Did you know hat pins used to serve dual purposes? They held elaborate hats in place on women’s heads and they were also an effective tool for stopping street harassers.
Imagine a trolley car in the 1940s, heading down a city street. Now imagine a woman standing in the car, on her way to the store or perhaps commuting to her secretary job (since that was one of the only professions open to women). It’s not crowded on the trolley, but a man is standing very close behind her. She stands alert and when he suddenly touches her inappropriately, she is ready. She discreetly reaches for her hat, seemingly to adjust it, but instead grabs a hat pin and stabs him! She never turns around.The harasser winces, backs away, and hopefully thinks twice about grabbing women on the trolley.
Fast forward to the 1980s in Istanbul, Turkey, and needles were the defense weapon of choice to stop harassers. Activists launched a “Purple Needle” campaign and handed out needles with purple ribbons tied onto them to women on the streets so the women could stab their harassers!
Kacie Lyn Kocher who founded the anti-street harassment group Hollaback! Istanbul said, “According to reports, street harassment went down substantially during the campaign.” The distribution of purple needles was briefly resumed in January 2008 in response to several instances of sexual abuse at Taksim Square in Istanbul.
Fast forward to today, and women in Nepal often use safety pins to ward off harassers. An ActionAid report about gender violence in cities includes a story from a college student in Nepal.
She said, “I carry safety pins with me while travelling. Whenever I feel that I am being harassed by someone around me, I poke him with my safety pin. It alerts the person who is conducting such violence on me. I was taught to do it by seniors in my college. I was hesitant to do it at first, but I found that when my friends did it, the person who harasses tends to back off.”
It’s infuriating that women have to resort to pins and needles to get harassers to back off but I do love reading about women’s long history of resistance! Don’t mess with us or you might get stabbed…
