Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Have a successful Anti-Street Harassment Day!

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I am SO excited for our big day tomorrow. From people telling their stories to people organizing/attending events, it’s going to be epic.

Here is the information you need for a successful day.

  1. All the info you need in one place: The main webpage is updated with links to all of this following info.
  2. Ten Ideas for Action: Not sure what to do? Visit this page.
  3. Find Events: What’s going on near you?
  4. Post Fliers and Factsheets: Here are several fliers and factsheets you can adapt, use.
  5. Post Graphics Online: Anti-Street Harassment Day graphics are available in 7 languages
  6. TWEET: #antistreetharassmentday
  7. Take Photos of Whatever You Do: Let’s document everything that happens! Upload pics to Flickr: or email them to me, stopstreetharassment AT yahoo DOT com

I’m excited to say there’s been a lot of media coverage so far. And already the founder of HollaBack Baltimore, Shawna Potter, had an op-ed published this week and male ally Hugo Schwyzer wrote a great article for Jezebel.

Let’s keep it up and get the message out that spring is no excuse for street harassment.

Thank you for taking action tomorrow – I look forward to hearing what you do.

-Holly Kearl

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Planned action for Anti-Street Harassment Day tomorrow!

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[3.21.11 update: read how Anti-Street Harassment Day went!]

Here’s a sampling of the ways people around the world will commemorate International Anti-Street Harassment Day tomorrow, March 20. What are you doing?

“We’ve made posters that include FAMOUS cat-call slogans in bold with the date, time, place and the SSH website written underneath. We are sure this will grab attention for all walking by…We are performing a small piece where we are going to reverse the stereotypical gender norms by having a few male participants walk by with female harassers cat-calling them. This will be to draw attention to the issue. We will then be holding a discussion where those that are interested are able to come to learn facts, resources and share in a discussion surrounding the issue!” – Erika at York University in Toronto with the Feminist Action group

“I plan to print pamphlets debunking anti-feminist myths about treatment of women in public domain while educating those who may not be in the know about anti-street harassment day and its real purpose. I’ll do this on the days leading up to 20 March in my community at the University of Cape Town.” – Thabs from South Africa

“Our action for Anti-Street harassment day will be a press release…a kind of public statement in conjuntion with an NGO ally.” – AtreveteDf Hollaback, Mexico City

“The planned activity is going to take place all over Egypt, volunteers will go in teams (men and women) to talk and raise awareness in streets where they live, our idea is to create safe zones for women, by volunteers talking to key persons in the street or the neighborhood, like shops, door keepers and those who are always around in the street, also transportation. By the end of the day the volunteers in different neighborhoods are expected to have talked to as many people as possible to create safe zones, change the street’s environment when it comes to sexual harassment acceptability, volunteers use our safe zones stickers, they show people the map’s printed picture and urge everyone to act positively.” – Engy Ghozlan, HarassMap, Cairo, Egypt

“I’ve reached out to our Gender Across Border contributing writers a bunch of them will be posting pieces on Sunday for International Anti-Street Harassment Day” – Emily Heron, founder Gender Across Borders, IL

“We have been designing a zine/pamphlet to distribute to girls of school age and women in colleges/work on how to deal with mental, physical and sexual harassment in public (ie. at school, at work, on the street, on public transport, in parks/any public space) and really want to circulate it as widely as possible once it’s done!” – Figs Head, United Kingdom

“We will go around the Delhi University north campus protesting and claiming for our space together with the Women Beat Constables of Maurice Nagar Police Station. Asmita, a theatre group would perform a street play at Vishwavidyalaya Metro Station at the end of the walk.” – Safe Delhi Campaign, India

“We at Hollaback Houston will be creating a video to illustrate how street harassment is NOT a compliment – by taking phone video (Hollaback! style) of victims of street harassment saying real comments that were used on them by harassers. These will then be edited together contrasted with co-directors reading real comments from the internet talking about how it IS a compliment.” – HollaBack Houston, Texas

“I’m a classroom assistant at Next Step Public Charter School in Washington, DC. I help with a night class for Spanish-speaking students who are working toward their GEDs. I spoke with the teacher, and our class is definitely going to do something on street harassment leading up to March 20.” – Kate, Washington, DC

“We are going to write a press release for the day and send it to our press contacts list, as well as write a one-pager to send out to our centers across the state about street harassment.” – Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault

“We will do tabling and do things like hand out the catcaller form (which I loved) to women or maybe even post it around campus to get people thinking about the issue.” – student at UC Irvine, California

“Despite not yet being a major Czech presence, Ozvi se!, the Czech leg of HollaBack! will do it’s best to honor Anti-Street Harassment Day not only by Tweeting and Facebooking but by organizing an informal gathering that we are confident will really help open doors and spread the word as to this massively underreported problem.” – Gail, Prague, Czech Republic

“To celebrate the first International Anti-Street Harassment Day, Hollaback PDX is hosting a screening of the film War Zone with a discussion to follow” – HollaBack Portland, Oregon

“We’ll be walking through the areas of the city where street harassment has been most prevalent for people I know, handing out flyers and sharing stories with anyone who is interested. Street harassment has been a huge problem here for as long as I can remember, and I’m hoping to open up a greater public dialogue about it and make the voices of those it affects heard.” – Rebecca, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

“I’ve encountered many people in the DC area who don’t seem to understand the magnitude of harassment here, and by participating in the DC Community Safety Audit it’ll help to bring more light to the issue. As a woman, I don’t feel as free to walk down these streets as I please because of the constant harassment I face, and I want to work towards making the streets safer in my lifetime.” – Dienna, Washington, DC

“Your dad and I are making anti-street harassment signs and fliers and will stand in an area where there is street harassment and hand out fliers and hold up the posters” – my mom, Queens, New York

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Believe it or not, I did not walk by so that you could ask me to have sex with you

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Designer Answer Ejiasi created this graphic for a design class last year when she was a student at the University of Iowa. She recently shared it with me and said I could share it for you all to see and appreciate. I love it.

This is the thought behind the project:

“The design is based off of an experience I had at a fast food restaurant in Florida roughly two years ago on my birthday. It’s also based on a number of the experiences I had read about on this blog and other street harassment blogs.

I designed it to be similar in size to those large coupons/fliers that come with the Sunday paper. I wanted it to resemble a fast food ad in order to pull people in to reading it with the expectation of it being a coupon, and instead having them come to realize it’s for a different cause altogether, and thereby add awareness to the issue of street harassment.”

Way to go, Answer, for using your talents to raise awareness about street harassment and help work to end it!

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Not giving a number isn’t a reason to try to murder someone…

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Two guys tried to run me over with their car while I was walking to school, because I ignored them and didn’t want to give my phone number. I’m shaking with rage over here that assholes get away with this behaviour.

– Daphné

Location: Ghent

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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Thousands to Commemorate the First International Anti-Street Harassment Day

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MEDIA ADVISORY

First International Anti-Street Harassment Day

WASHINGTON, DC – On March 20, thousands of women and men across the United States and throughout the world in cities such as Cairo, Cape Town, Delhi, London, Mexico City, and Toronto will participate in the first International Anti-Street Harassment Day.

Numerous studies show that more than 80 percent of women worldwide face catcalls, groping, stalking, and other forms of gender-based street harassment, especially when they are alone in public. Despite the evidence that street harassment is a global problem and one that reduces women’s mobility and limits their access to resources, it’s often dismissed as a trivial problem, a compliment, or women’s fault.

“Street harassment is a form of gender violence, and it impedes women’s equality with men,” said Holly Kearl, street harassment expert and founder of International Anti-Street Harassment Day. “Since street harassment often increases during the spring months, I saw March 20, the first day of spring, as an ideal day to bring people together to speak out and take action against street harassment.”

The goals of International Anti-Street Harassment Day are to inspire future initiatives focused on combating street harassment locally and globally and to take us one step closer toward ending the social acceptability of the bullying behavior.

Every participant of International Anti-Street Harassment Day will raise awareness about street harassment by sharing their stories online or in person. Hundreds of participants plan to attend community events, hand out materials on their campus or at subway stops, and conduct surveys and audits to better evaluate safety issues for women in their area.

In Egypt, in light of recent attention focused on the problem of men harassing women, Harassmap co-founders Rebecca Chiao and Engy Ghozlan are organizing teams of volunteers to walk through their neighborhoods and talk about street harassment with key individuals, like shop keepers and transportation workers. “Our idea is to create safe zones for women … to help change the street’s environment when it comes to sexual harassment acceptability,” Ghozlan said.

Individuals interested in participating can find 10 ideas for action at www.stopstreetharassment.com, RSVP on Facebook, tweet using the hashtag #antistreetharassmentday, and look for existing events — or add their own — on CrowdMap.

Spring is no excuse for street harassment.

Contact: Holly Kearl

Confirmed events:

  • 12 events are listed on CrowdMap
  • Facebook event pages for other places:
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