My latest op-ed on #streetharassment:
“…Street harassment isn’t merely a quality of life issue; this is a human rights issue and the United States needs to treat it that way.
At the national level, this could mean the Obama administration and national advocacy groups include it as a form of discrimination and gender violence in the work they do.
At the state level, governments could become more uniform in outlawing up-skirt photos, following, and hate crimes, each types of serious harassment that are perfectly legal in some states.
Locally, mayors, city council members, and transit agencies should work with citizens on efforts to make their communities safer. Boston, Philadelphia, New York City, and Washington, DC, are leaders in this, each having held a city council hearing on street harassment and/or launched an anti-harassment campaign on their transit system. A few months ago in New York, Mayor de Blasio promised to address street harassment during his term in office. Hopefully he will keep that promise.
We also need more education about what street harassment is and to teach the next generation how to interact with each other in public spaces with respect and consent.
In the United States, we like to see ourselves as a leader in the world, a nation of freedom and equality, but to me and to millions of people who feel unsafe in public spaces, that will never ring completely true until we address and end the widespread problem of sexual harassment and assault in public spaces.”
