Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Archives for June 2011

Harassment on the sidewalks in Providence, Rhode Island

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I try to run regularly in order to stay in shape. I live in a small city, an urban neighborhood. Especially in the summer, I routinely experience men honking their car horns at me, whistling, or making suggestive comments (“Hey baby” etc).

Two instances stick out: one where a man hung out of his car window, slowed down, and licked his lips at me in a clearly lascivious way, laughing.

The second was during the late winter. I was covered head to toe in multiple layers. Not only did I receive inappropriate remarks on the sidewalk, but a teenager actually yelled from *a school bus*.

Attention such as this does not make me feel desirable. I do not feel proud of my body or my looks. When these things happen I feel insulted, disrespected, and profoundly violated albeit an invisible, spiritual way.

– Anonymous

Location: Sidewalks in Providence, RI

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Men who victim-blame women are more likely to be harassers

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Researchers at the University of Tennessee, Martin, found that men who blame women for being sexually harassed are more likely to be harassers themselves.

As we in the anti-street harassment movement are all too familiar with, the study found that the victim-blaming usually focused on what the person was wearing and what they were doing.

So how was the research conducted?

The researchers of the study wanted to test a theory called “defensive attribution” which suggests that people will try to protect themselves from blame in a given situation. Using this theory, the researched hypothesized that victim-blaming men would be the ones who were most likely actual or potential harassers.

To test the theory, researchers asked 119 college men, ranging in age from 18 to 28, to take a survey measuring how likely men are to sexually harass women.

Via Live Science:

“The survey doesn’t ask men directly whether they harass women, but rather asks about attitudes associated with harassment, such as whether women use sex to their advantage or are flattered by sexual advances…

Next, the men read eight short vignettes about instances of sexual harassment. In one, a male restaurant server tells his female coworker that her tips would be higher if she’d show more skin. The study participants were then asked how likely it was that they would be in the shoes of the man in each vignette and how much the fictional men and their victims were to blame for the harassment.

Unsurprisingly, the men with a high proclivity toward sexual harassment, as rated from the initial survey, said they felt more similar to the fictional harassers. They were also less likely to blame the harasser for his behaviors and more likely to blame the victim, [fitting with the self-protection theory].

The men’s attitude seemed to be, ‘I might do that kind of thing and I don’t want to get in trouble.'”

The researchers noted that their study only focused on college-aged men and focused on sexual harassment in a workplace setting, so more research is necessary.

But it doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to think that men who are okay with engaging in sexual harassment in the workplace (and blame women for it) would act the same way about sexual harassment of women in public places (street harassment).

As study researcher Colin Key said,

“The current research should provide some comfort — and an early warning — to women who have been sexually harassed and encountered victim-blaming….[They can think], As a woman, when I get blamed, maybe I shouldn’t give a crap about what that guy thinks because maybe he’s the kind of guy who would do this to me, too.”

So remember that – if someone blames you for the harassment based on what they’re wearing, there’s a good chance they’re a harasser or would-be harasser or a harasser-sympathizer! So call them out on it.

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“He just couldn’t believe he hadn’t gotten away with it”

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This is cross-posted from Kate Spencer’s Tumblr. She’s a Sr. Editor at VH1 where she writes for TheFabLife.com and VH1.com.

“I’m writing this on the R train as it rattles slowly along toward Brooklyn. I’m headed to pick up my 6-month-old daughter. I’m writing because I’m still reeling from what occurred on the Times Square subway platform a few moments ago. I was walking to the end of the station as I always do. I saw a man, a stout, balding, nondescript looking troll, staring at me as I walked toward him. I watched as he slowly extended his arm and fingers, in particular his pinky finger, so it would make contact with me as I walked by. I’m wearing a skirt. It all happened quickly, in seconds, as these things always do, and sure enough as I passed him his hand jutted out and stroked my thigh. Without thinking I turned around and hit him as hard as I possibly could. I didn’t even stop walking, nor did I say anything. I did turn around to look at him as I hit him, and his face was one of shock but not of surprise. He knew why I had hit him; he just couldn’t believe he hadn’t gotten away with it.

Ive been sexually harassed so many times since my adolescence that I’ve lost count, but I’ve never reacted like that before. Normally I think, process, choose my words. There was no brain power that went into the decision to smack this asshole; it was pure instinct. As I headed away from him I immediately regretted not verbalizing my anger and yelling at him too, but I imagine that choice was instinctive as well. Besides, I think he got the message.

I am not someone who condones violence. But I’m so tired of my safety and personal space being invaded over and over again. I am a 32-year-old woman. I am a mother. I am not someone you can fondle without my consent because you feel like it, nor is any other girl or woman. Not my friends. Not my daughter.

When I’ve explained sexual harassment to men in the past I’ve been struck at their confusion over why it is a big deal. How is someone whistling at you threatening, they ask? Here is what they don’t understand. Those moments, which may seem insignificant and small, create an unsafe environment in which women are forced to live. Last month, after I yelled at some men in a car who made kissing noises at me, I was terrified to then walk down a quiet downtown street out of fear that they’d circle around in their car and hurt me. These moments force us to operate in a state of fear. They define who is in control and who can have their control taken away. And I’m so fucking tired of it that I’m starting to snap. I’m now hitting people. Because as much as I want to believe my daughter will not have to live with this same fear 10, 20, 30 years from now, I know that she will. And nothing makes me more sick to my stomach.”

Here is her follow-up post:

“I have no idea how this happened, but the post I wrote about hitting the man who sexually harassed me on the subway tonight has somehow ended up with 2500+ notes on Tumblr. I’m completely floored by the emails, messages and comments of support you people are sending. Thank you. And to all of you who are responding with your own stories, I thank you for sharing. It is clear we are not alone. Don’t be afraid to fight back.

I’ve gotten some questions about what happened and I will do my best to respond, but one I did want to answer was if this kind of thing happens a lot in New York. This kind of thing happens a lot EVERYWHERE. This is not a New York problem, it is a human problem, a societal problem. Most of my interactions with the people of this city have been nothing short of amazing in the ten years that I’ve lived here.”

(Thanks to my sister, a New Yorker, for the heads up.)

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I’ve Got Your Back Campaign

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Hollaback is working to launch an important bystander campaign called “I’ve Got Your Back.”

It’s important because we need more bystanders taking action to prevent and stop street harassment. Too often when street harassment occurs, there are plenty of people who see it but don’t do anything. It can feel like an added slap in the face to the person facing harassment and it sets a societal message that the harassing behavior is okay. Also, often the person facing harassment may feel too unsafe to stand up to the harasser, but if s/he knew bystanders would help, s/he may feel safer and more empowered.

The proposed campaign has three parts:

1. In collaboration with the Green Dot Campaign, when bystanders submit stories, there will be green dots to signify those stories.

2. Click on the “we’ve got your back” button (just like you click on a facebook “like” button) and at the end of the day the person who was harassed will get an email saying that hundreds people have their back.  And they will know they aren’t alone.

3.  In partnership with Nancy Schwartzman, director of The Line, they’ll create a short documentary that profiles a young man who tries to stand up for his friends when they are harassed. With the Hollabacks in Buenos Aires, Mumbia, Atlanta they’ll develop interactive workshops to go with it.

Consider donating to Hollaback to help make the campaign happen.

 

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Street harassment and the Beauty Myth

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Noami Wolf is a preeminent figure in debunking society’s convenient truths. In The Beauty Myth she explores the relationship between the rise of beauty products and gains of the women’s movement in society. While street harassment has always been an issue, I think the way we perceive beauty has a powerful effect on the mindset behind it. This is a great resource for male allies who wish to understand the burden and pain placed on women by the corporate beauty industry.

Women put up with beauty critiques in the workplace and then walk home to cat calling at the end of the day. In the stores they are greeted with beauty pornography all around them. It transmits the following value: to be beautiful is to be liked.

Naomi Wolf summarizes this as “….’beauty’ is defined as that which never says no, and that which is not really human…’”

This encourages the behavior of men to treat women in public spaces as objects to be critiqued and scored. If women react to this kind of treatment in a negative way they are “bitches” or “difficult.” They failed the inhuman test.

Wolf goes on to say that “he gains something: the esteem of other men who find such an acquisition impressive.” Men will often sit on the sidelines or cheer their friends on when committing street harassment.

Beauty does not always translate into attraction. Wolf describes attraction as a deeper value that involves elements of people’s personality, desires, and interests. Beauty is purely visual. A main theme of the book is how advertisers manipulate women into being insecure consumers of beauty products, creating a visual distance between men and women. Men start to view women as “the other” and treat them as such. A cat call on the street sets up a boundary of the” looker” and the “looked.”

Wolf gives a charge to her readers: to grow up free of these boundaries and unite in sexual understanding.  Male allies can work to “grow up free” by rejecting the stereotypes of their own gender and to stand up against dehumanizing acts that the beauty myth perpetuates.

– Sean Crosbie

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.

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