Archives for September 2013

By: Tilly Grove, London, UK, SSH Correspondent

I remember being jealous of my friend who confessed to being wolf-whistled by the waste collectors she passed on her way to school, regardless of the fact that it clearly distressed her and she was lodging a complaint with the council.

We were fourteen or fifteen years old then. I had already swallowed whole the idea that street harassment wasn’t just something that we had to accept, but it was something that we should appreciate, something that we should want, something that we should envy other victims for. At the same time, these men were harassing a girl in her school uniform. Whether they were behaving in the way they did because they found her sexually attractive, because they wished to intimidate her, or both, they could be fairly safe in the assumption that they were dealing with a child. Clearly, it didn’t stop them. Maybe it encouraged them.

As women, we are acutely aware that street harassment is an accepted part of our lives. In many ways, though, it is more than that; it is the rite of passage we must undertake to be considered women. The moment a girl receives her first catcall, her first wolf-whistle or her first grope, she can consider herself well on the way to adulthood – no matter how unwanted the action was, and no matter how uncomfortable it made her. Such is the brainwashing of our society, she feels that she should be grateful, because it’s a compliment.

If she dares to pluck up the courage and tell someone – a parent, guardian, or teacher, perhaps – she may find her concerns brushed off on the basis that, “It’s just something women have to put up with,” so she needs to get used to it. If she tells her friends, she might find her complaints rejected because, “You love it really!” They’ve been taught to view it as a compliment, too.

The entitlement that men perceive themselves to have over women, their bodies and their lives knows no boundaries, age-related or otherwise. When I tweeted out a request for girls and women to share their earliest memories of street harassment, the majority recalled that it started before they were even teenagers. The eleven-year-old catcalled by builders on her way to get ice-cream, the thirteen-year-old beeped and hollered at by men in cars for wearing shorts, and the sixteen year old who can’t leave the house for even five minutes in a skirt without a man passing comment, all learned that the hard way.

Men began to intimidate them and reduce them to sex objects the moment they hit puberty. That’s the initiation into adulthood.

One thing above all else sticks out as being universal in the stories I heard, though: from the moment these women had their first experience of childhood street harassment, that harassment immediately became a constant part of their lives, and remains so to this day. They graduated into womanhood.

Tilly is studying for a BA in War Studies at King’s College London, where she is writing her dissertation on the effect that perceptions of gender have on the roles which women adopt in conflict. You can follow her on Tumblr and Twitter, @tillyjean_.

By: Taylor Kuether, Minnesota, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

Last night I was walking to a friend’s house for her housewarming party. It was a Saturday night and I was dressed to go out – not that that should be relevant. I had done my hair and put on makeup, and I thought I looked pretty good.

I was walking alone, which in my mid-sized college town of about 65,000 people, I’ve always felt safe and comfortable doing. I was walking down the sidewalk on a well-trafficked street full of popular bars. Two men walked around the corner, turning onto the street I was walking along. Instinctively, I quickened my pace and averted my eyes as I walked past them, as I do when I pass anyone on a narrow sidewalk and I’m walking alone.

As I passed them, one of the men said (and these really are his exact words), “Well aren’t you just the prettiest little lady in the whole wide world.”

I had not expected that. I don’t know why I was so caught off guard – maybe because I’d been lost in thought as I walked to my friend’s house, maybe because I’d walked far enough down the street that I was no longer in the heavily-trafficked area and I hadn’t expected to run into anyone, maybe because his words were something straight out of a movie. I mean, who says that?

Taken aback, I laughed. I actually laughed! And it gets worse – I laughed and said “thank you.” What?! Why did I do that? I write for a blog that aims to combat street harassment (thanks for reading, by the way!), and I THANKED a harasser for his comment.

That’s why I’m writing about this. How does one respond to street harassment? What should I have said? I know I handled it all wrong, and I’ve been kicking myself for responding with a laugh and a smile instead of a terse retort in – probably vain – effort to quell his future comments. But I didn’t. I’d been so caught off guard and so surprised by actually hearing such a cliché catcall in real life that my first natural reaction was to laugh.

So, readers, what should I have done? Tweet me @taylorkuether with your thoughts!

[Editor’s Note: There is no “right” or perfect response to street harassment! It’s okay if we don’t always speak out against it, there may be a million reasons why. At SSH we hope people know there are a range of responses to try out and that ultimately the choice is YOURS.]

Taylor Kuether is a senior journalism student at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in northwestern Wisconsin. She has previously written for The Washington Post and Minneapolis’ Star Tribune, worked as a reporter at her city’s daily newspaper, The Leader-Telegram, and its arts and culture publication, VolumeOne, hosted a local-music centered radio show on Wisconsin Public Radio, and worked as Editor-in-Chief at her student newspaper, where she enjoyed writing biting, slightly rant-y columns about feminist issues.