Archives for January 2017

Late January 2017 News Round-Up

January 31, 2017 By HKearl

Here are some of the news articles that caught my eye this month.

First, a new study says sexually objectifying a woman, including through catcalling, can lead to aggression towards women.

Via HuffPost:

“A study published late last year by the University of Kent says sexually objectifying a woman can very well lead to aggression towards women and “reduced moral concern for the objectified.”

The researchers, who worked with more than 200 participants aged 12 to 16, found the link between catcalling and aggression can begin to develop in the early teen years, and can lead to the harmful perception that women are solely to be seen as sexual objects as they age.”

Global News:

A female-only ridesharing service will launch in Queensland, Australia… but addressing root causes of street harassment is a must, too.

A Bartenders Against Sexual Harassment event was held in Canada to raise money and awareness about sexual harassment and assault in the Toronto bar scene.

In Egypt, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics surveyed young people ages 15 to 29 in “informal urban areas of Greater Cairo” and 48% viewed street harassment as a problem.

Hundreds of men sexually assaulted women in Bangaluru, India, on New Year’s Eve. Among those speaking out afterward were those advocating for education and socialization of children to be respectful.

On Jan. 21, women across India marched to protest sexual harassment and misogyny using the hashtag #IWillGoOut.

Air India launched a women-only section of their airplane due to incidents of sexual harassment.

There’s a national competition in India encouraging people to rewrite the lyrics of sexist Bollywood songs.

Women in Jakarta, Indonesia, are taking action against street harassment.

The powerful Irish spoken word piece “Heartbreak” addresses street harassment.

A New Zealand woman writes an open letter to all cat-callers.

In Punjab, Pakistan, the Women Safety Smart Phone App launched.

Pakistani singer Atif Aslam called out and interrupted an incident of sexual harassment happening at his concert in Karachi

Reports of street harassment are on the rise in Cambridge, UK.

“Road to Equality” is a seven-minute documentary about street harassment in the UK.

USA News/Stories:

The Los Angeles Metro launched a hotline staffed by professional counselors to help people facing sexual harassment on the transit system.

Best-selling author and comedian Jen Kirkman tackled street harassment in her stand-up special Just Keep Livin’?.

What it’s like to be street harassed while seven months pregnant.

This is why street harassment is a mobility issue.

Hate crimes have swept the USA since the November presidential election and not even the liberal San Francisco Bay Area has been immune to it, including to street harassment.

A Maryland police officer pled guilty to taking upskirt photos of women.

“I had never called someone out for harassing another person before”

January 30, 2017 By Contributor

I was on my way to work in the morning on a Muni train and saw a guy shove his way onto the train car. He proceeded to stand really close to another girl from behind and kept getting closer to her in a disgusting manner. I stuck my luggage in between him and the girl because I was not completely sure what was happening–it was a full train.

He shoved my bag away and proceeded to turn around and stand close to another random girl who was unaware. The train had just gotten lighter with less passengers and there was plenty of room behind him.

I said, “Hey” a few times trying to get his attention and he ignored me so I tapped on the girl’s shoulder to tell her what he was doing. He immediately turned around and started to curse at me and shove my bag out of the way and all I could get out was that he was “standing a little too close to women”. He coughed in my face and then left the train.

I was very shaken up. I had never called someone out for harassing another person before, but I felt very protective of other women in that moment. People came up to me afterwards and said I did the right thing and they would have backed me up. The first girl also thanked me because she wasn’t sure what had happened until she saw him do it to someone else.

I hope that my choice to step out will cause others to be aware of their surroundings and to speak up if they see someone being harassed.

– AH

Location: San Francisco, CA

Need support? Call the toll-free National Street Harassment hotline: 855-897-5910

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See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for ideas.

USA: Sexual Violence Should NEVER be Normal

January 29, 2017 By Correspondent

Libby Allnatt, Phoenix, AZ, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

Trigger Warning – Attempted Rape

As the United States grapples with the misogyny, racism and bigotry that was seemingly validated with the election of Donald Trump, it is more important than ever to not normalize sexual violence.

The presidential election of 2016 rattled much of the nation.

It was supposed to be her.

On January 20, 2017, we were supposed to be inaugurating our first woman president.

But that’s not what happened. If you are outside the United States, I would venture to guess you’re aware of the trash fire that has transpired here since the country not only condoned the candidacy of an admitted sexual predator, but handed him the White House on a silver platter.

The election threatened the livelihood of many groups: Muslims, Mexicans, Jews, the LGBTQ+ community, just to name a few. These threats should not be underestimated. Trump’s refugee ban last week served as proof that he will try and make good on his threats.

Another group who felt threatened as we watched the polling results roll in on November 8: women. (Not all women, I should add. More than half of white women voted for Trump.)

The attitudes that normalize Trump’s “locker room talk” are the same attitudes that women must face the repercussions of every day as we walk down the street.

I started a new job this semester and work nights three days a week. At first I felt uneasy about knowing I’ll be walking home late at night, in the dark, in the city. But I refuse to feel scared.

I and the women around me have had lots of experiences with street harassment, and I feel disgusted to even say that I haven’t had it as bad as many others. I have struggled to understand the roots of the phenomenon and arm myself with knowledge.

While I believe we should avoid demonizing Trump alone (change is broader than one man, and government and the nation as a whole also needs to be held accountable for what they condone and initiate), we can’t ignore what his victory represented to a lot of people: that America condoned the actions of an admitted sexual abuser.

Groups have thoroughly documented hate crimes by perpetrators who used Trump’s exact words. A man harassed me a few days after the election using Trump’s words.

After the election of Donald Trump, women’s everyday fear of sexual assault was intensified, as if that’s even possible.

The other night when I walked home from work, a man in a car catcalled me. (The anonymity and distance of being in a vehicle does wonders for the empowerment of harassers.) I breathed a sigh of relief when he drove away.

The next night I walked home again. My stomach clenched when a group of four men were walking in my direction. I clutched my keys between my fingers.

A thought passed through my head: What if I got raped right now?

They passed me without saying anything, and I felt ridiculous for being scared of a group of innocent men. But this is our reality.

Some say street harassment is a fact of life, that we should deal with it.

But do they know what it’s like to breathe a sigh of relief when you make it through the door because you arrived untouched and unbothered?

I text my mom the second I get back to my apartment, the text already written out before I depart for home. The response she sent last night once I notified her of my safe arrival? “Yay!” A casual and all-too-normal declaration of joy at your daughter making it home unscathed.

“Because when girls go to college they’re buying pepper spray and rape whistles while guys are buying condoms #yesallwomen“

— Stephanie Greene (@all_worn_out) August 11, 2014

The fears are for good reason. Last year at my own apartment complex a man followed a girl into the building, forced his way into her room, and tried to rape her before her male roommate stepped in. I would link to the news story, but I am obviously wary of publicizing the apartment complex I live in.

Paranoia. Fear. Guarding our bodies at all costs. Could we take on a man twice our size? Do we have our pepper spray? How do we fight back?

We fight back by not being scared. By continuing to talk about the obscene, ridiculous and terrorizing details of our experiences. By intervening when we have to. By holding accountable those who don’t take it seriously.

The hand signing executive orders to deny women reproductive rights and health care has been accused of groping their bodies. The words that spew hatred for any skin color that isn’t white come from the same mouth that makes jokes (threats) of dating 14-year-old-girls.

I don’t care who’s in the Oval Office. Sexual violence isn’t normal. And I refuse to ever let anyone make me feel like it is.

Libby is a student at Arizona State University. Originally from Salt Lake City, Utah, she is majoring in journalism with a focus on print and she is minoring in psychology and women’s studies. You can follow her on Twitter @libbyallnattasu and Instagram @LibbyPaigeA.

Muslims Belong Here: Marching in D.C.

January 29, 2017 By HKearl

Via the Guardian :

“Thousands of protesters gathered and marched in cities and at airports across the US on Sunday, in opposition to the executive order from Donald Trump which imposed a freeze on refugee admissions and a ban on travel from seven Muslim-majority countries….

Around 100 people were held at airports on Friday and Saturday. Many were released as a dramatic court victory for the American Civil Liberties Union in New York on Saturday night saw a federal judge place a temporary stay on the order and rule that all those held should be released.

But by late afternoon on Sunday, travellers remained in custody at various airports, with attorneys reporting that some border agents were refusing to comply with the judge’s order.”

Myself and two of our DC-area Stop Street Harassment board members attended the Washington, D.C. protest. We also met up with Chai, the c0-founder of Collective Action for Safe Spaces.

We rallied at the white house and then marched down 15th Street, up Pennsylvania Ave to the U.S. Capitol and then back. There was a huge pocket of people protesting along the route in front of Trump Towers. Basically waves of people marched from 1 p.m. until well after 4 p.m.; when I passed the white house en rote to my car around 4:45 pm, groups of people were still heading down 15th street, marching.

Trump has made a lot of executive orders that I’ve disagreed with during his first week in office, but this one is having an immediate, scary and unfair impact on people’s lives. Many members of congress have spoken out and even Dick Cheney, who I didn’t think could do anything but evil, has come out against this move by Trump.

No doubt Islamaphobia will be on the rise in public spaces in the USA by emboldened Trump supporters. This is not okay. Everyone should be and feel welcome in our country, no matter their religion or country of origin.

#NoMuslimBan #RefugeesWelcome #Resist

UK: Street Harassment Across the United Kingdom

January 27, 2017 By Correspondent

Annabel Laughton, Gloucestershire, UK, SSH Blog Correspondent

Hello readers! I’m delighted to be blogging for Stop Street Harassment, and am looking forward to bringing you some exciting activist stories from England. For my first post, I decided to find out what the street harassment picture looks like in the UK as a whole.

2016 produced some interesting research related to Street Harassment. As reported on the SSH blog in March, the UK-based End Violence against Women coalition commissioned a YouGov survey. The most striking figure to emerge was that 85% of young women have experienced street harassment, and 45% of young women have experienced it in the form of sexual touching. Street harassment isn’t restricted to the 18 – 24 year olds though; 65% of all women have experienced it, and 35% have experienced it as sexual touching. In another headline finding, over 75% of women were under 21 the first time it happened.

Girlguiding UK produced the Girls Attitudes Survey 2016, which among many other findings, showed that 37% of girls aged 11 – 16 experience street harassment sometimes or often. Even more recently, the Fawcett Society released a new report, Sounds Familiar, which shows women experiencing high levels of hostility in all areas of life. It highlights the disproportionate targeting of Muslim women by abusers, and shows that the tired old trope of blaming women for what they were wearing is alive and well.

It is my view that street harassment is grossly underestimated as a problem in the UK. I believe most men are blind to its existence, or think it only happens on isolated occasions. I don’t think most men understand the extent and forms of sexual harassment that women experience in public every day, or the impact it has on women. Furthermore, I believe there is little understanding of how street harassment connects with and enables other forms of violence and oppression women face in the UK. A woman is raped in Britain every six minutes. Two women a week are murdered by a partner or ex. 1220 cases of forced marriage were reported in 2015. Almost two thirds of young women have experienced sexual harassment at work.

These facts do not stand apart from one another, and neither do wider cultural ones: on average, boys first view porn at the age of 11; only 7 of the FTSE 100 companies have a female boss; the gender pay gap is 18%. I suspect some perpetrating harassment do not truly know that is what they are doing, so accustomed are they to seeing women as existing for their entertainment.

As SSH reported, in 2016 Nottinghamshire police became the first police force in the UK to classify misogyny as a hate crime. To me that indicates just how far society is lagging behind in its understanding of this issue. Whether it’s a “cheer up love” or a sexual comment, a leer, being followed home, a hand up the skirt or rape, we all know we are targeted because we are women.

But all is not lost. There are many powerful and inspiring women tackling street harassment here, and over the next few months I’ll speak to activists standing up to this pervasive culture of objectification and abuse.

Annabel is involved in campaigns for human rights, mental health, environmental issues and social justice. She has an honours degree in Classical Studies, a diploma in counselling, and works in Higher Education.