Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Hey, Shorty!: Book giveaway, event, review

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Guess, what? There’s a fantastic new (and very affordable) book you can check out that addresses street harassment, Hey, Shorty!: A Guide to Combating Sexual Harassment and Violence in Schools and on the Streets.

I’m excited because in my book about street harassment, I note the need for more books on the topic and here is one! And I’m also excited because the book comes from one of the groups I featured in my book, the New York City-based organization Girls for Gender Equity (GGE).

Hey, Shorty! is an essential, much-needed resource for students, teachers, parents, and any community member who wants teens to be safe at school and on the streets. Because the book is so important, I’m giving away a free copy of Hey, Shorty! in a random drawing. To have your name included in the drawing, put your name in the comments of this post or e-mail stopstreetharassment AT yahoo DOT com by April 19.

[4/15 UPDATE: I’m giving away TWO free copies of the book and also a free copy of the Hey…Shorty documentary. The additions are courtesy of one of my AAUW coworkers who got them for me without knowing I already own both :)]

If you live in New York City, you can go to Bluestockings Bookstore tonight, April 13, at 7 p.m. for the book launch event. Authors Joanne N. Smith, Mandy Van Deven, and Meghan Huppuch will talk about the book and the work of GGE (Smith is the founder of GGE and Deven and Huppuch work or worked for GGE). Several GGE youth organizers including Nefertiti Martin, Ariel Natasha, Veronica Tirado, Cyndi Yahya will read passages from the book. Books will be available for sale and signing.

Hey, Shorty! provides readers with two types of resource. First, in the main portion of the book, Smith, Van Deven, and Huppuch take readers through the 10 year history and work of GGE and their efforts to create an organization that empowers teenage girls to address issues that impact them and also to have schools address the widespread issue of sexual harassment (which, by the way, they are required to do by law under Title IX of the Educational Amendment of 1972).

The authors share personal experiences, thoughts, struggles and successes with designing programming, working with teenagers, learning from teenagers, and creating outcomes. The chapters are interesting and provide a model for action through the example of their work, in particular the model of prioritizing youth leadership on issues that relate to youth because, as Smith notes, they are the experts on these issues and they are the main stakeholders.

Two of the teen-led projects shared in the book that I have first-hand experience with are the Sisters in Strength Street Harassment Summit and Hey…Shorty documentary (available for purchase for $20 from the GGE website). I attended the Summit in 2007 as part of my master’s thesis research and I own the documentary. Both the summit and documentary were phenomenal and I was very impressed by the vision, articulation and hard work of teenage girls around the issues of street harassment.

Second, in the appendix, there are guides for students, school staff, and parents about how to prevent and also deal with sexual harassment. There is information about how to respond to harassers as the person being harassed or as a bystander and how to report harassers. Additional materials readers can use are a sexual harassment quiz and survey questions GGE used in their survey about sexual harassment in schools. These guides are easy to read and understand and are very important resources for anyone who cares about this issue. Soon you can add workshop curriculum to your list of resources, which GGE is developing with the help of 67 middle and high school students.

Lately I’ve been giving a lot of talks about street harassment, particularly to members of the nonprofit organization I work for, the American Association of University Women. Many of the people in attendance are current or retired teachers and are eager for information and resources they can use and they are very happy to hear about Hey, Shorty!

I hope you will read Hey, Shorty! and if you are a teenager, a parent of one, or work with teens, I hope you will consider using some of the materials in your own lives and work. GGE will celebrate 10 years this September. I look forward to seeing what they will achieve in the next 10 years!

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More Research Needed to Help Prevent Street Harassment via IWPR Blog

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The Institute for Women’s Policy Research is a great ally of anti-street harassment work and they are interested in conducting street harassment research if they can find funding for it. They asked me to write a guest blog post about the need for more research. Here is an excerpt and you can read the full post on their blog, FemChat.

“….After four years of learning, writing, and speaking about this issue, I know there will never be gender equality until street harassment ends. I also understand that policymakers are hard-pressed to make significant changes without data that illustrates a problem and without research suggesting policies that could improve the problem.

This is where we reach the catch-22.

To truly address street harassment, we need citywide, statewide, and/or nationwide studies to give us concrete data about its prevalence, the impact it has on women’s lives, and why it happens (and thus what we can do to prevent it). Then policies can follow.

These important studies require funding to be conducted well (I did my informal survey online, with a shoestring budget). Funders often hesitate to put money behind an initiative that has not been proven to be a problem. Street harassment hasn’t been proven to be a problem because there are so few studies. There are so few studies because there is no funding…and back and forth and back and forth.

This is unacceptable. In the United States, we take pride in our country being the land of the free, but that’s not true for women. Girls routinely face harassment on their way to school and when they are out with friends, and women routinely face harassment on their way to work or while running errands – particularly if they walk or take public transportation. They should not be penalized because of this catch-22.

It’s time to break the cycle. It’s time for a smart funder to realize that the stories, informal data, and studies from the 1990s support the need  for new, comprehensive studies that can inform new policies—and help make our streets safe and free for girls and women, as well as for boys and men.”

So if anyone has funding available or knows about an organization/foundation that would be interested in funding street harassment research, let me and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research know. More data will make our case stronger and better equipped to ask for policy changes.

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Blog post leads to arrest of subway groper

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Sharing our stories helps us feel better, makes us feel less alone, raises awareness about street harassment, and sometimes can lead to concrete action.

The Washington Post recently reported that police arrested a man who was inappropriately touching women on trains after one woman posted an account on the blog Unstuck DC Metro. She said the man stood behind her, rubbing against her twice.

Via The WaPo:

“The man took the yellow line from L-Enfant to Pentagon and rode the last car… An undercover Metro police officer who read the account decided to pursue the tip.

The woman’s detailed description of the man including his glasses and watch helped officers catch him engaging in the same behavior. The man was arrested Wednesday and charged with assault and battery.

Transit police are asking any other victims to call them at 301-955-5000.”

A lot of the harassment that happens in public places is legal, but actions like groping, rubbing against someone sexually, flashing, and public masturbation are illegal. If you have the time and energy, consider reporting such acts, especially since these people tend to be repeat offenders, just as the man in this incident was.

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Man harasses, follows woman and her 8-year-old daughter

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A man slowed his car to follow me & my daughter (8 yrs old) on foot. He followed us for about a block yelling out his window that I’m sexy, I need to give him my number, at least my name, just hop in & talk to him for a little bit….

My daughter was obviously confused & uncomfortable, but I ignored him hoping she might think he wasn’t talking to me. I have a history of sexual assault & was merely focusing on controling my senses so that I wouldn’t dissociate. Then he pulled up into the driveway in front of us, cutting us off & yelled at my daughter: “Your mom is a fucking bitch-cunt-whore” before leaving in a fury. My amazing daughter yelled back that he was a stupid jerk & pulled me off the sidewalk, toward the park nearby where there was more people on foot.

Now, even though my only “invitation” for such threateningly creeptastical behavior was to fearfully ignore his graphic catcalls, the other family nearby looked at me instead as if I had caused the entire interaction & they held their children closer as we walked by. I do recognize the difference between a glance of disgust and a glance of pity. They directed their blame at the wrong person, just like when a rape victim is told she shouldn’t have gone out or she shouldn’t have worn a V-neck shirt. A more appropriate response would have been to ask if we’re alright!

My daughter asked me what the man’s words meant & why did all of that family look so mean at us. I told her there are no good answers to those questions. I told her I wish I’d been strong enough to tell him to go away when he first opened his mouth because following us was illegal. She said she knew I was scared because my hand was shaking in hers & that she would always be my hero when I need one.

We wanted to walk to the police station but we couldn’t remember what color the car was or any other details. We agreed that next time we would just tell such a person, “You’re breaking the law” & then we would tell them what they look like so they would know we would remember them.

– Tiffany Brown

Location: Small town outside of Syracuse, New York

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Find suggestions for what YOU can do about this human rights issue.

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