Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Health Magazine: Street harassment is not a compliment

By

Dear Health Magazine,

The June 2013 issue of your magazine included a blurb titled, “What Shouldn’t Make You Happy But Does,” and one of the items is, “Getting whistled at by construction workers. Yes, you’ve still got it.”

Whistling is just one of the many forms of street harassment that 80 to 100 percent of women worldwide experience regularly, often starting around puberty. Street harassment also includes unwanted sexual comments, following, flashing, and groping in public spaces.

We are disturbed that a magazine whose very title is “health” would suggest that street harassment is okay and a compliment. It’s not. Instead, it is detrimental to women’s health and it impedes gender equality.

1. It reinforces the belief that a woman’s worth is pleasing men.

A 2007 report by the American Psychology Association Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls found that girls are socialized by the media, parents, and peers to believe that their worth is their sexuality and ability to please men. Street harassment reinforces this belief. The report listed scores of negative effects from the sexualization, including on girls’ and young women’s physical and mental health.

2. It contributes to self-objectification, which has many negative health outcomes.

A study in the Journal of Social Justice Research found that street harassment was related to self-objectification. Multiple studies have linked self-objectification with an increase in rates of depression, anxiety and eating disorders as well as lower academic achievement.

3. It makes women feel less comfortable in public spaces.

Women never know which person whistling at them may then yell obscenities at them, or follow them, or attack them. Most women have an underlying  feeling of dread and fear when a man they do not know approaches them or sexually objectifies them in a public space. Street harassment and the fear of sexual assault typically make women feel less comfortable being in public spaces compared with men, especially when they are alone.

4. It causes women to change their lives.

Most women who experience street harassment, especially if they experience it often, change their lives in various ways to try to avoid it in the future. They may change their routes or routines or quit hobbies. Notably, of the 811 women who took a survey for a book on street harassment, 19 percent had moved neighborhoods and 9 percent had changed jobs because of harassers along the commute. Also, related to health, 24 percent said they paid to exercise in a gym instead of outdoors on at least a monthly basis and 10 percent had gained weight or kept on weight at least once as a strategy to try to avoid street harassment.

Additionally, street harassment – including whistling – impedes gender equality because it reinforces the belief that women should be pretty, not smart, compliant, not assertive, and that they should stay home instead of being in public places. Surely these are not messages you wish to support.

Instead of suggesting that street harassment is a compliment and okay, we hope Health magazine will publish an article in the future about the negative health outcomes of street harassment, why it is important for people to take action to stop street harassment, and what they can do.

Sincerely,

Holly Kearl, founder of Stop Street Harassment and author of Stop Street Harassment: Making Public Places Safe and Welcoming for Women.

Co-Signers:

Collective Action for Safe Spaces

Defend Yourself

The Best Defense Program

Everyday Feminism

Everyday Victim Blaming

Feminist Peace Network

Hollaback! Baltimore

Hollaback! Brussels

Hollaback! Denver

Hollaback! Des Moines

Hollaback! Hamilton

Hollaback! Ottawa

Hollaback! Winnipeg

MasculinityU

National Council of Women’s Organizations

One Angry Girl Designs: “International Fashion Diva”

One Less Victim

She’s Somebody’s Daughter

UniteWomen

White Ribbon Campaign

Women, Action, and the Media (WAM!) Vancouver

Women’s Views on News

YWUA

Sara Alcid

Kate Appleby

Brooke Applegate

Eleanor Ball

Claire Biggs

Elizabeth Bolton, SSH board member

Katherine Broendel

Holly Brown

Nikki Cassidy

Kori Cioca

Sean Crosbie

Mandy Damon

Shaun Day

Samantha DeHoyos

Wendy Felton

Janet Good

Angela Hattery

Kristen Holcomb

Kerri Faith Kellerman, Activist, Scientist, Poet

Alan Kearl

Serena Kelly

Heidi Lentini

Matt Lentini

Salvatore Lentini

Rachel M

Amanda Mabry

Melissa Markotsis

Ebony Marshman

Rickelle Mason

Julie Mastrine

Jasmine Mathineer

Stephanie McAleer

Bonnie McCammond, Sexual Assault Response and Prevention Advocate; survivor

Erin McKelle

Patrick Ryne McNeil, anti-street harassment activist, writer

Ece Okar

Kelly Ormsby

Tressa L. Paquette

Nabin Kumar Pati

Salem Pearce

Georgette Pierre

Emily Resnick

Linda Sarsour ‏

Katie Schmalzel

Jenn Scott

Kimberley Anne Shults

Victoria Shuttleworth

Ursula Utsaha Singh

Tammy Stauffer

Larissa Dalton Stephanoff

Amber Stewart

Julia Strange

Lauren Taylor

Adrienne Tremain

Nikki Ummel

Patricia Valoy

Pavlina Valovitz

Jennifer Wallis

Beckie Weinheimer

Anna Whaley

Emily Williams

Abe Louise Young

_________________________________________________________

I submitted a Letter to the Editor and I sent a copy of the above in letter form to people at the magazine.

Take Action:

You can write your own letter to them too and also, here is a suggested tweet: Dear @goodhealth, #streetharassment is not a compliment, as implied in June issue, but detrimental 2 women’s health! http://tinyurl.com/pqmpml3

NOTE: I was originally told the blurb was found in Women’s Health Magazine, but on June 25, I learned it’s in the June 2013 issue of Health Magazine. Apologies to Women’s Health for this error.

H/T to @CuratorOfCuriosities

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Comments

  1. Harlan Chambers says

    Street harassment is a human rights issue because it limits women’s ability to be in public as often or as comfortably as most men. The mobility of all members of the LGBQT community is often restricted as well because of harassment and hateful violence motivated by the person’s actual or perceived gender expression or sexual orientation. For example, a 2013 study of 93,000 LGBQT individuals in the European Union found that half avoided public spaces sometimes because of street harassment and most reported high levels of fear in locations like restaurants, public transportation, streets, parking lots, and parks.

  2. Riot Grrrl Tuesdays says

    Street Harassment makes women feel unsafe. It’s the atmosphere that many of these honks and hollers create. It is an atmosphere that says “these streets are not yours.” It’s not a compliment, it’s rude. It’s dangerous.
    Also “celebrities that look pudgy after having kids”? My god! This is reinforcing the unrealistic expectation we have of women after giving birth. This negative view of “pudgy” women doesn’t stop at celebrity culture, it becomes internalized.
    Both of these “things that shouldn’t make us happy but do” are making women feel shitty. It promotes the culture that women are absolutely nothing more than their physical features.

  8. Celia B Karac says

    How you can possibly think that I would want a man to whistle at me is beyond my comprehension. When I lived in Manhattan I was regularly harassed, yes, harassed, by men on the street. All I ever wanted o do was go to work, do my work and go home, but I ended up in more verbal spats than anyone should. In my twenties I looked like a model. It did not matter what I wore or didn’t wear it was harassment, pyre and simple.

  9. Junine Johnson says

    I don’t need a construction worker to determine my worth, or a magazine for that matter. Silly me, thinking that any women’s magazine could rise above such nonsense, even one with “Health” in the title.

  10. Dru Michelle says

    It is a shame that a magazine promoting healthy women would undermine the negative and uncomfortable feelings that arise from street harassment. I have to change my exercise route, avoid certain streets entirely, and cross my fingers that I won’t be harassed – and I still often am. It makes me feel very unsafe, disrespected, and confused. You should be publishing real articles about how to be healthy: how to speak up when you are disrespected, ways to talk to men and women about harassment, support groups for women who have suffered extreme harassment, abuse, and/or rape, etc. Not some b.s. that is about men’s pleasure, not women’s health.

  11. Carissa Daniels says

    Time for this magazine to get some new writers who actually are in tune with women and don’t act as if harassment makes people “happy.” Disgusting…

  12. Wenona Kimbro says

    While I recognize the cultural purpose of the article in question, printing material that reaffirms and normalizes sexism is simply inappropriate at this point in history. It’s time to normalize equality, to encourage women to look beyond signals from men that represent sexual value, and to clearly express our need to be valued as people. This means sending clear messages to ourselves and others about how we expect to be treated, and doing the work of relating to each other in a healthy way.

  17. Jumbo Jibbles says

    So true- we also can’t wait around for strangers to validate our self-worth.

    One of the next things on that list is also pretty terrible- being happy that someone (you don’t even know) gained weight after pregnancy? That’s unfriendly on so many levels. So judgey!