Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming
My two friends and I were not old enough to drive, which is why we walked to the coffee shop three blocks from our building. A man walking towards us whistled our way. I responded, ʺ*uck you, we aren’t puppies.” He then asked, “Where is this sexy gaggle of girls going?”
– MM
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more ideas
I first met Dienna Howard in 2008 when I was doing research for my first book. She had run the blog Golden Silence about street harassment for a few years and was outspoken on the issue so I knew she’s be a perfect person to interview. We’ve remained friends and activist allies ever since then, participating in marches, rallies, safety audits, and events together. Recently, she completed a documentary about street harassment and activism to stop it in the Washington, D.C. area. She has no background in making documentaries and learned how to do it in her spare time… and then did it. It was a huge under-taking and I’m so proud of her!!
Here is her documentary and below is an excerpt from her blog post about making the film.
“I became a member of Arlington Independent Media in late 2012. I’d known about it for years (and I attended a comedy screening there once), but I never thought to take advantage of it until then. (Más vale tarde que nunca!) This is an amazing organization that teaches its members how to create their own productions. I took the six-week field production class last spring, an Adobe Premiere Pro editing class last summer, and the six-week studio production class early last fall. Volunteering on a variety of different programs allowed me to develop my skills and do a 180 from “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing!” to “I am growing each day.” AIM’s staff is incredible and its members are wonderful.
After last year’s field production class, I wanted to produce my own show. Summer was on its way, and with summer comes an increase of street harassment, gender-based violence against women in public spaces. I am all too familiar with street harassment and I won’t use the space to get too deep into it here (I’ve talked about it enough), but being harassed on a regular basis is demeaning, frustrating, and humiliating, as well as dealing with the victim blaming responses that come from people who don’t understand it and don’t get it.
Doing a documentary on street harassment was a big challenge for someone who was still new to AIM at the time. I originally wanted to start off with something light. I love comedy, love all the old sitcoms, and wanted to do something humorous. But other than its timeliness, I wanted to do a piece on street harassment because I cannot count the number of documentaries on it that I’ve either been interviewed for or someone said they’d be working on, but they’d never come to fruition. I wanted to fill in that gap. I made a promise to myself to work on it from beginning to end and to get it done. (And as an AIM member, I’m required to get programming completed for them to air regardless!)
It was such a learning process working on this documentary. My confidence behind the camera developed, my ability to lead a team burgeoned, and my editing skills became smooth. I was getting the hang of this!
I don’t have all this fancy-schmancy technology at home, so I spent a lot of my weekends at AIM editing this project. (I know the weekend staff got tired of seeing me…HAHAHA!) Thankfully it’s cheap to rent AIM’s equipment and use of an editing suite, and using volunteer hours in lieu of part of the payment helped to reduce my costs.
I found it hard to give up most of my Saturdays during this time to edit. I’m an insomniac and I rarely sleep enough during the week, so to lose a day of my weekend was a sacrifice….
I never thought this project would end, and at times it was easy to see why others would cease working on similar things. I watched the same timeline footage each session, that I had it memorized by rote. I was beyond ready to move on.
I didn’t have a deadline for it, which was partly why the project seemed to never end….
So I put my foot down. It’s going to be done by the end of May, and I will make it happen.
Last month it was down to the wire. I was in that editing suite every Saturday, fine-tuning and finishing things. I’d been in contact with those who were involved in the program, doing things such as getting updates, getting photos, and verifying spelling and credits. I set a deadline with them too, because if I didn’t, I never would’ve gotten things done…
After what felt like an eternity, the video was completed and AIM saved a copy to their hard drive. I filled out the requisite forms, and was on my way. Nine is my favorite number, and 5/24/2014 – 5+2+4+2+0+1+4=18, 1+8=9. I spent another week nervous about whether the program was suitable to air. As long as the content wasn’t severely vulgar, it should be good to go, but there are scenes of a harasser using vulgar language against me, mentions of harassers masturbating, and cursing used when quoting the harassers. Would it fit their standards?
I got that e-mail from AIM stating that the program would air, starting June 5, 2014. 6+0+5+2+0+1+4=18, 1+8=9. Someone up there was on my side, rooting for me to achieve.
I don’t have a TV at home, but watched the live stream when it aired on the 5th. Though I had a saved copy of the video and that I would put on YouTube after it aired (AIM has a policy that nothing can be shared on other sites until it’s aired on their channel), I still watched it because I was finally watching this piece as a viewer, not as an interviewer or interview subject, not as a camera person, not as an editor, and not as a producer. I was watching it through new eyes. And as a viewer, I was proud of what I accomplished while wearing all of those other hats….
It’s been a few weeks since the program started airing on the station (three times a week!) and I finally got to put it on YouTube. The reception has been positive, which is a sigh of relief. I personally know most of the people that I interviewed for this documentary, and was worried they’d react with, “I don’t like how I was edited!” That would’ve been rough to hear. Years ago, when I was in college, I wrote an article about someone who was president of the student council. He got mad and said, “She misquoted me!” in front of me as if I weren’t even there. I didn’t want a repeat of that. Luckily everyone involved in the project has been very supportive…
I’ve finished this piece and am ready to move on, though I wouldn’t mind having a screening of it in the future. People have asked me what my next steps are. I’m currently helping a friend from my field production class co-produce a series of pieces and I’m looking forward to seeing how this project unfolds…
After everything’s said and done, I’m proud of myself for sticking with something, even when it seemed like no end was in sight. I’m looking forward to whatever else comes my way. Bring it on!”
I was walking casually downtown with a male friend of mine who came to visit the area and his family. We were walking along in a section along 4th Street and between Pike & Pine I believe and this man who looked like a drug addict walked towards us and stood within hearing distance and then started grumbling and practically hissing (I don’t remember his exact wording) that my male friend was a lesser man because he was walking with his woman who was clearly making him subservient to herself. Evidently I was a terrible woman because I was bending him to my will and he was a terrible man because I was crushing him with my feminine magical powers and he didn’t have the balls to put me in my place…. Or something.
He was ANGRY for no damn reason other than a man was walking with a woman. His stance and tone were so aggressive I was bracing for him to get physical with us.
I don’t know if he was trying to harass me or my male friend or both. I don’t walk in that area any longer. The number of streets downtown that I can usually reliably walk on without getting harassed … are becoming scarce.
– Anonymous
Location: Seattle, WA
Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more ideas
Stop Street Harassment (SSH)’s Safe Public Spaces Mentoring program empowers people to consider what efforts might decrease street harassment in their community, and then propose and carry out a project. Across three months, selected activists receive advice, network connections, input, and up to $250 for expenses from SSH.
In 2013 we worked with three pilot sites who held high school workshops in Afghanistan, conducted focus groups and organized a youth seminar in Cameroon, and created three short films and held a community event in Chicago, USA.
APPLICATIONS NOW AVAILABLE!
The 2014 period is September 1 through December 1.
** To apply, complete & submit this online form & complete and email this excel spreadsheet for expenses to hkearl@ stopstreetharassment.org. **
DEADLINE: AUGUST 8, 2014.
Who can apply?
Groups (or a very motivated individual) anywhere in the world!
We will accept and fund up to four mentoring sites this year.
Notification:
Applicants will be notified of the decision by August 18 and their program can start as soon as September 1.
Brittany Oliver, Baltimore, MD, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent
Fighting street harassment was never an easy job.
In case you missed it, Feminista Jones, a popular blogger, Black feminist and creator of the #YouOkSis hashtag, faced harsh backlash from Internet trolls for starting a discussion on how Black men should support Black women to combat street harassment. As motivating as this sounds, some people just couldn’t handle women speaking out and it took a turn for the worst.
With what was supposed to be a virtual space to express our frustrations to create dialogue, men immediately attacked Black women and their allies. At some point, I decided to join in on the conversation and the same thing happened to me.
How bad was it? You be the judge.
In defense of the movement, I tweeted back at trolls and was called an “angry Black feminist” who was on a mission to help organizations like Stop Street Harassment (SSH) put Black men in jail.
Really? Is that the best they could come up with? The work I do during the day consists of upholding racial equality and combating racism in all forms, especially within the criminal justice system. And believe me, the LAST thing I want is for the prison population to increase. That made absolutely no sense and is a cop out from the real problem: men not taking responsibilities for their actions.
This debate made me think about a film I saw in college called “Tough Guise: Violence, Media & the Crisis in Masculinity,” which is headlined by activist and educator Jackson Katz. Katz argues that the epidemic of male violence that plagues American society needs to be understood and addressed as part of a much larger cultural crisis in masculinity and I couldn’t agree more.
We live in a society that tells women and girls to dress a certain way to avoid unwanted attention and abuse. It blames victims first and asks questions later. It teaches men that they are entitled to women’s bodies and showing aggression is the “American” way.
Because the hashtag #YouOkSis wasn’t about the trolls, they were determined to ruin a time of solidarity. What people need to realize is that Stop Street Harassment has given me more support than any man ever has. Now, let that sink in for a minute.
If street harassment didn’t exist, why are organizations like SSH and Hollaback! Baltimore doing work on these issues? Why is visual artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh traveling around the country to wheat paste portraits quoting things women want to say to their harassers? Street harassment is not an illusion and these are real issues and challenges we face every day.
In 2014, SSH commissioned a 2,000-person national survey in the USA and found that 65% of all women had experienced street harassment, while 25% of men were harassed. With all of the research it took to get these results, why would anybody make this stuff up?
Instead of Black men supporting Black women on this issue, sadly some of them let us down once again. When was the last time you heard a woman deny a man’s experience of being stop and frisked by the police? Most likely never.
And although anti-women trolls hijacked the #YouOkSis hashtag, they proved exactly why the fight to ending street harassment continues.
So, what’s next? Continue to stress the importance of ending street harassment among your family, friends and allies in your community because as you can clearly see, the work is far from over.
Brittany Oliver is a recent graduate of Towson University and works in the non-profit communications sector and supports local anti-street harassment advocacy through Hollaback! Baltimore. She blogs at http://btiarao.wordpress.comand publicly rants on Twitter, @btiarao.