Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Archives for April 2015

Germany: Women-Only Transit Options

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Lea Goelnitz, Berlin, Germany, Blog Correspondent

women_only_public_transportIn more than one dozen countries, women-only public transportation is chosen as a short-term (or mid-term!) solution to street harassment. These countries are as diverse as Japan, India, Brazil, the Philippines and UAE, and offer sex segregated compartments in their trains or subways. In India public buses have benches reserved for women, entire trains for women and a women-only carriage in the Delhi metro. On the platform of the metro stop, the pink sign marks the “safe” area.

As the latest example of women-only transit, in the beginning of April the Guardian reported that there would be a new women-only rickshaw- service in Pakistan. The founder was fed up with facing daily harassment and now offers safe rides in pink rickshaws. I disagree with celebrating this business idea too much if the reason for the need of such women-only services is not sufficiently seen as a problem. We have to address the root causes.

Although I used to ride in the women-only carriage in Delhi and I guess it created a certain feeling of safety, I always felt like I was being put on display. Having all the women gathered in one space surrounded by men felt awkward. It is frustrating to know that these women-only spaces are a big move away from a gender equal society and from achieving real safety. Through sex-segregation, men do not need to adjust to a society in which women are equal and have the right to be in public spaces. The onus is on women to change.

In addition to women-only trains there are taxi services for women, which are even more widespread. There is SheRides in New York, Cab for Women by Women in Delhi and the Women´s Night Taxi in Hannover, Germany. In Germany there are also women-only parking lots, which are the ones closest to the building.

These interventions and businesses run by women create a safe option for women who otherwise might not go out or who will feel uncomfortable when they are out. As long as politics and culture fail women, this might be the only way to go. On the upside, in most cases it even provides women with economic empowerment. But of course even that is not perfect; the few female drivers may face safety issues as long as they are in the male-dominated space of taxi waiting lanes and rest areas.

Since January one of the major taxi companies in Delhi incorporated women drivers, catering to female passengers as well. This might be a small step forward. At least the men driving for this company will have to get used to having female colleagues.

In order for women to be safe, more women need to be out in public, as passengers and drivers.

Lea works in journalism and women´s rights and is involved in the women´s rights NGO Discover Football, which uses football as a tool for empowerment and gender equality. Follow her on Twitter, @LeaGoelnitz.

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USA: Researching Street Harassment in Texas

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Madison Ford, Texas, USA, Blog Correspondent

My neighborhood in Texas is relatively safe. I know since I’ve jogged through its streets three times a week since I moved here in June. I know where I can run freely, eyes closed, blood pumping, without being startled by a car horn and a smug smile. I walk my dog every day before dark. And every morning, I check my email for a little summary of all the crimes that took place within a two-mile radius of my address. I know that my neighborhood is safe. But despite the fact that the only crimes anyone is committing around here are almost always nonviolent, I can’t leave my house at night without one of my male roommates coming with me.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be conducting research on street harassment through the honors program in the Sociology department at the University of Texas at Austin; I had a unique experience in designing my survey in that I was basically asking people if they had been harassed in the same places I was getting harassed. Their anecdotes in the free-response portions rang true with some of my own experiences and while it was nice to know I wasn’t alone, it made me angry that so many people are experiencing the same frustrations. It was interesting to see other places in Austin where I may not visit frequently be listed as street harassment hotspots. Mostly Central Austin, where there’s lots of foot traffic and everyone is out in the open.

The most difficult thing about conducting my survey was attempting to gather responses. What I had anticipated as being one of the simpler parts of my project quickly became the most challenging aspect of it, but I think there’s a good reason I had trouble getting participants. Female students in our university have been receiving many survey research opportunities regarding their experiences with sexual violence, sexual harassment, and their experiences on the college campus and mine was just one of them. Although much work remains to be done in the fight against sexual violence and sexual harassment, the national conversation is taking a turn in the right direction. It was almost a year ago that the list of colleges under Title IX investigations for mishandling sexual assault and sexual harassment was released, and the dialogue has only grown since then. Research is not only being conducted by concerned undergraduates like me, but by universities themselves in order to make sure they make a serious effort to create safe and welcoming environments for everyone. Although female students may be undergoing survey fatigue, it’s nice to know that so many people are taking the concerns of college students about their campus climate seriously.

Conducting my own research has been an academically challenging but ultimately fulfilling experience and I feel much more comfortable talking to people I know and people I don’t know about the issue of street harassment and its wider implications for addressing sexual violence across the world. I’ll have to spend the next few weeks hunched over my computer during the data analysis process, but maybe one day the research I’ve done will inspire a young researcher as I was inspired by so many studies before me.

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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Afghanistan: 22 Years of Being a Woman

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Eventually, I persuaded myself that what I experienced did not happen but was only in my head.

Guest Blog Post for International Anti-Street Harassment Week 2015

The first time I experienced harassment was when I was eight. I was standing by the bakery with my brother, who was also little. I was lost in my childish world when I felt a hand on my butthole. I looked back in shock and all I saw was a number of men, each pretending to be busy with their own work. I was too young to understand what had happened. The whole day, I was anxious and worried. Eventually, I persuaded myself that what I experienced did not happen but was only in my head.

The next day, I had gone back into my world of childhood, but until today, 22 years later, I feel a dark shadow on my heart every time I think about that day. In the past 22 years, I have experienced similar things many many more times. Every time, I have felt humiliated and weak. Every time, I have felt guilty and blamed myself. Every time, I have felt hatred for the men around me, for my life. I began to cover myself more. I stopped wearing makeup. I walked around with a frown on my face as to not give anyone the impression that I was interested in it. But none of these things have protected me from the harassment and violation of my body that me and thousands of women around me face every day.

Constant experiences of street harassment made me feel angry towards men. I began to equate masculinity with rape and violence and I felt that I must always protect myself from men. This is a side effect of street harassment on men. It prevents them from gaining our trust and our love.

In addition, like most women, I also experienced that street harassment had negative impacts on my self-respect and confidence. We cannot dismiss street harassment. It is a serious issue in our communities and we need to do things to stop it before another generation of girls grows up with the hatred, fear, and lack of self-confidence that my generation grew up with. We need to teach our boys to respect women and girls and we need to give our daughters the skills to defend themselves if it comes to that.

Hiding women inside the homes, covering them up in layers and layers of clothing, and preventing them from going out will not end street harassment. In contrast, preventing girls from being active in society contributes to a system that dominates women by keeping them weak in the society and giving them the smallest venues of influence power, if any at all. We must allow our daughters to go outside. Play. Learn. Work. And when they face issues, we must protect them and support them so that harassers and other predators don’t think that their actions will go by unnoticed and unpunished.

By Tamana Azaad, cross-posted from Dukhtarane Rabia (Daughters of Rabia): A blog on social justice in Afghanistan

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Preliminary #EndSHWeek 2015 Update

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Hello!

Wow, it’s been a tremendous week of activism for International Anti-Street Harassment Week 2015!

More soon, but here are a few numbers to recap what has happened!

* 1 member of parliament talked about street harassment (Australia)
* 4 transit campaigns or studies launched or were released (London, Los Angeles, Paris, Vancouver)
* 6 main hashtags were used on Twitter: #Endsh #Endshweek #plutotsympa #everydaysexism #AcosoEsViolencia#NoAcosoCallejero* Anti-street harassment efforts took place on 6 continents
* Co-sponsoring groups in 40 countries took action
* 50 street signs against “catcalling” went up in NYC and Philadephia
* 75 media hits* 485 photos of actions

THANK YOU everyone who was involved!

Please let us know how your event went via this reporting form and send photos to hkearl @ stopstreetharassment.org.

-Holly

PS, check out this man who is PRO harassment?!?!
“Another day ruined”

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Afghanistan: No excuse for street harassment

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Painting by Roya Saberzada, 16

Guest Blog Post for International Anti-Street Harassment Week 2015

To be honest, I didn’t understand Afghan women’s problems till I got engaged. Before that, I was living in a family of men. I have three brothers and no biological sisters living with us. My mother is a traditional woman who believes that in-order to go to heaven; she HAS TO obey my father. It is the belief of so many other Afghan women I have met too.

Before, although I knew something is wrong here, but I couldn’t understand or feel it, till I fell in love with Fereshta. I saw the first street harassment to the girl I loved just in the second day of our engagement, and during an interval of two months I had seen at least a dozen instances of street harassments against her.

Sometimes the harassment seemed small and included men at her, but other times, we would be abused because she was driving and I was sitting next to her. It became obvious to me what most Afghans think about women driving. In their eyes, I am an honor-less man who lets his wife drive the car while he is in the car.

Many times I couldn’t control myself and fought back, sometimes even physically, because I love my fiancé and I couldn’t watch people harm her. Harassment makes women angry, but it should also make men who claim to love women angry.

I knew my fiancé was harassed when I wasn’t around, but what made me even angrier was that sometimes they harassed my fiancé even when I was with her. This was their way to denying my masculinity and her respect. The harassers thought that by doing so, they were taking the ownership of her body from me, as if I owned her body. I am not talking about the times that we were in the car and someone started shouting at us. They harassed and touched her even when I was walking right beside her in the bazaar. Most of the times, when confronted they denied the harassment claiming that it was an accident and sometimes they escaped. Other times, in the worse cases, they stood against us and fought back. They even defended her behavior.

After experiencing these instances with Freshta, I was assured that the harassment of women doesn’t have anything to do with women. I knew that it absolutely isn’t women’s fault. Sometimes we hear that some radical Mullahs say: “If women don’t go out alone, it won’t happen to them. It is the consequence of those who go out without a man.” But what about those days when I was with Fereshta and she was harassed in the streets of Kabul?

Some of them say: “The way women dress, grabs the attention of men.” I always think about this and say to myself: “OK, for a moment let’s consider that they are right. Let’s say that it is all because of the way the women dress. But does it mean it is right to harass women in the streets?”

And of course I am not talking specifically about Fereshta.  There are women who are harassed even with Chadori, the most conservative attire in Afghanistan. What excuses their harassment?

So, I can surely say that harassment won’t stop unless men rethink their behaviors.

By Omid Haqbin, cross-posted from Dukhtarane Rabia (Daughters of Rabia): A blog on social justice in Afghanistan.

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