Archives for 2011

BEST launches ladies special buses

May 22, 2011 By HKearl

After surveying passengers who take the BEST (Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport) buses in Mumbai and surrounding areas in India, BEST is launching women-only “ladies special” buses during rush hour on four routes to try to cut down on the harassment women passengers experience while riding the bus.

Via Mid-Day.com:

“Sunil Shinde, chairman, BEST, said, “We will commence four ladies special buses on the four most crowded routes in the city from June 1. This is a good initiative, welcomed by most. And putting an old tried-but-failed idea to practice again, the undertaking, which caters to 42 lakh passengers every day also plans to bring back women conductors aboard these buses….

We receive a lot of complaints on a regular basis about male passengers misbehaving with women,” said a senior BEST official on the condition of anonymity.

After having initially flirted with the idea of female conductors in 1998 it was even implemented for a short window of time but the transport body did away with it following harassment complaints by conductors the body is planning to resurrect it.

“But this time, the female conductors will be assigned to ladies special buses only. Women conductors earlier pressed into service had complained of eve-teasing and lewd comments from male passengers. After their request, we divested them of the onboard job of the conductor,” added the official.”

The routes and timings of the four buses are:
Route No 169: Worli Village to Plaza Cinema (Dadar) 0845 am
Route No 55: Lower Parel station to Kurle Chowk (Worli) 0850 am
Route No 154: Mahalaxmi station to Nehru Planetarium (Worli) 0905 am
Route No 343: Goregaon east to Nagari Nivara Parishad (Goregaon) 0925 am”

As always when a country starts women-only buses or trains, I wonder why they don’t do more to address the root problems rather than segregating women in a band-aid solution fashion, and, if they did want segregation to be the solution, why they don’t offer the service comprehensively so that all women can use it.

Windy day harassment

May 21, 2011 By Contributor

I was walking up to my boyfriend’s house. I was wearing a dress which actually suited me 🙂 but it was a little breezy and my dress kept blowing up a bit. I tried to hold it down. I had a few leers from men but what annoyed me the most was when a van honked at me just as my dress blow up again. Perv.

– Clarice

Location: North Cornelly, Wales

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.

Why isn’t street harassment seen as antisocial behavior?

May 21, 2011 By HKearl

The Irish Times has a good article about sexual harassment and sexual violence, leading with the story about Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, who was arrested and charged with the attempted rape of a hotel employee.

“All sexual violence is an abuse of power. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the head of an internationally renowned body or the most popular guy at your local bar,” says Cliona Saidlear of Rape Crisis Network Ireland. Saidlear is responding to a story that made international headlines this week when Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who had been staying at the Sofitel hotel in Manhattan last week as the head of the International Monetary Fund, was arrested and charged with the attempted rape of a hotel employee who had gone to clean his room. That Strauss-Kahn, who resigned from the IMF on Wednesday, was such a powerful and influential man has meant the fallout from the alleged attack is being analysed all over the world.”

The article includes several stories that women submitted to the blog Harassment Monologues and there was even one about street harassment:

“She describes being yelled at by construction workers who went on to launch a sexually explicit verbal attack. “I was very shocked, and I reacted by striking an aggressive stance, locking eye contact and shouting, ‘You f***ing sick monster!’ I then told my mother about the incident, and she couldn’t understand why I was so angry. I was angry because I was shocked and felt violated. In any other context, roaring at someone in the street and giving them a shock is called harassment or antisocial behaviour. But for some reason, when it’s in the context of male sexual behaviour towards a female, it’s totally okay. It makes me sick.”

How true. And really, how true of all gender-based sexual harassment/sexual assault. Treating women like shit is okay all over the world and that’s got to end. We’ve got to keep speaking out to counter that attitudes and belief.

The explosion of news stories and dialogue that’s occurred this week around the Strauss-Kahn alleged attempted rape and the way it is shedding light on sexual abuse by powerful people only happened because his alleged victim spoke out and reported it. While we may not each get that kind of worldwide response when we speak out, unless our harassers/abuser is similarly very powerful, we can still make a difference and help create incremental change by telling our stories, reporting illegal abuse, and believing others who speak out.

“Sexy” one minute, “Bitch” the next

May 20, 2011 By Contributor

I was walking down the street and a man driving passed, slowed down and started yelling, ” Hey Sexy, Hey Sexy hey sexy, come here let me talk to you.”

I showed no interest and started walking faster. He then sped up and drove around the corner and came back around and yelled out the window, “Bitch!”

– Anonymous

Location: Detroit, Michigan

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.

“Ignoring harassers will now be known as the Charlie Chaplin”

May 19, 2011 By Contributor

Yesterday was my last day at a job (that I loved) doing sexual assault and victim advocacy in the Washington, DC area. It was already a rough day because I really love the work that I do, but I am relocating and am planning on taking a break from that particular brand of advocacy because it starts to take its toll on you after a while. To celebrate/distract me from being upset, I had gone out to dinner with two good friends, and we got a couple of drinks afterwards.

I say goodbye to one friend headed in the opposite direction, and the other friend & I head back towards Virginia. We were fortunate to catch the last Orange line train towards Vienna, and my friend got off at Farragut West and knocked on the window after she exited so she can wave bye to me one last time. There were about 10-15 other people within hearing/viewing distance who smiled & laughed (because let’s admit it’s that’s not something you see every day). I said, “Well, that’s my friend for ya!” And folks nicely smiled, except for the guy sitting across the aisle from me who said, “That was funny. What’s your name?” I responded with a name, a fake one albeit, and he tells me his. He’s maybe about my height 5’6″ and looks mid to late twenties. I was texting on my phone and he says a few more things to me, and adds, “You look so serious.”

At this point, I knew he was going to just keep talking to me, so I politely turned to him and said, “I’m sorry, I’m just not interested in talking right now.”

Well, apparently he hadn’t learned to deal with minor rejection because he started muttering stupid stuff underneath his breath like, “Well I didn’t want to talk to you anyway.”

He continued reading his book and laughed out loud to himself. Then he got slightly louder so that pretty much everyone around him could hear, including me. He started calling me a crazy bitch, delirious in thinking I’m sexy, and that I needed to chill out and just go home, and other unstable ramblings.

None of it he ever actually said directly to me, but he was clearly talking about me. It continued to escalate and I began to feel extremely uncomfortable and I started to scope out other seats in the car I can move to. Pretty much everyone sitting ahead of me was avoiding making eye contact with me. We approached the Courthouse stop and I reached for my purse to move, and he said, “Oh fuck, you better not be getting off at my stop” and curses some more. I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

After he exited, people were looking in my general direction, and I said, “Oh thank god.”

The young woman sitting behind where the harasser had been talked about how she couldn’t believe what he was saying and that he was way out of line. Another woman across the car leaned over to look at me as if to make sure I’m okay, and she smiled at me. Two young guys sitting two rows behind me spoke up and said that they couldn’t believe it and didn’t know what was wrong with that guy. They told me that if anything else had happened, they “had my back” and I told them I appreciated that, that it’s nice to know that there are people out who are willing to be helpful because women get harassed all the damn time and it’s terrifying.

And while I meant every word I said, I couldn’t help but think back to the job I had just finished that day and how we talk about bystander intervention. My fear would have been so much less, heck, I would’ve been far less mortified if they had just spoken up, said anything while it was going on. But, I know all the reasons people don’t intervene, and I can’t fault them for not wanting to put themselves in the middle of an escalating interaction. I was so rattled by the experience, that I decided to catch a taxi for the half mile between the metro and my apartment. After the driver remarked that it was a short distance (not complaining), I explained that there had been some creep on the metro so it just made me feel better, and he nodded his head in understanding, as if he had heard that story before.

The only humor we were able to find in all of this was that, as the harasser left, he said to me, “See ya later, Charlie Fucking Chaplin.”

The two guys behind me and I talked about what he possibly meant with that. Finally, the only logical reason I could come up with was that I had given him the silent treatment! Now I know that’s ridiculous, but it sure gave me a good laugh. I propose we start coming up with catchy nicknames to street harassment responses. To start, ignoring harassers will now be known as the Charlie Chaplin. 🙂

– Emily R.

Location: Orange line train to Vienna, Washington, DC

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.

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