Dearbhla Quinn, Dublin Ireland/Brussels, Belgium, SSH Blog Correspondent
I was no stranger to street harassment when I attended the launch of the Dublin branch of Hollaback! in November 2012 and first met the people who are hard at work combating this social plight. Vanessa Baker is one of the four founders of Dublin’s branch of a globe-spanning network of activists that includes 79 cities in 26 countries, all contributing to the growing movement in opposition to what they describe as “the most prevalent form of gender based violence.” She agreed to chat with me about their campaign.
Hollaback is a movement that started in New York in 2005 when Thao Nguyen photographed a public masturbator on the subway. Ignored by police, she uploaded the photo online, prompting a city-wide discussion, not just about street harassment, but also the power of the Internet to combat it.
Eighteen months after the launch of the Dublin branch, Vanessa told me how the site allows the victims of harassment to share their stories online and receive the support of other visitors who can click the “I’ve got your back” button alongside published stories and another interesting feature, a map. “Once you’ve submitted a story I can see where it happened and so it kind of records a virtual map of street harassment in the city with dots showing where people have experienced their stories taking place,” she told me.
Vanessa told me how she had become involved. “Before I moved to Dublin in 2011, I had been living in Ottawa for four years…one of the other women who I met there was in the process of setting up Hollaback! Ottawa… So anyway that was my first exposure to Hollaback.”
This proved to be a fortunate discovery when street harassment in Dublin left her feeling powerless. “It didn’t matter what I was wearing, or what time it was. Some guy would always try to walk home with me or be shouting something and it got really frustrating that I didn’t have any control over it…In Ottawa if you walk home after midnight you expect it, but at Dublin you find that even at 3 p.m…So I looked up to see if there was a Hollaback! Dublin and there wasn’t, so, but there was an option to start your own. I sent them an email explaining who I was and why I wanted to start it and then it turns out that Jenny Dunne had sent a similar message around the same time and so we were both interested in starting the site and that’s how we met.”
Before meeting Vanessa, through the online training course, Jenny had thought she was the only interested Dubliner. She sought out other eager volunteers through the Irish Feminist Network Facebook page and soon Eavan Magner and Aimée Doyle joined the team.
I asked Vanessa if she understood the reluctance of many women to describe themselves as feminist and if she would consider Hollaback! to be a feminist movement. “I’m 25 now and I’m comfortable with it now but at undergrad level I felt uncomfortable with that label. I do understand the reluctance to identify with that label. We try to be more inclusive through not using the words in our posts, so that people can interact with the site even if they don’t identify with that label. I do think it’s sad though…We tried to stay apolitical but I think that was a mistake, because abortion is such a hot button topic and I think that stopped us from integrating with the Dublin feminist community. Even though we’re all Pro-Choice we didn’t want Hollaback! to have an official stance and that isolated us.”
So what’s next? Vanessa described the initial challenge of maintaining momentum. “When we started, we were very focused on launch day, so afterwards we had a bit of a ‘what now’ moment’. Vanessa believes that the next step is to ‘bring it more offline- story sharing is cathartic, but it’s a very self-selecting group that look at the site.”
Through events like their “Chalk walk” and workshops, Vanessa hopes that they may contribute to a dialogue, not just with the victims, but with harassers too. She is optimistic for the future and understandably proud of their achievements so far.
“I like to think that we’ve made a difference and changed a few minds. Even if we don’t end street harassment in Dublin anytime soon, at least we can provide support to those who suffer it.”
Dearbhla graduated from BESS (Business and Sociology), in Trinity College Dublin, last year. She currently lives in Brussels, Belgium, where she has a think-tank internship working in the areas of gender, equality, and employment. Follow her on Twitter @imoshedinheels and her blogs.
