Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

“If you ever walk alone to your car without thinking someone might attack you, this isn’t your day.”

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International Women’s Day (the 100th anniversary, no less) is a bonanza for events, articles, and activities on women’s rights! I love it.  What a day and it’s not even 10 a.m.

At 7 a.m. today, it was chilly with a beautiful clear sky when I joined three of my AAUW coworkers and a dozen other early-risers to participate in the Washington, DC, contingency of Women for Women International‘s Meet Me on the Bridge event. While we enjoyed bagels and coffee, we gathered at the base of the Lincoln Memorial to talk about women’s rights. Then we dodged bicyclist commuters to cross the Arlington Memorial Bridge. It was inspiring to be gathered so early and to know we were part of thousands of people all over the world crossing bridges to commemorate women’s rights.

Now that I’m online, my Facebook and Twitter feeds are flooded with International Women’s  Day events, articles, and campaigns. It’s fantastic! Here are a few that stood out to me:

And here are a few of my favorite tweets!

What are you doing for International Women’s Day?

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100 street harassers arrested in Kolkata

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Plainclothes police officers arrested 100, that’s right, 100, street harassers in Kolkata, India, during a two day time period in late February. All 100 men were caught making lewd comments to women in public places.

Via The Times of India:

“While they were booked under relatively minor sections and are out on bail, police believe this would be a jolt enough to reign in molesters on the prowl.

Fifty-year-old Sadhan Ghosh (name changed), an employee of a private firm at Dalhousie, was waiting near a cinema at Esplanade on Friday afternoon. A woman in her mid-thirties was standing a few yards away from Ghosh, leaning on a pillar. Ghosh, who was waiting for his friend, allegedly made some lewd gestures at her, trying to grab her attention.

Unknown to Ghosh, the woman was actually a constable of Kolkata Police’s detective department. Soon, following a signal made by her, an officer grabbed Ghosh and took him to the local police station. Even before he could realize it, Ghosh was booked for disorderly conduct.

Like Ghosh, several middle-aged men were caught by the cops in plainclothes for disturbing women on city roads….

Police sources confirmed that more than 20 teams of police in plainclothes have been stationed at Esplanade, Metro stations, Victoria Memorial, Alipore Zoo and in front of some marketplaces and shopping hubs in south Kolkata.”

I wonder if the mass arrests will work? Will there be fewer harassers (at least for a time)?

What a commotion it would cause if police arrested 100 street harassers in a city in the United States!

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Street harassment snapshot: March 6, 2011

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Read stories, news articles, blog posts, and tweets about street harassment from the past week and find relevant announcements and upcoming street harassment events.

Street Harassment Stories:

I accept street harassment submissions from anywhere in the world. Share your story!

You can read new street harassment stories on the Web from the past week at:

Street Harassment in the News, on the Blogs:

Events:

International Anti-Street Harassment Day:

It’s only two weeks away! Participate in the first annual International Anti-Street Harassment Day on March 20!!!

Announcements:

New:

On-going:

10 Tweets from the Week:

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Take a survey about street harassment and objectification

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I’m thrilled whenever I hear that someone is researching street harassment for a school paper because we desperately need more research on this topic.

Tonight I heard from Erika, a fourth year Psychology/Women Studies major at York University in Toronto, Canada. She’s writing her honours thesis on women’s experiences with street harassment and objectification. She’s collecting data as part of research and needs more participants.

If you’re interested, here’s the survey, plus more information about it. It will take about 10-15 minutes to complete.

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The “Don’t Call Me Baby” Project

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Are you looking for ideas for anti-street harassment activism?  University of Southern California graduate student Lani Shotlow Rincon has plenty. In this interview, she shares what she’s been up to on her campus.

Stop Street Harassment (SSH): What’s your three sentence bio?

Lani Shotlow-Rincon (LSR): I’m a multiracial woman, navigating my way through graduate school, working towards building my knowledge of intersectionality, gender based violence, and technology. I research as much as I can, while making time to read historical romance novels. Currently, I’m searching for a way to be impactful in the world.

SSH: Tell me a about your street harassment project.

LSR: The “Don’t Call Me Baby” project was created for my class on designing public campaigns. My project outlined how an effective campaign could be created for the USC Campus area. It included both entertainment education tactics with a web series focused on 3 college women experiencing street harassment, an art exhibit (inspired from the blank noise project) with donated clothing that has inspired street harassment, a flash mob occurring during high traffic times on campus, and PSA components created to publicize and give a name to harassment most women experience in the area. Overall, my project created an action plan to address street harassment comprehensively in the USC campus area.

One of Lani's graphics

SSH: Sounds amazing!. What inspired it?

LSR: I was inspired to focus on street harassment for my project based on my personal experience with it. Culminating in the summer of 2010, I was harassed repeatedly over a few days so relentlessly that I became utterly frustrated. Exasperated I started googling my experience…and this led me to the stopstreetharassment.com website. It felt so great to finally put a name to that awful experience…street harassment. Since then, I have become increasingly focused on the subject.

SSH: Related, how has street harassment impacted your life?

LSR: Since the age of 12 I have been harassed in public. It usually occurred twice a day as I walked to elementary, jr. high and high school. When I hit puberty and began to develop, the harassment and attention I received in public became excruciatingly uncomfortable for me. I internalized the harassment and became very self-conscious about my body and my appearance. In large part, my low body self-esteem led to being diagnosed with an eating disorder a few years ago. Now, I’m currently in recovery but every time I am street harassed I struggle with it. Being an advocate against street harassment has helped me channel my hurt around it, helping me cope with its effects.

SSH: Your experiences sadly show why it’s so important for society to acknowledge and address street harassment! I’m glad you’re being able to turn personal frustration into action. What was the outcome of your campus project?

LSR: Although my project created much interest in my class and with my professors, the respondents who I showed my creative PSA advertisements did not respond strongly to the messaging. I believe that the public needs a deeper understanding and awareness of street harassment. More campaigns are needed “to name the harm” for other women.

SSH: You are so right. What do you plan to do next regarding street harassment?

LSR: I want to use my upcoming thesis to understand how violence against women can be combated through new technologies. I believe this is especially relevant to the fight against street harassment, as mobile apps like those created by ihollaback, are increasingly showing the scope of public sexual harassment.

SSH: Do you have any advice for someone dealing with street harassment and/or for someone who wants to address it in their community or campus?

LSR: I believe the best advice for someone dealing with street harassment is to take the course of action they feel most comfortable with. Whether that be cursing at the harasser or walking right on by. The important thing is to cope actively with the harassment by acknowledging its impact at some point during or after the harassment.

Thank you for your insight, Lani! I can’t wait to see what you do next.

Another one of Lani's graphics
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