Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Hello’s Can Feel Like Harassment Too

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Yesterday afternoon was unseasonably warm, so in a short sleeved shirt I walked over two miles in downtown Washington, DC, (where I work) to do an errand at lunch time. A lot of men said “hello” or “how are you doing” to me. I said hello or nodded and smiled back at nearly all of them because I’m polite. Several of them stared at my chest. Several men who did not say anything to me stared at my chest. In the reflection of glass buildings I caught two of the men who had said hello to me turn and watch me walk away from them. One other man looked like he would have tried to say more than hello to me if I responded to him at all, so I ignored his hello and turned my head as I passed.

By the end of the walk, I felt dirty, objectified, shameful, and provocative. I wore my coat during my commute home despite the warm weather and once I was home, I changed into a shapeless, huge t-shirt. I’ve been upset by what happened ever since (hence a post) and I have been thinking a lot about why.

  1. If it only had been a few hello’s they probably wouldn’t have bothered me, but the sheer volume became obnoxious and made me feel like I had a sign on my forehead saying “pay attention to me.” Plus several men were oogling me as they said hello so then it was no longer a simple hello but also objectification.
  2. No women said hello to me. Before too long I got the impression that the sudden desire of so many men to say hi to me and inquire how I was doing as I passed them on the sidewalk was not benign and coincidental. I felt it was the result of an evaluation of how I looked. I started to feel disrespected and objectified. From hello’s.
  3. Once I became bothered by the hello’s, I pondered what I could do. It just didn’t seem appropriate to yell “don’t harass women” at a man who was saying hello. Could I say “don’t stare at my breasts” as I passed by? I wasn’t standing on a bus or subway with them where it would be more apparent that they were staring at chest or butt. I was passing by so it would be hard to say with 100% certainty that they were doing that. And it is a free country right? We can look where we want? If I don’t want to be looked at I should cover up and wear a burka and stay inside unless accompanied by a man, right? Many older women say they hate being invisible in the streets so I should be glad that men are oogling me, right? Hey, I’m still young enough to be sexually desirable to them so I am graced by their hello’s and stares. Wheee! Lucky me. Excuse me while I go listen to No Doubt’s “I’m Just a Girl!” on repeat for the next hour…

No one openly commented on how I looked, no one touched me, no one followed me. I never felt unsafe. But a day later my hello-filled walk is still very much on my mind. I see it as part of a larger context of disrespect and the objectification of women and it boggles my mind to try to figure out how to change that culture when it’s so pervasive.

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Prison for Street Harasser in Egypt

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Street harassment in Egypt is in the news a lot lately, and this week the BBC reports on yet another newsworthy street harassment story about a harasser who is receiving a prison sentence.

In June, Noha Rushdi Saleh was repeatedly groped and harassed by the defendant while she was walking down the street. Passers-by told her not to go to the police and some blamed her for provoking the attack [surely any woman would love to be groped while minding her own business in public]. She had to literally drag the man to the police station and initially the police refused to open an investigation. The man was found guilty recently and has been jailed for three years with hard labor and must pay 5,001 Egyptian pounds to Ms. Saleh for the attack.

The BBC reports: “The case was taken up by the Badeel opposition daily, which blamed Egypt’s oppressive government, and ‘the majority of citizens who identified with the oppressor’, and ‘decades of incitement against women’ in some mosques …”

“Egyptian women’s rights campaigners have praised the judge for handing down what is being seen as a harsh, exemplary sentence.”

The article also reports something I missed in the news:

“In an unusual development earlier in October, eight men were arrested in Cairo for allegedly taking part in a mob-style sexual attack on women pedestrians.

The attack, during the Eid holiday, was reminiscent of an incident in 2006 during the same holiday which marks the end of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

On both occasions, witnesses reported that police officers were present but did nothing to protect women who were violently groped and had some of their clothing torn off.”

Thoughts? Was a jail sentence too harsh? Not harsh enough? Just right? I’m glad Ms. Saleh had the courage to fight him, report him, and fight the police to eventually receive justice.

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Street harassment flashback shocks me

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On the Shakesville blog, people are answering the question: “In what ways has the idea of sexual assault and/or street harassment affected your daily movements?” The question was posed on Saturday and already there are over 400 responses. Since this is exactly one of the topics I want to discuss in a book I plan to write on street harassment, I was thrilled and I have been eagerly reading through the posts. It never ceases to amaze me how much our lives are impacted by street harassment.

I was part-way through reading a post by FriedaK about getting followed by a guy in a car as she walked home from a night shift at work when I had a flashback to a street harassment incident I had completely forgotten about. Over a year ago when I first began researching street harassment, I wrote down all of the “major” incidents I could recall but I didn’t remember this one.

In this incident I was either 14 or 15 years old and I was running a 6 mile loop through the streets near my house in Pacific Palisades, CA. I think it was a Saturday morning. I ran up Sunset Blvd and then cut up into a very affluent neighborhood because they had a large hill I liked running up. I’d run this route many times.  This day, I was part-way up the hill (and about 2.25 miles into my run) when a man in a car started driving slowly beside me. My heart quickened but I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he was probably looking for a certain house, etc. Still, I increased my pace.

I ran about another 3/4th of a mile with him still beside me and I was getting more nervous each second. There was no one on the street and most of the houses had big security gates and looked very intimidating and I didn’t really see running up to one of them for help as a viable solution. By that point, he’d been beside me long enough that I worried that he was up to no good. I was too freaked out to look at him and so I just pretended I didn’t notice him and wasn’t bothered. I reached the peak of the hill and as soon as I saw a side street, I sprinted down it and kept going full speed, weaving in and out of side streets until I reached Sunset Boulevard, a well populated street.

I didn’t see him again during the run but I was really shook up. I’d been running alone for a few years at that point and I had generally always felt safe (though not enough to run at night) and it was a big shock to not feel safe anymore. My mom bought mace for me to carry around that time and I can’t remember if it was in response to that incident or not.

Compared to so many women whose stories I’ve read, this incident is nothing. I wasn’t assaulted, raped, attacked, nor did I even have anything offensive or threatening yelled at me. He may not have been following me at all. I will never know. But I do know it was very real to me at the time and in the few minutes since I remembered it happening, I have felt shaky and scared just thinking about it. It’s surprises me that I forgot about this incident and that remembering it has upset me so much.

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Black Woman Walking

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I just found this video clip today & I am glad that there is another place women have been able to share their street harassment stories and experiences. It reinforces that this is a real problem for soo many women! And this video clip brings in some of the complexities of race that intersect with so much of street harassment.

[blip.tv ?posts_id=295570&dest=-1]

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Tight Pants Disturb Peace in Sudan

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Reuters reports that: “more than 35 young women wearing tight trousers have been arrested for ‘disturbing the peace’ in south Sudan . . . The women were arrested on Sunday night, but released without charge on Monday after appearing in court. ‘They were wearing trousers that were too tight, disturbing the peace,’ said Deputy Police Commissioner of Juba County Raiman Lege.”

Does “disturbing the peace” because of tight pants mean getting harassed by men or “distracting” men because they can see what women’s legs look like? I’m not clear on that but I’m assuming so and thus adding it to this blog, which is full of street harassment-related news stories lately. Kudos to reporters for keeping these issues in the news, and boo to the people who harass and assault women and say stupid things like women should wear veils that reveal only one eye.

And in other news, almost 700 people have taken my full survey and almost 300 others answered the questions on the first page. If you haven’t taken this informal, anonymous survey yet, please do! I’ll be shutting it down soon.

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