Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Archives for March 2015

OCAC Chile presents New Bill to Congress

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Posted with the permission of Observatorio Contra el Acoso Callejero Chile

VALPARAISO, 17 March.- In the month of International Women’s Day and the UN CSW 59th, which discusses the status of women in the world, Chile advances in the struggle for gender equality. In order to remove street harassment from the bad number of violence complaints, as well as prevent future attacks and protect victims, the Observatorio Contra el Acoso Callejero Chile – OCAC Chile (Observatory Against Street Harassment), Tuesday, presented to Congress the Bill “Law for Street Respect”, which seeks to enroll street harassment in Chilean law.

The project is divided into four main areas: it defines what is understood as street harassment, defines what acts shall constitute a minor offense, incorporates into the Penal Code the offense of street harassment and proposes alternative measures with an educational focus. In parallel, OCAC Chile submitted to the Executive power a set of recommendations to promote educational and preventive public policy, and thus not merely criminalize the problem.

“We believe that the Law for Street Respect is a vital step towards a more friendly and safe public space for everyone. This will be a tool that will prevent attacks and protect victims, besides having a preventive, educational and committed to gender equity approach”, said Maria Francisca Valenzuela, President of OCAC Chile.

The document is sponsored by the deputies Camila Vallejo (PC) and Karla Rubilar (Amplitud) and was signed by parliamentarians of cross militancy, as Giorgio Jackson (Independiente-RD), Daniella Cicardini (PS), Loreto Carvajal (PPD) Marcela Sabat (RN), Karol Cariola (PC), Vlado Mirosevic (Liberal), Yasna Provost (DC) and Gabriel Boric (Self-IA).

“It is important to legislate on street assaults so they do not become naturalized, since in an almost imperceptibly way they can affect psychologically who is the subject of such aggression. I hope we can have a transverse support this motion,” said Santiago’s  deputy, Giorgio Jackson.

For its part, the parliamentary Camila Vallejo, sponsor of the bill, said that “every day, women of all ages, regardless of socioeconomic status, are discriminated against and abused physically or psychologically. Laws like this are intended to assert our struggle for gender equality, for recognition of our humanity, so often trampled and abused”.

To develop this initiative, OCAC Chile had the support of UN Women and the European Union. If passed the law, Chile would join countries like Peru, and various nations of Europe which have already moved towards regulations that address, prevent and punish this form of violence.

For more information, OCAC has developed the respetocallejero.cl website, where you can download the full bill, review an explanatory video and read testimonials about street harassment in Chile.

Video with english subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm2cQ8wixPc&feature=youtu.be

Press Contacts

Observatory Against Street Harassment (OCAC Chile)

Javiera Contreras
comunicaciones@ocacchile.org
+569 8136 7869

Program to Strengthen Civil Society Organizations that Promote Gender Equality UN Women – European Union
Monica M. Maureira
maureira.monica@gmail.com
+569 9959 4156

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USA: How to Talk with Someone who Disagrees with You

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Madison Ford, Texas, USA, Blog Correspondent

Street harassment awareness is spreading. A year ago, when I talked about my research on the subject with casual acquaintances I had to explain what exactly street harassment is almost every single time. Nowadays, street harassment shows up in the media often enough that people have at least some conception of what it is.

Every once in a while, I end up having these conversations with people who have actively participated in street harassment. Most of the time these conversations end very well: we have an engaging discussion about masculinity or gender inequality and my acquaintance will express regret for ever participating in harassing behaviors. But this isn’t always how it goes down. Sometimes the people I speak with will admit they have harassed women on the street, and despite the public outcry against the act they continue to do so because they don’t see it as a problem. It’s only a game, women need to just get over it, the same old story.

Now no two people’s opinions can ever be exactly alike, but I abide by these four tips when I’m speaking with somebody who not only disagrees with my opinions on street harassment – but actively participates in harassing behaviors as well. In your discussions with friends, acquaintances, and colleagues – I hope these tips help you keep things civil and on topic.

1) Stay calm. Believe me, if anyone has ever wanted to spit fire during a conversation about street harassment – it’s me. If you let your emotions overwhelm you it will be much more difficult to word a convincing argument on the spot. Whenever your conversation partner says something frustrating, take a deep breath and move on to step two.

2) Remember the facts. Many websites have abundant research with scientific conclusions about street harassment. If somebody tells you that women are overreacting, point them to statistics on sexual assault. We live in a culture that blames the victims for the actions of perpetrators. It’s hard to walk through life as a woman not knowing that, but often it’s a fact that men overlook since sexual assault so overwhelmingly affects women. If these logical tactics still don’t sway the opinion of your acquaintance, it’s time to move on to an emotional argument.

3) Empathy. Everyone who has harassed somebody else has women in their life in some form: a mother, a sister, an aunt, a cousin, or a girlfriend. Ask the harasser how they would feel knowing someone said something sexually violent to the women in their lives. Ask them if they know the alternate routes their family members take to avoid certain men on certain streets or if their family members carry weapons to protect themselves from the threat of sexual violence. Most importantly, remember that this empathy needs to go both ways. Empathize with the harasser. Ask him why he harasses, why he thinks it’s okay, and even ask his opinion on the street harassment research you may have presented earlier in the conversation. By asking someone to truly evaluate their actions, they may realize their impact. But not everyone will – some will resist no matter what you do or say, and that’s where the last step comes in handy.

4) Recognize a lost cause. People are stubborn, especially when they’re feeling defensive. Maybe he’ll change his mind later, maybe he’ll never change his mind. Point is, some people won’t listen to what you have to say. Some people are stubborn enough they’ll wait to change their minds until after you’re gone. If the conversation has gone on for a while and you’re both just parroting the same things back to one another, realize that this conversation will probably not end with changing the other person’s mind. Never look back at conversations like this as if they’re a waste of time – think of it as your own training for future conversations. You’ll learn how to more eloquently word your arguments and you may even learn more about why you feel the way you feel about certain issues. For a while, almost nobody was even having a conversation about street harassment; so now, every conversation is integral to the fight against it.

Madison is a soon-to-be graduate of the University of Texas at Austin studying literature and sociology. Follow her on Twitter, @madiford222.

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Meeting with WMATA to talk next steps in harassment campagin

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Today Zosia Sztykowski, Co-Executive Director of Collective Action for Safe Spaces and I met with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) at their headquarters in Washington, D.C. to talk about sexual harassment on the system. For three years, we’ve been working with them to see the implementation of an online reporting options, collating of reports on verbal harassment incidents (instead of only forms of harassment that rise to the level of a crime), employee training, and a PSA campaign. We’ve collaborated on a number of outreach days, too.

This meeting was in part a celebration of the second wave of ads (see an example on the right) and an opportunity to plan our outreach efforts for International Anti-Street Harassment Week/Sexual Assault Awareness Month. We also discussed other ways the system could do more around this issue. Stay tuned.

WMATA has been responsive to our suggestions and ideas and we are proud to work with them. We hope many other transit systems follow suit!

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Sign Petition to TGI Friday’s!

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Last week, TGI Friday’s released an ad that trivializes street harassment. Collective Action for Safe Spaces and SSH teamed up with Care 2 to create a petition asking TGI Friday’s to pull it. Please sign!

The petition reads, in part:

“Many of us remember the viral video of a woman walking down the streets of NYC for 10 hours, only to be harassed over 100 times. This video quickly spread around the world, and led to discussions about how common and serious street harassment is and how much it limits women’s access to public spaces.

In TGI Friday’s latest ad, #AppCalling,the company used the same footage from the viral anti-street harassment video, but replaced the woman in the video with various appetizers, like a cheese stick. “Nobody likes a catcaller… But who can blame someone for #AppCalling,” the ad reads.

That’s right — TGI Friday’s is comparing the daily plight of women to to food, trivializing street harassment in the process. Even worse, the man who created the original anti-street harassment video says he sees nothing wrong with the ad, and allowed TGI Friday’s to use his footage.

Please sign the petition to tell TGI Friday’s — stop trivializing street harassment, and pull your ad!“

 

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Brazil: A New Femicide Law

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Juliana Guarany, Brazil, Blog Correspondent

Right after Women’s Day (March 8th), Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff enacted a law against Feminicide. Feminicide is when a woman is murdered out of discrimination — just because she is a woman. It is classified as a hate crime.

The feminicide qualification of a crime can add about one-third of the penalty to the given sentence. It is worse when the woman is pregnant or has just given birth, when she is younger than 14 years old or older than 65 years old. But why would Brazil specify a longer sentence for the murder of women over men?

Because of the sexism that exists in the country, of course.

Women are not the majority of people murdered in Brazil; just about 23 percent of all murders in Brazil have women as victims. The biggest group at risk for murder is young black men – and, of course, that is a racist problem to be addressed. But what scares us feminists the most about the murder of women is that 40 percent of them are killed at home. So, out of ten female victims, four are killed in their own house by people who were supposed to love them. That is why this law is important.

If it’s too hard to understand how insane it is to think that women are so unsafe at home, just think a bit about the macho culture that rules Brazil. Men are raised to be fearless creatures, ready to tackle anything that stands in the way of what they want: a job, for example, or a college degree, or a nice body… or a woman. Men pursue women as if they were prey. Women, on the other hand, just learn to behave as the prey and accept that. So when predator and prey get married, there is a huge confusion on whether the woman is another person or simply something the man possesses. Many believe that, yes, they are entitled to own that woman. And they demand, they disrespect, and they kill.

It is important to understand how laws are followed for women in a sexist country.

The main reason to sanction the feminicide law was to acknowledge the fact that women are being killed just by being women, out of an act of discrimination: a man decides that a woman is not playing by his rules and he kills her. But also, feminicide enhances the penalty because many of the killers have walked out of the courts with mild penalties because: “he acted passionately, out of love”, or “he won’t do it again, it was his wife, he regrets it”, or, the worst one: “she cheated on him, she had it coming”.

Brazilian law has now codified the crime of feminicide, making it harder for men to appeal to the sexist minds of the jury and judges. Let’s hope that this bias will one day be gone and the feminicide law can become obsolete.

Note: Last week, there was a talk on BBC World Radio about feminicide in Brazil and I participated in it. You can all listen to it via this link.

Juliana is a fellow from Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and, together with Hamburg University, in Germany, is creating a digital campaign to connect all feminist initiatives around the globe. Read her blog Whistleblower and follow her on Twitter, @juguarany.

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