Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Archives for July 2010

“She’s got the short hair, she’s probably a fucking dyke.”

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No matter what day of the week, it is likely you will run into a number of drunken peers in my college town, and harassment isn’t uncommon. My friend and I are a couple of insomniacs, so the town at night no longer scares me like it might have a few years ago when I left home for the first time. I have heard the advice given to us womenfolk…you know, about staying off the streets at night, walking with buddies, blah blah blah and I’ve even been scolded by a complete stranger who witnessed one of my late night strolls. I didn’t take harassment that seriously because it only came to me in the form of whistles and compliments, both subtle and belligerent, but I absorbed them as misguided kindness or something of the like.

THEN…I cut my hair. I found feminism, saw the links between patriarchy and standards of female beauty and worth, and had my talented roomie cut it off one night after my boyfriend told me to “settle down.” Initial responses were amazing. Everyone loved it! Except my boyfriend and father, of course….but that didn’t matter. I felt liberated.

So it was around 1 a.m. on Franklin Street in this popular college town and I was walking into the neighboring town, Carrboro, to stay the night with a friend. I was walking down the street in a cardigan and pajama pants when a group of young, white, “fratty” types crossed the street and began walking towards me. As soon as they saw me they began to loudly and clumsily interrogate me. “Why ya wearing green pants, green pants girl? Look, she’s got a purple sweater, HEY PURPLE SWEATER GIRL.” They got closer and more in my face, and never one to avoid confrontation, I turned and said, “Maybe not heckle strangers, hey?”

They didn’t like that very much, and started up again with, “Welcome to a fucking college town, YEAH there’s gonna be drunk people, GOD, you fucking weirdo.” And then another “She’s got the short hair, she’s probably a fucking dyke.”

As I moved further away, the shouts became inaudible, and I walked on, angry that there was nothing else I could do. Angry that I didn’t have the guts to turn and really embarrass them. Angry that they felt they could say things like that to my face, in public, and without consequence.

I knew that the stories my short haired female friends had always told me were not the rare experiences, the anomalies I had originally written them off as. I doubt it would have ever happened that way if I had my long hair still. This isn’t the worst thing that has ever happened to someone on the streets, for sure…but I guess my point is that it should have never happened. Those guys shouldn’t feel entitled to yell at women on the streets, drunk or no. Harassment is harassment.

– Carissa Morrison

Location: Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC

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.

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Sex segregated in line, assaulted on the bus

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Bus in indiaLast month the government in Central Jakarta, India, segregated people by sex in the bus stop lines to curb crime, including sexual harassment. Today I read a news article about a case of sexual assault on the bus because, unsurprisingly, segregating people without addressing the real issue will not solve the problem!

Via Berita Jakarta:

“The criminal sat beside the victim. At a time, the criminal touched the victim’s breast. The victim screamed and slapped the criminal on his face.

“The incident took place in Tosari. Both of them were stopped in Dukuhatas and then taken to South Jakarta Police Precinct,” said Dano, Tuesday (7/6). In fact, besides separating passengers based on gender, the bus attendant always reminded the passengers to place themselves on empty spaces. To make the passengers comfortable, Transjakarta BLU will set stickers about safety way in the bus.”

I’m sure a reminder to sit in empty spaces is really useful…not. The harasser won’t listen and the harassee probably already did that. I think women instinctively know we’re in for trouble when it’s a largely empty bus or subway car and a man plops himself down right next to us. And sometime when we move, they do, too. Harassing behavior like that is scary and predatory.

What seems to be hard for these men to understand is that they do not have a right to our space and to our bodies just because we’re women living in patriarchal societies. That kind of assumption needs to change! Incidentally, the International Center for Research on Women has an initiative in India focused on changing those assumptions in boys and so far it’s been very successful. Hopefully in time it can spread across all of India!

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Schedule me to speak about street harassment!

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My book Stop Street Harassment: Making Public Places Safe & Welcoming for Women is out in a mere seven weeks (on Aug. 30). Read about the media attention it’s already generated.

As street harassment is a global problem, I hope I can visit many places this fall and next spring to speak about street harassment and what we can do about it. Do you want me to talk about street harassment to your community group, on your campus, or at your bookstore or library? I can design a workshop or talk tailored for your specific audience – for campus events I can also speak about sexual assault due to my work at AAUW and with RAINN – and my fee is negotiable. While I’m located in the Washington, DC, area, I love to travel and will go anywhere to speak about this issue 🙂

Please contact me (stopstreetharassment AT yahoo Dot com) if you’re interested in scheduling me or if you have recommendations for venues I should pursue.

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Street harassment is a trigger for rape survivors

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Street harassment from the perspective of a rape survivor:

Sometimes when I express my anger at street harassment, at my inability to move through public spaces freely, I feel as if I am dismissed. Other people, both men and women alike, tend to minimize it, saying, “Why let it bother you? It’s not that big of a deal.”

But I am a rape survivor, and for me, it is a big deal.

Every time I am harassed by men on the street, I am re-victimized. From leering, catcalls, and comments about my body, to stalking and groping — they all reduce me to an object. Not a person, but a thing. Something to have power over. All of these forms of harassment are triggers for me. They all induce the same sense of powerlessness, the feeling of invasion – they all take me back to when I was raped.

I know I am not the only one. There are so many other survivors, like me, who every day are forced to relive the experiences of their rapes by men on the street. Street harassment IS a big deal. It perpetuates the society which allows men to treat women as objects, to have power over them, to assault them, to rape them. Street harassment is sexual assault, it is sexual violence, and we must work to end it now.

I am not an object, and I will not be silent.

– AH

Location: Everywhere

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.

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Male bonding at the expense of women

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My friend and I were walking downtown on the sidewalk. On our side of the street were two guys sitting on a porch and on the other side was a group of guys dressed in all black. We were ignoring them until one of the two guys on the porch shouted, “My friend here thinks you two are cute!” Then the group on the other side of the street started shouting back to them, saying that they were going to “get us.” They kept encouraging each other, adding things like “Go get them, tiger!” and we were afraid they were following us, but thankfully, they never did.

– anonymous

Location: Davison, MI

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.

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