A final #16Days message from our board member Lani!
16 Days of Activism: Day 16
Archives for December 2014
16 Days of Activism: Day 15
Apply to join the first 2015 Blog Correspondents Cohort
Do you feel passionately about ending street harassment and do you like to write? We need YOU!
Stop Street Harassment is one of the top street harassment websites in the world and we’re recruiting new members for our first Blog Correspondents Program cohort of 2015. This is an unpaid, volunteer opportunity. Build your resume and add your voice to the global conversation about this important topic!
Your words will be read: the SSH blog receives an average of 30,000 unique readers per month.
Assignment:
From January to April, correspondents in the first cohort must commit to writing one blog post per month about street harassment issues in their community, region or country, four posts total. The topics could include incidents of street harassment covered in the news, activism to stop it, interviews with street harassment activists, and street harassment in popular culture, traditions or the news. You can also write pieces that tie street harassment to relevant related issues (such as racial profiling/racism, online harassment, and campus rape).
We aim to have geographic diversity among our cohort members. People of all genders, ages, regions are welcome to apply.
Applying:
Please complete this form by December 22, 2014. Applicants will be notified by December 27 and the term will begin January 1.
NOTE: If you prefer to write in a language other than English, please also indicate what language is most comfortable for you and you can send your writing sample in that language.
“I’m done with people thinking that street harassment is a joke”
Three times a week I take the bus home from my job as a nanny back to my house. The bus stop is located on a busy street, comprised of many people returning home from work at the end of the day. I am never waiting for more than about 10 minutes at this stop, and I can count at least 10 grown men staring at me from their cars every single day. These men range from men in pick up trucks, men in suits in fancy cars, or a group of 18 year old boys who think they’re going to impress or compliment me by smiling/nodding/staring/harassing me.
Today was the worst day; I’m a 22 year old woman and a 50 year old man yelled at me from three lanes over ʺI have an extra seat in my car for you!ʺ and smiled creepily. When I gave him a look of disgust he just laughed and rolled up his window. About five minutes later a group of three younger men rolled up and stared at me, one even having the audacity to stick his head out the window. Annoyed and tired of the harassment I said ʺCould you be a little more obvious?ʺ and they replied, ʺWe aren’t trying to beʺ and as they drove off yelled ʺsee you around.”
Do these idiots know how much this makes me hate riding the bus?
I have a RIGHT as a woman and a human being to utilize public transportation without being harassed. I have a RIGHT as a woman and a human being to read my book on a bench without being asked to hop in your car. I have a RIGHT as a woman and a human being not to be treated as an object. Obviously, these people don’t respect that.
These men don’t realize that this isn’t a funny joke. It’s not something I take lightly. I don’t like it, I don’t want it, LEAVE ME ALONE.
So frustrated and sick and tired and annoyed and done with people thinking that street harassment is a joke.
Optional: What’s one way you think we can make public places safer for everyone?
Have bus stops that are covered or at least somehow sheltered from the passing cars. The single bench on the side of the street makes me an ideal candidate to be yelled at.
– A
Location: Sydney, Australia
Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more idea
16 Days of Activism: Day 10
Our board member Dr. Laura S. Logan and the Radical Notion, the campus feminist student organization at Hastings College in Nebraska, are handing out oranges today. Each orange has a statement or statistic about gender violence to help raise awareness on campus. (Laura and the organization’s president Kaitlyn Ayres are pictured.) #16Days#orangeurhood
