Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

UK Campaign, Philippines Law

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Two big stories this week –> a new anti-harassment campaign in the UK and a new law introduced in the Philippines

Via The Gazette

“A poll by England Athletics revealed that a large proportion of women feel anxious when running alone, with nearly half of those surveyed stating that this is due to personal safety concerns…

Of those who had experienced harassment, shouting and car horns beeped by passing motorists were the most common.

But RunTogether, a national programme from England Athletics to get more people jogging regularly, aims to erase this via its This Girl Can Run campaign…

The RunTogether website provides instant access to a rapidly growing network of multiple local running groups in Lancashire.”

Via the Manila Bulletin:

“Sen. Risa Hontiveros [in the Philippines] filed on Tuesday a bill that seeks to protect women and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community from harassment, especially on the streets and other public spaces.

Hontiveros said she filed the measure, Senate Bill 1326, in response to the growing number of gender-based harassment in public spaces such as the case of a female student from the University of Santo Tomas (UST) who was allegedly groped in a public utility vehicle by a fellow student.

The bill, also known as the “Safe Streets and Public Spaces Act of 2017,” seeks to penalize gender-based street and public spaces harassment such as catcalling, wolf-whistling, cursing, leering, groping, persistent request for name and contact details and the use of words tending to ridicule on the basis of actual or perceived sex, gender expression, or sexual orientation and identity including sexist, homophobic and transphobic slurs.”

Quezon City already has a similar bill at the city-level, passed last year.

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Romania: A Letter to All Men

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Simona-Maria Chirciu, Bucharest, Romania, SSH Blog Correspondent

Dear men, if you are reading this, good for you and thank you for your interest.

This is a short letter, so don’t worry. I will not eat up your time, but I hope you will find something interesting here and you will take it with you and share it. Yes, I am a feminist. And I don’t hate men. So you are safe, because this article doesn’t blame men.

“Hey, sexy”, “Damn! What an ass!”, “Can I lick your boobs?” – These are examples of catcalls, but more important than this, they represent a manifestation of male power towards women in the public spaces.

Power relations exist within intimate relationship but not there alone. They exist also in public spaces in the form of street harassment, rape, etc. This means, YOU can stop street harassment, you can stop rape, you can stop domestic violence — or you can be a part of the problem if you don’t take an active stand against it. Here is information about this:

  1. Street harassment includes a lot of behaviors (from excessive staring or honking to public masturbation or following). You have to keep in mind that if your behavior makes a woman feeling anxious, angry or unsafe, then it is harassment and you should stop it.
  2. Street harassment doesn’t happens just on the street, but also in any public spaces, like parks, stores, buses, trains, the beach, taxis etc. Really, in any spaces that are open for people.
  3. Men and all LGBT folks are harassed in public spaces too. But women and LGBT are the ones that are the mainly targets and the most vulnerable.
  4. Street harassment is not about flirting or sexual attraction. If you are attracted to a woman even though she is passing by and you can barely notice her in two seconds, you should not disrespect her by saying sexist words to her or looking at her like she is a sexual object just because you feel soooo attracted to her. Your feelings (or hormones) don’t excuse this behavior.
  5. A) Street harassment is a form of gender-based violence. Keep this in mind! B) Street harassment is a violation of human rights. Keep this also in mind!
  6. Women fear that street harassment may escalate into rape, physical violence or even murder.
  7. Talk to women in your life and ask them if they feel safe in public spaces, if they fear rape or violence from stranger men.
  8. Mass-media gets it all wrong! Sexual objectification of women in advertising and movies affects us negatively. When men see women as sexual objects they tend to think that women are inferior to them and sexual violence is not such a big deal and that women enjoy harassment, violent sex and physical violence.
  9. Gender roles are wrong! Remember what you’ve learned is school about gender roles (example: what the mother does (the cooking) and what the father does (reading the newspaper)). As a PhD student I’ve conducted research regarding street harassment in Romania and when it comes to how the respondents (men and women) see the concept of masculinity or to be a man and the concept of femininity or to be a woman, they strongly associate men with power and intelligence and women with elegance and taking care of children and the husband. This is not fair, right? The normative form of masculinity or what it means to “be a man” is important in any patriarchal society. In commercials, in movies and in our school books we see what a man looks like and we grow up with the idea that a man is everything that a woman isn’t. This is so wrong. The results about what masculinity and femininity mean to my respondents (144 men and 1793 women) are astounding and do confirm the theories on how gender roles make us to fall into two categories when it comes to street harassment: the targets (women) and, on the other side, the perpetrators (men). Gender role socialization make us all, regarding our gender, feel and act like we are very different from each other. But in fact we aren’t.
  1. Street harassment is about power. The consent of the woman has zero importance to the harasser in the interaction. The harasser starts the interaction and only feels that he has the power to decide when and how to end it. The expression of heteronormative masculinity in public spaces seems a must for men that want to be considered like “real men” by exerting power on the ones they perceive being vulnerable and having lower value as human beings (women, LGBT folks).
  2. You have to address and fight rape culture. The victims aren’t the ones to blame. Ever! When you hear “she was wearing a short skirt! She is the one responsible!”; “Boys will be boys” etc. use your voice and break down rape and street harassment myths.
  3. You always can talk to stranger women in a kindly manner. If you have respect and good intentions and you see that the woman doesn’t feel uncomfortable, then you can be pretty sure that your action is not harassment.

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If you are a man harassed in public spaces – Don’t feel ashamed because nothing is wrong with you and you can try to fight this back, alone or with people that are also targets of street harassment.

If you think you harassed stranger women in public spaces – Next time when you want to do this, please think that women deserve your respect and the right to move freely and to be safe in the public spaces, without fear of harassment. You don’t have any right to treat them badly.

If you are a bystander, next time be an upstander! Act and react against street harassers! Men are looking to other men for role models. Be that role model!

If you are an ally, congrats! We need you.

And don’t forget that we together have the power to end this! The power to react, to answer back, to fight this abuse and to build safe spaces for us all.

Simona-Marie is a Ph.D. Student in Political Sciences, working on a thesis on gender-based street harassment in Romania. She is an activist and organizes numerous public actions (marches, flash-mobs, protests) against sexual violence and street harassment against women. Now she is part of an working-group trying to improve by public policies the situation of young homeless people in Romania. You can find her on Facebook.

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Join International Anti-Street Harassment Week!

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Will you join us for the 8th annual International Anti-Street Harassment Week and demand safe public spaces for all?

Last year groups from 36 different countries joined in (here’s the wrap-up report).

Get involved:

  1. Advertise the week to your networks and encourage them to take action, whether that is sharing a story, putting info on social media, or organizing/attending offline action like a march, workshop or rally.
  2. Participate! And tell us what you plan to do.
  3. Join the 24 hour tweetathon on April 4! #EndSH

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Late January 2017 News Round-Up

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Here are some of the news articles that caught my eye this month.

First, a new study says sexually objectifying a woman, including through catcalling, can lead to aggression towards women.

Via HuffPost:

“A study published late last year by the University of Kent says sexually objectifying a woman can very well lead to aggression towards women and “reduced moral concern for the objectified.”

The researchers, who worked with more than 200 participants aged 12 to 16, found the link between catcalling and aggression can begin to develop in the early teen years, and can lead to the harmful perception that women are solely to be seen as sexual objects as they age.”

Global News:

A female-only ridesharing service will launch in Queensland, Australia… but addressing root causes of street harassment is a must, too.

A Bartenders Against Sexual Harassment event was held in Canada to raise money and awareness about sexual harassment and assault in the Toronto bar scene.

In Egypt, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics surveyed young people ages 15 to 29 in “informal urban areas of Greater Cairo” and 48% viewed street harassment as a problem.

Hundreds of men sexually assaulted women in Bangaluru, India, on New Year’s Eve. Among those speaking out afterward were those advocating for education and socialization of children to be respectful.

On Jan. 21, women across India marched to protest sexual harassment and misogyny using the hashtag #IWillGoOut.

Air India launched a women-only section of their airplane due to incidents of sexual harassment.

There’s a national competition in India encouraging people to rewrite the lyrics of sexist Bollywood songs.

Women in Jakarta, Indonesia, are taking action against street harassment.

The powerful Irish spoken word piece “Heartbreak” addresses street harassment.

A New Zealand woman writes an open letter to all cat-callers.

In Punjab, Pakistan, the Women Safety Smart Phone App launched.

Pakistani singer Atif Aslam called out and interrupted an incident of sexual harassment happening at his concert in Karachi

Reports of street harassment are on the rise in Cambridge, UK.

“Road to Equality” is a seven-minute documentary about street harassment in the UK.

USA News/Stories:

The Los Angeles Metro launched a hotline staffed by professional counselors to help people facing sexual harassment on the transit system.

Best-selling author and comedian Jen Kirkman tackled street harassment in her stand-up special Just Keep Livin’?.

What it’s like to be street harassed while seven months pregnant.

This is why street harassment is a mobility issue.

Hate crimes have swept the USA since the November presidential election and not even the liberal San Francisco Bay Area has been immune to it, including to street harassment.

A Maryland police officer pled guilty to taking upskirt photos of women.

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Muslims Belong Here: Marching in D.C.

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Via the Guardian:

“Thousands of protesters gathered and marched in cities and at airports across the US on Sunday, in opposition to the executive order from Donald Trump which imposed a freeze on refugee admissions and a ban on travel from seven Muslim-majority countries….

Around 100 people were held at airports on Friday and Saturday. Many were released as a dramatic court victory for the American Civil Liberties Union in New York on Saturday night saw a federal judge place a temporary stay on the order and rule that all those held should be released.

But by late afternoon on Sunday, travellers remained in custody at various airports, with attorneys reporting that some border agents were refusing to comply with the judge’s order.”

Myself and two of our DC-area Stop Street Harassment board members attended the Washington, D.C. protest. We also met up with Chai, the c0-founder of Collective Action for Safe Spaces.

We rallied at the white house and then marched down 15th Street, up Pennsylvania Ave to the U.S. Capitol and then back.  There was a huge pocket of people protesting along the route in front of Trump Towers. Basically waves of people marched from 1 p.m. until well after 4 p.m.; when I passed the white house en rote to my car around 4:45 pm, groups of people were still heading down 15th street, marching.

Trump has made a lot of executive orders that I’ve disagreed with during his first week in office, but this one is having an immediate, scary and unfair impact on people’s lives. Many members of congress have spoken out and even Dick Cheney, who I didn’t think could do anything but evil, has come out against this move by Trump.

No doubt Islamaphobia will be on the rise in public spaces in the USA by emboldened Trump supporters. This is not okay. Everyone should be and feel welcome in our country, no matter their religion or country of origin.

Chai

#NoMuslimBan #RefugeesWelcome #Resist

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