Archives for May 2012

Kabul, Afghanistan, and Washington, DC, have a lot in common when it comes to gender-based street harassment. Last night, the co-founders of two organizations working to end street harassment spoke about it at a great event in Washington, DC: Chai Shenoy of Collective Action for Safe Spaces (DC) and Noorjahan Akbar of Young Women for Change (Kabul).

These amazing women shared how gender-based street harassment is similar and how it differs in the two cities and their activism initiatives.

In both cities, street harassment makes public places less safe for women. It makes them feel less able to go places, and, especially in Kabul where there is so much groping and extreme forms of street harassment, it can deter women from going to school and work and make them more dependent on the men in their families or on their husbands.

Street harassment is a symptom of larger gender inequality and gender violence in both countries. As long as street harassment occurs, we know that broader issues of gender violence are occurring behind closed doors, in schools and in workplaces.

In Kabul, it’s especially dangerous for women to speak out on this issue and Noorjahan shared how she’s regularly called an American spy and worse for daring to be female with an opinion and a voice.

Both organizations are addressing street harassment in similar ways: collecting and sharing stories, organizing marches and art exhibits, and asking politicians to do more about the issue. When asked what people could do to help, this is what they shared:

Chai: 1) Share your experiences, this is integral to breaking social norms. 2) Attempt to get involved in some way. Build a community of bystander intervention. Learning strategies is helpful for both women and men. There’s so much we can do to learn from each other and help each other feel safe.

Noorjahan: 1) Men can speak out against the victim-blaming of women (in Kabul, women are even blamed for causing the harassment based on how large their sunglasses are or how high their heels are on their shoes!). 2) Women can speak out louder. Individual women may face personal attacks but if there are are many voices speaking out from all over, it’s more effective.

Both organizations are entirely funded by donations, so please, help them continue their work by donating $5-10 today. Young Women for  Change | Collective Action for Safe Spaces.

Street harassers annoy us, anger us, humiliate us, and scare us…and when they’re harassing us from behind the wheel of their car or truck, they can also be dangerous.

Usually they prove dangerous to others through their distracted driving (e.g. hanging out windows or yelling stuff at us while they’re driving, spacing out and stopping suddenly because they’re staring, etc), and they’ve even killed women through their carelessness.  For example, three years ago as two women were walking home from work, men harassed them from a truck. The driver lost control of the vehicle and both women were hit and one was killed.

One of the popular Allstate “Mayhem” commercials even portrayed the danger of driving street harassers. However, I took issue with it because instead of labeling the man driving and crashing the vehicles as mayhem, they labeled the woman jogger whom he stares at as the problem.

When you deal with street harassment a lot, it can be hard to find any humor in it, but watch this gif and you’ll see how a driver brings danger upon himself when he leers at a woman walking by. I bet you’ll laugh, or at least smile!

If only that happened to more of them, maybe they’d stop.

(Thanks, ‏@jet_set for the gif tip.)