Archives for November 2009

“They put you in your place”

November 12, 2009 By HKearl

Last year I wrote a short list of songs I had heard that mention or address street harassment. My best friend from elementary school just sent me the youtube video for Ani DiFranco’s song “The Story” and it is about street harassment too! Ani articulates the problem well, don’t you think?

“I would have returned your greeting
If it weren’t for the way you were looking at me
This street is not a market
And I am not a commodity
And don’t you find it sad that we can’t even say hello
‘Cause you’re a man
And I am a woman
And the sun is getting low
And there are some places that I can’t go
As a woman I can’t go there
And as a person I don’t care
I don’t go for the hey baby what’s your name
And I’d like to go alone thank you
Just the same

I am up again against
The skin of my guitar
In the window of my life
Looking out through the bars
I am sounding out the silence
Avoiding all the words
I’m afraid I’ve said too much
I’m afraid of who has heard me

And my father, he told me the story
And it was true
For his time
But now the story is different
Maybe I should tell him mine
All the girls line up here
All the boys on the other side
I see your ranks are advancing
I see mine are left behind

I am up again against
The skin of my guitar
In the window of my life
Looking out through the bars
I am sounding out the silence
Avoiding all the words
I’m afraid I can never say enough
I’m afraid no one has heard me

And despite all the balls that I’ve been thrown
And forced to drop
On the social totem pole
I’m preciously close to the top
They put you in your place
And they tell you to behave
But no one can be free
Until we’re all on even grade

And I would have returned your greeting
If it weren’t for the way you were looking at me”

The real immoral crimes

November 10, 2009 By HKearl

Ugh, here’s a story with classic victim blaming based on clothing…

In Sao Bernando do Campo, Brazil, administrators at a university expelled a 20 year old student for wearing a short dress to class and allegedly acting immorally by doing things like taking the long way to class to increase the number of students who would see her. Hundreds of students heckled and catcalled her. Super outrageously, the university (after expelling her) paid for newspapers ads to publicly shame her and accuse her of immorality.

Of course various places have dress codes, which if justified, should be respected, but there is no indication that she violated a dress code. It sounds like the university officials just did not like her and the student responses to her dress.

The student has been speaking out against this treatment saying, “It’s a great injustice. I always dressed in a way that makes me feel good and that doesn’t offend anybody. I was always like that and was never recriminated by anybody.”

Since the media caught wind of it (in part because of a youtube video), the university has since conceded to let her return to school, with a police escort. Good. Now civil police in the city are going to investigate the students accused of heckling her. The university said it would temporarily suspend some of them. Good. Sexual harassment is socialized, learned behavior that should not be tolerated.

And the accusations of immorality? Come on… get real. It’s convenient that their type of immorality is something only women can be accused of. Next thing you know they’ll want women to wear burlap sacks over their heads or to be banned from school altogether because they could probably construe being a woman and having female body parts as being immoral…

I’m sure there are plenty of child molesters and rapists and street harassers on campus and in their town (and maybe among their faculty) that they could spend their ad money on to shame rather than on a 20-year-old student who wore a short dress to class…!! Those are the real crimes of immorality!!

“When will it end? It’s wearing me out…”

November 10, 2009 By Contributor

I go to college in Maryland. I was born with what some would call a “gift”. I am thin, have thick, naturally bright blond hair, huge green eyes, and very large breasts. This is a recipe for disaster. I love myself and my body, but sometimes I find it hard to see myself as anything but a disposable object after the way I am treated.

I wear t shirts to class and stopped wearing makeup. Still, as I walk to class every single day I am verbally harassed. I’ll give an example from today. It was pretty warm today so I wore a jacket with a tank top underneath. For the most part the tank top covered up a lot. Since my chest is pretty big, however, tank tops are a nuisance and I have to pull them up sometimes. As I discreetly pulled it up a bit someone shouted, “PULL THAT BACK DOWN BABY THATS ALL WE WANT TO SEE” from a balcony above.

A few days ago, I was taking the trash to the dumpster. As I waked, a hispanic maintenance man stopped and asked me if I needed help because the bag was extremely heavy. I said thank you and handed him the bag and he hoisted it into the dumpster. His response: ‘YOUR WELCOME SEXY GIRL. MMMMMMM.” as he licked his lips. So I guess having him help me with my trash was a sexual proposition. GREAT.

I work in the mall. Last week I was handing out samples of cheese. I wish I had counted the countless men who referred to me as a “ho” when they thought I was out of earshot, whistled at me, or said “LOOK AT THEM TITTIES” after they had walked about 30 feet away from me.

I get dozens of sexually explicit messages from my fellow college students through social networking sites every weekend. Its funny, all of these men are so quick to say these DISGUSTING sexually explicit things, yet I havent been asked on a formal date in a year…

I’ll end with this. When I was a freshmen, 2 years ago, I went to the nearby supermarket. Some man and his friend approached me and asked me if I knew where batteries were. Before I knew it, one of them proceeded to attempt to “MOTORBOAT” me. I backed up just as his face touched my chest. The worst part was after the men quickly ran away, thinking it was the funniest thing in the world, people around me gave me disgusted looks. It was horrific.

I hope everyone finds their strength and can overcome street harassment. IT NEEDS TO STOP NOW!

– Lala

Location: Maryland

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Include your location and it will be added to the Street Harassment Map.

European Harassment

November 9, 2009 By Contributor

I studied abroad in Paris for a semester, and I was shocked by the amount of harassment I experienced. I’m from a major U.S city, and i have never been treated like this until I lived in Europe. Riding the metro every day to school meant that men would follow me, try to kiss me, grab my ass, or just verbally harass me. I’ve very very fair and blonde so I don’t look very French, so people always asked me where I came from…I soon learned that pretending to speak neither French nor English really helped. I always said that I was Russian (which they believed) and that I only spoke Russian. That certainly shut them up quickly.

I never had any problems in London or Dublin, but Brussles, Paris, and any Italian city (even the Vatican of all places) were prime sources for lewd comments and whistles. The most shocking form of harassment was in Marrakech where my super white skin and platinum blonde hair stuck out like a sore thumb. Men constantly catcalled and finally one man came up to me and just started fondling my boob. I finally just pushed him off and ran away.

– anonymous

Location: Paris, France

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Include your location and it will be added to the Street Harassment Map.

Hate Crimes at Georgetown

November 4, 2009 By HKearl

Students at Georgetown University held a candlelight vigil earlier this week after men attacked a female and a male student, in two separate incidents, while spewing anti-gay/lesbian comments. On Monday, someone posted a derogatory slur on the door of the campus LGBTQ Resource Center. Both campus officials and local police are investigating the assaults and the slur.

It is an outrage that people cannot walk down the street without other people harassing and/or attacking them for their sexual orientation, gender, race, etc!

The fact that so many of these hate crimes, including the two on the Georgetown students, are perpetrated by boys and men says a lot about masculinity in this country: how it is framed, how boys/men are socialized into it, and how often men are rewarded instead of punished for taking masculinity to the extreme in the form of hate crimes (including sexual assaults). It’s gonna take a lot of work before everyone is safe from hate on the streets.

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