HKearl, Author at Stop Street Harassment

ActionAid Report: Women and the City III

March 11, 2015 By HKearl

Our friends at ActionAid have released their third report on women’s experiences in cities — including their experiences of sexual harassment and other forms of sexual violence. You can download the full report for free.

From their website:

“This report reflects the experiences of over 3,000 women and girls living in urban communities in Brazil, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Liberia, Nepal, South Africa and Zimbabwe. While the women and girls interviewed in this baseline study shared their views that cities can be places of choice and empowerment for them, they also spoke of the multiple challenges they face in enjoying their rights and freely making choices about their daily lives. Freedom of movement and expression within these urban spaces is severely limited by harassment,violence, fear of violence, lack of adequate and gender-responsive public services and stereotypical, negative perceptions about women and their place in society.

ActionAid works with some of the poorest women in city communities worldwide, including migrant workers and those living in slums. These women struggle to make a living in the informal labour market, fighting against forces that subjugate them socially and economically. Mobility means survival for many of these women and girls – many of whom walk miles in the morning and evening or use public transport to travel to and from work or school. Yet in going about their daily lives they are confronted by situations of sexual harassment, assault and violence that trigger feelings of shame, fear and distress.”

UN Women march and campus talks

March 9, 2015 By HKearl

Yesterday, I walked with members of the Brazil anti-street harassment group Chega de Fiu Fiu and our ally Ben of Voices of Men in the UN Women’s International Women’s Day march in New York City…. because street harassment is an issue we must address globally if we want to see equality for women!!

On Saturday, our board member Lindsey Middlecamp led a workshop on street harassment at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota. She was thrilled by the attendance and engagement of the students.

And on Wednesday, I met with a senior seminar class at Shenandoah University to talk about street harassment, activism, and a career in the non-profit world. We also strategized ways to deal with harassers both on and off their campus.

New Study: Street Harassment in Australia

March 9, 2015 By HKearl

The findings are very similar to other regions of the world.

Via The Observer:

“The survey of 1426 females found 87% were verbally or physically attacked while walking down the street and men were responsible for 52% of the attacks. 40% of women feel unsafe in their own neighbourhoods at night…In addition to verbal harassment, physical street harassment is also a relatively commonplace occurrence, with 65% of women experiencing physically threatening harassment. One third of women had been kissed without their consent and a quarter of women report being threatened after rejecting the sexual advances of a stranger.””

What does progress for transwomen look like?

March 8, 2015 By HKearl

*Trigger warning*

The points raised in the Guardian article “If transwomen have to hide to be safe, what does progress look like?” are really important to consider, especially on International Women’s Day: How can we help create a culture/society where everyone is safe to express their gender identify?

“Many transwomen now believe that they have more to fear than ever: this year looks to possibly be one of the most violent on record towards transgender women in North America, as there are already eight confirmed homicides of transgender women – a majority identifying as women of color – and it’s only March…

‘We will hear women talk about just the harassment on the [Chicago Transit Authority], but I think we have to keep in mind that broader context…That a tiny bit of verbal violence … nobody knows where that goes to when there are so many women ending up dead.’

‘I get it’, Danielle Love, the peer-lead coordinator for TLC, chimed in. ‘I have people literally come up to me and say: ‘You’re a fucking fag.’ And I am just sitting on the train going to work and someone feels they can say that.’

And it happens so much so that many have stopped reporting this type of violence among many other forms.”

On what we need to do:

“Maria Pahl, a cisgender women who is the staff attorney for TLC, finds storytelling can be a tactic for change, but it’s only one side of the coin.

“I think as a broader society we need to do a better job not just listening to stories that are palatable”, she said, referring to [Janet] Mock and [Laverne] Cox.

She thinks that it’s the unsavory stories of the most oppressed people’s everyday lives, not just the few representative of that group in the public eye, that need to be heard and embraced, like, for instance, stories of needing to engage in survival sex work to make ends meet like we see many transgender women having to do…

All the women I spoke to at TLC agreed with this statement, all of them transgender women besides Pahl. And they all felt this is what has been missing with this “tipping point” for their community.

For them, stories are not only important because of who is telling them, but also who is listening to them. And that is what is needed now, more than ever, for transgender women: that all of us finally listen to their stories.

CSW and International Women’s Day 2015

March 8, 2015 By HKearl

Happy International Women’s Day! This is an important opportunity each year for raising awareness about issue that particularly affect women, such as street harassment.

As the author of this Time magazine article notes, we’ve made a lot of progress in the past few decades regarding the education of girls, women’s access to water, women’s leadership, and maternal mortality. BUT there are still gaps in these areas and HUGE gaps in areas like gender-based violence. So as always, there is a lot more work to do.

The day coincides with the start of UN’s annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York City and I am en route to attend the NGO CSW Consultation Day today. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director, UN Women, will be one of the speakers and panelists from around the world will talk about the UN/international women’s movement from 1975-1995, the 1995 Beijing conference on women’s rights, what’s happened in the 20 years since then, and what comes next.

Starting at UN headquarters, an International Women’s Day march took place, concluding at Times Square around 4:30 p.m.

Tomorrow I have various meetings — including at the UN — and also will attend the No Ceilings Full Participation Report release. From the event press release:

“The report is the culmination of a year-long, global data aggregation effort by the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in collaboration with The Economist Intelligence Unit, UCLA WORLD Policy Analysis Center and Fathom Information Design. The report identifies the significant gains women and girls have made – and the gaps that still remain – since the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, when Secretary Clinton called on the international community to ensure “women’s rights are human rights.” Benchmarking process since that landmark event, No Ceilings is making the data open and accessible, and is pairing the report with an interactive, shareable collection of data visualizations. The data visualizations will highlight key findings from the data through interactive stories, as well as allow users the ability to explore the data on their own.”

Speakers will include Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, Melinda Gates, Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of the Republic of Liberia, Her Excellency Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, President of the Republic of Croatia, Malala Yousafzai, and Sheryl WuDunn.

I will tweet during (or soon after) the events (@hkearl) and blog about them on Tuesday, so stay tuned.

CSW will last about two weeks and the parallel events hosted by NGOs are free and open to the public if you’re in the area and want to attend.

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