Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming
As you do your holiday shopping this year, you can help support our work simply by using this link when you shop for items on Amazon.com!!!
Also, my new book could be a good gift for a social justice activist in your life! Stop Global Street Harassment: Growing Activism Around the World.
Nov. 25 – Dec. 10 are the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence. To commemorate the week, we are featuring 1 activism idea per day. This information is excerpted from my new book Stop Global Street Harassment: Growing Activism Around the World (Praeger 2015).
Distributing cards about street harassment to harassers or to educate passersby is a tactic that’s been used for years, especially when it became easy to post the cards online for others to download. The Street Harassment Project, for example, has offered cards on its site since the early 2000s and Stop Street Harassment has made cards available since 2008. But in recent years, individuals have been creating their own. In 2012, for example, American Mirabelle Jones created “catcalling cards” with a phone number printed on them for women to give to men who won’t leave them alone. If the men call the number, they will hear pre-recorded messages from women telling harassers exactly what they think of them. On her Tumblr I Am Not an Object, she invites women to leave recordings and download the cards.
In Dortmund, Germany, the women in the feminist group ProChange devised another clever way to use cards. Living in a country that is obsessed with football (American soccer), they created “Red Cards” against sexism, “Pink Cards” against homophobia and “Purple Cards” of courage. Individuals can hand out these cards to challenge or commend others’ actions without having to directly talk to them. “This can be easier than having any other reaction,” the women told me. A group called Avanti had the same idea and had already created cards that they let ProChange adopt. ProChange also created special coasters with information about street harassment for the pubs, bars, and clubs of Dortmund.
One of their first distribution occurred during International Anti-Street Harassment Week 2012 when they handed out 2,000 of these cards and coasters. They have distributed thousands more since, often coinciding with specific days like Equal Pay Day, One Billion Rising (against gender violence), Frauenkampflag (Women’s Day), and Fahnentag (the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women).
“We get mostly positive feedback regarding the cards,” the group members informed me. “Even men approach us to ask for more cards they can give to their partners or daughters. Often people email us to ask for our cards. Our favorite story was when we were in front of the city hall distributing cards. It was too cold and only a few people passed by. An old grumpy-looking man approached us. He took one of the cards and looked at it. Then he shook everybody’s hands and thanked us for standing in the cold for women and girls.”
Help fund our work in 2016, donate to our end-of-year giving campaign!
Nov. 25 – Dec. 10 are the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence. To commemorate the week, we are featuring 1 activism idea per day. This information is excerpted from my new book Stop Global Street Harassment: Growing Activism Around the World (Praeger 2015).
Using sidewalk chalk to write messages like “My body is not public space” has become a popular way to quickly raise awareness about street harassment. It is inexpensive, easy, and something an individual or a small group can do, and the impact can be huge. In addition to raising the awareness of people passing by while the chalking happens, dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people can see it as they pass by—barring rain or other conditions that might wipe out the message. Anti-street harassment chalking parties have taken place all over the world, including in Melbourne, Australia; Ottawa, Canada; Bogota, Colombia; Berlin, Germany; and Dublin, Ireland, as well as in American states like California, Florida, Georgia, Hawai’i, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota.
A unique approach to chalking is the Chalk Walk the group Rebellieus, formerly Hollaback! Brussels, held in 2012. Four young women met at Ribaucourt, Molenbeek in Brussels, Belgium, on a spring morning. Their meeting place was significant because it was where one of the women, Angelika, had been harassed. With a bright-colored piece of chalk, Angelika stooped down and wrote on the sidewalk, “I was harassed here. I Hollaback. I reclaim the street.”
She proudly stood by her message as her friends hugged her and congratulated her on reclaiming the space. Together, they made a pilgrimage to other spots where they had been harassed: a busy four-lane boulevard for Anna, the sidewalk of a busy bridge for Julie, and the staircase at the Metro stop De Brouckere for Ingrid. At each place, they shared their stories, reclaimed the space with chalk, and hugged. Several people stopped to talk to them, to hear their stories, and to support their message.
“AWESOME is not even a strong enough word to describe it! EMPOWERING comes close!” the women wrote on their Facebook wall. “What we discovered was that writing with chalk on the sidewalk, on the street, on the bridge, telling Brussels: “I was harassed here’ ‘I reclaim the street’ is a powerful, liberating ritual and an amazing [experience].” In 2013, they launched a We Chalk Walk Tumblr where anyone can submit anti-street harassment chalk messages.
Chalking can be an effective way to start conversations and change minds. In Nassau, the Bahamas, two young women wrote messages such as “Whistle at dogs, not girls” and “Respect girls” on a sidewalk along the beach. They said that among the people who stopped to talk to them was a man “who thought we were writing the message specifically to him. We explained what we were doing to him and told him what he did WAS in fact street harassment. He, of course, did not believe us, and we had to break it down for him. He ended up understanding what we were saying, so we hope we have a converted man in Nassau!”
This is exactly the kind of impact they hoped to have. Alicia Wallace, one of the women, told the local newspaper: “Chalk messages are not common here, and we knew it would attract the attention of pedestrians. … It is unacceptable, and educating the general public on the definition and everyday examples of street harassment is the first step to combating this problem.”
Help fund our work in 2016, donate to our end-of-year giving campaign!
Nov. 25 – Dec. 10 are the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence. To commemorate the week, we will feature 1 activism idea per day, starting tomorrow.
Today, I wanted to express gratitude and acknowledgement that gender-based street harassment, or sexual violence in public spaces, is gaining much more widespread recognition as a problem. Here are two examples from this year that clearly illustrate this.
1. In April groups in 41 countries took action in support of safe public spaces through our International Anti-Street Harassment Week, from Australia to Zimbabwe and dozens of countries in between. You can view photos and read a recap (and plan to join us April 10-16, 2016!). It’s heartening to see so many people dedicate time and energy to this cause.
2. UN Women hosted a Safe Cities Global Leaders’ Forum in June, and 140 people from 24 countries gathered in Delhi, India, to share ideas about the best strategies to address sexual violence in public spaces. Attendees included government officials, grassroots women, researchers, and staff from UN agencies that are implementing programs that form part of the agency’s Safe Cities Global Initiative (SCGI).
The SCGI works with local organizations and governments to tackle sexual harassment and other forms of sexual violence in public spaces. Launched in New Delhi in November 2010 with five cities, it now includes 22 cities. Representatives from these cities, as well as from other groups working on safe cities work, were present at the forum.
For too long, street harassment has been seen as normal, no big deal, or the fault of harassed persons. Those attitudes are quickly falling away and in their place are thousands of people worldwide who are dedicating time, energy, and expertise to making public places safer for everyone. For that, I am grateful.
Help fund our work in 2016, donate to our end-of-year giving campaign!
It’s been more than 3.5 years since we began working with Collective Action for Safe Spaces (CASS) and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) on an anti-harassment campaign.
Periodically, we meet with the sexual harassment taskforce at WMATA to discuss the campaign and next steps, etc. Today was one of those meetings, with myself, four WMATA staff members, and CASS’s interim executive director Jessica Raven.
For a status update on what the campaign currently entails:
* A second wave of anti-harassment ads are up across the system.
* More trainings are underway to ensure that all 4000 front line employees know what to do if they witness or experience street harassment or if someone reports an incident to them.
* There is an online reporting form that makes it easier to report incidents.
* We jointly hold annual outreach days, distributing materials at metro stations during International Anti-Street Harassment Week. This year, we were at five metro stations across VA, DC and MD.
I am excited that today at our meeting, WMATA committed to a third wave of ads next year. They will survey riders before the end of this year to better understand their experiences with harassment and their feelings about the first and second waves of ads, and ask for their thoughts for the next wave. We discussed having a message focused on bystanders and/or the community-of riders generally, but we will see what riders have to say.
WMATA wants to collaborate on four flyering/outreach events at Metro stations in 2016: 1) during Anti-Street Harassment Week in April, 2) mid-summer, 3) around the back-to-school time, and 4) on December 10 for Human Rights Day.
We discussed a few other ways that we may collaborate to help spread the word about the campaign among WMATA staff and the larger Metro-area community. More on those ideas when they are solidified.
All in all, it was a productive meeting.
I am so proud and happy every time I see one of the Metro ads (and on my metro ride to/from the meeting I saw two different ones), not only because I am part of the campaign, but also because I feel great pride in knowing that my city takes this issue seriously and is expending significant time, resources, and staff power to help people feel safer on public transit. Thank you, WMATA!
Also of note –
* The history of how our collaboration came about is featured in my new book Stop Global Street Harassment: Growing Activism Around the World.
* If you’re in the DC-area, join WMATA, CASS, Defend Yourself, the DC Rape Crisis Center, and SSH staff and many community members in testifying about street harassment before the DC City Council next week, Dec. 3.