Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Take one minute to join a virtual campaign to help women in Congo

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Around the world, public places are less safe and welcoming for women than for men. This often is because of street harassment but it’s also because of rape or the fear of rape. In no region on earth is the reality of rape more prevalent than in the Congo, the worst place on earth to be a woman.

For the last several months I’ve become more educated about and involved in addressing the atrocities in the Congo, from participating in programs by Women for Women International and Enough,to meeting/brainstorming action with East Congolese immigrants who have lived and seen first-hand the atrocities in their communities, to reading Lisa Shannon’s book A Thousand Sisters: My journey into the worst place on earth to be a woman.

For six hours yesterday after work, I joined Lisa, who is also the founder of Run for Congo Women, and several other courageous women and men outside the State Department in Washington, DC, as part of public outcry to ask the State Department to take more action in Congo, including to create a Congo Plan.

Lisa and several others are camping out all week, 24/7 (in very cold weather: at night the windchill has been single digits) and also are orchestrating a virtual protest. They are asking individuals to take photos of themselves holding signs with messages to the State Department and posting those photos on Facebook.

12-7-10 around 8 p.m. outside the State Deptartment

Lisa is meeting with members of the State Department today and she hopes to meet with Secretary Clinton next week. Regardless of whether or not she can do this in person or will have to drop it off for Sect. Clinton, Lisa will print all of the photos from the virtual protest and put them in a booklet for Sect. Clinton so she knows how many people care about this issue.

It literally only takes a minute to join the Virtual Campaign and another couple of minutes to add your photo message if you have easy access to a digital camera and computer or to a camera/scanner/computer. (And if you want to do more or want to do something else, check out the organizations I linked to above to find out how you can become involved).

Out Cry for Congo

Here is the full information about the Virtual Campaign:

Date: Monday, December 6, 2010 – 12:15am – Friday, December 10, 2010 – 12:15am
Location: Washington, DC

With 5.4 million Congolese dead as of January 2008, it is high time to treat Congo as the emergency it is!

-The State Dept has told us repeatedly they need a public outcry in order to act.  This is it!

-Since August, we have hammered the State Department and prompted 21 members of the U.S. House of Representatives to write a “Dear Colleague” letter to Secretary Clinton urging well-vetted, stronger U.S. policies and international leadership to help stabilize Congo.

-A few dedicated women will be spending a long, cold, sleepless week outside of the State Dept. in D.C., from 6 AM Dec. 6th thru 11:59 PM Dec. 10th, demanding a comprehensive Congo Plan.  And we are calling on people across the country to join us in a virtual campaign supporting those efforts in the cold.

-For background on our well vetted policy asks, see www.athousandsisters.com/blog:   a)  Dear Colleague Letter to Secretary Clinton;  b) Eastern Congo Initiative White Paper; c) Nicholas Kristof’s 4-point plan for Congo d) anything on the Enough Project or Raise Hope for Congo websites.

-Our efforts will count ONLY IF YOU, YOUR FAMILY & FRIENDS join us virtually on the internet!  Please help us create an internet firestorm of support for Congo!  The time is now! Take a photo of yourself and your message to the State Dept and upload it here: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Outcry-for-Congo/166647026706786.

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objecDEFY harassment in Jordan & beyond

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There is a lot of anti-street harassment activism occurring in the Middle East region, from anti-harassment cartoon character Salwa in Lebanon to pending anti-harassment legislation in Egypt. Today I learned about objecDEFY, a grassroots anti-harassment group based in Jordan. From their website:

“objecDEFY Harassment is a tool that empowers women to object to and defy harassment. This Jordan-based proactive grass roots initiative, designed to trigger and perpetuate behavioural change, is made up of a series of public service announcements (PSA), a documentary film, and a series of regional workshops.

objecDEFY Harassment is an expression by and on behalf of women who are being harassed. By expressing their cultural concerns, objecDEFY Harassment itself becomes a cultural tool that unifies, empowers, and implements while continuously reinforcing a regional and global message: the power to curb harassment lives in the power of women.”

You can read two recent powerful articles about their work. Here is an excerpt from one of them:

“We were always taught to ignore street harassment:

‘If you tell him off, he will feel self-gratified since you acknowledged his existence. He doesn’t care if your reaction to his catcalls are positive or negative, as long as you make him feel he exists. Just ignore him. Stare straight ahead. Walk it off.’

I listened to my elders and followed the technique above until one day many years back I just couldn’t shut up anymore.

That day, in my coldest, calmest voice, I stopped dead in my tracks across from a group of sneering construction men and told them to have some self respect or I will call the cops.

They were shocked.

From the looks on their faces that day, I realized that they were used to their lewd remarks being unacknowledged. Ignored. Mtanasheen. If no one tells you its wrong, how would you know?

Immediately, they turned their backs and furiously went back to work, embarrassed.

I have never kept my mouth shut after that incident. And it works every time.”

Right on!

And check out their PSAs. Here is one of them (in English):

I am very heartened to learn about their work!

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Free webinar about writing street harassment opinion pieces

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Did you know that around 85 percent of the opinion pieces (op-eds) in American newspapers are written by men, most often by white men? The Op-Ed Project trains women to learn how to write op-eds and to feel comfortable having and sharing opinions. I went through their training last February and since then I have had a few op-eds published. It was an amazingly empowering experience to recognize and own what I know, write about it, and then see that writing published (though I also received many rejections!).

If you’re interested in learning about writing op-eds, particularly ones about street harassment, I invite you to participate in a free webinar this Saturday at noon EST that HollaBack is holding. I will be one of the panelists along with journalist Elizabeth Mendez Berry, whose op-ed in the largest Spanish language American newspaper El Diario led to the first-ever city council hearing on street harassment in NYC in October.

If you have the time on Saturday, I really encourage you to join us to find out what you can do to get your opinion published, raise awareness on a larger scale about the problems of street harassment, and – for women readers – help to make the national dialogue more balanced!

Details for the webinar.

(Thanks, KAZ for organizing what I’m sure will be an amazing webinar!)

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Street Harassment Snapshot: December 5, 2010

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

Story Submissions Recap:

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

Image via TIME

In the News, On the Blogs:

Upcoming Events:

  • Dec. 11, 2010: Webinar about writing street harassment op-eds with journalist Elizabeth Mendez Berry, HollaBack ED Emily May, and me, noon – 1:30 p.m. EST. Contact Kira for info (kira DOT zmuda AT gmail.com)
  • Dec. 14, 2010: Stop Street Harassment book giveaway and chat about street harassment during AAUW’s Cocktails and Convos at Nage, Washington, DC, 5 – 7 p.m. EST

Announcements:

Ten Tweets from the Week:

  • rightingteacher Vigorous defense of street harassment from one boy, much concerned about his right to leer and whistle, less so girls’ right to feel safe.
  • CatCall Tried to forget the grossest #catcall ever last night: no words just 2 men grunting & moaning in the most explicit way as I walked by. Eww!
  • SurvJustice @StopStHarassmnt I love your cause, street harassment needs to stop and not be excused or ignored
  • driftmako @bridraffen it isn’t intended to “work,” like most street harassment it is about the man performing/exerting power over you
  • meredithmo A bit of good, old-fashioned street harassment, English-style, circa 1959: http://ow.ly/3jIzA
  • iHollaback Hollaback (verb): To respond in a badass way to street harassment, to tell your story (via @nytimes http://nyti.ms/eB6QlR )
  • snakkula Does it ever really work for dudes when they whistle and catcall at girls when driving by? This should be evolutionarily removed by now
  • Bleeohmy Oh my walking down the street and a police officer tells me ‘is my duty to please that booty’ I’m pretty sure that’s harassment.
  • SpookSquad Not just in Tulsa either! RT @hkearl @MRambrose I forgot that street harassment turns into cruising car harassment in Tulsa, OK
  • BillyWerner ladies: please wear a miniature camera & take photos of dudes that catcall u. i am assembling a group of people to beat them to death
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Women-only buses launch in Malaysia

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In May, Malaysia launched women-only carriages on its trains and yesterday they launched women-only buses on seven routes in the Malaysian capital during peak hours. More than 60 percent of the country is Muslim and the women-only buses and carriages can help women feel more comfortable navigating the city, especially in the face of sexual harassment.

It can also help them get seats. Via an AFP article, Poovan Kaur, 63, said, “I will feel safer [on women-only buses], not because I do not trust men, but for someone my age, it’s hard to fight for space during peak hours.” [What a bunch of jerks to not give elderly people seats on the bus!]

While I appreciate that in the short-term women-only public transportation is a relief for many women, I find this “solution” by governments to be problematic.

First of all, women-only buses and trains are not offered with enough frequency to allow all women to use them, and they do not prevent men from harassing women at subway platforms or bus stops.

Image from AFP

Second, in some cases they plainly do not work. Last week when I was in India, I found out that it is common for men to ride on the women-only subway cars in Delhi. Last week fed up women made the news when they ordered a group of men who had infiltrated their subway car to do sit ups!

Third, and most importantly, they do not address the root problem: why are men harassing women? The initiatives do not hold men accountable for ending the behavior. Instead, the initiatives segregate women away from men to provide them with temporary relief from the harassment. They place the onus on women to try to stay safe instead of targeting the harassers and gropers and challenging that behavior.

In the long term, women-only public transportation will change nothing until women are respected and men are socialized not to harass and are penalized and socially shamed if they do.

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