You’re never too young to speak out — here is Mariam Khaled, 7 years old, holding a sign saying, “No to Sexual Harassment,” for a protest in Egypt this week.
H/T @S_Takoza
“No to Sexual Harassment”
Archives for September 2012
Judge to survivor: “Bad things can happen in bars”
Sadly, we know that sexual harassment and assault is rampant in our culture, including in public spaces like our streets and the town bar. Here’s an example: Last summer, a drunk 43-year old male police officer named Robb Evans walked into a bar, walked over to a woman, and reached up her skirt and assaulted her. The bouncers threw him out.
Horrible.
A jury convicted him of sexual abuse (a class 5 felony) and, after an internal investigation, thankfully he was fired from the police force.
But that’s not the end of the story.
“Arizona trial Judge Jacqueline Hatch, who was appointed to the bench by Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ), decided that Evans’ actions did not warrant jail time — sentencing him probation and 100 hours of community service. Evans also will not have to register as a sex offender. Yet, while Judge Hatch apparently did not view the disgraced former cop’s actions as particularly serious, she had some very harsh words for the woman he assaulted:
Bad things can happen in bars, Hatch told the victim, adding that other people might be more intoxicated than she was.
“If you wouldn’t have been there that night, none of this would have happened to you,” Hatch said.
Hatch told the victim and the defendant that no one would be happy with the sentence she gave, but that finding an appropriate sentence was her duty.
“I hope you look at what you’ve been through and try to take something positive out of it,” Hatch said to the victim in court. “You learned a lesson about friendship and you learned a lesson about vulnerability.”
Hatch said that the victim was not to blame in the case, but that all women must be vigilant against becoming victims.
“When you blame others, you give up your power to change,” Hatch said that her mother used to say.”
The Arizona Daily Sun reports that the judge also said that “even going to the grocery store after 10 p.m. can be dangerous for a woman.”
When a cop sexually assaults a woman and then a judge practically supports him, is there any wonder so few survivors of sexual abuse or harassment want to report it?!
The survivor of the assault is not standing for this kind of victim-blaming and is calling for an apology from the judge. Someone else started a Change.org petition you can sign calling for the judge to step down.
Here’s contact info if you want to tell the judge how you feel about victim-blaming:
Honorable Jacqueline Hatch
Judicial Assistant: Kathy Sandstrom
(928) 679-7551
200 N. San Francisco St.
Flagstaff, AZ 86001
Sadly, the judge’s comments show just how pervasive victim-blaming is in our culture and how even women, especially older women, help perpetuate it. In my own experience of giving talks about street harassment, it has only been older women who have made inappropriate comments to me like, “Well, with the way girls dress these days…” I know that they were raised in a different era when that was the dominant mentality, but times have changed and their unhelpful comments need to stop.
When I hear women victim-blame each other, I also feel badly for them. Their attitude suggests that they think men sexually assaulting and harassing women is so inevitable that the only way women can be safe is to stay home/dress conservatively/have a male protector.
I’m not so cynical, nor do I have such a narrow picture of sexual assault.
I’m glad to be part of a generation that by and large doesn’t want to “prevent” sexual assault by blaming women and telling them to stay home after 10 p.m., but instead understands that sexual violence happens in homes/schools/workplaces/bars/streets/subways to women and men, boys and girls. We want to change the cultural acceptance and normalcy of sexual violence and harassment and we do our best to work with allies of all genders, ages, and backgrounds to make that happen. There are many older people who agree with us and work with us and I hope that one day people like Judge Hatch will too.
Y Chromosome Sense of Entitlement
After becoming frustrated, angered and upset at yet another piece I read about the abuse and harassment women have to put up with on a daily basis, I got to thinking.
All of the great groups there are out there working to combat this sort of disgusting behavior are headed by women, run by women and spoken about and promoted mostly by women. Of course there are some wonderful men out there who are also vocally against this sort of treatment of women. But overall, it seems that it is just the same good people who are speaking out about street harassment and sexual assault over and over again.
The abusers and harassers never seem to write about their experiences, try to make us understand what it’s all about or even offer some sort of explanation or justification for their behavior. Why is this, I wonder?
My conclusion is, it has to be because the men that do this sort of thing don’t see anything wrong with it at all. I call it a Y Chromosome Sense of Entitlement.
They think because they are men, they are the stronger, the more dominant and important sex, thus, they have a sense of ownership and claim over women so they can treat us in any fashion they please. The street harassers and abusers think that women are objects put on this earth just for their pleasure.
What they don’t understand is for someone to be entitled to something, they have to earn it. For example; you go out for a few drinks over the weekend after a weeks’ work because you deserve it; it is your reward for your hard work. People who feel a sense of entitlement when they ultimately have done nothing to deserve it come across as nothing but childish.
Sadly, a lot of men are afflicted by the Y Chromosome Sense of Entitlement. Here are five types:
1 – The guy who thinks it’s funny and feels he has the right to play the ‘big dog’ or alpha male in front of his friends and show his dominance over a woman walking alone. Oh how manly you are, sir to call me baby and comment on how much you like my boobs, please catch me as I swoon into your big strong arms. Well I have news for you dawg you’re not the pimp you think you are. You are an ass, a nuisance, a street harasser and no woman would find you in any way attractive or touch you with a bargepole covered in antiseptic cream.
No decent men will ever have respect for you for behaving like a cave man in public. You make women feel deeply uncomfortable, you scare and upset us. When you do this we have no idea how to react because if we ignore you or call you out things could escalate either way, so we just try to look confident while quickening our pace until you and your homies are out of sight and earshot and we breath a sigh of relief that we haven’t just been raped or sexually assaulted.
2 – There is the creepy loner guy who just seems to hang around. He makes you nervous at the sight of him and your gut is screaming at you to keep your distance from him. But of course you don’t want to cause a scene, he hasn’t done anything yet, so you subtly keep your back away from him and are on high alert with your most defensive posture all the while trying to look nonchalant and really into your book or music player. However, in reality you haven’t read a thing since you spotted him and your music is down so low you can’t even hear what song is on. You stay on guard until he walks passed you or gets off the train/bus but even when he is out of sight your mind is filled with thoughts that he might come back.
3 – There is the guy who is in a position of power which he will happily use to his advantage (and he’s usually a little smarter and a little more subtle, often married). The boss man, the friendly and charming guy, who sometimes gets a little too close for comfort but he does it to everyone so you take no notice at first. Then he will make the odd comment about how you look but you can’t really do much because he is your superior and once he knows he can get away with it he will start to brush past you when you are in a tight space. You want to keep your job so you have to put up with it.
You don’t, it is sexual harassment and it is illegal. I know people need to earn a living but at the end of the day your personal safety and well being should be more important than a wage packet. To those creepy bosses that abuse their positions of power and trust I say, a lot of you have daughters well just think one day your daughter could have a boss just like you or worse marry a guy just like you.
4 – There is the opportunist guy who will quickly try and grope or touch you either in a subtle or obvious way. Mostly it’s on nights out in crowded areas so you can’t see exactly who did it or as they fly past on a bike or in a car. Some of them actually don’t care if you can see their faces, they wanted to touch an intimate part of you so they come right up to you and do it and they will not apologize for it. They think they did nothing wrong. Meanwhile you are feeling a mixture of tears and venom bubbling up inside of you, but you know there is nothing you can do, they are gone and you will probably (hopefully) never see them again.
5 – There is the good guy and secret misogynist who will sit down or come up beside you and try to make conversation with you while it is obvious to everyone but him that you want to be left alone. But why wouldn’t you want to talk to such a wonderful man? After all you are lucky he choose you to converse with. You nod and smile while trying to get away or maybe you politely say you’re not interested/have a boyfriend/are waiting for someone. This is when you see the good guys true colours and he erupts shouting at you calling you a bitch saying HE JUST WANTED TO TALK TO YOU! What’s your fucking problem, whore? And to think you actually felt bad for turning him down in the first place and tried to be nice about it!
It is not right that women are in constant fear for their safety day or night, whether outside, traveling, or in a work environment. The abusers and harassers have never been leered at or groped so many times they can’t count. Men are not entitled to treat women in this way, we do not deserve it. It has got to stop.
There is also another type of guy I want to mention, this is the most important type.
There is a man who sees women as his equal and talks to them as such, who treats them with respect and who doesn’t have a sense of entitlement. Without these men, the world’s population would have severely depleted! They are real men. Decent men, who don’t hurt or mistreat women and don’t stand for other men doing it either, in fact they call them out on it. So I want to say thank you to them for helping to restore my faith in the male gender.
Which kind of guy are you?
This guest blog post was written by Yvonne Ní Mhurchú.
Are you interested in guest writing for Stop Street Harassment? Contact stopstreetharasment AT yahoo DOT com.
Chal Hatt Tharki
Editor’s Note: This guest blog post was written by Janvi Mankani.
Eve teasing is a highly concern worthy issue in all of India and consequently in Mumbai today. Cat calling and snide comments against women have become such an inevitable part of the society and that calls for attention.
All the men who think they can get away with this kind of behaviour need to be addressed. “Chal Hatt Tharki” as a campaign is not directed towards men, asking them to stop cat calling and eve teasing. Instead, as the name itself suggests, is directed towards women; asking them to raise their voices against inappropriate behaviour. The very words, “Chal Hatt Tharki” here, encourage and support women to take a stance against eve teasing.
Chal Hatt Tharki is about empowering women, making them aware and letting them know that if they stand up for their rights, no one will be able to take them for granted. For when the women speak up, the men will learn their lesson with respect to eve teasing by default. It’s high time all the Eves got their due, and fearlessly stood up for their safety, their existence, and for themselves.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChalHattTharki
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChalHattTharki
Brussels Makes Offensive Speech Punishable by Fines
Many verbal forms of street harassment are meant to humiliate, annoy or anger the recipient (e.g. sexually explicit language, demands for a smile, calling someone a bitch, dike, fag, or whore) and those forms should, in my opinion, be considered hate speech or, at the very least, offensive speech.
Maybe I should move to Brussels.
Officials in Brussels recently updated their “Regulation of Public conduct” to make offensive language spoken in public spaces in the city punishable by fines. This includes racist and homophobic comments and sexual harassment.
Via International Business Times:
“City officials in Belgium’s capital Brussels recently announced a set of new fines that target use of offensive language in public.
“Any form of insult is from now on punishable, whether it be racist, homophobic or otherwise,” Brussels Mayor Freddy Thielemans’ spokesperson quoted him as saying.
Authorities plan to impose fines of between 75 and 250 euros for using offensive language in public, including sexual harassment, in an attempt to not only deter potential offenders, but to encourage law enforcement to crack down on such behavior.
The mayor’s spokesman said the courts had previously been too busy to take on such cases, which resulted in police having “little incentive to take any action over such incidents,” the Daily Telegraph reported.”
I didn’t see it mentioned in any articles, but presumably now the courts will be able to take on these cases?
Visit Hollaback Brussels’ website to learn more about this change and their thoughts about it.