For example, a black-identified (though admittedly black and Latina) woman noted that she faced accusations of being white simply because she refused to respond to the unsolicited attention of a black man” (Mills 77).

Reading this reminds me of a story someone shared at a NY Street Harassment Summit I attended in 2007. The young woman identified as being half white, half Chinese. An African American man was harassing her while she was outside on her lunch break. She said it happened so quickly that she didn’t have time to respond to him before he called her a “white bitch.” She said her first reaction was, “but I’m mixed” before feeling frustrated and upset about the whole incident.

I’ve read about white women being called “white bitch” immediately after they ignore or otherwise reject a man of color’s advance whereas before he hadn’t mentioned their race.

The usage of “white bitch” by men of color toward women of different races is very interesting and it does seem to imply that these men equate “white” with “stuck up” or women who think they’re better than them. In fact, these women in all likelihood don’t think that at all, but instead they simply don’t want to be approached and harassed by a random man on the street or the subway, etc!

Similar to the issues Mills addresses in her paper, today I came across a slideshow on YouTube called “Why do Black men harass Black women in the street?” The creator also talks about how badly black men have reacted when she’s ignored or otherwise rejected their advances on the street, in particular she notes how ignoring a catcall can escalate the incident to verbal and physical violence. She has had men say the following to her after she refused to give them her phone number:

“You think you better than me?” “Fuck you shorty, someone needs to cut your face up!” “I could have that ass if I really wanted it” “Stuck up bitch, don’t let me catch you on this block again” and “You are an ugly whore.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnCV9r1X134]

Those responses are frightening and disturbing in so many ways!

She states that young black women Adilah Gaither and Tanganika Stanton were both shot and killed by black men because they turned down their advances. The next slide says, “And Black men wonder why we cross the street when we see them coming or standing in groups.” The last slide says, “You don’t have a monopoly on all Black women! Black women are tired of your ape-like aggression on the street. LEAVE US ALONE…”

Also similarly, different women in Tracey Rose’s documentary “Black Woman Walking” touch on how black men target them for harassment. One woman (at around minute 7) says she usually ignores the men, acts like she doesn’t hear them, or is polite. She said, “I’ve heard about women getting hit over the head with bricks because they rejected dudes on the street and so I kind of limit my comments and say, oh, no thank you.” Another woman (around minute 7:20) says that “it’s not so much the fear that you’re walking and you’re afraid and you’re looking over your shoulder during the day, it’s the, okay, if i don’t respond right, what will happen then?”

Clearly, not all black men harass black women or pose a threat, but there does seem to be a common experience among many black women that they expect to be harassed by black men and that they are fearful of how those men will react – will they escalate to violence or insults – should they reject their advances. The answer to the question “why does this happens?” still seems to be at large…

What are your opinions and/or experiences?

[Disclaimer: I’m white and I’ve been harassed by white, black and hispanic men and men in a few different European countries while traveling. I’ll never know what it’s like to be a woman of color harassed by men, particularly men of the same race. In my street harassment work, one of my goals is to understand and represent as many experiences as I can but I recognize that my white perspective and privilege is always present and unfortuantely it can be a barrier to my ability to achieve this goal.]

[And another aside, I just discovered that Hawley Fogg-Davis published an article in Politics and Gender in 2006 based on the presentation she gave in 2005 which I cited above. Not sure why I didn’t find it before. It’s available in its entirety online.]

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Salt Lake City Groper May Have Other Victims

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I’m a few weeks late with this, but I just came across a news story about a man who was arrested in May for groping two women (two different incidents) in public in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. The police believe he may have groped other women and are asking for anyone he targeted to come forward. The two women he groped were both 28 years old with blond hair who looked similar, so they think he may have been targeting specific women.

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