Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Afghanistan Street Harassment Documentary

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“Do Not Trust My Silence” is a powerful new short film about street harassment in Afghanistan (English subtitles), directed by Afghan filmmaker Sahar Fetrat. She won the first prize in Italy’s “Universocorto Elba Film Festival” for her “extreme courage of reporting the Afghan women’s condition in the streets of Kabul and for the technique of shooting with a hidden camera.”

She writes:

“‘Do Not Trust My Silence’ was my fourth film which was produced in April 2013 and it is one of my favorites. When I first joined the Afghan voice’s media training, I had the vision of making a documentary about street harassment. This documentary for me is more than just a 10-minute film, there is a lot in it. There is a big pain in it that all women, especially Afghan women, can feel. This documentary shows only a little of what we see, feel and experience every day.

When I made this film, I knew that both women and men should be my audience. For men to see and feel a part what we experience every day, and for women to say no to street harassment. I wanted to show that, as a young woman, I do not accept harassment as my destiny and other women should do the same.

While producing this film, I put myself as the main character and I filmed most of the parts with a small flip camera. It was not easy to film men while harassing me or other women, some of them were throwing small rocks towards us. But I did not stop my work because my aim was to show harassment and how destructive it is. I totally believe that we women are strong enough to not give up and fight against it and we have the power to stop it.”

H/T to SSH’s SPS Mentoring Program Mentee Masooma Maqsoodi

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New Resources from Australia

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“Conceptual understandings and prevalence of sexual harassment and street harassment” is a new publication by Bianca Fileborn, a Research Officer with ACSSA at the Australian Institute of Family Studies.

Here’s the overview:

“This Resource Sheet provides an overview of the existing research on women’s experiences of sexual harassment and street harassment. It also considers conceptual models of sexual violence that are inclusive of these experiences.

Women’s experiences of street harassment and sexual harassment are focused on in this paper. It is acknowledged that men can also be the victims of this behaviour. However, street harassment and sexual harassment are highly gendered occurrences. Women are overwhelmingly the victims and men the perpetrators. The language adopted throughout this Resource Sheet reflects this gendered reality.

Further, the conceptual model of sexual violence discussed later in this publication (the continuum model of sexual violence) applies more specifically to women’s experiences of sexual violence across their life course. That is, women experience a broad range of sexual violence (ranging from the relatively “minor” to severe forms of sexual violation) at rates considerably higher than men. Further, while rates of victimisation remain relatively steady for women across their life course, rates of victimisation against men tend to decline across their life course (Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS], 2006).

Key Messages:

* Sexual violence, as a form of violence against women needs to be conceptualised in a way that reflects women’s actual experiences, ranging from relatively “minor” forms of sexual violence through to sexual assault and rape.

* The harm of sexual violence is not always directly correlated with the perceived seriousness of the behaviour. Individual women experience forms of sexual violence differently. The context behaviour occurs in also plays a role in mediating its harm.

* All forms of sexual violence are interconnected, and are underpinned by the same social and cultural attitudes.

* Sexual harassment and street harassment are highly prevalent and common experiences for women. They are often not talked about and not taken seriously as harm (particularly street harassment).

* Sexual harassment and street harassment need to be included in policy and legislation targeted at preventing or responding to sexual violence.

* Information on current responses and disclosure mechanisms is also provided towards the end of this resource.”

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Internet Game: Choose Your Own Adventure

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“Good morning! Isn’t it a beautiful day to be a woman? It’s time to get up and go about your business doing lady things, but you can’t do that it your pyjamas – you need some clothes! “

So begins an Internet game created by Alyson Macdonald in Scotland. You choose what you want to wear and where you’re going, but… then see what happens as you try to go about your day as a woman (hint: street harassment).

She kindly wrote to me about the game and where the idea for it came from —

The original idea came to me after reading an article about some ridiculous internet games about hair care and facials that are aimed at women. The idea of “women’s interests” – in magazines, games, or anything else – really annoys me because it lumps all women together as a homogeneous group who are only interested in gender stereotyped activities.

The women I know aren’t like that. Yes, some of my friends do enjoy having their nails done or own a huge collection of eye make-up, but that’s one tiny part of who they are. So I decided on a whim that I wanted to parody these games about Lady Things with a game about experiences which are common to most women.

The idea of making an unwinnable game about sexual harassment pretty much appeared in my head fully formed, and even though I’d never actually made a game before, this idea made me want to give it a go. I did a bit of online research and discovered a piece of software called Twine, then a couple of days later I was releasing my first game on the internet.

The reactions so far have mostly been positive, from both feminists and indie game enthusiasts (and the two aren’t mutually exclusive). A couple of anti-feminists have left comments telling me to “man up” and stop treating women as if we’re too delicate to cope with being catcalled or groped. But I’m not saying that women can’t cope with harassment, what I’m saying is that we shouldn’t have to.

Alyson Macdonald lives in Edinburgh and has been a feminist since the day she heard a teacher explain what the word means. She is a co-editor of the blog Bright Green and tweets as @textuallimits.

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No Dog Pooping? No Street Harassment!

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Whenever I see a “no dog poop” sign, it always makes me think about how street harassment is this huge social problem yet there are no signs against it and no fines to deter harassers. So, I decided to make two signs myself 🙂 What would you put on a street sign against street harassment?
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Poem: Bacon

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Alexandra Moran is a 20-year-old English Literature student from Birmingham, UK, with a passion for music and writing and a hope to become an English teacher and a writer one day. She wrote the poem “Bacon” about street harassment (see below for the transcript).

Her inspiration for writing it? 

She said, “After experiencing street harassment almost every day where I live and realising how commonplace it was becoming, with friends constantly tweeting about or discussing the fact people had been “creepy” to them whilst walking someone, it was starting to feel like we had all resigned ourselves to the fact this was just, unfortunately, becoming an everyday part of life as a female in a relatively urban area. However, when, one night, I was followed the whole way home by a car of guys slowing down and shouting things I realised that something had to change, it was something about the context of this – how dark it was and how empty the streets were, that made me more scared than usual and I found myself, as I sat at home shaking, wishing that the guys in the car could somehow realise how shaken up their “meaningless fun” had made me.

Two other key moments stuck with me when writing this poem, when, on discussion feminism and street harassment by mum actually told me she would be flattered to get beeped at by a car of males and also, whilst working a bar job, when a male co worker told me that a female customers who kept staring at them was making them feel uncomfortable. To my mum I say this is the furthest thing from flattery, and to my co worker -welcome to what life is like for the 21st century female.”

 

Bacon
Cat call, curb crawl
cuz after all it doesn’t mean nothing to you at all.
But stares burn through, when you shout things too
to tell the truth, i’m scared of you.
And yes I quicken the pace
but A tCat call, curb crawl
cuz after all it doesn’t mean nothing to you at all.
But stares burn through, when you shout things too
to tell the truth, i’m scared of you.

And yes I quicken the pace
but A to B shouldn’t always be a race
and should it really be a breathless, achy sprint
and only then will you, sir, get the hint?

And if you think that you flatter me
you don’t know the last thing about flattery!
A compliment isn’t commenting on a nameless strangers behind
It’s not very gentlemanly I think you’ll find.

What would you do, if one night, I followed you?
Rolled down windows, testosterone seeps through
beeping the horn. you ignore me. I begin to shout
” Oi love, get your pecs out”
Oh sorry is this making you uncomfortable?
By the dim lit do you feel vulnerable?
I’ll signal you lewd sex acts,
get my girls to pitch in at the back
mob attack.
Oh .. you don’t respond to our hollers and shouts
Is there a closet you wanna step out?
Oh … you’re not gonna step over to our car tonight?
You must be really, really, really frigid , right?

Why quicken your pacer?
This isn’t a race.
We will follow you until our fun is through
because that is just what us girls in cars do.

It’s not just after dark, it’s daytime too
a “nice ass” in the morning should see you through
really i’m doing wonders for you
boosting your self esteem, it’s true
what do you mean i’m demeaning you?

You’re dressed for it, you must be aware?
With clothes like that i’m gonna stare.
Onesie, jeans, suit, underwear.
You wouldn’t dress like that if you had a care.

See how ridiculous this is.

Cat call, curb crawl
cuz afterall it doesnt mean nothing to you at all.

And yes this is quite a stir i’m making
but all I wanted was to go to the shops for some bacon.

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