Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Archives for May 2014

“Now I tend to wear my sunglasses more often”

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It was the first time I felt truly independent, walking around the streets of NYC all by myself for the first time. I was walking around 59th St, looking for what boutique to go in next when suddenly a guy wearing baggy clothes and a cap (seemed to be almost all white) (he looked around his late teens), his eyes suddenly “met” mine as I was scanning the stores, I had a delicious smoothie on hand and as he was walking opposite me, he went closer and said, “Can I get a sip” in the most smug and disturbing way possible.

It annoyed me so much, I just walked straight passed him with a disgusted look on my face. I enjoy NYC so much every time I visit and this had to happen… Regardless, I tried not to let it stop me but now I tend to wear my sunglasses more often as I don’t want my eyes to cross paths again with somebody like him…

– Anonymous

Location: 59th Street near Lexington Avenue near Zara

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Stories about being #Grabbed trended on Twitter

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Last week, The Everyday Sexism Project started a conversation on Twitter about being #grabbed against one’s will (sexual assault). You can read the Storify.

Everyday Sexism founder Laura Bates wrote about it for the Guardian, saying:

“These are just a tiny selection of the thousands of stories that poured in when I started the hashtag #Grabbed on Twitter to document experiences of being touched, grabbed and groped without consent.

Within a few hours, according to the International Business Times, the hashtag had been used more than 6,000 times. By that evening it was the top trending topic in the UK.

As suggested by the overwhelming number of personal testimonies that flooded in, the experience of being touched in a sexual way without your consent is devastatingly common.”

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“He doesn’t like it when women with bodies like mine ruin it by eating junk food”

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Today I was on a 15 minute break from work and decided to grab some coffee. A food kiosk worker was giving out food samples and handed me some kettle chips… I was munching on them when some man who had to be at least 65 told me that I should throw them away, because he doesn’t like it when women with bodies like mine ruin it by eating junk food and getting fat. I went around the building so I could take a different elevator; 4 guys followed me across the parking lot, through the building and down the back corridor singing Baby Got Back. Thankfully, we have security guards and doors and they couldn’t follow me in.

– Anonymous

Location: In the parking lot of the building where I work.

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“I want to keep an eye on this guy trying to look up my daughter’s skirt”

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I’m 14 years old. My story has two parts.

Recently, I had been at the mall with one of my friends, picking out a gift. We had finished choosing gifts, and were waiting for my parents to pick us up. It was a nice, warm day, and we decided to wait outside the food court. Out comes this MAYBE college age boy, an he begins to rap along with his iPod. I don’t think much of it until I hear someone of the things he had just said. “I wanna see your booty bumping ‘gainst my dick while I’m buzzing.”

What?

We head inside and wait, because that’s really weird. Pretty creepy.  He follows us inside, and we stand behind a large sign so he doesn’t see us. We see him again 30 minutes later, this time with my friend’s sister outside with us. When my parents arrive, he stops rapping.

After that, my friend had left with her sister, and my parents and I had sat down in the food court to eat. My dad joins us, and he sits next to me, oddly. My mom gives him an odd look and says, “What, you don’t want to sit by me?” He replies, “Not that, I want to keep an eye on this guy trying to look up my daughter’s skirt.”

A middle aged man had been trying to look up my skirt.

I am 14, and this man had a wife and little girl. He looked over at me several times during the period we had been eating.

I was scared to walk by him, which I had to do to get to the door.

– T

Location: Nebraska

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Pardon Cecily McMillan and no more NYPD policy to confiscate condoms

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There’s been good and bad news this week relating to police and justice and harassment in public spaces in New York City:

The bad first –

Via The Nation:

“On Monday, May 5, Occupy Wall Street protester Cecily McMillan was found guilty of assaulting NYPD Officer Grantley Bovell at the OWS anniversary protest on March 17, 2012. She now faces two to seven years in prison, with the possibility of probation.

Her conviction was a terrible miscarriage of justice. Abundant evidence of McMillan’s abuse at the hands of police—photos of bruises on her breast and arms, testimony that she suffered a seizure once handcuffed—were questioned in the spirit of what we’ve come to call rape culture: maybe, the prosecutor suggested, she faked it. Maybe she inflicted the bruises herself. Reports of NYPD misconduct during the Occupy protests were deemed inadmissible as evidence in court, as were the more violent parts of Officer Bovell’s record. In the absence of substantive background, the jurors came to their verdict based on a grainy video.

Upon hearing the terms of sentencing—which were, somehow, unknown to members of the jury—Charles Woodward (Juror #2) wrote a letter on behalf of nine of the twelve jurors asking Judge Zweibel for leniency in sentencing. They expressed remorse. One anonymous juror told Jon Swaine of The Guardian, “Most just wanted her to do probation, maybe some community service. But now what I’m hearing is seven years in jail? That’s ludicrous. Even a year in jail is ridiculous.”

You can sign a Change.org petition calling for a pardon.

Now the good, via USA Today:

“The New York Police Department will no longer confiscate unused condoms as evidence of prostitution by people suspected of being sex industry workers, abolishing a practice criticized by civil rights groups for undermining efforts to combat AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday.

Advocates for sex workers and civil rights groups had long pushed for the policy change, noting that the city spends more than $1 million every year to distribute free condoms.

For decades, police in New York and elsewhere had confiscated condoms from sex work suspects ostensibly for them to be used as evidence in criminal trials, even though the overwhelming majority of prostitution cases never go to trial.”

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