Archives for May 2011

Street Harassment Snapshot: May 29, 2011

May 29, 2011 By HKearl

Read stories, news articles, blog posts, and tweets about street harassment from the past week and find relevant announcements and upcoming street harassment events.

Street Harassment Stories:

I accept street harassment submissions from anywhere in the world. Share your story! You can read new street harassment stories on the Web from the past week at:

Stop Street Harassment Blog

Hollaback

Hollaback Baltimore

Hollaback Berlin

Hollaback Buenos Aires

Hollaback Philadelphia

Street Harassment in the News, on the Blogs:

La Nacion, “Ebanista irá a prisión 4 años y 6 meses por tocar a mujer“

The International News, “Exclusive transport for women urged“

Hurriyet Daily News, “Turkish mayor advises women to ‘stay home’ to avoid harassment“

Rebel With A Cause, “Sexually Harassing Egypt’s Revolution“

Carried Away, “A Message to Catcallers“

The Times of India, “CCTVs to keep eye on eve teasers, chain snatchers“

The Times of India, “Dalit youth shot dead for opposing eve-teasing“

Announcements:

New:

*View a new anti-street harassment video from South Africa

*View two new anti-street harassment videos from India. 1 | 2

On-going:

* Help fund the Hey, Shorty! on the road book tour to end gender-based violence in schools and on the streets.

* Needed: your feedback on international anti-street harassment day 2011 & your ideas for 2012 http://tinyurl.com/44f7bef

* Fight Street Harassment with Your Spare Change http://t.co/TKeve2e via @swipegood

* If you live in Atlanta, Georgia, take a MARTA survey so Hollaback Atlanta can better tackle harassment on public transportation

* College students, enter the Hollaback essay contest, entries due August 1.

* Are you in Egypt? Use HarassMap to report your street harassers

* Have an iPhone? Download the Hollaback iPhone app that lets you report street harassers

20 Tweets from the Week:

1. dys_morphia Which is the hidden or not so hidden message of all street harassment: women, stay at home.

2. FeministGriote Summertime means street harassment on steroids & if u r on south beach this weekend then you’re in the belly of the beast

3. Supreeka An idiot tried to get frndly wth my ass in the bus. Trnd arnd & rammed hm hard with laptop bag in his groin n wlkd off

4. MDeezie How do dudes find it funny to harass a random girl on the street? You aint 8 no more bruh, that aint cute.

5. bibliofeminista Night ruiner: an ass grab in Adams-Morgan. Gross. #streetharassment #dc

6. tkoed: A friend puts street harassment like this to the bros: You don’t want cops fucking w/ yall in the street, so don’t mess with me.

7. JustineMeiErn I feel so harassed. Street harassment pisses the hell outta me

8. TKOEd is street harassment. I think it’s rampant in many places b/c too many men & boys are taught that women are or should be ALWAYS available

9. JulieSLalonde If you care about #endrapeinwar, take a stand against ALL gender-based violence in ALL countries. #streetharassment, sexual assault, etc.

10. ChantigaloBEroc Now police officers are engaging in street harassment. Awesome. Not that I’m surprised, but I’m not less annoyed either.

11. Renegade_Blog: Got accosted by a 12 year old boy. Boy, does street harassment starts early

12. kaysteiger @jbouie I’m reluctant to say hello because of the street harassment.

13. KismetNunez @Mdotwrites @zero317 Burst into tears once on the WMATA bus from street harassment. Had another dude jump out his car at me. #violence #woc

14. emmamwoolley @nnkatherine Oh holy shit. Street harassment! Yet another reminder that simply being outside means we can be assaulted. #wouldhavelostit

15. chris_o_mahony I DESPISE street harassment. Why do some people feel ENTITLED to roar “Nice legs!” at a girl walking home from college? I saw this tonight.

16. sebhar Saturday night I walked home with my dad. Bros in car yelled “show us your tits!” …um, no, and please crash into a tree. #streetharassment

17. ShelbyGoodwin @saigrundy I want ppl 2kno those stereotypes fuel anti-Black woman street harassment, outright assault, rape, murder AND no justice

18. jennydevildoll La La Land comic -street harassment, Space Invaders, & The Ex: http://t.co/pIc0Y5q

19. chloemasongray iPhone and Mexico cell phone stolen on the metro yesterday. 5 minutes later someone grabbed my a** really hard. I hate street harassment.

20. kimhorne Ugh. Potentially innocent comments make me insecure. Actual #streetHarassment makes me a wreck. #notFitForOutsideLife

Street harassment at Tahrir Square during May 27 protest

May 29, 2011 By HKearl

Stop Street Harassment ally Ahmed Awadalla has an important post at his blog Rebel with a Cause about the street harassment of a famous Egyptian actress during the May 27 protest in Tahrir Square.

“Yesterday was an important day for the revolution. Protesters took Tahrir square again to assert revolution’s demands. Islamists groups decided not to participate yesterday so it was a test for liberal and secular groups to organize in the streets. It was considered a success given the thousands that showed up, but it was marred by a horrible incident of sexual harassment of the famous diva Sherihan.

Sherihan was an actress and performer loved by Egyptians particularly during the 80s and 90s. She suffered a severe car accident in mid-90s and it was rumored that it was a chapter of love and power saga that involved Alaa the elder son of Mubarak. She magically recovered and came back to the stage, only to suffer cancer a few years later and move away from the artistic scene. Sherihan was one of the few artists who participated in the revolution unlike many artists who withdrew from making a political stance.

My mother told me that this sad video was screened on TV that shows the horrible incident. The setting around her doesn’t look like Tahrir, some reported that this happened as she was leaving Tahrir yesterday.

What really angers me is the lack of attention such incident got and some of the horrible comments of victim-blame that I always hear when sexual harassment is brought up. Some wonder why she went out of her home! It makes me wonder how deep the denialism about gender inequality is in our country. Even activists refrain from mentioning the incident. Is it because they didn’t know? Or is it an attempt to maintain the silver-lining of the revolution? Is not really important to talk about now? Or is it deep-hidden patriarchy?

But the answer won’t be simple and many factors come at play here. What if this happened to one of the famous activists of the revolution? Does the revolution have an authoritarian system that controls who is important and who’s not? What if the victim of mass harassment was an unknown person? Would it get reported at all?

When Lara Logan was sexually assaulted in Tahrir right after Mubarak was toppled, Western media was all over covering her story. Western coverage was very uneven as well with some victim blaming and Islam bashing too. But Egyptian media failed to report on it. Is it because we deny sexual harassment? Is it because she’s a foreigner? Or we were simply overjoyed by Mubarak’s departure?

In gender battles, other factors interfere such as race, age, class, and power. I think we really need to think about these questions and recognize our prejudices. This is how we push the revolution forward.”

Woman is believed, her sexual assaulter is sentenced to prison

May 29, 2011 By HKearl

Luis Enrique Sossa Maltese, a 39-year-old carpenter, was recently sentenced to four years and six months in prison for groping a 25-year-old woman near Central Park and the Plaza of Social Guarantees in San Jose, Costa Rica. First he groped her butt and crotch and then he came back around and made an upskirt grab!

The survivor of this sexual assault came forward, she said, to seek justice and the ability to to walk through the streets without fearing he will assault her again. Fortunately, the judge said he believed her, and the man will be in jail for a while. Hopefully his arrest will deter would-be gropers and sexual assaulters from harming other women.

Turkish Mayor tells women if they want to be safe, stay home

May 29, 2011 By HKearl

I think that Turkish Mayor Necmittin Dede must hang out with the Toronto police officer who said that if women stopped dressing like sluts they wouldn’t face sexual assault (his comment led to the global SlutWalk movement, starting with SlutWalk Toronto in April). They must sit around brainstorming flawed, offensive, and misogynistic public statements they can make to stir up trouble and keep women’s rights activists up at night.

From Hürriyet Daily News:

“Women complaining about sexual harassment on the streets of the eastern province of Muş should deal with the problem by simply staying at home, the province’s mayor has said.

Do not walk around, sit in your homes,” 71-year-old Justice and Development Party, or AKP, Mayor Necmittin Dede recently told Muş representatives of the Women’s Center, or KAMER, when they told authorities that high employment in the city had resulted in men spilling out of the overcrowded teahouses in the area to verbally harass female passersby.”

Not only is this statement truly ludicrous for its impracticality and pointless for placing the onus on women to try to stay safe from men on the streets instead of placing the onus on men on the streets to treat women with respect, but it’s also ironic. The women asking for help in addressing street harassment actually work at a domestic violence shelter! They of all people know that, thanks to domestic violence, homes can be as, if not more, dangerous for women than the streets.

From the domestic violence shelter workers:

“We have appealed to the authorities time and time again, yet they do not allow us into the schools to conduct training sessions about women. So we visit households instead. We conducted surveys in 700 households until now that show the rate of domestic violence stands around 70 percent,” said Necmiye Boz of KAMER.

Muş municipality does maintain a women’s shelter in the area – although the building is prominently identified by a large sign, allowing potential attackers to find women seeking refuge in the building.

A total of six honor killings have been committed in the province over the past two months although some of the deaths have been passed off as suicides, according to Boz and another KAMER representative, Ayşegül Söylemez.”

Outrageous. What will it take before the mayor and others care that domestic violence AND street harassment are prevalent (and inter-related)? A 100% rate instead of a 70% rate? Maybe not even then; with those high statistics, the probability suggests the mayor could be one of those abusers so why would he care about stopping it?

The silver lining in the story is that the police seem to care.

“Among state authorities, local police have led the way in trying to combat domestic violence, releasing preparing a report titled “Survey Report on Cases of Domestic Violence.” Law enforcement officers have also rented billboards to create awareness about the problems facing women. One such billboard features the portrait of a happy family, with text underneath saying, “Not everything is what it seems.”

KAMER was officially founded in 1997 and continued to grow and strengthen itself in the following years. At the moment, the group is trying to expand its activities in 23 provinces of eastern and southeastern Anatolia to more districts, villages and remote areas.

Since 1984, thousands of women have joined the group, which advocates for and extends aid to victims who face attack, arrest, torture and even death around Turkey.

The group also aims to provide analysis on the people who are convicted of beating, stabbing or raping women.”

Police and women of KAMER, keep up your important work. Even though you face resistance at home, you’ve got a lot of support around the world.

Harassment on Islamabad transportation is “rife”

May 28, 2011 By HKearl

Let’s add another city to the list of places where a study shows harassment on public transportation is a big problem, shall we? It’s Islamabad, Pakistan.

The Social Research and Development Organisation (SRDO) surveyed 75 women commuters in Islamabad, aged 19 to 45, to find out more about women’s experiences with sexual harassment during their commute, particularly on “public transport wagons and buses.”

In the survey, the women “disclosed that inappropriate touching, making sexual comments and staring by male passengers is overwhelmingly rife. The respondents, however, made it clear that the incidents of harassment are far lesser in rickshaws and taxis.”

Via The International News:

“Farhana Hussain, a women rights activist, said, ‘We should not see the issue, harassment of women in public transport, in isolation as it is an open fact that harassment and violence against women inside four walls and on the streets is just one feature of our male dominated structure that always put blame on victims instead of helping them.’

She said successive governments have taken very positive steps and introduced specific legislation to curb violence and harassment against women in houses, at workplace and in public transport, but its implementation mechanism has made it difficult to provide any relief. A large majority of respondents, 59 per cent, informed that insufficient space for women passengers in buses and wagons is a major problem for them.

A nineteen-year girl student told the survey team that due to repeated incidents of harassment at the bus, she and her friend have started commuting in rickshaw. ‘Though travelling in rickshaw is quite expensive for us, we feel quite secure in it,’ she said, adding, ‘In my opinion the government should introduce women-only buses in big cities to tackle the issue of harassment of women passengers. ”

Women-only public transportation can provide much needed relief for women facing frequent harassment, but it doesn’t challenge or end the harassment! The harassment continues elsewhere. For example, in a recent study of more than 200 youth in Gujranwala, Pakistan, 96 percent of the girls experienced street harassment. So, do we need women-only streets, too?! No, we need comprehensive and multi-layered action to address and end the pervasiveness of public harassment.

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