Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Archives for March 2013

Survey: Most Women In Edinburgh Experience Street Harassment

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Cross-posted with permission from Hollaback Edinburgh.

We release our research today outlining the experiences of 100 young people aged 12-25 in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Key findings include:

The majority of the respondents were 18-25 (94%)

The majority of respondents self-identified as female (85%)

Almost all the respondents had experienced some form of Street Harassment, with the most common being an experience of someone whistling, shouting, or beeping their horn at respondents (86%)

The most common reaction to Street Harassment was a feeling of anger, seconded by a feeling of vulnerability

When asked who they told, the majority of respondents told friends

One respondent reported that the “Police invalidated my experience”

Many respondents highlighted that “banter” is often used as an excuse

Read the full report: hollaback report 2013

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We Chalk Walk!

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Via the new Hollaback! Brussels Tumblr We Chalk Walk:

“On March 25, 2012, Hollaback! Brussels pre-launched with a Chalk Walk.

We were only 4 then. We were strangers to each other. And Hollaback! brought us together.

We decided that if we were gonna go for this adventure, we had to get rid of all the breaks and do some sort of initiation together.

We each wrote down a story about the street harassment we experienced, mapped it and then went back to the place where it had happened, to reclaim the spot with chalk in our hands.

We called it a ‘Chalk Walk’ and it did something to us. It gave us an energy, a new strength. Doing this action, eliminated certain fears brought on by years of experiencing street harassment, it felt like we were reclaiming a freedom we imagined we had lost.

And then we thought, EVERYONE should experience this…

This March 2013, we’re letting the Chalk Walk loose upon the world! Let’s use this tumblr to connect, to show we have each other’s back with our chalk messages from around the world…..

Your Hollaback! Brussels team: Ingrid, Jo, Anna, Quentin, Julie & Angelika.“

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USA: All Women Deserve Safety

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“American Girl in Italy” by Ruth Orkin (www.orkinphoto.com/photographs/american-girl/)

By Natasha Vianna, SSH Correspondent

It was the end of the night on Cinco de Mayo in Downtown Boston. After having a wonderful evening with friends, my friend Christina headed towards to subway so she could go home. On her walk, she passed a group of men standing on a corner. The group turned to face her as she walked by and began calling her by harassing nicknames and shouting at her. She walked without looking or responding, but as soon as she thought she was safe, she felt what she explained as the most dis-empowering moment of her life. One of the men reached out and slapped her ass. Not knowing how to respond, in shock, she thought of 100 things she could have done but chose to run off while the group of men laughed.

Looking back, there were so many things she wanted to say, she wanted to stand up for herself, she wanted to let those assholes know that they were horrible people who made her feel unsafe. But she couldn’t do that. She didn’t know them, what they were capable of, or what their intentions were. If she had stopped to shout back, a young girl to a group of men, who knows what could have happened. Her only concern was her safety.

When one man harasses a woman on the street, she is faced with a decision that could alter the course of her life.

After years of experiencing street harassment, I have become savvy when it comes to crossing the street at the right time and pretending I am deaf, blind, and mute. Yet, it should not have to be this way. I should not have to run across the street because a creepy man is making comments on the corner and I should not have to stay quiet in fear that my response could anger my harasser.

Women are faced with these challenging situations every single day on the streets. Somehow, the idea that women are objects for men’s visual pleasure is one that has been preserved during our evolution of women’s rights over the decades.

As a young woman in America, this is something I have experienced far too often and I know I’m not alone. These dis-empowering moments of gender-based violence, when men use their privilege to make us feel unsafe, is AWFUL and life changing. It’s infuriating; it’s horrifying, it’s unjustifiably wrong. I cannot walk down a street without worrying that at some point; someone might harass me or a woman near me.

When men harass women, I wonder if their mothers, their sisters, their daughters, or their nieces ever come to mind. Would they be okay with another man treating their loved ones this way? I’m sure they wouldn’t.

So men, rethink how you interact with women. The change we all want to see happen in our society has to start with you. Set the example. Show others how to respect women. Only then will you see a better future for your daughters and their daughters. Our future generation of girls depend on you.

Natasha Vianna, a fearless activist and young feminist, is a freelance writer and blogger based out of Boston, MA. Follow her on twitter!

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“My Mexican Manifesta against Gender-based Violence”

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This article, by Yolí Sánchez Neyoy, is cross-posted with permission from the blog of the International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region.

There was a time in my life when I didn’t engage in critical thinking and receiving sexual comments about my body defined my level of self-esteem. Little by little, as I began to understand what makes men feel they have the right to comment on the look of my behind, I started to reject these “compliments” and respond to the men who made them. Eventually, this would be one thing that would convince me to leave Mexico, my country of origin.

Why do I take these comments so seriously? Because, despite their appearance as ‘good-natured’ or ‘playful’, these acts are on the same continuum as femicide and sexual assault.

Globally, gender-based violence takes the life of one in three women worldwide and is the leading cause of disability and death for women between the ages of 15 and 44. According to a 2012 Thomson Reuters Foundation poll on the best and worst G20 countries for women, Mexico ranked in the bottom five in quality of life for women. The objectification of women is so entrenched in Mexico (as well as in other places) that most people have no perception when violence is being exercised.

In Latin American countries, violence is considered to be only that which involves physical aggression, such as hitting, rape, or murder. Sometimes these acts are justified by popular culture and media that says a woman “deserved it” or even “asked for it.” These excuses would not apply if the violence was exercised against a man.

On the other hand, what happens to men and boys that experience gender-based violence? They are invisible or ridiculed by a culture that considers them to be a “lesser man.”

Government efforts to resolve gender-based violence are often reluctant and, therefore, weak. The result is that gender-based violence is normalized, femicide is accepted in many regions of the country, and several areas are completely overwhelmed by sex trafficking and exploitation. These crimes will never cease to occur in a society where everyone has rights over a woman’s body except herself, where women are not treated with equality and respect.

I hope these grievances emphasize the urgency of my petition: we need to integrate rights-based, comprehensive sexuality education into the school systems to encourage healthy relationships and gender equality. Teaching the biology of reproduction is not enough. Young people must learn and practice the skills necessary to have non-violent interactions, like empathy and resolving conflicts with dialogue. They also need to be able to identify and respect another’s emotional and physical boundaries. When our destructive stereotypes about masculinity and femininity are broken, we will be taking a big step forward.

Yolí Sánchez Neyoy is quality manager at dance4life, an organization creating a world in which young people are free from the stigma and discrimination of HIV infection. With a passion for equality and human rights, she adds her grain of sand by working on monitoring and evaluation.

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