Cross-posted with permission from Surayya’s blog.
My name is Surayya I. Diggs, I am a recent graduate of Elizabeth Irwin High School, and I will be attending Cornell University in the fall at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. I have an interest in science and agriculture, but since I can remember I have also had a tremendous interest in race, feminism, and social justice. In the more recent future I have become very interested in fighting street harassment.
In early August 2012, I found an opportunity to do something about the issue of street harassment. The ELLA Fellowship Program, a part of the Sadie Nash Leadership Project was an opportunity to carry out a 9-month community development project.
At the beginning of my fellowship I knew I wanted to make a documentary. I thought that a video would be a great way to reach people because the Internet is becoming such a relevant part of today’s society, but I had never made a film in my life. I began searching on YouTube for videos about street harassment to find some inspiration and figure out what I wanted to do differently with my film. One of the videos I came across was, Totally Biased: NYC Women Talk About Cat Calling. This was a very comedic, and almost offensive, approach to the issue of street harassment, and it only gave examples of street harassment. After watching this video, I watched a few more, and they each seemed to do the same thing, simply talk about cat calling and give alternate ways of approaching women, when the real issue is men feeling like they have the right to talk to women on the street in the first place. After watching those videos I knew that I wanted my video to strike a different cord, I wanted to paint the picture of street harassment for people living in NYC, then show why it is dangerous, and finally give solutions to combat and end street harassment.
In November 2012, I conducted the first interview for my film on street harassment. I was able to set up and conduct an interview with Nefertiti Martin at her office at Girls for Gender Equity. I then spent the next 6 months interviewing and editing my film, converting over 6 hours of footage into a 10-minute documentary. During the process, I was able to interview and observe the work of many significant players in the fight against street harassment including Chair of the Women’s Issues Committee and Council Member, Julissa Ferreras, Manhattan Borough President, Scott Stringer, Founder of Stop Street Harassment, Holly Kearl, Co-Founder of Hollaback! Emily May, and many educated people that I interviewed on the street.
Here is my documentary:
Here is a shorter film that I made in December that shares the street harassment testimonies of students from my school:
In addition to these films, I led several workshops in order to reach people on the ground.
On March 25, 2013, I guided a fishbowl at a Youth Summit for Street Harassment. A fishbowl in simple words is a conversation; I called out different identities like gender, sexual orientation, and religion. There was a small circle of 10 people in the center and over 100 people surrounding them that were listening to what was being said inside the smaller circle. The fishbowl was a chance for people to share their personal experiences of street harassment and have people really listen to what is being said, this is something that can’t be accomplished with a simple discussion. For most participants, their favorite part of the entire summit was the fishbowl.
Next, I conducted a workshop on May 18, 2013 at the International Youth Leadership Institute where I talked to high schoolers from around NYC about the root issues and effects of street harassment, this was called the roots and branches activity, and then I had them think of an axe, a solution to the problem, which was meant to cut down the tree. I did an identical workshop on May 20, 2013, for my old middle school, the Little Red School House.
Finally, on June 4, 2013, I directed an all-school assembly at my high school, Elizabeth Irwin High School. During this assembly I screened my film and brought in Holly Kearl, founder of Stop Street Harassment, and community organizer at Girls For Gender Equity, Nefertiti Martin to speak on specific topics within the issue of street harassment.
Overall, it was a very successful fellowship and I learned a lot about filmmaking, planning, and street harassment. I learned that filmmaking is about storytelling, which means not including everything even if you want to; because I had to cut out so much footage, there were some things I, regrettably, could not include, such as police harassment of men of color, sexualization of women in the media, and the power dynamic of women and men in society. I learned that planning a youth summit and high school assembly requires great attention to detail and advanced planning. I also learned that the most common form of street harassment is verbal, but it can escalate to the physical, such as groping and public masturbation. Many people don’t understand the threat of violence that women have to deal with and the psychological effects of being called out at like a sexual object for the pleasure of heterosexual men.
The purpose of my fellowship was to educate participants and inspire them to do something about the issue of street harassment. I created my film in order to make men and women more sensitive to the effects of street harassment. I want men to understand that most women do not appreciate being “complimented” and help women understand that you don’t have to just deal with street harassment, but you can do something about it. Being able to show my video on the Stop Street Harassment website is a great opportunity and I hope there will be more platforms in the future to share my video. In the mean time, please direct your family and friends to this article and YouTube to get my videoes out there and educate people on the issue of street harassment.
