Archives for January 2012

“The line between acceptable behaviour and harassment is blurred” on London Tube

January 27, 2012 By Contributor

This week I noticed a series of ads whilst travelling on the London Underground for Lovestruck, a London dating website. Some are huge and quite generic, on the platform, but I was most bothered by the small ads that are placed inside the carriages above the seats. These have a headline to the effect of “The woman/man of your dreams could be sitting under this ad.”

Almost every woman I know has a story about harassment on public transport – the Stop Street Harassment and Hollaback sites are full of stories from women who’ve encountered men who seem to think that a woman travelling in public is ‘fair game’. I know that anti-harassment notices on public transport are more common in the US than the UK, though for a short time last year there were a few tube posters in certain London boroughs about not harassing women on public transport.

This is why I really don’t get Lovestruck’s tactics – are they really so painfully naive as to what goes on on the tube? Pretty much every time I take a tube in London, there’s at least one creep who either follows you down the platform or spends the entire journey staring at you in a way that means nothing other than ‘I’m undressing you with my eyes’.

The tube is such a key site for this kind of behaviour that any efforts to educate people about street harassment have to focus on it, but how successful will we ever be when it’s simultaneously being billed as a place akin to a singles night? I’m on the tube to get to work/school/whatever, and I object to the fact that I may be sitting under an ad that bills me as an available object. The London Evening Standard has also recently added a little column for people to post those ads like ‘I was on the 8.15 to Watford, blond. You were….’ etc., etc.

Slowly but surely, the tube is being turned into some kind of pick-up joint, and the line between acceptable behaviour and harassment is blurred as a consequence. No, I don’t want you to talk to me, stare at me, or touch me. I want to get where I’m going and live my life. Apparently none of the Lovestruck staff have ever had the same feelings.

I did email Lovestruck pointing all this out to them, but haven’t yet received a reply…[You can contact them too!]

This guest blog post is by Jen, a student who’s lived in London for five years.

Participate in “Got Stared At”

January 26, 2012 By HKearl

Myth: Street harassment happens because of how we dress.

Truth: No it doesn’t. Street harassment happens to people wearing school uniforms, business suits, workout clothes, hijabs, winter coats, rain coats, saris, summer dresses, and jeans. Street harassment is about power and abuse of power, inconsiderateness, the performance of unhealthy definitions of masculinity, sexism, and sometimes it’s also about homophobia, transphobia, racism, classism, ablism and more.

Action: To help combat the myth that street harassment happens because of how we dress, the amazing activist group Must Bol, based in Delhi, India, launched a website called “Got Stared At” for International Anti-Street Harassment Week.

They’re inviting people ANYWHERE who’ve been harassed in public to submit a photo of the clothing they were wearing when it happened. You can include a story about what happened or just send the photo.

So….what were you wearing when you got stared at or street harassed?

More sexual assaults at Tahrir Square in Egypt

January 26, 2012 By HKearl

Trigger Warning – descriptions of sexual assaults

When I hopped on twitter this morning and checked the thread #EndSH, I was appalled to read that more sexual assaults took place last night against women at Tahrir Square in Egypt as they marked the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 25 revolution of 2011.

When will the assaults on women protesting and covering stories at Tahrir end?!

I clicked on a link to read about what happened. Here is part of an article I read on Bikya Masr. I am outraged:

“CAIRO: Heather still doesn’t know how she made it home on Wednesday night after being in Egypt’s Tahrir Square. The Arab-American arrived back at her Cairo flat without pants, having had them torn off downtown. She and her two roommates were victims of a mob attack by people in the iconic square on Wednesday, as protesters demonstrated against the military junta.

According to Heather, an Arab-American living in the Egyptian capital, she and her Swedish and Spanish roommates took to Tahrir as thousands were converging there to mark one-year since the ousting of former President Hosni Mubarak.

“They started fighting over who was going to do what,” Heather told Bikyamasr.com in an exclusive interview. She came forward after seeing the report on a foreign woman who was stripped naked and assaulted only hours after her own incident.

“My roommates and I fell to the ground when they attacked us. The people pulled our pants off even as we yelled and tried to fight,” she continued.

The incident occurred around 7:30 PM local time, just as night was taking hold of the city. Heather said the attack happened “in the center of Tahrir.”

She said that after the men pulled their pants off, they continued to grab and grobe the women’s bodies. “It is disgusting. They put fingers up my ass,” she revealed.

Luckily, the women were somehow pulled from the violence by a man and a woman and taken to safety. She said she doesn’t recall exactly how she was saved from the violent attack.

“I was shaking and crying and the man and woman just grabbed us and pulled us out and took us out of the square.”

Later in the night, the issue of sexual violence toward women was sparked after an eyewitness reported on the micro-blogging site Twitter that a foreign woman was stripped, groped and assaulted by another mob of men in the square.

The woman, who’s identity has not been revealed, was taken away in an ambulance after being assaulted for 10 minutes. Her husband reportedly was unable to intervene and witnessed the incident.

“I saw the woman and then dozens of men surrounded her and started grabbing her, when she screamed for help some people came, but they were hit in the face,” wrote one witness.

What happened next was “appalling,” said the trusted witness, who asked for anonymity. “The men just started tearing at her clothes and grabbing her body all over. When she fought back, they pushed her. It was chaos.”

There were unconfirmed reports that the men “violated” her with their hands.

The nationality of the woman is unknown at the current time.

Throughout the day, sexual harassment towards women has been increasing and more and more reports of women being grabbed and groped began being reported.

Activists called the attacks on women completely “unacceptable” and must be exposed no matter what. They demanded an end to all violence toward women.

“What happened in Tahrir today has no justification and must be fully exposed even if it taints Tahrir!” wrote EgyptSecularist on Twitter.

Heather said that she came forward to talk about what happened to her “because people need to know what goes on. It is the only way to start making it a problem that will have to be dealt with.”

However, many people told her to not reveal what happened to her because she was told, “it would hurt the image of the revolution.” But Heather said after seeing the reports of others and their assaults, “I felt it was right to say something.”

The incident brings memories of reporter Lara Logan, who was sexually assaulted the night former President Hosni Mubarak gave up power.

A mob of men ripped the 40-year-old correspondent away from her crew and bodyguard, tearing at her clothes and beating her in broad daylight….

Instances of sexual assaults on female journalists covering the events in Tahrir Square have continued in the year since Mubarak’s ouster.

According to studies conducted by the Egyptian Center for Women’s Right (ECWR) in 2008, 98 percent of foreign women and 83 percent of Egyptian women surveyed had experienced sexual harassment in Egypt.

Meanwhile, 62 percent of Egyptian men confessed to harassing women and 53 percent of Egyptian men faulted women for “bringing it on.”

What can we do? Help support HarassMap, one of the groups in Egypt working to combat the culture of harassment and assault on women in public places.

“I rush to get from place to place at night just to avoid these encounters but they keep happening.”

January 25, 2012 By Contributor

Over the past two weeks:

I went to the gym today and on my way there some guy said, “Nice hat,” as I’m accustomed to hearing, but then he scares me a little when he leans into the door and opens it as I attempt to get to the gym, then says next to my ear, “Take care of yourself baby.”

Going to the wine store last week, “You have a great night beautiful. I hope you have a nice time. Okay? Okay?” I’m hiding in the back of the store basically.

Waiting to cross the street: “Come over and say hi to me baby. Oh, you white girls never want to talk to me.”

Driving slowly: “Hey sexy, what’s your name?”

On a different note, a guy who I asked to walk me back to the station refused to because I wouldn’t have sex with him.

I always want to say something to these men, especially after reading this blog but I get scared. I rush to get from place to place at night just to avoid these encounters but they keep happening. I could tell you that I was just wearing jeans and a winter coat but I’m sure everyone on here knows it doesn’t matter.

– Anonymous

Location: Harlem, New York

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.

Malawian women march to protest attacks

January 25, 2012 By HKearl

Last week groups of street vendors in the African country of Malawi harassed and attacked women, groping and stripping them naked if they were wearing pants or short skirts instead of a traditional dress.

There used to be a 30-year ban against women wearing pants or mini-skirts in Malawi, but it ended in 1994. Some men apparently think there should still be a ban and last week’s attack is just one example of their treatment of women in the capital Lilongwe and other towns like Mzuzu and Blantyre.

Via CNN:

“They beat them up and stripped them naked, claiming they did not follow the tradition,” said Seodi White, a rights activist and protest organizer. “Attacking women in trousers is an outrage. We are a democracy, they’re taking us back to the dark ages.”…

“Women have a right to wear what they want,” White said… “This is an embarrassment to our nation and an outright contempt for women.”

On Friday, hundreds of women and some men gathered to protest the attacks, wearing pants, miniskirts and leggings in a show of solidarity. Some women wore white T-shirts that said, “Real men don’t harass women,” and “Today we buy your merchandize, tomorrow you strip us naked!” since the most recent attacks were by store vendors. They chanted, “we are strong, we are strong,” and demanded an end to the attacks.

“Some of us have spent our entire life fighting for the freedom of women,” Malawian Vice President Joyce Banda told the protesters. “It is shocking some men want to take us back to bondage.”

Their protest drew the attention of President Bingu wa Mutharika and he warned the perpetrators to stop the attacks, saying women have a right to wear what they want: “I will not allow anyone to wake up and go on the streets and start undressing women and girls wearing trousers because that is criminal.”

He also ordered police to arrest anyone attacking women over their clothing and 15 men have already been arrested.

Street harassment and violence is often a mechanism for social control and that motive is clear in these attacks: men want to control how women dress. But sorry men, the women aren’t going to stand for it and neither is the president!

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