Archives for February 2017

Gaming For Pixels Launch

February 17, 2017 By HKearl

This is cross-posted with permission from The Pixel Project

The Pixel Project, a 501(c)3 anti-Violence Against Women non-profit, is proud to announce the upcoming launch of Gaming For Pixels – a positive new initiative in collaboration with the gaming community to help end Violence Against Women (VAW), including making gaming and online spaces safe and inclusive for women and girls. The campaign will kick off with the Gaming For Pixels Spring Slam on April 7^th 2017 as part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month and in benefit of the Celebrity Male Role Model Pixel Reveal campaign which aims to raise US$1 million for The Pixel Project.

The Spring Slam is a 48-hour weekend online gaming marathon fundraiser that will run from 8pm EST Friday April 7th 2017 – 8pm EST Sunday April 9^th 2017. Anyone who loves gaming and supports ending VAW is welcome to join the event to raise funds for the cause. They may take part as individuals or teams for as long as they wish during the event. In addition, every participant and donor will be provided with a virtual anti-VAW toolkit featuring easily accessible online resources for gamers to learn more about VAW; to help a domestic violence or rape victim they know; or to get help if they are victims/survivors themselves. The registration start date for the Spring Slam will be announced later this month.

In line with the spirit of Gaming For Pixels, The Pixel Project has partnered with three outstanding community-driven organisations for the Spring Slam: Fundeavour – a fast-growing gaming community providing support for over 9200 gamers from 22 countries who are building their careers in eSports and livestream gameplay; Studio Wumpus – the creators of the award-nominated Indie game Sumer where players compete to win the favours of the ancient Sumerian goddess Inanna; and Omega Phi Beta – a national U.S.-based sorority committed to ending violence against women and which counts a number of avid gamers among their sisters. All three partners have taken an active role in helping get Gaming For Pixels off the ground and they will be rallying their community members to participate in the Spring Slam.

“Gaming For Pixels was created as a fun and positive campaign for gamers to support the cause through what they love best – gaming. The Pixel Project is delighted to collaborate with members of the gaming community who are stepping up to say NO to violence against women,” said Regina Yau, Founder and President of The Pixel Project. “With 1 in 3 women worldwide experiencing gender-based violence, this is definitely an issue that affects gamers and the women and girls in their lives. We believe that the gaming community can be a force for immense good and it is our hope that the campaign will inspire and galvanise gamers from all walks of life to take action to stop violence against women and girls in their communities wherever they are in the world.”

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For more information, contact The Pixel Project at info@thepixelproject.net / pixelprojectteam@gmail.com

UK: “We Need to Change the Whole Picture”

February 16, 2017 By Correspondent

Annabel Laughton, Gloucestershire, UK, SSH Blog Correspondent

Finn Mackay. Credit: Rosie Charlotte Mackay

This week I was delighted to meet Dr. Finn Mackay, a teacher and feminist activist. She’s a sociology lecturer and former youth worker, and has a special interest in working with boys and men, as a researcher and campaigner. She’s involved with the White Ribbon Campaign, and domestic violence prevention work, and speaks and writes about feminism and male violence against women.

First we talk about Reclaim the Night. Mackay set up the London Feminist Network in 2004 and revived a national women-only Reclaim the Night march held in London every November. Mackay explains how Reclaim the Night marches directly tackle intimidation of women in public space. “Public space is gendered, though it shouldn’t be,” she says.

As the name suggests, Reclaim the Night is women’s takeover of public space from men. I ask her about the street harassment I experienced on my local Reclaim the Night march in November, and she laughs wryly. “That happens on all the marches. Groping, asking the way to brothels… it’s an explicit reaction to women taking back the space. Men feel we are trespassing. It’s their way of saying, ‘these are our streets; go back home.'”

Reclaim the Night marches are a powerful statement. For her book, Radical Feminism: Feminist Activism in Movement, Mackay interviewed women about Reclaim the Night, and many women said the march was the only time they could feel safe and powerful.

Is street harassment getting better or worse, I asked?

Her answer is grimly definite: worse. Mackay explains that in her experience, young women say street harassment is an inevitable part of a night out, and how if they reported every instance, they’d never be off the phone. Working in secondary schools in London on anti-bullying campaigns, it was common for girls to report that they would go out wearing two pairs of pants, or would wear tights in summer, because it was so normal for boys to try to grope them inside their underwear. She believes women feel they have to appear unaffected by incidents, not wanting to appear delicate, prudish, or like a victim, and talks about women priding themselves on thinking of witty ripostes to sexual comments. She also explains that most people don’t know the definition of sexual assault (in the UK this is any unwanted intentional sexual touching), and are unsure at what point harassment becomes a criminal offence.

Next I want to find out what Mackay thinks about other areas that interlock with street harassment, like porn. Her view is that it’s an enabler. “Porn is part of a culture where men have to do things to women, and women have to put up with them; a predator/prey dynamic.”

Even more directly, a man can see violent images online and think, “I’ll go and do that to a woman”. Likewise, online harassment is part of that culture of women putting up with everything. The vicious, vitriolic online misogyny experienced by women has contributed to the development of a dialogue where the victim is expected to “toughen up” – because it “happens to everyone”.

Finally, we talk about causes and prevention. Good sex and relationships education (SRE) in schools, including education around consent, would go a long way. At present, there is no duty on schools to teach more than the biology of reproduction, despite many attempts by campaign groups, so provision varies. While there is some progressive, radical work in schools, others offer no SRE, and even in schools that do, it’s often taught by an over-worked gym teacher or someone else without adequate training. Mackay is sceptical about statutory consent campaigns.

“One recent one was, ‘Give it: Get it’. This doesn’t take apart the predator/ prey dynamic. In fact, it sets it up. It’s obvious who’s doing the giving and who’s doing the getting. This is still about controlling women’s sexuality; it removes their sexual agency, as well as assuming men are desperate for sex and women have to be persuaded. And what can be given, can also be taken.”

This points to an urgent need for educating men and boys, and for tackling the expectations of how men behave. In Mackay’s experience, men are usually shocked and defensive about how they come across, even perpetrators of domestic violence. “They split the power thrill [of the act of violence] from the reaction. This is a status defence; they know they have higher status. Men need help. We need to think about how we’re constructing masculinity.”

In the end, though, Mackay sees street harassment in the broadest possible context: the whole of society. “We live in a male supremacy; there’s no getting away from that. All our major institutions are run by men. Ultimately, we need to change the whole picture.”

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.

UK Campaign, Philippines Law

February 15, 2017 By HKearl

Two big stories this week –> a new anti-harassment campaign in the UK and a new law introduced in the Philippines

Via The Gazette

“A poll by England Athletics revealed that a large proportion of women feel anxious when running alone, with nearly half of those surveyed stating that this is due to personal safety concerns…

Of those who had experienced harassment, shouting and car horns beeped by passing motorists were the most common.

But RunTogether, a national programme from England Athletics to get more people jogging regularly, aims to erase this via its This Girl Can Run campaign…

The RunTogether website provides instant access to a rapidly growing network of multiple local running groups in Lancashire.”

Via the Manila Bulletin:

“Sen. Risa Hontiveros [in the Philippines] filed on Tuesday a bill that seeks to protect women and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community from harassment, especially on the streets and other public spaces.

Hontiveros said she filed the measure, Senate Bill 1326, in response to the growing number of gender-based harassment in public spaces such as the case of a female student from the University of Santo Tomas (UST) who was allegedly groped in a public utility vehicle by a fellow student.

The bill, also known as the “Safe Streets and Public Spaces Act of 2017,” seeks to penalize gender-based street and public spaces harassment such as catcalling, wolf-whistling, cursing, leering, groping, persistent request for name and contact details and the use of words tending to ridicule on the basis of actual or perceived sex, gender expression, or sexual orientation and identity including sexist, homophobic and transphobic slurs.”

Quezon City already has a similar bill at the city-level, passed last year.

Romania: A Letter to All Men

February 14, 2017 By HKearl

Simona-Maria Chirciu, Bucharest, Romania, SSH Blog Correspondent

Dear men, if you are reading this, good for you and thank you for your interest.

This is a short letter, so don’t worry. I will not eat up your time, but I hope you will find something interesting here and you will take it with you and share it. Yes, I am a feminist. And I don’t hate men. So you are safe, because this article doesn’t blame men.

“Hey, sexy”, “Damn! What an ass!”, “Can I lick your boobs?” – These are examples of catcalls, but more important than this, they represent a manifestation of male power towards women in the public spaces.

Power relations exist within intimate relationship but not there alone. They exist also in public spaces in the form of street harassment, rape, etc. This means, YOU can stop street harassment, you can stop rape, you can stop domestic violence — or you can be a part of the problem if you don’t take an active stand against it. Here is information about this:

Street harassment includes a lot of behaviors (from excessive staring or honking to public masturbation or following). You have to keep in mind that if your behavior makes a woman feeling anxious, angry or unsafe, then it is harassment and you should stop it.
Street harassment doesn’t happens just on the street, but also in any public spaces, like parks, stores, buses, trains, the beach, taxis etc. Really, in any spaces that are open for people.
Men and all LGBT folks are harassed in public spaces too. But women and LGBT are the ones that are the mainly targets and the most vulnerable.
Street harassment is not about flirting or sexual attraction. If you are attracted to a woman even though she is passing by and you can barely notice her in two seconds, you should not disrespect her by saying sexist words to her or looking at her like she is a sexual object just because you feel soooo attracted to her. Your feelings (or hormones) don’t excuse this behavior.
A) Street harassment is a form of gender-based violence. Keep this in mind! B) Street harassment is a violation of human rights. Keep this also in mind!
Women fear that street harassment may escalate into rape, physical violence or even murder.
Talk to women in your life and ask them if they feel safe in public spaces, if they fear rape or violence from stranger men.
Mass-media gets it all wrong! Sexual objectification of women in advertising and movies affects us negatively. When men see women as sexual objects they tend to think that women are inferior to them and sexual violence is not such a big deal and that women enjoy harassment, violent sex and physical violence.
Gender roles are wrong! Remember what you’ve learned is school about gender roles (example: what the mother does (the cooking) and what the father does (reading the newspaper)). As a PhD student I’ve conducted research regarding street harassment in Romania and when it comes to how the respondents (men and women) see the concept of masculinity or to be a man and the concept of femininity or to be a woman, they strongly associate men with power and intelligence and women with elegance and taking care of children and the husband. This is not fair, right? The normative form of masculinity or what it means to “be a man” is important in any patriarchal society. In commercials, in movies and in our school books we see what a man looks like and we grow up with the idea that a man is everything that a woman isn’t. This is so wrong. The results about what masculinity and femininity mean to my respondents (144 men and 1793 women) are astounding and do confirm the theories on how gender roles make us to fall into two categories when it comes to street harassment: the targets (women) and, on the other side, the perpetrators (men). Gender role socialization make us all, regarding our gender, feel and act like we are very different from each other. But in fact we aren’t.

Street harassment is about power. The consent of the woman has zero importance to the harasser in the interaction. The harasser starts the interaction and only feels that he has the power to decide when and how to end it. The expression of heteronormative masculinity in public spaces seems a must for men that want to be considered like “real men” by exerting power on the ones they perceive being vulnerable and having lower value as human beings (women, LGBT folks).
You have to address and fight rape culture. The victims aren’t the ones to blame. Ever! When you hear “she was wearing a short skirt! She is the one responsible!”; “Boys will be boys” etc. use your voice and break down rape and street harassment myths.
You always can talk to stranger women in a kindly manner. If you have respect and good intentions and you see that the woman doesn’t feel uncomfortable, then you can be pretty sure that your action is not harassment.

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If you are a man harassed in public spaces – Don’t feel ashamed because nothing is wrong with you and you can try to fight this back, alone or with people that are also targets of street harassment.

If you think you harassed stranger women in public spaces – Next time when you want to do this, please think that women deserve your respect and the right to move freely and to be safe in the public spaces, without fear of harassment. You don’t have any right to treat them badly.

If you are a bystander, next time be an upstander! Act and react against street harassers! Men are looking to other men for role models. Be that role model!

If you are an ally, congrats! We need you.

And don’t forget that we together have the power to end this! The power to react, to answer back, to fight this abuse and to build safe spaces for us all.

Simona-Marie is a Ph.D. Student in Political Sciences, working on a thesis on gender-based street harassment in Romania. She is an activist and organizes numerous public actions (marches, flash-mobs, protests) against sexual violence and street harassment against women. Now she is part of an working-group trying to improve by public policies the situation of young homeless people in Romania. You can find her on Facebook.

Join International Anti-Street Harassment Week!

February 13, 2017 By HKearl

Will you join us for the 8th annual International Anti-Street Harassment Week and demand safe public spaces for all?

Last year groups from 36 different countries joined in (here’s the wrap-up report).

Get involved:

Advertise the week to your networks and encourage them to take action, whether that is sharing a story, putting info on social media, or organizing/attending offline action like a march, workshop or rally.
Participate! And tell us what you plan to do.
Join the 24 hour tweetathon on April 4! #EndSH

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