Archives for August 2014

Belgium: Femme de la Rue: A woman in the street

August 13, 2014 By Correspondent

Dearbhla Quinn, Dublin Ireland/Brussels, Belgium, SSH Blog Correspondent

I thought it would be appropriate, for my final article, to go back to what initially compelled me to volunteer for this position. Street harassment is something that most women and LGBTQ+ people I know have experienced since their early teenage years, however I was not prepared for the extent of this harassment that I would face on a daily basis when I first moved to this city. Often termed the ‘Heart of Europe’, Brussels is a beautiful and historic city endowed with a vibrant multitude of cultures, languages and people. I was quickly drawn into and wooed by the beauty and energy of what is possibly Europe’s most underrated city.

When I first moved to the district of Chatelain I was instantly enchanted. The square where I lived surrounded a beautiful old church and the streets were filled with quirky cafes, restaurants, quaint shops and even a shisha bar; it was everything I’d hoped home on ‘The Continent’ (what we Irish call mainland Europe) would be. Street harassment is such an almost mundane, everyday occurrence that it took me a few weeks to realise just how much more of it I was experiencing, but also just how intimidating and enraging I found it. I became aware of my increasing tendency to tense up as I left my apartment and actively, almost obsessively avoid eye contact with any male passerbys. I had to suppress my natural instinct to look up, respond when someone called out to me, and i began to walk quite fast. The final straw was one night when I was walking home from the metro and for the second time that month a car drove very slowly beside me for the entire terrifying walk home. The day before I had a man follow me off a tram and I’d had to ask him to leave and then hide in a kebab shop until he did so that he wouldn’t know my address, but the white Ford transit van with its strange serial killer association, crawling by a 5km an hour, its driver staring at me jolted me into indignance. I sent out a few angry tweets to share my frustration and by total chance came across one about this correspondence programme, just in time to sign up.

As well as giving me the opportunity to write and hopefully to contribute in some small way to the global movement against street harassment, this programme has inspired me to seek out activists and discover their stories. It was inspiring to hear about the dedication and commitment of the Hollaback girls, both Belgium and Ireland based, and my discovery of the film “Femme de la Rue” was the final assurance that i was not alone in my conviction that Brussels has a problem with street harassment and that it is an insidious, imitating part of women and LGBTQ+ people’s lives here.

Sofie Peeters, a Belgian film student chronicled her own struggle with street harassment on the streets of Brussels in this highly original and thought provoking documentary. Through the creation of her thesis Soffie shone a well needed light on this issue and in doing so gave both victims and perpetrators a chance to tell their stories. Both of the activists I interviewed mentioned the difficulty in engaging with harassers, Soffie Peeters addressed this, and her interview with a former harasser is possibly one of the most notable aspects of this film. The final message however is clear, concise and spot on, women deserve respect on the streets and to accept harassment is to lose a vital battle on the road to equality.

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.

USA: “It’s hard to fight an enemy that has outposts in your head”

August 13, 2014 By Correspondent

Jessie Koerner, Denver, Colorado, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

Some days the patriarchy slaps me in the face: the recent Hobby Lobby decision in the Supreme Court, the fact that Hollywood refuses to acknowledge the results of years of Bechdel Test results, the *minor* issue that rape offenders are so often excused and so rarely prosecuted. Some days the fact that society wants me to be a living, breathing mannequin creeps up on me.

In June, I wrote about how the city of Denver must have agreed to take a time out from harassing women on the street. I’ve been travelling between Colorado, North Dakota and Montana for work ever since, and to be honest, haven’t spent much time outside the office, a car, airport, or rural oil pads. It wasn’t until I was playing blackjack in a Dickinson, North Dakota, hotel that I had a thought so out of left field, I blamed it on the SoCo and 7s I’d been drinking at the table. Why is no one hitting on me?

There’s some context here that I should probably fill you in on that has nothing to do with my inflated ego. The Bakken oil field, which spans eastern Montana, to southern Alberta, and western North Dakota is the place to be if you’re in oil and gas. The addition of its one million barrels (42 gallons in a barrel) a day is what’s catapulting the United States to the top of the oil producing nations list. The Bakken boom is also responsible for a huge influx of people to western North Dakota, and at least initially, most of that population consisted of men.

If you’re reading this blog, I’m assuming you have some idea of what happens when you combine a male population influx, and money – think Super Bowl, World Cup, etc. Prostitution. And if the FBI, and human rights organizations are to be believed (obviously), around 75-80% – conservative estimates – of those prostitutes are trafficked. So this is a problem in the Bakken. A huge problem. In addition, I’ve talked with multiple people, including a police investigator in Dickinson, who say that girls who live in the western North Dakota area refuse to go to bars any more because they’re sick of being hit on and harassed.

So this detour in information has brought us back around to that night at the blackjack table, where I lost five whole dollars to Dickinson charities (I’m a conservative and blasé gambler… what can I say). Why are none of these douchecanoes hitting on me? Nevermind the fact that I was with my (dude) boss, another (guy) coworker, and kept yelling at every guy who sat down to “stop telling me how to bet, dear God, I will do what I want!” because, shocker, all these strange men wanted to impart their knowledge of a game of randomness.

In and of itself, this can be chalked up to a bruised ego and a bad hair day. However, I’ve been back to running around Denver for a couple of weeks now after that night, and I find that same thought creeping into my head: Why isn’t anyone harassing me? I signed up for this blogging position because I was harassed in the worst ways prior to this. Am I not pretty any more? OMG is this why I’m still single?

These ridiculous (and they are absolutely, utterly ridiculous) thoughts crept into my head, uninvited and completely automatically. Why is my subconscious whining about NOT being harassed on my daily walk from my parked car to Starbucks to the office? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?!

Sneaky, sneaky patriarchy, I have internalized you, despite all the feminist bones in my body, and my empowering upbringing, and my long-time mantra of “leave me alone, I will do what I want!” When and if this happens to you, I’ll be here in my own little support group, and while I hope not to have other members, the door is always open.

This is, to me, the most insidious part of street harassment. The fear, the anxiety, the utter frustration with the situation, the split second inner debate of “should I/shouldn’t I confront this douchecanoe?” can, in most cases, be left on the street – until the next time. The unexpected self-objectification that results from the constant barrage of catcalls and objectification by men when going about our every day lives reminds me of a Sally Kempton quote that has long been accurate for me: “It’s hard to fight an enemy that has outposts in your head.”

Women alter every day behavior to avoid the experience of being harassed. Changing routes; planning ahead for the experience – “I will walk past my final destination so this harasser doesn’t know where I’m going”; avoiding working out in public, and joining a gym; changing outfits to avoid the catcalls, these are just a few examples. The constant imposition of a flight-or-fight response for walking down the street is stressful enough. Then, after so much of this, the normalization of being harassed, and the societal expectation that victims should just deal with it quietly as a part of the social compact, we get to take it home. We get to deal with the internalization of yet another message that we are an object in the world rather than a person. AND we get told to take it as a compliment.

Even after the immediate threat has passed, the reverberations lay in wait, and reveal themselves to all of us who’ve experienced street harassment when we least expect it. They show up when we think we’ve finally gotten a reprieve from the exhausting spectacle that is being a woman in public.

Jessie is a longtime human rights activist with a feminist focus. She founded the Amnesty International chapter in college, is an active participant in JustWorld International, and manages the social media accounts for the Global Women’s Network and winnovating.com, where she also blogs. Find her on Twitter and Instagram, @pearlsandspurs.

“The first time I experienced street harassment, I was 12 years old”

August 12, 2014 By Contributor

The first time I experienced street harassment, I was 12 years old. I was sitting alone in my mom’ scar outside of a landscaping/flower shop, reading a book, while she went inside to buy flowers.

From the corner of my eye, I saw an older man who worked there, probably in his 20s or 30s, staring at me and nodding his head up and down. He motioned for about five and then five more of his friends to come over. From 20 feet away from the car they kept nodding their heads at me and making inappropriate smirks and kissing faces. I was scared and so I ran inside the shop to stand next to my mom. My hands were shaky and my cheeks were red..she asked what was wrong but I said I was fine because I thought it was my fault.

I’m 18 now and I know it wasn’t my fault, and neither were my other experiences with street harassment.

– Anonymous

Location: Elmhurst, Il

Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more idea

Street Respect: “What kind of dog is that?!”

August 12, 2014 By HKearl

I was driving with my little dog in the back seat with the top down in my car. Man pulls up in an SUV and told down his window. I’m tensing up and preparing for the comments to start and he says, “That’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen! What kind of dog is that?!”

– Abby

Location: Chicago, IL

This is part of the series “Street Respect. “Street respect” is the term for respectful, polite, and consensual interactions that happen between strangers in public spaces. It’s the opposite of “street harassment.” Share your street respect story and show the kind of interactions you’d like to have in public in place of street harassment.

IN FEAR OF THE BLACK BOOGEYMAN: Confronting Racist Stereotypes about Street Harassment

August 12, 2014 By Contributor

By Lavender Kitchen Sink Collective

On August 7th there was a link via Upworthy on the Stop Street Harassment Facebook page to a YouTube video titled the “Smile Bitch Training Camp.” This one minute video was a satirical take on the misogynist expectation that women in public spaces should present themselves as smiling and cheerful at all times. Created by Black comic actress and blogger Janelle James, the satire featured a cast of mostly white young women and girls (about three of the female actors were visibly people of color) who enrolled themselves into boot camp to train on how to smile on demand for strangers at all times. Despite the presence of Black and Asian faces, the overrepresentation of middle class-presenting white women presents street harassment as a threat to white female bodies. I also noticed a problematic aspect about the actors playing the street harasser roles. First, all the harassers were portrayed as either low-income and/or homeless. Secondly, all but two of the men were visibly Black. While the central message of the video was critically important, the racialized subtext that equates “poor Black man = street harasser” undermined the video’s message.

In response to criticism about the racial characterizations from viewers on the video’s YouTube page, James replied, “It was something I really struggled with during editing. I’d never want that to be the message. These [the actors] are all my friends, they worked (hard) for free and I had to work with what I had. And if it wasn’t funny, it had to go.”

While it is understandable that limited budgets and time constraints affected James’ casting decisions, it is much harder to justify why the male actors embody common classist and racist tropes about harassers: thuggish, unwashed, uneducated, and homeless. If the same set of actors had portrayed these characters as middle-class, college-educated, the video still would have had the same powerful message—minus the racist/classist subtext. In fact, the video would have included a crucial and long-ignored fact about gender violence: so-called “respectable” men regularly harass and assault women.

The idea that all street harassment involves a Black perpetrator and a white victim is not only incorrect, but dangerous. First, studies on street harassment reveal that intersecting forms of marginalization often make women more vulnerable to harassment. Stop Street Harassment’s own 2014 national study “Unsafe and Harassed in Public Spaces” revealed that Black and Latina women and girls are more likely to experience street harassment than their white counterparts. Black women and girls also experience harassment in ways that specifically entrench misogynoirist and cissexist violence against Black women’s bodies, as womanist blogger Feminista Jones noted during the #YouOkSis hashtag campaign on Twitter. Second, the idea that Black men are inherently dangerous to white women has been used historically to criminalize Black men and justify racial disparities in criminal profiling, arrests, and incarceration. Third, having an image in our heads of the street harasser as a poor Black man keeps us from recognizing genuinely abusive and dangerous people in public spaces, all because they don’t fit our racial preconception of what a sexual harasser-predator is.

In the last couple of years, there has been a growing public awareness about street harassment, and the many social, economic, and political costs that sexualized harassment in public spaces can exact on women and other marginalized communities. While street harassment is generally understood as a form of misogynist verbal assault that (cisgender) men use to exert external control over women, street harassment is often employed as a way to reinforce all forms of social domination in public space. People of color, trans/gender-nonconforming people, disabled people, children, immigrants, and homeless people all regularly face street harassment and attendant violence that reinforces the systemic oppression that they face. What needs to be understood about street harassment is not only how this violence threatens women’s personal autonomy and access to space, but how the right to public space for all marginalized people is still contested in a hegemonic society.

Lavender Kitchen Sink Collective is a project that centers queer/trans people of color perspectives on economic, gender, and political justice. Check LKSC out at www.lavenderkitchensink.com or follow on Twitter at @lkscollective.

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