Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming
Whenever I see a “no dog poop” sign, it always makes me think about how street harassment is this huge social problem yet there are no signs against it and no fines to deter harassers. So, I decided to make two signs myself 🙂 What would you put on a street sign against street harassment?
 |
 |
 |
 |
Dear Men,
As a straight, single woman, I love you guys. I love your hairiness. I love when you do rugged and manly things outdoors like setting stuff on fire. I love how stoic you are, yet still get choked up when you watch the episode of Futurama about Fry’s dog. Unfortunately, sometimes I get the feeling that you don’t love me—and other women, for that matter—back. I’m talking about street harassment: whistles, catcalls, horn honks, etc. Pretty much all those little things guys tend to do that you think are complimentary but are actually demeaning and frightening.
I can almost hear your arguments of rebuttal from here. Believe me, I’ve heard many of them before: Women secretly like it… It’s showing appreciation… I’m just being nice… Women are just too stuck up… I don’t mind when women objectify me…
Gentlemen, as I said before, I like you. A lot. I’m sure there is one of you out there I’ll meet someday that I will love even. So I’m going to let you in on a secret—a secret, insider, girls-only secret. When you do those things, they do not make me feel attractive. They do not make me feel like I would be safe in your muscular embrace. They do not make me swoon in awe of your sexual prowess.
They do make me feel that you might be the type of person who would attack me and rape me, that you are a predator and I am your prey. They make me feel like I should cross the street with my head turned away, eyes cast down in shame for daring to wear a skirt or dress or running shorts. They make me see you as the type of goon Batman pulverizes without breaking a sweat. They make me feel sick inside. I’m pretty sure most women feel the same way (though truthfully I can speak only for myself). If you care that much about us, then you should respect us enough to stop. If you continue to harass women on the street, then you don’t really care about us; you care about your own selfish personal gratification.
I am going to go out on a limb here and assume that we are, for the most part, all adults here. What separates men and women from boys and girls isn’t the number of years they have been alive or their ability to grow body hair, it’s their capacity to understand and respect each other. Children are selfish because that is the only way they know how to be. Their scope of life is limited. Adults, however, have history. We have baggage we carry with us whether we realize it or not. All this baggage—the good and the bad—helps us to be unselfish and to see things from others’ perspectives. A lack of mutual respect results in grown-up children: adults who still think only of their own immediate wants and desires. When men fail to see things from women’s perspective, fail to listen to us, you are not behaving like men. You are behaving like boys.
This brings me to my final point: how can men possibly understand women? How can you possibly understand that we are not being too stuck up or overly sensitive when we object to street harassment? Frankly, there is a very simple answer. Allow me to share this story as an explanation:
It has become something of a tradition among my high school friends and me to gather periodically for movie marathons. One of our most recent marathons was the Alien franchise. I was particularly excited about this, as I had never seen any of these films before. (As a side note, my final verdict: Alien and Aliens are perfectly awesome, three and four are negligible, Prometheus had its flaws but is overall pretty good.) During the course of watching the first movie, my friends and I (three men, three women including me) got to talking about its underlying themes of rape and male violation. Paul, one of the friends who hosts these get-togethers and who writes a movie review blog (Man of Constant Hatred), pointed out that the whole concept of the face-huggers—especially in the original when they first attack John Hurt’s character—illustrates sexual violation of men. Think about it: the face-hugger surprises Hurt and latches itself over his face, specifically over his mouth. It refuses to release him until after it has had its way with him, laying its eggs inside him—in other words, raping him. This rape ultimately results in Hurt’s death.
Gentlemen, how do you feel when you watch this movie? Uncomfortable? Squicky? What does make you feel that way? I don’t know; I’m a woman. I’m just trying to help you all put yourselves in our place.
I am not going to tell you that you need to get in touch with your feminine side or express your feelings more or anything like that. All I can do is present my feelings and opinions on the matter. It’s up to you to respect them, hopefully after taking a while to consider what real respect looks like.
Sincerely,
Emily C. Williams
Emily C. Williams is a middle-school English teacher and a writer of novels. She holds degrees from the University of Mary Washington and the College of William and Mary. She currently lives in Richmond, Virginia.
Alexandra Moran is a 20-year-old English Literature student from Birmingham, UK, with a passion for music and writing and a hope to become an English teacher and a writer one day. She wrote the poem “Bacon” about street harassment (see below for the transcript).
Her inspiration for writing it?
She said, “After experiencing street harassment almost every day where I live and realising how commonplace it was becoming, with friends constantly tweeting about or discussing the fact people had been “creepy” to them whilst walking someone, it was starting to feel like we had all resigned ourselves to the fact this was just, unfortunately, becoming an everyday part of life as a female in a relatively urban area. However, when, one night, I was followed the whole way home by a car of guys slowing down and shouting things I realised that something had to change, it was something about the context of this – how dark it was and how empty the streets were, that made me more scared than usual and I found myself, as I sat at home shaking, wishing that the guys in the car could somehow realise how shaken up their “meaningless fun” had made me.
Two other key moments stuck with me when writing this poem, when, on discussion feminism and street harassment by mum actually told me she would be flattered to get beeped at by a car of males and also, whilst working a bar job, when a male co worker told me that a female customers who kept staring at them was making them feel uncomfortable. To my mum I say this is the furthest thing from flattery, and to my co worker -welcome to what life is like for the 21st century female.”
And yes I quicken the pace
but A to B shouldn’t always be a race
and should it really be a breathless, achy sprint
and only then will you, sir, get the hint?
And if you think that you flatter me
you don’t know the last thing about flattery!
A compliment isn’t commenting on a nameless strangers behind
It’s not very gentlemanly I think you’ll find.
What would you do, if one night, I followed you?
Rolled down windows, testosterone seeps through
beeping the horn. you ignore me. I begin to shout
” Oi love, get your pecs out”
Oh sorry is this making you uncomfortable?
By the dim lit do you feel vulnerable?
I’ll signal you lewd sex acts,
get my girls to pitch in at the back
mob attack.
Oh .. you don’t respond to our hollers and shouts
Is there a closet you wanna step out?
Oh … you’re not gonna step over to our car tonight?
You must be really, really, really frigid , right?
Why quicken your pacer?
This isn’t a race.
We will follow you until our fun is through
because that is just what us girls in cars do.
It’s not just after dark, it’s daytime too
a “nice ass” in the morning should see you through
really i’m doing wonders for you
boosting your self esteem, it’s true
what do you mean i’m demeaning you?
You’re dressed for it, you must be aware?
With clothes like that i’m gonna stare.
Onesie, jeans, suit, underwear.
You wouldn’t dress like that if you had a care.
See how ridiculous this is.
Cat call, curb crawl
cuz afterall it doesnt mean nothing to you at all.
And yes this is quite a stir i’m making
but all I wanted was to go to the shops for some bacon.
Our pilot Safe Public Spaces Mentoring Program Sites in Afghanistan, Cameroon, and Chicago, USA, are about two weeks into their anti-street harassment projects and are hard at work!
In Kabul, Afghanistan, the leadership duo of Masooma and Ali have begun giving workshops on street harassment in local schools. On Friday, they gave a workshop at Star Educational Society and there was a large turnout despite the Ramadan holiday.
In Buea, Cameroon, team leader Zoneziwoh is collecting people’s street harassment stories and experiences in preparation for creating a five-hour seminar in a few weeks.
In Chicago, USA, team leader Phaydra is working with local activists to finalize the first story-board for the first of three short films about street harassment. They will film the first one during the week of Aug. 10.
Learn more about their projects and donate to SSH to help us expand this program later this year!
Brooklyn Movement Center is doing A LOT to address street harassment this summer. They’re holding regular meetings with community members to discuss the issue – and possible solutions. One of their current initiatives is working with community members to create a chart listing different types of street harassment, reasons why the harasser may be doing them, and ideas for responses.
“On July 20, they released the first draft of their Street Harassment Spectrum on their website. It charts harassment on an “intensity score” of 1-10, from non-aggressive verbal communication at one end (“Hey beautiful”) to groping at the other. For each type of harassment — making gross sounds, staring, walking too close, non-sexual touching, following, masturbating openly like a perverted chimp with no boundaries — they suggest why the harasser might feel entitled to do such a thing, as well as potential responses from the harrass-ee.”
Here’s an excerpt of the draft (here’s the link to the full version):
