Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming
Small children yell at me for being a long haired male whenever I leave the house.
– Anonymous
Location: Bridgeport, PA
Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Find suggestions for what YOU can do about this human rights issue.
A lot of black women feel as if Italy is a place where their “beauty is celebrated.” Unfortunately, there are a lot of prostitutes in Italy who are women of color from Brazil and Nigeria. That said, living here can be uncomfortable.
The mention of street harassment conjures up many different experiences.
I remember when I first arrived, I refused to go to the store alone after always having men slow down in passing cars.
I remember walking out of my house and having a group of Italian females in a passing car, make a “fellatio” gesture in an attempt to taunt me because they assumed I was a prostitute- based on brown skin alone.
Two days after the birth of my child, I was released from the hospital but my child needed clearance from the doctors. I returned to the hospital. I was wearing my husband’s Adidas warm up suit with my hair in a bun. As I walked, I heard someone whistling as if whistling for a dog. It was an old 60 something year old wrinkled man, trying to get my attention.
I could go on, but such is life for me everyday. It’s a beautiful country but there is no peace when you are a woman of color. That is, if they don’t know that you are American. If they look at you and think you are any other type of woman of color, the assumption is that you are “working’ the streets.
– Anonymous
Location: Italy
Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Find suggestions for what YOU can do about this human rights issue.
In 2009 I made the mistake of walking down the street past the local TAB. A drunk guy standing outside decided that I, in my school uniform, must simply be there because I wanted his attention. He followed me down the street and across a set of traffic lights, talking at me. When I ignored him, he started getting angry. At that point I ran into the office of the local Member for Parliament, where I’d done work experience a few months before. Unfortunately, the man was between me and the door. I had to get past him in order to get in. Luckily he didn’t try to grab me.
I waited inside for about ten minutes for the guy to go away. During that time a woman came in because she’d been driving down the street and had seen what had happened, and wanted to make sure I was ok. She also wanted to call the police, but I wouldn’t let her or the person on duty in the MP’s office do so, because I felt like it would be a waste of police time. After all, what could they really charge him with?
– Anonymous
Location: Midland, Perth
Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Find suggestions for what YOU can do about this human rights issue.
Sex-based male domination in the United States has been present since it’s foundation. It is a relationship that is based on economics and power: economics because women have and still do make less money than men, and many are dependent upon men for their survival; power because in relation to women, many men exercise their will (whether consciously or unconsciously) over women.
We live in a society in which sexually excessive staring, offensive language, inappropriate bodily contact, and objectification/oppression (even economically) is culturally acceptable. We live in a society that professes life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for its citizens, but women (like many social groups) are systematically and routinely denied these values, these opportunities, these rights to live a life of their choosing.
If we analyze the concept of power as the exercising of ones will over others, we can see that male domination, and the subjection of women is something that is socially constructed at birth. Possibly even pre-birth. We will be able to see that overall women are socialized to think and behave in a way that benefits those with power (men). On the other hand, overall men are socialized to treat women as an object, as something that is void of human emotions. Thus this type of relationship creates an invisible social gap between the sexes.
Before the birth of a child, parents who know the sex of their baby purchase items that create gender roles i.e. pink clothing and dolls for girls, and blue clothing and toys like fire trucks, police cars, or construction style items. Gender roles are reinforced through the use of media images that portray males as being strong, aggressive, and successful. Opposite are images that portray females as being passive, quiet, and dependent on a knight in shining armor to save her. I would even argue that under a capitalist society which is geared to make money, gender roles are created even more systematically in the areas education, peer interaction, and modern communication technology. All of these examples plays into a system that leave women in a state of subjection. This is a social construct of with men having power over women.
Such images, musical lyrics, toys, and even parenting skills creates a social system i.e. sexism that enforces this system, subjects women to slave/dependent social status, and separates men and women from having positive social interactions, and long healthy relationships. An in depth analysis of sexism is required to understand and combat this social problem that has left women behind for centuries, and while I am not providing techniques to address this issue, I am telling men that we are responsible for what happens. We are to put in more effort to tackle the issue of sexism because we come from that position of power, and have more access to change in this system. We owe it to women to address this issue wherever it comes from because without women, we would not be here. It is women that has given us life. Not the other way around.
In conclusion, Audre Lorde once wrote, “The master’s tools will never be used to dismantle the master’s house.” Frederick Douglass wrote, “Power concedes nothing without demands. It never has, and it never will.” I argue that this is the mentality of a fatalist. A person who does not believe that a better tomorrow is possible. If Gandhi, Nehru, and the people involved in India’s independence under British rule believed this they may have still be under British rule. If the abolitionists of the U.S. possessed this mindset I might have been a slave. If the many people throughout humankind’s history thought like this many people of different societies may have been in worse situations than what we are currently faced with. The master’s house can be dismantled with his/her own tools, and power can concede without demand. It is up to both men and women to believe. If you do not believe in love, justice, equality, liberty, and freedom for all people, and in terms of sexism, the oppressive regime will continue.
– Christopher Smith
This post is part of the weekly blog series by male allies. We need men involved in the work to end the social acceptability of street harassment and to stop the practice, period. If you’d like to contribute to this weekly series, please contact me.
An anti-sexual harassment bill focused specifically on groping in public places was introduced in the Chilean parliament last month.
Stop Street Harassment ally Blanca Caldas kindly translated the Spanish language BBC Mundo article that covered the story. Here are a few excerpts and you can also watch a short video clip about it on the BBC.
“This measure, supported by Women National Service (in Spanish SERNAM), tries to fill the legal gap that typifies such acts as petty crimes and it also seeks a cultural change that encourages women to speak up and others to help. “Abuse and groping in public spaces has a high occurrence in our country but only 17% of the women report it to the police. Young women get scared, don’t know what to do so they don’t do anything,” said Carolina Schmidt, SERNAM minister….
One of the supporters of this bill is Alejandra Sepulveda from the Independents’ Regionalist Party (PRI), who proposed that one of the main objectives be to highlight what is invisible most of the time. ‘What is relevant nowadays is that such behavior, from which 95% of women are affected especially among young women and teenagers, is no longer invisible since fines, jail sentences and a registry of such conduct,’ Sepulveda pointed out.
In countries such as Mexico and Brazil there is a separation system in the Metro, with women only wagons in rush hour. In Mexico, where street harassment is punished with a 2 to 7 year prison sentence, this measure helped in the decrease of 75% of cases in the last three years….
‘I think this would set an example if we pass this bill in which street harassment is considered a crime. It will help men and women coexist in a dignified, educated way without separation,’ declared Schmidt.
Nowadays in Chile, the fine for street harassment is between $60 to $320.”
Because a lot more discussion is necessary to refine the language of the bill, parliament representatives and government officials expect the bill won’t pass before the end of the year or early 2012.
This is the first I’d heard about the bill or efforts to curb street harassment, particularly groping, in Chile. I’m glad the government is paying attention to this crime. While doing a little bit more research, I found out that in 2007, then president of Chile Michelle Bachelet – who now heads UN Women – proposed a series of penalties for gropers on public transportation. I’m not sure if they passed, or maybe that’s what created the $60 – $320 fines.
I wonder if people will use the law, if/once it passes. Groping people on the subway in Japan is a big problem and it has the penalty of several years in jail, but few women report the groping, in part because of the long jail sentence. I like the idea of a fine, but jail time, at least one of several years, may be seen as too extreme or severe for people to actually use. So they need to find the line where the law is one that people feel comfortable and able to use but also one with a stiff enough penalty that it deters people from groping.
Thoughts?