Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Archives for October 2014

“Do not ever make a woman feel unsafe.”

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I have never been grabbed by a stranger in my life.

I was walking around in the West Village after work today; talking with my mom on the phone about visiting Georgia at the end of the month. I had my headphones on, but I always keep one ear off, just to stay alert/aware of my surroundings. Even though the West Village is a family friendly, brownstone neighborhood, you honestly never know. Which brings me to this:

As I was talking with my mom, a man, obviously a bus boy of some kind because of his apron, walking in front of me. Did the usual up-and-down as I walked towards him. I kept my head down and continued walking, as I normally do. Because I was talking to my mom and not listening to music, I heard him call me “Sweet Baby.” Nothing out of the norm, usual annoyance.

Then, he grabbed my arm. He physically put his hand on me, this stranger. Immediately I figured out in a fight-or-flight situation, I’m fight.

I snapped around, with my headphones still on, practically yelling, pointed my finger in his face and said,

“Don’t you dare ever f**king touch a woman without her permission. Do you understand me?”

He froze. And said sorry with his hands up, and slowly backed away. I continued,

“Take this as a f**king lesson. Do not ever make a woman feel unsafe. Do not ever make anyone feel unsafe. Be fucking ashamed of yourself. Learn from this. Remember this.”

And as I was telling this to my brother, he made a really great point. Thank God I had that reaction. Because you never know what people are capable of, and if he had really intended to harm me, there’s only so far you can run. There’s only so much you can do if you freeze up, which is a lot of women’s natural reaction to a physical threat.

I got mad, I defended myself. And I felt really f**king good about it. And I never usually call people like that out, ever.

But the minute you put your hands on a stranger, male to female, male to male, female to male, you’ve got to fight. Because you never know what someone’s intentions are the minute they put their hands on you.

– Rebecca Florence

Location: West Village, NYC

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

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USA: Our Oppressions are Intertwined

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Sarah Colomé , IL, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

Via Gradient Liar

Throughout the past several years of working to combat rape culture, I have noticed a disturbing trend. I often find that in our work, we make strong calls for solidarity that may not be equally, if at all, reciprocated.  We often forget that violence against our children is a reproductive justice issue. We forget that our oppressions are intertwined. Sometimes we don’t show up as often as we should.

The wake of the tragic death of Michael Brown, fueled by the recent finding that every 28 hours a black person is killed by a security officer, highlights the lived reality of fear and dehumanization experienced by many people of color. Have we, as a community, engaged with this historic issue of police misconduct and brutality? Are we examining our own prejudices and acknowledging when we ourselves, racially profile others? Are we collaborating with other community organizations focused on racial justice and police violence to transform our society into a safer place for all to exist? Have we actively framed this as a reproductive justice issue?

Dani McClain outlines this disconnect between movements in The Nation explaining, “the killing of Michael Brown, like the killing of many young black people before him, is rarely framed as a feminist issue or as an issue of pressing importance to those who advocate for choice, self-determination and dignity as they relate to family life.”

To create change in the manner in which female identified persons can walk through the world with more ease and less threat of violence, we must recognize that others face similar fears about violence because of their identity. After all, the same structures and systems that functionally condone, and perpetuate the degradation of female identified and queer presenting or identified persons, also actively propagate the dehumanization of people of color, and yes, all oppressed people.

Doing “the work” can manifest itself in a multitude of ways:

* Explore with your staff why some individuals feel they should not, or could not, go to police officers to safely report street harassment.Consider screening a film like this one from Found Voices, and asking a partner organization to come debrief and collaborate.

* Offer community-wide trainings on how to report abusing policing in your area. For example, report here for New York, here for Chicago, or here for Los Angeles.

* Organize a staff outing where you attend a local rally or teach-in, or write letters to legislators, in support of racial justice.Support movements for Marissa Alexander, university teach-ins on Ferguson, or local measures for police accountability.

* Consider offering your employees and volunteers “cop watch” trainings. Organizations including Cop Watch NYC, CAAAW,Berkeley Copwatch,We Cop Watch, and We Charge Genocide all offer these trainings.

Challenge your organization, and the community as a whole, to refrain from segregating ourselves and our work, claiming “that’s not what we do.”

* Continually doing our work, without recognizing how oppression interacts among us both uniquely and interconnectedly, destabilizes the very foundation that is essential to create tangible, sustainable change. Addressing gender-based harassment and violence without acknowledging that others are equally harassed and violated based on their visible identities, whether actual or assumed, does nothing to create relationships for future bystander interventions.

This is not to suggest that there are not phenomenal groups doing intersectional work and capacity building across movements. This does not negate that there are a multitude of struggles and experiences of oppression that are lived out daily, needing our support, intervention, and attention. Nor does my assertion forgo the difficult realities of the nonprofit industrial complex, and the structures that often make our desire to collaborate difficult.

But I ask you all this: Are we showing up for those who are targeted for harassment based upon their perceived race? If not, we must ask ourselves why and how we may in some instances, be perpetuating the very experiences of violation that we are aiming to prevent.

It should never be acceptable to ask for support from our community when we do not show up for those same people as they engage with their own struggle. Recognize the privileges we hold in various spaces.  We know that male presenting individuals hold privilege in this world that female presenting people do not. This status as a target group however, does not negate other instance of privilege that we may hold. We must hold ourselves accountable to recognize our complicated, multifaceted identities, and how in some situations, the power of our privilege may outweigh the disadvantages of our target group status.

Ask yourself:

* Are we showing up at rallies, marches, or protests addressing police brutality, misconduct, or profiling?

* If not physically, or otherwise able to attend, are we engaging these topics on social media, or relating them intersectionally in our own work?

* Are we incorporating the voices of other marginalized groups in our work against rape culture and street harassment?

* Do we make sure to recognize that for many, police are not a safe option for reporting or “protection?”

* Are we engaging in self-assessment and reflection on how our own actions may perpetuate, or result in, others’ experiences of street harassment?

Bystander intervention does not exist solely in acting when someone is being cat called, followed or bombarded with sexualized comments. Bystander intervention exists in acknowledging and challenging ANY instance of oppression, no matter the movement that the target group may align with.

This note is a call to action, out of love, to the community I fight alongside with passion and commitment. We are at a crucial time for a multitude of resilient movements, both nationally and internationally. We must stand alongside one another.  I challenge us all to interrogate our own perceptions of others, as we call one another to accountability for our actions.

Sarah is a progress-focused educator and advocate dedicated to building strategic coalitions centered on creating social change who serves as an adjunct professor in DePaul University’s Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies department. You can follow her updates on Linkedin or hear her perspectives on Twitter.

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“I have been followed with a video camera pointed at my butt”

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I used to live in DC and the harassment is obnoxious. I have been followed with a video camera pointed at my butt while leaving a grocery store. I have had guys park their car and sit at the bus stop and harass me to get my number. One time when I was only 16, a metro bus driver in Northeast D.C flicked his tongue at me in a sexual way when I boarded the bus and when I got off of the bus. It made me feel so uncomfortable. I couldn’t believe that a grown man could behave like that even in a professional setting.

– RJ

Location: Washington, DC

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

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USA: Building a New Culture of Consent at NYCC

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Katie Bowers, NY, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

Last week we discussed New York Comic Con’s shiny, new anti-harassment policy.  Over Saturday and Sunday at the convention, I got to see the policy in action.

Thanks to the efforts of Geeks for CONsent, The Mary Sue, and others, New York Comic Con 2014 featured a plethora of reminders that “Cosplay is not Consent”.  Prominent black and red standees stood throughout the Javits Center’s main lobby – a major site for amateur and professional photographers looking to grab a shot of attendee’s incredible costumes.  The policy, which also covered a full page of the program booklet, forbids a wide range of harassment including unwanted physical touching and gestures, verbal comments, stalking and intimidation, and photos taken without consent.  Offenders, the standees and program booklets proclaimed, run the risk of being kicked out of the convention.

I spent the weekend dressed up as one of sci fi’s favorite red heads: Special Agent Dana Scully.  To my knowledge, everyone who took my picture asked for my permission – and everyone asked with enthusiasm.  This isn’t a new phenomenon.  In general, anyone excited enough about your costume to want a picture also wants to share their excitement – but one interaction in particular stuck out to me.

A man approached me on the show floor and asked to take my photo.  “Sure,” I said and went to set down my stuff.  My badge and bag got tangled and it took a minute to unhook the two.  “Sorry, hold on,” I told him.

“No, no, I’m sorry,” he said quickly.  “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.  You don’t need to be sorry.”

In a place where people walk around on stilts and stilettos, strap proton packs to their back, and squeeze through overcrowded aisle ways, comfort is generally not the first thing on anyone’s mind.  His response was totally surprising and wonderfully welcome.

In addition to visual reminders, NYCC also hosted “#YesAllGeeks”, a panel about harassment in convention spaces with Diana Pho of Beyond Victoriana, , Marlene Bonnelly of comics.tumblr.com, writer and prolific tweeter Mikki Kendall; Emily Asher Perrin of Tor, writer and #YesAllWomen creator Kaye M, and Robert Anders, a nurse practioner speaking about the psychological effects of harassment. The panelists did a great job of breaking down why having anti-harassment policies are so important:

* Obviously, a strong policy helps victims to recognize harassment when it happens to them and provides them with an immediate course of action.  It can also help women, people of color and members of other frequently harassed groups feel more welcome – an important consideration as conventions grow larger and more diverse.

* With a well-publicized policy, harassers can be held accountable.  It’s hard to convincingly claim ignorance when standing next to an 8-foot tall standee and holding the full text of the anti-harassment policy in your swag bag.

* Policies can also open up opportunities for bystanders.  Often, bystanders witness harassing behavior but don’t step in.  They’re not sure what to do, and they don’t want to be harassed themselves.  With a policy in place, bystanders have more options.  They can ask the victim if they are okay, if they’d like help, if they’d like to report, and even if they have heard about the “Report Harassment” feature of the NYCC app.  Or, if it feels safe, they can remind the harasser about the “Cosplay is not consent” policy.

So there are lots of good reasons to create and publicize strong anti-harassment policies – but Mikki Kendall pointed out that the most important reason of all isn’t action and reaction.  It’s prevention.  When asked how we can make fan communities safe spaces, Kendall advised that we need to be communities that respond appropriately and immediately to unacceptable behavior. When we speak out against harassment and oppression – at conventions, online, or even in the media that we geek out about – we make our communities better and safer.  We hold ourselves and other members of the community to a higher level.  Or, since we’re at Comic Con, you could say we “level up”.

This weekend, NYCC became the most highly attended convention of the year with 150,000 fans walking through the front door.  Those 150,000 fans saw costumes, sneak previews, art, comics, panels – and a new message: it’s time to level up.

Want to see the panel in its entirety?  Visit Beyond Victoriana!  Or read more at The Mary Sue.

Katie is a social worker and community educator interested in ending gender-based violence, working with youth to make the world a better place, and using pop culture as a tool for social change. Check out her writing at the Imagine Better Blog and geek out with her on Twitter, @CornishPixie9.

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Bulgaria: Harassment-free schools: Whose responsibility is it anyway?

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Diana Hinova, Sofia, Bulgaria, SSH Blog Correspondent

Public schools are public spaces. Schools are also one of the places where we learn, ‘by doing’, about what public space is and what behaviors are acceptable in it. It is no secret that there can be serious problems with bullying and harassment in schools. In Bulgaria, though, teachers and school officials –underpaid and often burned out – tend to ignore anything that is happening between students and does not lead to serious bodily injury. They try to just focus on their job, insisting that they are responsible for educating, not protecting or disciplining the students.

So, a lot goes on in Bulgarian schools to ‘teach’ girls that they cannot count on their bodies being respected or their rights protected. Being groped and verbally harassed by classmates on a regular basis just seems to be part of the public school experience. When Bulgarian women who had experienced physical or sexual violence since age 15 by someone other than their partner were asked details about the most serious such incident, 22% cited someone from a school context as the perpetrator (European Study on Violence Against Women, 2012).

The message that girls cannot count on their bodies being respected or their rights protected is reinforced by street harassment. Bystander passivity compounds it. When they experience and witness street harassment, in their daily commutes to school and other activities, girls come to understand that this behaviour is seens as tolerable not only for their rowdy peers, but for any man. Boys similarly see that there is no incentive to stop harassing women.

As long as sexual harassment goes on between classmates, school officials will turn the other way and focus on their ‘educating’ work. This realization was certainly part of my stints in Bulgarian public school, and one of the most memorable at that. Is it any wonder then that some of these boys carry the same attitudes and behaviors out into the street? Or that we continue not to talk about gender-based violence as adults? A huge opportunity to break the cycle of tolerated harassment is missed.

A small proportion of cases though, in public school settings, are such where the perpetrator is not another student. An alleged case of this variety captured Bulgaria’s attention this week: the parents of a 13-year-old girl became aware that there was misconduct by staff against their daughter, probably of a sexual nature, at a special-needs school in Sofia. The immediate response by school officials was, in essence, ‘[shrug], I don’t know, I wasn’t there, and, nobody would believe an autistic kid, anyway’. The parents filed complaints with the relevant child rights agencies and the Ministry of Education, public protests and press statements ensued.

What bitter irony that this year the State Agency for Child Protection, along with similar national authorities elsewhere, marks “2014: Year of Child Rights”! It is on the occasion of the 25-year anniversary of the Convention of the Rights of the Child, ratified by Bulgaria in 1991. The Convention guarantees children, among other things, protection from physical and sexual violence and exploitation. In addition, while many school officials may not be aware of this fact, a coordination mechanism between the SACP, Ministry of Education, and law enforcement institutions, stipulates that anyone aware of potential violations of these rights bears responsibility for reporting these concerns to the relevant authorities.

As it turns out, there are (on paper) fairly adequate systems for dealing with sexual harassment and more serious offenses in Bulgarian public schools. It’s just that no one wants to take on the added responsibility for using these means.

There is a movement among young parents in Sofia to consider various forms of alternative education. How to educate your children is a huge decision – these people take it quite seriously. And they find themselves pushed away from the public school system not only because of what they perceive as poor quality education, but to a large extent also because it does not provide a safe environment.

They do not want their children to become either victims or aggressors by default, or to internalize the norms tolerant to violence. But Bulgarian public schools at present pretty much guarantee that they would.

Diana has a Master’s in Public Policy from Georgetown University and works as a consultant to INGOs. Follow her on Twitter @dialeidoscope or letnimletni.blogspot.com.

 

България: Училище без тормоз: Чия е отговорността?

Държавните училища са публични пространства. Училищата са и места, където научаваме, ‘от опит’, що е то публично пространство и какво поведение се приема в него. За никого не е тайна, че в училищата може да има сериозни проблеми, конфликти и насилие между връстници. В България, учителите и персоналът – обикновено с недодстатъчно заплащане и претръпнали – не обръщат внимание на отношенията между учениците, стига да не се стига до сериозни физически наранявания. Стараят се да се концентрират в работата, като настояват, че те трябва да обучават, а не да защитават или възпитават учениците.

Така много неща в училище “обучават” момичетата, че не могат да разчитат телата им да бъдат неприкосновени или правата им да бъдят защитени. Това съучениците ти да те опипват, задавят нежелано и обиждат, редовно, е просто част минаването през държавното училище. От българките изпитали физическо или сексуално насилие извършено от друг, а не техен партньор, 22% са посочили извършител от учебната си среда (Европейско Изследване на Насилието над Жени, 2012).

Идеята, че момичетата не могат да разчитат на уважение, заради телата си, или на правата си, се подсилва от уличния тормоз. Апатичните наблюдатели я потвърждават. Когато биват тормозени на улицата или наблюдават такива случки в ежедневното си придвижване, момичетата осъзнават, че такова поведение се толерира не само сред бурните им връстници, но от страна на всеки непознат. Момчетата също не виждат пример и причина да противостоят на такова поведение.

Стига сексуалният тормоз да се случва между учениците, персоналът на училищата извръщат поглед и се концентрират да ‘образоват’. Това прозрение със сигурност го изпитах лично в държавните училища и то остава най-яркият ми спомен от времето прекарано там. Да се учудваме ли, че момчетата после излизат на улицата и в обществото със същите нагласи и поведение? Или че продължаваме да не говорим за половото насилие и като възрастни? Пропускаме огромна възможност да спрем цикъла на толериран тормоз.

В малък процент от случаите на сексуален тормоз в училищна среда, все пак, извършителят не е друг ученик. Такъв е случаят на 13-годишната Ана-Мария, чиито родители повдигат въпроса за сексуален тормоз извършен от служител пред настоятелите на училището. Сблъскват се първоначално с отговора “Не зная какво е станало, не сме били там, а и никой няма да и повярва, защото е аутист”.

Каква горчива ирония – Държавна Агенция за Закрила на Детето (ДАЗД) в момента отбелязва “2014-та: Година на правата на детето!” по случай 25-годишнината от Конвенцията за правата на детето, която България ратифицира през 1991-ва. Конвенцията гарантира на децата, наред с други права, закрила от физическо и сексуално насилие и експлоатация. Освен това, въпреки нехаенето на болшинството служители в училищата, координационният механизъм на ДАЗД, Министерство на Образованието и Науката и органите на съдебната власт, задава задължение на всеки информиран за потенциално нарушение на тези права да сигнализира компетентните институции.

Излиза, че (на хартия) има сравнително адекватна система за сексуален тормоз и други сериозни нарушения в Българските училища. просто никой не желае да поеме отговорността да я използва.

Има една тенденция сред младите родители в София да търсят алтернативни методи за образование за децата си. Изборът на образование е много значимо решение, което тези хора приемат съвсем на сериозно. И се усещат отблъснати от държавната образователна система не само защото оценяват образователната програма като некачествена, но и до голяма степен защото не смятат, че осигурява безопасна среда.

Те не искат децата им да се превърнат в жертви или агресори по предопределеност, или да възприемат толерантността към насилието, на която българските държавни училища почти гарантирано ще ги научат.

(Развития по случая на Ана-Мария offnews и резултати от проверката на ДАЗД)

Следвайте автора в Twitter @dialeidoscope или на блога letnimletni.blogspot.com.

 

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