Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Archives for March 2012

From Cairo to DC: A Discussion on Street Harassment

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On March 19, 2012, in  Washington, DC, for an International Anti-Street Harassment Week event, five activists (including myself) talked about issues of street harassment abroad and in Washington, DC. Countries we covered included Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, and the United Kingdom. The YWCA-National Capital Area hosted the talk.

L to R: Layla Moughari, Sawsan Gad, Twanisha Mitchell, Holly Kearl, Dienna Howard

I had enough space on my camera to video tape three of the talks. I hope you have time to watch them and learn about how harassment in Iran is similar or different to harassment in the USA; what activists with HarassMap are doing to combat street harassment in Egypt; and what same-race harassment looks like in the USA.
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“How sad that reaching adolescence means getting harassed”

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I am almost 62 years old and have been getting harassed by strangers in public since I was about 11. It has included men exposing their genitals, many times, as well as being spoken to by strangers and pressured to engage in conversation, yelling, whistling, and name-calling and insults if I didn’t respond. Most of these things have happened routinely to my daughters as well. We have been “ogled” in our cars at red lights by other drivers, been followed and had comments made about our various body parts, even while pregnant and in the presence of small children.

How sad that reaching adolescence means getting harassed and that old age is looked forward to so it will stop.

No place is safe, no place is comfortable. It changes who we are.

I have never understood why this is tolerated and not considered a crime, particularly a hate crime. When it was directed at one race by another, it is a hate crime. Why isn’t it a hate crime when it’s directed toward one gender by another??? All my life, I have spoken out about this and been treated like I was being ridiculous; thank you for taking this seriously. I am a psychotherapist and I can tell you it really affects females in very harmful ways.

– LG

Location: DC, Montgomery County, and PG County, in school, on the street, in public transportation, in stores, parking lots, my own car by other drivers, everywhere.

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Find suggestions for what YOU can do about this human rights issue.

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“What started as a small group of 5 grew to over 200.”

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This guest blog post is by Manak Matiyani, who is involved with the Delhi-based group in India called The Youth Collective. This is about an impromptu rally he helped organize in Delhi earlier in March in response to the gang rape of a woman who was heading home from work at night. Their actions around safe spaces continued throughout International Anti-Street Harassment Week.

Photo from Kuber Sharma's FB Wall

How does one feel living in a city where rape, molestation and eve teasing have become regular news.., so much so that the newspapers are advised not to print about them on the front page as people might get upset. Where well meaning reporters have to compete with well paying socialites for space in the city supplements and a human interest angle must be made interesting to get eyeballs. A city were development has never been for every class, caste and gender and walking on the streets without fear or being self conscious is a luxury not available to half the population.

Scared? Helpless? Frustrated?

I felt all of these when I read about the case of a young woman who was dragged out of a taxi, abducted and gang raped by 7 men. Her 15 year old brother who was with her tried to get the cops to act fast, but didn’t succeed. “Another working woman gangraped in Gurgaon” said the headline.

“Another” was qualified by highlighting many other similar cases that had happened in the same area in the last six months.

“Another” was what made me feel angry about the fact that we as residents of a city have resigned ourselves to reading such news stories and not be bothered beyond feeling sympathy for the victim and telling the women we know to be more careful and not go out late alone. What frustrated me was the fact that the woman worked at a pub, was out late at night, and was apparently an escort to allow stags (single men) to enter the couples-only pub made it into the news as significant details!

It was with all the same frustration and anger that I circulated a facebook note asking others who were angry and wanted to do something.. anything…to come out and join a protest demonstration at the place where the kidnapping happened.

A few of my friends were prepared to stand there with placards even if no one else showed up. But as the note got shared by those friends, and more and more people began reading, it was clear that there were at least some others who were angry. Some friends took it on themselves to get their organisations involved and others contacted the press. Organisations involved included Jagori, Center for Social Research, Halabol and Pravah, and, of course, Must Bol and The Youth Collective, where it started. All the people at Lets Walk Gurgaon took it up as their own personal cause and are continuing the public efforts. All my friends who were in this with me and all the others who have come together to ask difficult questions to the authorities and to themselves and play their part in starting this process of change.

By the next day I had had phone and email conversations with many strangers who felt equally angry. The media captures the slick posters and the catch phrases but sometimes leaves out the very grounded fear of parents whose children are out by themselves. The nervousness of brothers and others who as men are given the duty to accompany their women friends out late in the night. Many of them came out the night of the demonstration.

They came out to demand safety and justice not just for their own loved ones, but for all women. Women came and spoke about their own experiences and how they dealt with fear. Men came and exhorted other men who were passing by to join.

What started as a small group of 5 grew to over 200. Many passers by stopped, heard us out and joined in, talking about their own anger at the situation our city was in. We ended the demonstration by taking a silent march through the mall outside which many of these incidents including the most recent one had taken place. Shoppers, staff, pub managers and patrons all joined in the march, expressing their solidarity with the cause. We all hoped that the fervour wouldn’t die down after that day…thankfully it didn’t.

Citizens groups and residents of some areas are taking this protest further. They have organised more demonstrations and kept up the pressure on the authorities to take preventive and punitive action. They have even started an online group to bring more people together on the ground.  A group of organisations that work for women’s rights and some others that don’t have got together to create a charter of demands.

Two leading newspapers have started small campaigns on women’s safety and continuously supported all of us in creating awareness and public action.  The policemen on duty that night who were approached by the victim’s brother have been suspended and action against them and the rapists initiated. One of them as young as 18 have been apprehended.

But that’s not all. That, should not be all. This has been a time to question how we’ve come to a situation where women are afraid to seek justice and errant men are not afraid of justice being served. Why we blame clothes, alcohol, pubs, malls, new money, bad education, the women themselves and never blame the men and the feeling of entitlement and invincibility that a patriarchal society gives them.

It is nice to see in the subsequent gatherings that people are beginning to think, “what have I done to create this situation and what I can do to change it.” How what we tell our little girls and boys creates the men and women who we call society and that “society” must change from inside before it changes outside.

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Teachers: Address street harassment

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Editor’s Note: This is cross-posted with permission from Feminist Teacher.

The success of last week’s International Anti-Street Harassment Week was astonishing. Organized by leading anti-street harassment activist Holly Kearl, founder of the well-known blog Stop Street Harassment, the week featured the work of the most cutting-edge activists in the field, including dance performances by Sydnie Mosley and her Window Sex Project and a viral video featuring Joe Samalin and other male allies telling men to just stop harassing women in both English and Spanish.

Grace, Ileana, and Emma

As part of the week’s events, two of my students, Grace and Emma, and I spoke at the Meet Us On the Street rally in New York. Grace shared a portion of the testimony that she read to last year’s New York City Council hearing on street harassment and Emma, who is also a SPARK blogger against the sexualization of girls and women in the media, shared her own vision for safer streets and communities not just for herself but also for her own sister.

I spoke about the importance of engaging teachers in the global movement against street harassment as an education and health issue for schools.

But the work doesn’t stop there. It’s important to show students that activism needs to be consistent, and not done in a flavor-of-the-month style. That’s why last fall, students in my high school feminism course partnered with other students at our school to create their own anti-street harassment public service announcement (PSA).  Their goal: to educate their peers about the gravity of street harassment in their daily lives.

As part of the background work to create the video, I invited activists from Girls for Gender Equity, Hollaback!, The Line Campaign, Men Can Stop Rape, and Right Rides to talk to my students. Activist Shelby Knox also visited to talk about her film, The Education of Shelby Knox. Each of them shared their expertise, provided students with materials, and ultimately inspired them to create their PSA.

You can create your own PSA with your students too. Start, as I did, with educating your students about the issue by inviting activists to your classroom. Then have students envision a PSA that would be relevant and engaging for your school community. Screen the PSA at an upcoming assembly. Then join the revolution.  See above for inspiration.

Ileana Jiménez has been a leader in the field of social justice education for 15 years. A 2010-11 recipient of the Distinguished Fulbright Award in Teaching, her research in Mexico City focused on creating safe schools for Mexican LGBT youth. Currently a teacher at the Little Red School House & Elisabeth Irwin High School (LREI) in New York, she offers courses on feminism, LGBT literature, Toni Morrison, and memoir writing. In addition to teaching at LREI, Ileana is also an associate faculty member at Bard College’s Institute for Writing and Thinking.

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MY STREET, MY BODY, MY RIGHT

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(This article was submitted to the SSH blog and it’s also found on  Tumblr.)

I’m fourteen, running late for Global Studies. Breakfastless, I bolt out the door to catch the six. Instead of turning right as usual at Lexington Avenue, I take the shortcut to the station. They’re sitting at the front stoops again, right where the houses end and the deli begins. It’s humid, but I’ve put on my baggiest sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt, so maybe today they won’t say anything. I look down at my feet and try to look preoccupied, or sad, or unapproachable, or something. And I walk faster. But they turn around and stare, all of them together, and don’t move, blocking the sidewalk. They make me push through them. I can feel them, bigger, older men, looking down at me as I approach. My entire body is tensing up, dreading an unwanted touch, a crude word. I want to crawl into a hole. “Hey, come back, China doll,” one says. Something in his voice makes my stomach turn. I wish I had simply woken up on time.

I’m fifteen and sweating under the June sun. The subway ride home was sweltering, and the ice cream truck beckons. Naturally, I order a vanilla milkshake. Then—a touch to my back, an ugly whisper: “you’re so sexy, baby.” I freeze. Was that someone’s breath on my ear, or just the heat? I turn around and see a fat, balding man strolling away into the crowd. As though he had done nothing wrong. My skin is crawling everywhere. Instinctively, uselessly, I am rubbing my ear, but I cannot get rid of his awful, lingering presence. He’s taking his time walking away, and I know that he knows I am watching him and that I am too scared to say anything. I hate myself for being a coward. I hate myself for being scared. Families around me chatter and laugh, enjoying the beautiful day. The ice cream truck lady leans out. “That’ll be $2.25.”

I’m seventeen and plastic bags of bai cai are killing my arms. My mom and I speed-hobble downstairs at the Flushing station, only to find that the train isn’t leaving for ten minutes. Dropping our groceries in an empty car, my mom pulls out the weekend World Journal and I turn to my copy of Life of Pi. A man boards and sits across from us. He immediately begins staring at me. Intently. Willing my mom not to notice, I read. And he stares. He stares and doesn’t stop and I’m trying to muster the courage just to look him in the eye, but I’m afraid. What if that encourages him to do something else? What if my mother sees? I wish that he would just look away, even for one second. But he doesn’t. After a few minutes, I put down my book and look up at his face. He is old, older than even my father. I expect him to put his hand on his crotch, to grin obscenely, or to lick his lips, or maybe all three. Instead he just stares. Should I be relieved? People start filtering into the car. Eventually, he looks away.

I’m eighteen and refreshed from an afternoon run in Central Park. I’m calling my boyfriend to let him know I’m coming over. The man walking across the street towards me is leering pointedly in my direction, but I figure he won’t say anything since I’m on the phone. I’m wrong. He makes a point of brushing past my arm and sneers: “I like the way you show off them legs.” For once, I react quickly. “No, it’s just hot.” I’m walking away as fast as I can, trying to put distance between us, when he yells, “fuck you, bitch.” I turn around. He looks angry, surprised, embarrassed. I should be angry also, but all I can feel is satisfaction, an unfamiliar and fervent satisfaction. “Say it louder!” I scream across the street. “I don’t give a fuck.” I’m aware of how stupid I look and everyone is staring at me, but it’s true.

Finally, I just don’t give a fuck anymore.

How many leers, how many unwanted comments and touches does it take to take away your right to walk on the same sidewalk, to ride the same subway, as anyone else? How many times must you watch the smile on a stranger’s face widen in perverse excitement at your revulsion? Once a month? A week? More? If my experiences were limited to the above encounters, perhaps I would know.

I was sexually harassed on a regular basis from the year I turned fourteen until the year I left for college. I tried so hard, every day, to ignore it. But I couldn’t. It changed me. The irrepressible nervousness when a stranger approached. Being afraid to look any man on the street in the eyes. Worrying I was being followed. Not wanting to leave my house unless I had to. Crying. Not crying until I got home, then crying. Hating myself for crying. Playing the faces of dozens of men back in my mind—I remember them all. Wondering what would have happened if I had bumped into them in a deserted area. The rape nightmares.

But the worst part was how it warped my own view of myself. Maybe it was my fault, I thought. Maybe I was asking for it. It was because I was small and weak, I thought. I hated myself for my own helplessness. Hated myself every time the snappy retort, the “leave me alone,” the “stop,” bubbled up furiously in my heart only to wilt in my throat. The tiny, illogical, and unshakable fear that no matter how hard I worked, I would never amount to anything more than a body. That my feelings—my disgust, the anger and loathing written all over my face—would deter no one because they simply did not matter. That it would only get worse as I grew older. That my only worth was sexual. That I was less than human. That I was nothing.

I have never shared my full experience with sexual harassment before. I didn’t tell my parents because I didn’t want to burden them. I didn’t tell my friends because I didn’t think they would understand. And I didn’t tell anyone else because I didn’t think they cared. As a result, I believed that I was alone in how I felt, that I was “overreacting” to normal, socially accepted behavior.

I am sharing my personal experiences now as part of the first-ever International Anti-Street Harassment Week in the hopes that it can inspire people I know, and people of my generation as a whole. As a child, I felt completely helpless about my own situation. I hope that today, I am at least able to encourage others to treat sexual harassment in public as a serious issue, and to take action to protect themselves and those around them.

If you are a woman, especially a young woman, who has had similar or worse experiences, know that you are not alone. Do not keep your problems to yourself. Reach out and talk to loved ones. There are many resources and organizations which offer better advice than I can; they are listed below. The movement to report, protest, and ultimately end sexual harassment in the public sphere is springing up all over the world.

If you are someone who is unfamiliar with this subject, thank you for reading. If you support safe streets for women and children, please share this link or comment below. I’d be happy if I could reach just one person with this message.

– Alice X

Location: New York City

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.

Share