So Day 2 is a weekday and, with my day job to attend to and an anti-street harassment week event to host tonight in Washington, DC, I could not keep up with all the tweets, blog posts, Facebook posts and more that flooded the Internet today about street harassment. And that is a good thing! It means the stories, the messages are spreading. Here are some of the posts and videos I saw today (please add any I missed to the comments. The Sh*t Men Say video launched today but I’m waiting to post on the blog until tomorrow morning, when I can post it with an article from its creators):
A Long Walk Home in Chicago, IL, co-sponsors International Anti-Street Harassment Week. ALWH’s Girl/Friends Leadership Institute youth directors created Anti-Street Harassment signs for an awareness walk at their high school taking place later this week.
“Blogmother” writes about the street harassment-related murders of Adilah Gaither, Tanganika Stanton, Mildred Beaubrun and Sakia Gunn. This is a serious issue.
“Street harassment affects women so deeply that we change our routes to school and work, avoid using public transport at night, stop going out running, feel anxious every time we walk past a group of men, and walk with our heads down and eyes averted instead of enjoying the space around us, to list just a few of the self-imposed limitations mentioned by commenters on my blog post. We’re hurt and angered by our experiences of street harassment hours, days and even years after they occur. I can’t count the number of times my day has turned sour because some wanker decided to harass me on my way home and I couldn’t think of a decent response or was too afraid to call him out. I hate how powerless that makes me feel.
So for International Anti-Street Harassment Week, I’d quite simply like men on the street to stop. Stop with the wolf whistles, the beeping horns, the demands for attention, the sexual comments, the stares, the touching, the groping, the jokes at our expense. And for the men who don’t do those things, recognise that we can’t differentiate you from the rest of them. Move out the way, don’t block the pavement when you’re in a group, cross the road if you find yourself walking close behind a woman at night. Learn how to be an ally. Street harassment has to end.”
“The Window Sex Project: World Premiere, is a dance-theater work that tackles sexual harassment on the street. This performance is presented by Sydnie L. Mosley Dances, a Harlem-based contemporary dance company that seeks to actively engage the audience. Choreographer Sydnie L. Mosley’s work reflects real life experiences exploring, but not limited to, interest in black cultures and the experiences of women….The performance gives voice to this human rights issue and restores agency to women by equipping them to manage street harassment and uses the body, the site of harassment, as a mode of political action. The Window Sex Project: World Premiere in Harlem will take place on Friday, March 23, 2012 7:30pm.”
“For years, I’ve been on my own anti-street harassment campaign. While many people have thought me crazy – both the men I confront and some women who think I’m “asking for trouble” (playing the victim role has never been a comfortable skin for me) – when I stop what I’m doing, retrace my steps and ask the Neanderthal who’s just sullied my day with a whistle, a whoop, or a “hey, baby, lookin’ good,” I believe I’m doing something good. When I call a street harasser out on his shit, that part of me that is both saddened by and rages against unkindness and injustice swells up and out of me, and I feel I’m being an active agent of change.”
“For all it’s distinctive qualities, my street harassment story is ridiculously prototypical. Men, strange men, feel and believe they have a right to your body, to attempt to own it with their whistles, stares and words. When their sense of entitlement is challenged you are made to feel as though there is something deviant about withholding the correct complying response. You become the problem. An uppity woman who thinks she is better than she actually is. It is, yet another, daily form of violence against women.”
“[Vicky] Simister is also positive about the potential for new legislation [in the UK] to make a difference.
“We have laws against sexual harassment in the workplace, but for some reason we don’t feel the need to protect people from sexual harassment on the streets. I think we need specific police training on how to handle these sorts of complaints, and local councils need to back this up. We need research into where the harassment ‘hot-spots’ are so that we can have more constables patrolling these areas – particularly at weekends.”
Simister and teams of volunteers will spend Anti-Street Harassment Week talking to both men and women on the streets of London, asking them to pose with the slogan, ‘Flirting. Harassment. Real men know the difference’.
The pictures will be displayed on the ASH campaign website, and are to be turned into a video campaign and art installation.”
“After #ididnotreport revealed an epidemic of non-reporting, both of street harassment and serious attack, what can we do to stop street harassment?
It’s not a change to the law we necessarily need to see. We already have laws in place to deal with street harassment: following a woman down a street calling her a slut is a s.4A public order offence, for example. Without a specific intention to cause alarm, such behaviour is still a s.5 public order offence. Sexual assault is obviously an offence, and the starting point according to the Magistrates Court Sentencing Guidelines, for non-genital contact with part of a victim other than genitals (eg boob-grabbing) is a medium level community order. The laws are there. The sentencing guidelines are there. Why is it still happening, and what would you do to stop it if you were in charge?”
“…That time, my response was anger, and it served me well. Other times, it’s embarrassed me, or made me feel like I was a piece of shit. None of those are abnormal or wrong. Street harassment comes in a variety of forms, which may or may not involve assault or a harasser following their target around. All of them are equally wrong. Like Tory said, reacting in a way that moved me away from my harasser and to safety is not an overreaction.”
Quick posts by:
* Verity
