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Archives for 2011

In Korea, 25 percent of women face harassment on public transportation while commuting

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From the Korea Times:

“A survey showed that one out of four women who commute using public transportation have experienced sexual harassment, Wednesday.

The survey of 1,500 men and women by the Korea Transport Institute and the Korean Women’s Development Institute also found out that almost half of the female respondents were scared of being harassed or experiencing violent driving when in a taxi.

Men and women showed different results when asked about inconveniences when using subways, buses or taxis.

About 26 percent of the women said they experienced sexual harassment on buses and 21 percent on the subway, compared to 2.3 percent and 2.4 percent of men respectively.

About 52 percent of the female respondents considered taxis as the dangerous means of transportation, citing reasons such as crimes including kidnapping and sexual assaults (31 percent) and violent driving (16 percent).

The institute pointed out the needs of countermeasures regarding harassment, such as reintroducing the women-only subway cars. It also suggested ideas to prevent violence in taxis, including introducing women-only taxis.”

Really? Their only idea for dealing with the high rate of commuter harassment on public transportation is women-only subway cars and taxis?! Arg.

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Not just a sec

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One-second.

It probably took you one second to read that.  Which may be why I think one-second isn’t usually considered a long time.  It’s been ingrained so deeply in me that one-second isn’t a long time. I mean, my whole life I’ve used one-second to communicate that I would be available immediately.  When I’m on my way out the door,

“Ben, it’s time to go!”

“One-second!”

But, that’s how it has worked in my private life. Out in public, feminism has got me reconsidering how long one-second really is.  I just need a minute to explain.

To all the single folks out here, I’m not sure if you can relate to this, but do you ever have one of those moments where you end up seeing somebody who is just so dang beautiful? So amazing it kinda hurts, right? Like, “wow, that person is way out of my league.”

*Lonely sigh*

Even though I really don’t believe in the whole “league” system and I’m more of a beauty is deeper than the skin kinda guy, I end up having those moments.

But, what about those moments that last a little longer than one second? Have you ever had or noticed somebody having one of those? Maybe a couple seconds, maybe a head turn, or maybe staring.  These are the moments that feminism asks us to recognize as problematic. Feminism asks us to unravel the thread of events leading up to this and diagnose how this ends up happening. Not so surprisingly, a sex, gender, sexuality analysis ends up doing the trick.

I try to speak from my own perspective. So, I’m writing this article as a cisgender man with heterosexual privilege.  I’ve been trained to feel preeeeetty comfortable taking up a lot of space.  I’ve also been taught that “normal” sexuality for me is to be voyeuristic. Put these two together and I’m taught to stare. Which is a tidier way of being honest; it’s ogling. In a heterosexual context, I’m told women are mere objects for me to enjoy.  So, I’ve been trained to look at women. I mean LOOK. So then these seconds that last a little longer are considered ok.* I’m taught that if I’m noticed, look away. Furthermore, if I suspect they’ve turned the other direction, even slightly, then the coast is clear.

But, the coast clearly isn’t. Over time, I’ve been blessed to have been exposed to blogs like this, organizations like hollaback!, Men Can Stop Rape, and countless others that say “waaaait a minute, what you’re asked to do has serious negative repercussions”. I sincerely thank them. These organizations have given me the analysis to realize that the one-second difference between one-second and two seconds can be huge. It can be the difference in somebody’s comfort, it can be the difference in somebody wanting to go with out sunglasses on a cloudy day or having to wear them to look uninviting. It can be the difference between the fastest route home, or, the longer route to avoid more attention. Or maybe it’s the difference between somebody keeping their head up or looking at their feet.  No matter what the impact is, there still is an “is”. There’s still an impact.  One-second may not be harassment. I’m not really sure. But, I am sure that cumulatively, it is.

It has taken me a long time to realize that harassment isn’t always verbal, and it took one-second to prove that to me.

* To be clear, this post isn’t try to create a formula for what constitutes harassment. It’s not about one-second, or two-seconds. It’s not about counting seconds. It’s more about realizing that every second counts.

 

– Ben Privot
Founder, The Consensual Project
www.theconsensualproject.com

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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Stalking awareness month 2011

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Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to participate in a Stalking Awareness Event at the University of California, Irvine. AAUW, the nonprofit organization I work for in my day job, co-sponsored it with UCI’s Campus Assault Resources Education department. The event was the culmination of a week-long awareness poster campaign on campus for Stalking Awareness Month.

During the event, a very brave woman in her 30s shared her experiences with stalking. A schoolmate started stalking her (and also attempted to sexually assault her) when she was 14 years old and has stalked as recently as a year ago when he called her office phone number to let her know he was still keeping tabs on her. The psychological games and impact it had on her during the height of the stalking – and through today – was intense.

The most disturbing moment for me was hearing how when she finally told someone about it while still a teenager living at home, he left a cat on her porch with its neck slit, which led her to keep quiet for many more years. She knows she may be putting herself in danger by speaking out about it now, but she is tired of being silent and wants to provide help for others who may be going through a similar situation. It was moving to witness her bravery.

Legally, stalking is defined by state statutes. While statutes vary, most define stalking as conduct that places a person in fear for their safety and directly or indirectly communicates a threat.

Stalking is often tied to other harmful behavior, like domestic violence, sexual assault, and psychological abuse.  3.4 million people over the age of 18 are stalked each year in the United States, most of them are female and between the ages of 18 and 24, and about 75 percent are stalked by someone they know, including 30 percent who are stalked by a current or former intimate partner. (More statistics)

You can find more information about what stalking constitutes, how to get help, and how to raise awareness about this issue from the Stalking Awareness Month website.

During the talk I gave at the UC Irvine event, I addressed a different kind of stalking, one that is familiar to readers of this blog  —

Under the law, stalking has to happen more than once. In the case of street harassment, it usually only happens once, by one person. So technically, it was not stalking, just following. But it is still very threatening.

Exactly 75 percent of the 800 female respondents of my 2009 survey (conducted for my book) said an unknown stranger followed them in public. This has happened at least once to most of my friends and it happened to me three different times. Each time I was so overcome with fright that when I was safe, I was left shaking and crying.

Overall, except for assault, my respondents said that being followed was the most threatening, scary, and upsetting type of harassment they had experienced, often even more than groping, masturbation, or a sexually explicit comments. Women facing street harassment often feel their only choice  is to leave the situation to get to safety, so to realize that the harasser is following them is very upsetting and they fear what the harasser may do. Will the harasser attack them? Will they be able to get away?

So whether the harasser is following a person just once or whether it is daily or hourly, the harassment is threatening and potentially dangerous. The harasser/stalker is exhibiting power over the target, trying to manipulate the target, and hoping to make themselves feel powerful by making the person feel powerless. Yet because so often both stalking and following are construed as flattering attention or the target’s fault, it is minimized as a problem.

Breaking the silence and becoming informed are huge steps toward ending and preventing stalking and following.

There are many resources you can access for dealing with stalking. Here are a few suggestions for what you can do if a stranger follows you:

  1. It’s okay to tell the person to go away or to leave you alone (try using a calm voice and don’t use insults or profanity). You can do this from a distance if it will make you feel safer.
  2. It’s okay to make a scene. If someone is following you in a populated area, announce loudly that there is a person following you and that they better stop. Another tactic, if you feel very worried for your safety, is to approach someone who looks friendly/sympathetic and ask if you can walk with them because you’re being followed.
  3. Take a photo of them. Or take out something to make notes on and turn around and ask the person their name and age write it down and, as you record it, say out loud a description of what they look like. If that doesn’t scare them off, tell them you’re doing a survey and ask them how often they follow people they don’t know, why they do it, how they plan it, etc.
  4. If you feel very unsafe or are not 100 percent certain they are following you, see if there is someplace safe nearby, such as a store or library, that you can go inside to get assistance from someone or just seek safety while you call for help or call the police.
  5. Report the stalker. If you’re in a store, speak with a manager. If you’re someplace with a security guard, talk to them. If the person is harassing you on public transportation, report them to the bus driver or subway manager.

Other ideas?

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Street harassment snapshot: January 23, 2011

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Story Submissions Recap:

I accept street harassment submissions from anywhere in the world. Share your story!

New stories on:

Street Harassment in the News, on the Blogs:

Events:`

Announcements:

New:

On-going:

10 Tweets from the Week:

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DC man murdered for intervening during a harassment incident

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A few months ago, I posted a story about a man who intervened when another man street harassed his wife and then the harasser murdered him. Sadly, I have a new, similar story to share. A man who witnessed another man harassing a woman in Washington, DC, this week intervened, and the harasser murdered him. So devastating.

Bill Mitchell, Image from the Washington Post

From the Washington Post:

Bill Mitchell was the kind of man who stepped up instead of shying away, the kind of person who would help someone even if he didn’t know them, his friends and family say.

So on Wednesday night, after he had seen the play “Cymbeline” at the Shakespeare Theatre with his mother, he hopped on the Metro to the New York Avenue Station, walked home along North Capitol Street and Florida Avenue NW and saw a woman who needed help. Mitchell, 33, got involved.

He exchanged words and possibly tussled with an unknown assailant who was hassling the woman and who then shot and killed Mitchell.

“There was some sort of altercation, and we have to figure out what that interaction was,” said D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5), who said he had spoken with police and witnesses. “He may have intervened in something, being a Good Samaritan.”

….

“We hope that his senseless death can help in some way to make the area he lived in a safer place,” the Mitchell family said in a statement.

Mitchell’s younger brother made a plea for information.

“There may come a time when police ask for the public’s help,” Brian Mitchell said. “Please contact the police if you know anything. It was my brother today. It could be your brother, son, sister, mother or daughter tomorrow.”

I applaud Mitchell for being a good bystander and I’m sad that the incident ended this way 🙁 Guns = terrible.

[Thanks to loyal reader MRH for the story tip]

Update: Martha Langelan, author of Back Off!: How to Confront and Stop Sexual Harassment and Harassers, and a brilliant community activist who continues to give workshops in the Washington, DC, area about how to respond to and end sexual harassment just emailed me with her thoughts on this story:

The Bill Mitchell case is heart-breaking.

It’s so important to teach people the nonviolent confrontation techniques that work — to know what to do and how to do it, to stop harassment without having the harasser escalate into physical violence.

Male-to-male confrontations can escalate very quickly. We need men — all the good guys on the planet — to be our allies, but if we want men to intervene, we really need to teach them how to do it. What they say, and how they say it, can make the difference between life and death.

Please tell the men you speak with to intervene, but to PLEASE do so using nonviolent confrontation. The “Voice of God” technique could have saved Bill’s life here:  stand at least 30-40 feet away and yell, “Stop hitting her,” or “stop hassling her,” and “leave her alone, we see you, we’re calling the cops,” then call 911 and stay on the scene, from a safe distance, until the police arrive.

When a man is confronting a man he does not know, it is dangerous for him to get right up in the harasser’s space.  Please intervene from a distance.

If you have any reason to believe the harasser might have a knife or gun, both men and women should do the same thing — use the “Voice of God” to interrupt the harasser from a safe distance, and call 911 immediately.

You can also gather bystanders beside you, at a safe distance, and ask them to call 911, too — (a) you don’t want to let others to walk into the middle of a dangerous situation, (b) a group of witnesses can be a deterrent in itself, to de-escalate the situation, and (c) the more calls, the faster the police will get there.

It really breaks my heart to see people like Bill Mitchell get hurt or killed. We need to teach every man on the planet how to intervene more safely.

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