Reflecting on the number of people and organizations that worked hard to address and end street harassment is inspiring. This end-of-year list is longer than last year’s list, and that’s a very good thing. Given the length, it’s divided into four posts.
Post 1: Significant successes overall and 8 SSH successes.
Post 2: New anti-street harassment campaigns.
Post 3 (this post): New creative anti-street harassment initiatives.
Post 4: People who stood up to harassers.
Creative Initiatives:
These are 22 of the actions that individuals or small groups of people took to creatively address street harassment.
1. Artist Meredith Gran made a comic strip called White Winter Catcall
2. For a school assignment at University of Southern California, graduate student Lani Shotlow Rincon created an action plan and campaign to address street harassment comprehensively in the USC campus area. One component includes a “Hello My Name Is Not Hey Baby” graphic.
3. Designer Answer Ejiasi created this graphic for a design class project when she was a student at the University of Iowa.
4. The Catcaller Form was created by The Riot’s Great Big Patriarchy-Smashing Activity Book! and published on The Riot.
5. Autumn, a fourteen-year old trans woman and feminist who lives in New Jersey created an anti-street harassment flier project.
6. Niz (@NotASquib), a 21-year-old British university student studying French wrote a poem about street harassment called Simplified.
7. Hannah Price took photos of some of her street harassers and they were included in an exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
8. Sydnie Mosely’s created The Window Sex Project, a dance performance which addresses and tackles how women are “window shopped,” or forced to hear unsolicited harassment from men in the streets. The Window Sex Project restores agency to women by celebrating their bodies in a public artwork informed by members of the Harlem community, for the Harlem community.
9. Artist Collective Seeking Kali created The Medusa Gaze Project to rage against street harassment of women. They collected stories and videos of women expressing their reproval and their determination not to be intimidated with their “Medusa Gaze.”
10. Several college students wrote op-eds on street harassment, including Brittany Patterson,“Catcalling should not be acceptable in our society,” for the Spartan Daily; Kate Ryrie, “Street Harassment – The Daily Battle,” for The University of Leeds’ paper; and Tyler Brown, “Catcalling obnoxious, harmful to both genders,” for the Kansas State Collegian.
11. Kuber Sharma and the rest of the team at Must Bol held a flash mob on the Delhi subway in India to raise awareness about the sexual harassment that occurs there. They also created a companion “Mend the Gap” petition and “Men Who Say No” Blogathon.
12. Two Tumblrs launched to address street harassment. How Many Women Find Street Harassment Flattering? Tumblr posts street harassment story submissions and Street Harassment Tumblr “is just a running commentary on the normal street harassment that [the author] experience day to day.”
13. Filmmaker Pascale Neuschäfer in Cape Town, South Africa, created a short film about street harassment.
14. The Safe Horizon Safe Harbor Student Leaders in New York City (USA) spoke about their right to feel safe on the streets.
15. The Migrant Workers Task Force created a video about street harassment in Beirut, Lebanon.
16. Volunteers from Initi8 at Nottingham Trent University (UK) researched, designed, scripted, filmed, directed and edited a short film about street harassment.
17. Safiya Washington and Kai Davis of the Philly Youth Poetry Movement performed their poem “Stares” in Philadelphia (USA)
18. Must bol in India is a call to young people to examine violence in their lives and speak out against it and this year they produced two anti-street harassment videos. 1 | 2
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19. Kara Lieff, a sophomore studying Film & Media Arts and Women’s Studies at Temple University (USA), created a PSA about street harassment for a class project.
20. High school students at the Little Red School House & Elisabeth Irwin High School (LREI) in New York City, created video PSA about street harassment.
21. Funny-lady Lucé Tomlin-Brenner does a great comedy set on street harassment in New York City (USA).
22. Washington, DC-based (USA) writer Soraya Chemlay created a 2-minute cartoon about street harassment.
Beckie says
I love seeing our anger used to create beauty, film art, cartoons songs. Go artists!