• About Us
    • What Is Street Harassment?
    • Why Stopping Street Harassment Matters
    • Meet the Team
      • Board of Directors
      • Past Board Members
    • In The Media
  • Our Work
    • National Street Harassment Hotline
    • International Anti-Street Harassment Week
    • Blog Correspondents
      • Past SSH Correspondents
    • Safe Public Spaces Mentoring Program
    • Publications
    • National Studies
    • Campaigns against Companies
    • Washington, D.C. Activism
  • Our Books
  • Donate
  • Store

Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Home
  • Blog
    • Harassment Stories
    • Blog Correspondents
    • Street Respect Stories
  • Help & Advice
    • National Street Harassment Hotline
    • Dealing With Harassers
      • Assertive Responses
      • Reporting Harassers
      • Bystander Responses
      • Creative Responses
    • What to Do Before or After Harassment
    • Street Harassment and the Law
  • Resources
    • Definitions
    • Statistics
    • Articles & Books
    • Anti-Harassment Groups & Campaigns
    • Male Allies
      • Educating Boys & Men
      • How to Talk to Women
      • Bystander Tips
    • Video Clips
    • Images & Flyers
  • Take Community Action
  • Contact

The Netherlands: The Revolution Will be Tweeted

December 16, 2015 By Correspondent

Eve Aronson, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, SSH Blog Correspondent

What’s in a word? In a character?

During last February’s Super Bowl Sunday in the US, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton found out.

hillaryclintonWith her excruciatingly ordinary tweet about American football and politics, Clinton unintentionally showed the power of 140 characters broadcast to 4.9 million vaguely- connected social media followers.

According to blogger Bridget Coyne, the tweet was retweeted over 57,000 times and prompted 33,600 new followers, ten times Clinton’s average daily follower growth.

While there are plenty of social media critics out there (and there are many), there is no denying the powerful potential of social media platforms to provoke engagement and build interest in everything from funny cats to presidential debates.

In the sphere of anti-street harassment, social media is being used to not only quickly broadcast people’s experiences but to connect and empower folks with shared experiences.

Not unlike Clinton’s wildly popular tweet, more and more people are engaging with social media platforms like Twitter, and important issues like street harassment are gaining some serious momentum.

The figure below maps the global conversation about street harassment using the hashtag #endSH from 2014-2015:

endsheweek

(Source: Followthehashtag 2015)

With a reach of over 13 million, the above map speaks not only to global experiences of street harassment, but also to individuals around the world collectively exposing the phenomenon and, in doing so, working to unsettle and resist the power structures that sustain it.

Towards Sousveillance

We can also look at simple actions like tweeting as a means to empower those targeted in street harassment interactions— like women of all backgrounds and people of color or LGBTQ folks of all genders— by turning what is conventionally known as the “gaze” back onto harassers.

This practice of using social media to do this— either by sharing a story, an opinion or by offering virtual support to someone else posting about their experience— is what is called “sousveillance”.

Coupled with digital technologies like mobile phone apps, geo mapping or online platforms for sharing experiences about street harassment, what ‘sousveillence’ does is put the ball back into the court of the individual who experiences street harassment.

We can see in the map below how, for example, Hollaback! New York embeds geo mapping into its site to “sousvey” harassers as well as to visualize and map bystander presence. On the map, red dots represent reports of street harassment, while green dots represent individuals reporting bystander presence:

hb nyc

(source: Hollaback! NYC)

The image above isn’t just a bunch of red and green dots— each dot represents an experience of street harassment like hissing, leering or groping. And having experienced street harassment and knowing that you’re not along has a greater impact than you might think.

“[I]t makes me feel better to know that there are other women going through the same thing,” stated an anonymous submitter to Hollaback!. “I know I can be a little star on the map for someone else so they know they are not alone either”.

In the Netherlands Online

Although most Amsterdam survey respondents in my research earlier this year had not visited a specific website dedicated to combatting street harassment, almost half have tweeted or posted their thoughts or experiences of street harassment on social media. This finding is huge and signals a need that, for example, engaging more with these technologies could help to fill.

When searching for online platforms and digital technologies in the Netherlands being used to map and resist street harassment, Straatintimidatie (Street intimidation), an online campaign in the Netherlands that is vying for a law against street harassment, was the only online presence that I came across.

Straatintimidatie does not have a space—online or off—for community members to share stories and strategies about street harassment. Nevertheless, the campaign’s Twitter feed has a combined reach of over 52,000 people, which is considerable and indicates that engaging more in online activism about street harassment in Amsterdam and throughout the Netherlands could gain significant momentum with the introduction of more diverse online platforms.

As we saw with the hashtag campaigns above, there are evidently immense pools of people using these online platforms, which can be tapped into in the fight against street harassment in the Netherlands.

If a single tweet like Clinton’s can instantly engage tens of thousands, imagine the disruptive potential of billions of virtual voices— in the Netherlands and beyond— demanding an end to street harassment.

Hashtag activism is not only a lot of people talking; it’s a lot of people talking about specific issues that gain momentum over time and have the potential to effect change on unprecedented scales.

So the next time you sign onto your social media account, get excited. Get excited about the incredible amount of power at your fingertips; the millions of people ready to answer your call to action; and, one character at a time (but not more than 140!); it’s time to turn the tide against street harassment together.

You can find the full analysis of the Amsterdam survey results here or by contacting Eve atevearonson@gmail.com. Follow Eve and Hollaback! Amsterdam on Twitter at @evearonson and @iHollaback_AMS and show your support by liking Hollaback! Amsterdam’s Facebook pagehere.

Share

Filed Under: correspondents, street harassment Tagged With: EndSH, social media, twitter

Share Your Story

Share your street harassment story for the blog. Donate Now

From the Blog

  • #MeToo 2024 Study Released Today
  • Join International Anti-Street Harassment Week 2022
  • Giving Tuesday – Fund the Hotline
  • Thank You – International Anti-Street Harassment Week 2021
  • Share Your Story – Safecity and Catcalls Collaboration

Buy the Book

Search

Archives

  • September 2024
  • March 2022
  • November 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • January 2021
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008

Comment Policy

SSH will not publish any comment that is offensive or hateful and does not add to a thoughtful discussion of street harassment. Racism, homophobia, transphobia, disabalism, classism, and sexism will not be tolerated. Disclaimer: SSH may use any stories submitted to the blog in future scholarly publications on street harassment.
  • Contact
  • Events
  • Join Us
  • Donate
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Copyright © 2025 Stop Street Harassment · Website Design by Sarah Marie Lacy