Editor’s Note: HappRat recently started posting her street harassment experiences on a map to show all of the places and times she’s harassed. This is why she decided to do so —
View HappyRat HarassMap 2012 in a larger map
I decided to make the HappyRat HarassMap because, quite plainly, people are visual animals. For some reason just reading the the constant flood of individual stories about street harassment still leaves people the ability to dismiss each one as just another isolated, extreme incident. that isn’t in their world. Many people are just desensitized to the stories, or think it happens elsewhere (as in, “This is modern America, it can’t happen here,”), or believe isn’t a real problem (read: “You’re just being too sensitive,”), or suspect it’s really the fault of the person who gets harassed (aka, “What were you wearing?”).
There are a lot of directions we can take to address the issue of street harassment, but I wanted to show the geographical patterns in the areas where I personally have the most problems so people can see that it is indeed a real problem. In one sense the dismissers are right – while this does happen in all parts of America (and the world) the frequency does have to do with the area you’re in, and that can tie into a lot of cultural factors that can and should be addressed to make the streets there safer for every person.
If the neighborhoods that have the most problems can see a visual map of what is happening in their community, on their streets and on their block where their little girls are growing up, maybe they can work together to do something about it. Maybe businesses there will realize that there is a reason women aren’t shopping at their stores and be motivated to get involved. Who knows what the knowledge could do for the community. I’d like to find out.
I also want to point out these are only the experiences of one person. Just me. I am one of thousands of women who live in my area. If this map seems like a lot of incidents, multiply it by a thousand and you’ll have a closer idea of what’s going on every day.
I feel like I really should have said that the reason I chose to make this map is because I’m sick and tired of letting harassers off the hook to enjoy their day, and I like collecting data, and I like maps, and I really want every harassment to leave a stain on the place it happened instead of being invisible, and that’s why I try to mark the spot with chalk whenever possible. But that doesn’t really sounds as thoughtful. So I’ll just stick with, “Because people are visual animals.”
-HappyRat
