Archives for August 2015

“No one asked if I was ok”

August 23, 2015 By Contributor

I was walking along the street yesterday afternoon. A man walking towards me catcalled me (hello beautiful, sexy etc etc). I felt angry and (not very eloquently) responded with ‘shut up, wanker’. I had assumed he was alone but he then called out to his girlfriend/wife/whatever declaring that I’d called him a wanker. I kept walking and tried to get on the bus, she followed me grabbed me by the hair and then knocked me to the ground yelling ‘you f***ing slag’ at me. I stood up and went towards the bus, they both continued to yell at me, again calling me a ‘slag’ and asking why I was calling him a wanker and asserting that ‘He was giving me a compliment’ and ‘who did I think I was?’ There was an entire bus of people watching. No one asked if I was ok.

Optional: What’s one way you think we can make public places safer for everyone?

Educate boys and men about why catcalling is unacceptable

– Anonymous

Location: London, UK

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

USA: When Does Street Harassment Begin?

August 22, 2015 By Correspondent

Liz Merino, Massachusetts, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

Boston chalking for International Anti-Street Harassment Week 2015

When does street harassment begin? I asked myself this the other day. When can I remember instances throughout my life that someone has sexualized my body without my consent?

There are really too many too count.

The news does capture some of it. Blips and glances, reels of one rape case or harassment of another, slowly turning, always changing, lighting up the television screen until something more repulsing replaces it.

Between sexist school dress codes, elite school rape cases and the systematic rape-based theology of Yazidi women carried out by of ISIS soldiers; I can’t help but feel helpless.

When does the sexualization of a woman begin? When does it really end?

Street harassment occurs every day. It happens on busy sidewalk streets during the morning hours when the sun is just slinking over the horizon. It happens on poorly lit streets after a night out with friends, causing some women to wonder if they will even make it home to see their loved ones again.

It happens on public transportation, city sidewalks and country back roads. Sexual harassment happens in the hallways of our schools and in the corners of our office spaces.

Sexual harassment doesn’t need an actual street to happen. It just needs a man with a sense of entitlement that reaches far beyond a normal scope of perception.

Don’t draw attention to yourself, but be sure people know you are there and carry your keys for protection, but don’t let them jingle or they will hear that too. Pull the top of your shirt up if you don’t want the attention, but stop, not every man is looking, not everyone is a predator. But cover your drink and watch your back just in case, because if they get you it’s always your fault. But you’re probably lying anyways, right?

Street harassment hurts. It creates a world in which men believe that a woman is their property simply for being in a public space.

If men can call you a slut on the street, take upskirt pictures of you in a grocery store or ask you to suck their dick from behind a car window, what will they really do to you when they get you all alone?

Priyanka, 23, a resident of New York City recounted her first experience of street harassment:

“The first place that I can truly remember it occurring was in the Middle East in one of the nicer malls. There would always be guys standing in a row near the theatre, just staring at you walking by and whistling or following you eventually. It was creepy and I didn’t appreciate the attention. I didn’t like feeling like a piece of meat.”

Having a vagina and a set of breasts is not a welcome mat upon which to lay your comments or your opinion or your crass approval of my body.

Street harassment is not a compliment. The oversexualization of women has never been “something nice” or “just something to do.” Funny how a woman can go from “sexy “and “honey” to stark raving mad, like a feral dog, when she rebuffs a man’s advances responds with how she really feels.

A woman is not a prude, stuck up cunt just because she doesn’t want you to grope her on the subway.

Jade, 21, a California resident echoed the same sentiment as Priyanka:

“I remember driving with an older guy friend, who was like my brother. He thought it was so funny to catcall women and he said, ‘If I see something I like I want to tell them.’ I tried to explain how uncomfortable it makes girls feel and he just didn’t understand that women are not here for his viewing pleasure. I don’t understand what men think they will get out of it. I am not going to hop in your car and I’m definitely not going to give you my number because you honked at me and said I have a nice ass. You are someone that I would make sure to stay far away from.”

Compared to a lot of other things I wrote in this article, the following incident isn’t that big of a deal. Or maybe in comparison, there are other bigger, more important things happening that people should care more about.

The one incident that has been popping into my mind happened during my freshman year of high school. I was wearing a tank top and a cardigan with a pair of sweatpants. I was 15.

As I was walking to class a teacher pulled me aside, a woman at that, and told me to pull up my shirt because it was “too low” and “I shouldn’t have worn it to school.”

I was embarrassed, mortified, I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. So I pulled up my shirt and hid my barely there boobs as a 15-year-old because I was “distracting,” “improper” “not appropriate.”

I hid my body because it was not deemed to be appropriate.

That line of thinking followed me into my sophomore year of college. During a sociology class discussion of street harassment, I finally realized that my body, my visible breasts and butt, thighs and flesh, the rough patches on my elbows and the bits of my baby toes were mine. Mine.

My body was not improper, but the way people view it and think about it is.

During this class I recounted a story of how my roommate and I were spending the day in NYC. It was hot, and my roommate had worn a beautiful sequin skirt, shiny and incandescent in the sunshine. We walked along laughing and smiling, taking in the city sights on our way to the Metropolitan Museum.

Street by street though, men called out to her. “Motherf***ing gorgeous,” “legs for days,” “hey sexy, come over here.” I watched as my roommate, a tall brunette with a wide smile and a contagious kindness folded into herself, hunching over and staring at the sidewalk, embarrassed by the attention she had drawn.

Before we got to the museum, she changed into a pair of pants she had in her bag. She covered herself to shield us both from the men old enough to be her father lusting after her.

She too felt her body was inappropriate, too much, asking for it. It killed me to watch it happen, and it kills me to see it now.

The only person a body belongs to is the one who can feel its heart beating from the inside. A woman is not a walking vagina, here for your pleasure only. She has two eyes, a nose and lungs, she breathes and loves and walks and thinks just like you.

And she feels.

Street harassment is not a compliment. Sexualizing women constantly is not acceptable. We know better. We can do better.

If you don’t believe street harassment, or the plight women suffer every day is actually an issue please educate yourself. If after reading and researching the topic you still don’t see the problem, rest assured we all do for you, because you are a part of it.

Liz is a recent graduate of Hofstra University with a Bachelor of Arts Journalism degree. She is currently a staff writer for a marketing agency in Boston. Follow her on Twitter @slizmerino and Instagram @elizabethmerino93.

“Not one damn soul on earth has the right to talk about my body the way you just did”

August 21, 2015 By Contributor

Dear Man in the Blue Minivan,

Sometimes street harassment isn’t calling me ʺbaby,ʺ asking me to smile, or commenting on my outfit. Sometimes street harassment isn’t on the day when I wore a cute top and got attention, or when I am walking home late from a bar and my hair is tossed.

Sometimes, street harassment is in broad daylight, on my way to work, and not in the form of a ʺcompliment.ʺ

Today, street harassment was a man from the comfort of his car, waiting to turn on a walk signal, angrily yelling at me to ʺmove my fat ass along.ʺ

Sadly, I’ve grown fairly used to street harassment in my daily life; I’ve perfected the sunglasses-on, earbuds-in, ʺcan’t see, can’t hear youʺ technique. Granted, most of these harassers use words to get my attention disguised as a compliment, perhaps a chance to make me blush. I’ve never said anything or asked them to stop —

Sunglasses-on, earbuds-in.

But, today I wanted to say something. Not just because you degraded me with an asinine insult or because our interaction was within earshot of coworkers. Today is different because I’ve realized something. Thanks to you, I realized not one damn soul on earth has the right to talk about my body the way you just did.

Including myself.

I’ve struggled with body image issues most of my life. The words you threw at me are the same I’ve said quietly in my head, wishing my fat ass would just hurry along. I have belittled and disrespected myself in more ways than you ever could.

You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you that I hate intersection crosswalks. Seems unreasonable, right? But, I hate them. I abhor the feeling of a dozen cars lined up, fixing their gaze on the people walking through a crosswalk. I’ll get a flurry of thoughts all at once; is my skirt too short? Did I wear something too tight? Do I look too large? Can they all see me?

After years of growing stronger, learning to love myself and step broadly into the sun for all to see, you took a small sliver of that acquired love-of-self away from me. All at once, I became afraid of crosswalks again. Not because a car might hit me if I miss the light, but because your vulgar words made you feel empowered and stripped me of my confidence. I hate that I allowed you to make me feel that way and that you have managed to stain that area of the street with memories of your negligent and unnecessary pass of judgement.

To the woman on the sidewalk who said, ʺthat’s so rudeʺ and shook her head when he drove off, thank you. Your three simple words in solidarity were my saving grace and snap back to reality, that no one, not even myself, has the right to disrespect my body.

So, dear man in the blue minivan, I will use my body in the best way I know how — to share this story and inspire others to feel a little braver when they step into a crosswalk. To be what the woman on the sidewalk was to me: solidarity.

Sincerely,

Sara

Location: Washington, DC (intersection near Logan Circle)

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

End of August News Round-Up

August 20, 2015 By HKearl

Here are the articles I’ve been reading over the past two weeks!

Check out the photos of teenage girls in Brooklyn as they create a mural depicting street harassers as zombies!

BK Magazine: “Catcallers Turn into Zombies in this Anti-Street Harassment Mural”

“Painted by 20 young women, ages 15 to 21, the mural depicts catcallers as drooling packs of undead, saying things like “God bless those legs” and “Hey yo, ma” and “I told you to smile.” They stagger towards frightened women–both female figures from art history and artists’ self-portraits–saying “Stop” and “I object to objectification.”

Perhaps predictably, the teenagers say they’ve been constantly getting sexually harassed while painting this mural fighting sexual harassment. “Every day we always get catcalled, or there’s always comments, people whistling at us,” Violet Ponce, a 17-year-old from Bushwick, told the Bed-Stuy Patch…

“We wanted to show that the feeling of being catcalled or when someone says something disturbing, it causes fear,” Danielle McDonald, an art teacher overseeing the project along with assistant artist Jazmin Hayes, told the Brooklyn Paper. “So that’s where the zombies came from–something scary and mindless.” They cite feminist activist graphic art as inspiration, from political posters and comic books to works by the likes of Guerrilla Girls and Jenny Holzer.”

Guardian: “I’m tired of being kind to creepy men in order to stay safe”

“We’ve all been bothered by persistent guys who pester us relentlessly, believing themselves to be entitled to our company and more. We’re under pressure to be polite and manage their expectations. Ignored men are angry men, and it’s horrible to sit silently while a man shouts at a packed carriage: “She thinks she’s too good to talk to me!”

When it comes to responding to harassers, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t – and sometimes it gets to the point when dealing with entitled idiots is so exhausting that you feel safer staying at home…

[We need] to create spaces where all women feel they are safe to look their harasser in the eye and say: “Leave me alone. I do not want to talk to you.” Because I’m tired of being kind to the creeps in order to stay safe. And I don’t want to stay in.”

BBC: “Struggling with Sexism in Latin America”

“Whether it is honour or so-called machismo, the end result is the same. Women become second-class citizens…

Since moving back to Latin America, I have lost count of the times I have been asked what it was like as a woman living in the Middle East. “It must have been so hard,” people say. To be honest, living in cities such as Mexico City can often feel harder.

While many of my female friends have smiled knowingly at my response, others flatly reject it. “Women here are free,” said one. “What’s wrong with being complimented in the street? They are appreciating our beauty,” said another.

If your “freedom” on the way to work is curtailed by threatening sexual comments, and you are made to feel like an object and not a human being, I question whether that is true liberty.”

Vancouver Observer: “An ‘unwanted kiss’ may seem innocent but has larger consequences”

“Early on the Friday (Aug. 7) evening of the Squamish Valley Music Festival, Megan Batchelor was reporting live — sounds like a fun assignment, right? Well, maybe for a man.

As Batchelor was talking about the threat of rain, a young man ran up behind her, planting a kiss on her cheek. She was clearly startled; one can imagine how it might feel for a strange man to come up behind you, aggressively touching or grabbing you, unannounced. Even if you can’t, Batchelor said the incident “rattled” her and she decided to file a report with the Squamish RCMP…

This kind of behaviour serves a purpose and it is to put women in their place. To say, ‘You don’t belong here and while you can play at ‘gender equality,’ we still don’t respect you.’ It intends to humiliate and demean, but even more than that: It is a threat. These public displays of misogyny and harassment send the message to all women that they aren’t safe in public places and that no matter what they do, they are always at risk of sexual assault….

There need to be real consequences and men need to be held accountable for their behaviour. If we continue to brush it off or to tell women to just ‘deal with it’ we are saying that the behaviour is okay and, in doing so, are actively working against gender equality and women’s safety.”

Vice News: “Indian Teenager Dies After Setting Herself on Fire Over Alleged Sexual Harassment”

Trigger Warning. Another life senselessly ended. May she rest in peace.

‪#‎India‬: “The girl was Dalit, from the lowest hierarchy of India’s caste system. In a statement that she gave late on Monday to a judicial magistrate, she accused four local boys of stalking and tormenting her relentlessly over recent weeks with indecent remarks and lewd conduct. She endured the mistreatment along the roughly six miles that she walked daily to school.

“I couldn’t bear the humiliation. They crossed all limits,” she reportedly told the magistrate. “They did things I can’t even share with you.”

Daily Life: “Alicia Keys says she developed tomboy style to avoid street harassment from men”

“To this day, Keys says, each morning she wonders what she can wear that won’t draw too much attention when she goes grocery shopping or to pick her son Egypt.

But, the other day, she says, she had a realisation, wondering “Why are you choosing to be that person?”

She listed all the things she no longer wants to feel ashamed to be.”

Morocco World News: “Moroccan Women Affected by Sexual Harassment Share Their Views”

“Women share their stories and views with ‪#‎streetharassment‬, including Fouzia R., a high-school student from Casablanca who says: “In my opinion, men harass women because they have some problems with their self-confidence. I once talked to my elder brother about this and he told me, ‘I would never run after a woman on the street that clearly feels uncomfortable with the situation, nor would I give compliments to a stranger. I have pride.’

So, I think that if men would think more like my brother, sexual harassment in Morocco could be lessened. Parents have to teach their sons respect and values at ayoung age… I guess a lot of parents don’t have those conversations with their sons in their early stages of puberty, in regards to sex, women and respect…”

Wicked Local: “The reality of ‘on street harassment'”

“This summer I am interning at the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University. In a recent project, we discussed the lagging participation and retention rates of middle and high school female athletes nationwide. Although our sports culture is slowly becoming a more inviting space for young women, there are still many barriers. Street harassment is just one of them — imagine being 14 again, still adjusting to your body as it rapidly moves through puberty, trying to train it to compete and feel healthy. While this happens, you are focusing on the road, on your breathing, on your body, when someone suddenly violates your space and concentration by screaming a comment at you, or takes it a step further by invading your physical space and running alongside you.”

DNAinfo: “Edgewater Woman Fed Up With Street Harassment Chases Attacker”

“Four years to the day after surviving a brutal attack in a Lincoln Square alley, an Edgewater woman out for her daily run said she was forcibly “kissed” on the cheek by a man who she later learned — after chasing him for several blocks — is accused of assaulting other women in the neighborhood.”

Trigger Warning: The Independent: “Teenager requires surgery after being attacked by cat-calling men for ‘wearing a bikini’”

“A teenager from Louisiana will require surgery after being attacked by a group of men who had harassed her while she was wearing a bikini.

Jessica Byrnes-Laird, 18, was sitting in her car while her boyfriend entered a store in Shreveport after the pair had spent the day swimming.

The four men started harassing her and fought with her boyfriend after he emerged from the shop.”

al Bawaba, “A viral video highlights Saudi’s sexual harassment problem — again”

“A video appeared on YouTube this week showing a woman in eastern Saudi Arabia fending off a potential sexual harasser with a broom.”

CityLab: “Talking to My Son About Street Harassment”

“My kid is a gentle soul and a generally decent young man. I trust his instincts and his heart. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel the need to be quite direct and explicit about his responsibility to be a young man who always treats girls and women with respect—on the street and everywhere else. It’s his responsibility to be conscious and empathetic about what women deal with every day. We talk about it the way we talk about any other duty he has to be a good citizen of the world, and while he occasionally rolls his eyes when I get going on the topic (yes, he is a teenager), I feel confident that he’s listening.”

All Africa: “Zambia: Street Harassment – Women Fight Back”

“The day of the march was one of the best days of my life, partly because I felt we had achieved something against the odds, but most of all I realized just how wonderful it felt to finally speak out and stand up for myself and for what was right. It was as though with every chant I was getting back bits of dignity that had been stripped away from me, for myself and for other women.”

Daily News Egypt: “Feminist author Mona Eltawahy gives account of Cairo sexual harassment”

“Mona Eltawahy, a well-known Egyptian writer who has long-spoken out against sexism, reported a minor sexual assault online and her decision not to press charges against her harasser.”

Daily Times: “Surviving street harassment: An introductory guide”

“As a teenage girl, having been born and bred in Lahore, Pakistan, I crave a society where I can venture to Liberty Chowk without a man’s company and return in the wee hours of the morning, completely unharmed, with all my errands having been run without having faced any difficulty, except perhaps at the hands of a procrastinating darzi.”

Mic: “Men Only Care About Catcalling When It Affects Women They Know”

“A wave of new videos seeks [to force] men to witness the harassment the women in their lives face — but is this really changing their minds, or just momentarily grabbing their attention? …

In order to understand women’s issues, men are commonly encouraged to consider how gender-based discrimination ultimately effects them. Educators prompt men to imagine how they would feel if their mothers, wives, daughters or sisters were subjected to the treatment they either perpetuate or allow to persist by remaining silent. This mentality is implicitly evident in the premise of these videos, and even referenced outright….

Multiple studies capture that [empathy] gap: Women are trained to empathize with others, while men must feel motivated to do so: To truly care about the experiences of others, men may require proof that those experiences directly, negatively effect them, too. In this case, the proof is provided by actual visual documentation of women they know being harassed….

Ideally, our society would recognize that street harassment is unacceptable based on the sexist way it objectifies and demeans women. We’re not there yet, though, and that’s why these videos — flawed as they are — still have some value.

Metro UK: “‘There would be a fistfight’: Dads react to their daughters getting catcalled”

“Sure, it’s a shame that men have to relate catcalling to a relative to really get why it’s so bad, but if this video works towards making guys a tiny bit more understanding about street harassment, it can only be a good thing.”

Obvi We’re the Ladies: “I’m Always Aware, But Should I Have To Be?”

“As women, what we can do is support other women. When someone speaks up about their experience we can listen first, and act second. We can be there for women who have experienced the trauma of sexual assault, and we can be there for women who haven’t. We can share our stories, and we can help one another heal. We can refuse to be silent, and we can refuse to be ignored.”

TripIt: “How to deal with street harassment when traveling“

On a day of happiness, I could not escape street harassment

August 20, 2015 By HKearl

Me on this day, about an hour or so before the men street harassed me. — Walking to get married, about an hour before the men street harassed me.

My partner and I have been together for more than 12 years. For a number of reasons (including same-sex marriage now being legal across the USA) we did a civil service to legally marry earlier this month in Las Vegas, Nevada, while my partner was there on business. We got our license, walked a building over for a civil service ceremony and it was all done in an hour. Easy, low-cost.

My uncle lives in Las Vegas and after our ceremony (only attended by our witness, one of my cousins), my partner and I went to a grocery store to get food for dinner at his house. I didn’t wear a “wedding dress” but I was wearing a dress I bought for $25 at TJ Max.

We got back to the car and I had forgotten hummus. I went back inside alone.

On my way out of the store alone, two men told me I looked beautiful. It felt like the lead up to harassment but I thought, give them the benefit of the doubt, “you look beautiful” on it’s own isn’t really harassment (though since men don’t hear that as they walk around, it does reinforce sexism and that women’s value is our looks)… so I smiled and I said thanks… and they immediately launched into loud sexually explicit descriptions of my body as they disappeared into the grocery store. I cringed. I felt violated and dirty. And – because internalized victim blaming is hard to overcome – I thought, why didn’t I change out of my dress before walking around in public alone?

It upsets me that even on a day of happiness with my best friend, I could not escape street harassment. There is NO escape. I’m now in my 30s. I live in the suburbs and mostly work from home and mostly drive places. Compared to a decade ago, I can go days and sometimes weeks without facing street harassment. But there is still no way to permanently escape it. That makes me feel really angry, frustrated, and sometimes defeated.

This incident also reminded me that if it’s not blatant harassment at the onset, it’s hard to know how to deal with it, especially when you have 1 second to decide and can’t formulate a super clever retort. Should I have ignored them? Told them “that’s harassment” for simply saying I was beautiful? I doubt it would have mattered how I responded.

Ultimately it wasn’t about me, it was about them. They probably could care less how I felt or responded…. just like most harassers. They just felt entitled to my attention, my space, for their own reasons. And women are often raised to be polite, so we mostly put up with it, demure, deflect, appease, and avoid, especially when it starts off with something as seemingly innocent as “you look beautiful,” “what are you reading” or “what’s your name?”

This happened more than two weeks ago. I only decided now to write about it after reading this excellent Guardian article by Daisy Buchanan, “I’m tired of being kind to creepy men in order to stay safe.” This is an excerpt:

The full article is worth a read.

This is my message to men: Please think twice before approaching a woman you don’t know in a public space. Think twice before you open your mouth. I don’t care if you’re not a harasser. Too many of you are and every woman has been harassed before. Unless she’s in danger or dropped something, just think twice about it. We don’t owe you our attention nor should we have to be polite to you even if we’ve and you’ve been raised to think that we should.

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