Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

The 5th Annual Anti-Street Harassment Week is Fast Approaching!

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Mark your calendars for April 12-18, 2015, our fifth annual Meet Us On the Street: International Anti-Street Harassment Week! It will be our biggest year yet. Already, nearly two months out, we have 97 participating groups in 24 countries.

What is it?

The Week is a chance for people worldwide to collectively raise our voices — both online and offline — to share our stories, bring attention to the issue of street harassment, and work toward safer public spaces for all.

 

Peru

How do you participate?

Literally anyone anywhere can participate through simple acts like sharing a street harassment story, posting information on social media, posting a flyer, or writing a pro-respect chalk message in her/his community.

This year, we are encouraging participants to consider creating dialogues with people who may not realize street harassment is a problem (through street action and/or hosting a community discussion) and/or working with community leaders on a concrete action to make public places safer.

Join as a Co-Sponsoring Organization! 

Last year more than 100 organizations from 25 different countries participated. Read the 2014 report. | View photos.

Our 2015 action will be even bigger and better. Big organizations, small organizations, colleges, schools, politicians, businesses, and student groups alike are invited to join us as cosponsors. There are only two requirements for co-sponsoring:

1) Participate: This part is up to you, and there are so many different ways you can participate – hosting a rally or march, organizing a workshop or lecture, writing op-eds for our blog or letters to your local newspaper, staging a street theatre performance, and so much more. Many of our smaller organizations participate avidly through social media, sharing our materials to their audience and participating in or hosting one of our several scheduled tweet-chats and other online discussions during the week.

2) Share the news with your audience: Street harassment is a global problem, and this week is a global response to that problem. We can’t do this without you! We’ll provide shareable graphics and fliers, and you do the rest!

Sign-Up!

You can register your event right now using this easy form, or email bpurdy@stopstreetharassment.org. Also, we’re happy to help you out in your brainstorming and planning in anyway that we can!

Follow Us

Don’t forget to follow Meet Us On the Street on Facebook and Twitter!

Volunteer

Want to volunteer with us? Here are some volunteer opportunities. We are also looking for people who can write guest blog posts to be published during the week. Get in touch with Britnae if you are interested, bpurdy@stopstreetharassment.org.

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Volunteers Needed for Anti-Street Harassment Week

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We need your help! We currently have two opportunities to volunteer with Meet Us On The Street: International Anti-Street Harassment Week:

1) Translators – we want to get our message as far around the world as possible, and to do that we need to be able to translate our materials into many different languages. Most translations are short, with some longer opportunities also available. We are in specific need of the following languages:

Tok Pisin
Hiri Motu
Bengali
Hindi
Urdu
Punjabi
Marathi
Egyptian Arabic
Hebrew
Nepalese
Kinyarwanda
Arabic
Vietnamese
Croatian
Mandarin
Japanese
Indonesian
Turkish
Russian
Italian
Portuguese
Shona
Swahili
Romanian
Korean

2) We are also looking for a volunteer who can make a 1-ish minute clip inviting and encouraging people to participate, using images from past years’ events. Something akin to this past video.

If you are able to help in anyway, please email Britnae at bpurdy@stopstreetharassment.org and let her know what opportunity you can assist with (and if it’s a translation, what language/s you speak).

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Street Harassment Weekly – Feb. 9-15, 2015

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How Wednesday Addams Would React to Catcalling – “In a new episode from the web series “Adult Wednesday Addams,” created by Melissa Hunter, Wednesday follows two dudes home to teach them a lesson after they catcall her. In true Addams family fashion, Wednesday effortlessly scares the men with her piercing tone and sardonic comebacks. (And the three terrifying friends she brought with her definitely helps.)”

Artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh Combats Street Harassment in Mexico – “Tatyana Fazlalizadeh has traveled all over with “Stop Telling Women to Smile,” in which she wheatpastes the streets with portraits of women captioned with anti-harassment messages. In a comprehensive new series spearheaded by Fusion’s Anna Holmes, Fazlalizadeh takes her work internationally for the very first time, for a long project in México City that combines community activism and beautiful, important public art.”

Why Do Women Get So Much Grief When They Run? – “Talk to female runners, and most will tell you that they have experienced this sort of thing at some point. Friends have told me enough stories to fill this blog twice over: “I’ve had something thrown at me,” “I’ve been complimented on my ass,” and, a particular favourite, “A man said he liked how I jiggle.” One pal told me that for a winter run in London, you need two things: thermals and a scowl to ward off hecklers.”

Performance Becomes Therapy – ““How sex is performed was the question that was offered to the drama therapist students,” Shotwell said. “They then went ahead and with that prompt, came up with these proposals from which I chose.” Shotwell said the event was a form of therapeutic theater, as there is therapy in the performance for the directors, playwrights and the audience.”

Video: ‘Adult Wednesday Addams’ Takes on Street Harassment With Goth Perfection – “Wednesday is randomly catcalled on the street by a couple of D-bags in a truck, so she hunts them down by the scent of their Axe body spray and confronts them at their own home. They may think she’s there for some action, because they are really that full of themselves, but our heroine has a different idea in order to not only extract revenge, but also to give them a valuable lesson.”

A Helping Hand in India –  “Through the University of Utah Public Health Administration, Talboy works in organizing and recruiting volunteers for a yearly trip to India. While there, she interviews young women about their experiences with teasing and harassment. In the villages, discussion of harassment of any sort is a taboo, which has proved a difficult struggle in her journey. Her next steps include interviewing hundreds of girls and boys to gain a full understanding of eve-teasing, which many see as a normal part of life. She believes that bringing the community together and hosting a discussion will be the most efficient manner in beginning to improve life for the teenagers and young adults.”

On V-Day, Sena Activists Police Street Harassment – “Shiv Sena’s youth wing – ‘Yuva Sena’, activists poured on to streets not to vandalize property and disband love-birds on Valentine’s Day, but to conduct community policing to prevent eve-teasing.  Youths said unlike previous years of ‘gundagardi’, activists stepped on to roads to provide safety to women.”

Why Our Conversation About Street Harassment Needs to Include Trans Women– “Somehow we’ve forgotten the burden that trans women in particular carry when they walk down the street – not just from leering men, but from everyone, including law enforcement. Overwhelmingly, trans women carry a burden of harassment and violence on the streets. If a trans woman steps out into public, there is an 8% chance that the street harassment she is facing will turn violent – and a fairly good chance that no one will do a damn thing about it.”

Montana GOP Legislator Wants to Ban Yoga Pants–  “Montana Republican state Rep. David Moore has a plan to guide America out of the darkness—ban yoga pants. Moore, who is upset that group of naked bicyclists pedaled through Missoula last year, decided that what his state really needs right now is tighter regulations on trousers. His proposed bill, HB 365, would outlaw not just nudity, but also “any device, costume, or covering that gives the appearance of or simulates the genitals, pubic hair, anus region, or pubic hair region.””

Event: Holla:Revolution 2015 – “According to the Washington Post, 2014 was the year the conversation around street harassment hit a tipping point. On March 5th, let’s take the conversation to the next level at this year’s HOLLA::Rev. Come join leading thinkers and activists in the field to expand the definitions of street harassment and discuss what each of us can do to create on-the-ground activism in our communities.”

 

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Street Harassment Weekly – Jan. 19-25

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Catcalling is More Sinister Than You Might Think – “Our research supports previous findings that the rampant sexual objectification of women, an act of sexual terrorism, can heighten women’s fears of incurring physical and sexual harm,” says lead author Dr. Laurel Watson, a psychology professor specializing in traumatology at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

I Confronted Every Man Who Catcalled Me (And It Didn’t End Well) – “How can you explain to a stranger that a compliment makes us feel afraid? That words like “gorgeous” and “beautiful” sound like threats when we hear them whispered to us on an empty street late at night? That we feel uneasy, objectified and uncomfortable when you say this to us while we’re going about our normal routine, not asking to be judged on our appearance out loud? That this thing they do for fun is at the expense of our peace of mind?”

Victim of Eve-Teasing, Teenager Kills Self – “A family member of the victim said, “We had gone to the police and complained about the incident. They did not take appropriate action against the guilty, which led to the girl’s death.””

SHE Teams Power Fight Against Eve-Teasing– ““We have constituted 100 such teams where police personnel in plainclothes mix with the crowd outside colleges, popular hangouts, cinemas and in public transport. They go armed with a small hidden camera that records the goings-on as they happen.” Sometimes, women police personnel themselves end up as “victims” and the entire act is caught on camera. The eve-teasers are immediately taken to the police station where his family is called in and he is let off with a warning and a petty fine.”

Ain’t No Hollaback Girl – Men And Women Speak Out Against Street Harassment Through Hollaback!NOLA– “Hollaback, which started in New York, is a non-profit movement that aims to end street harassment. Hollaback branches exist in 25 countries and 84 cities. The city of New Orleans was finally added to the list last December. According to Hollaback’s mission statement, street harassment is a form of sexual harassment that takes place in public spaces. They claim that at its core, street harassment is a power dynamic that constantly reminds historically subordinated groups of their vulnerability to assault in public places.”

Students Enact Skits About Violence Against Women – “Concerns about violence against girls and security of school students were highlighted in a unique drama competition on Sunday. Students’ groups from 15 schools performed on issues like eve teasing, addiction, sexual abuse of girls, adolescence and crime against women. The competition was part of ‘Nirbhay Vidyarthi Abhiyaan’-an initiative taken up by the Pune police to create awareness about crimes against students. A total of 116 schools in the city had registered for the drama competition. Eighty-five schools came up with performances and 15 were selected for the finals.”

Video: When Men Accidentally CatCall Their Own Mothers – “Often in trying to get men to understand how awful street harassment is, we use rhetorical techniques like “Would you talk to your mother like that?” But thanks to a project by Everlast, the men in this video really did catcall their mothers. The results are exactly as epic as you’d expect.”

Wearing Her “Whorepants” – How One Runner Turned Getting Harassed Into a Movement– “A year ago, I wrote a column for the Philadelphia Inquirer about female runner harassment. I didn’t offer safety tips. Instead, I called for us to take the blame off women who were harassed and hoisting it on to the people doing the harassing. To prove that point, I wrote about what had happened to me when I wore a pair of purple below-the-knee Nike capris, which I’d bought for $10 at the Nike outlet in Atlantic City. Reaction was swift and fierce.”

Are Women Traveling Into a Safer 2015? – “Every 51 minutes, a woman faces harassment or assault in India’s public spaces, according to a 2011 report by the National Crime Records Bureau. Staggering numbers of reported and unreported cases of violence and harassment make transportation difficult and dangerous for women and girls, especially after dark. So should safety issues simply keep women and girls indoors—or does their vulnerability in public spaces highlight a desperate need for gender considerations in designing and planning public transport?”

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Street Harassment Weekly – Jan. 12-18, 2015

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In Less Than a Month, Cyberabad SHE Teams Arrest 50 Eve-Teasers – “A lady constable in plain clothes was standing at the KPHB bus stand when a 51-year-old man made a pass at her. A concealed video camera recorded the man’s every move so that he can’t deny it later. The constable is a member of a SHE team constituted by woman IPS officer R Rama Rajeshwari, deputy commissioner of police of Malkajgiri zone under Cyberabad Police, to keep an eye on eve-teasing, sexual harassment and stalking in the IT corridor, at bus stations, and in areas where working women and students travel alone.”

Teen Kills Youth for Harassing His Sister – “Annoyed over continuous eve-teasing of his sister, a 17-year-old boy (age yet to be verified) and his accomplice allegedly murdered a 21-year-old man working as a sanitation worker at a private college in Shivdaspura locality in the wee hours on Sunday.”

Alicia Wallace To Receive Queen’s Young Leader Award – “Alicia Wallace is the director of Hollaback Bahamas an organisation that works to end street harassment in the Bahamas, and co-founder of the Coalition to End Gender-based Violence and Discrimination. She is also launching a new 16-week programme to provide vital life skills education and mentoring to local high school students. As a child, Alicia grew up thinking she did not have a voice. Now she says, “I am no longer a quiet little girl. I am a force. My voice is powerful and I have learned to use it.””

Panti Bliss Just Made Another Important Statement About Street Harassment – “I am 45 years old and I have never once unselfconsciously held hands with a lover in public,” Bliss says. “I am 45 years old and I have never once casually, comfortably, carelessly held hands with a partner in public.” Why? Because around the world still today, street harassment is a major problem for women, LGBT people, people of color, people with disabilities, and low-income people.

Opinion: Harassment at School – “The connection between harassment and rape culture, then, becomes a matter of the beliefs that the perpetrators of these acts share. A culture in which harassment is normal directly contributes to a culture in which rape is common and permissible; in which Title IX is a joke, not a law that prohibits unsafe accommodations and environments for women; in which domestic violence leads three women every day to be killed by an intimate partner or former partner. It is important to take these abstract notions of gender and sexuality seriously because beliefs about gender and inequality influence women’s safety.”

Video: Street Harassment Is Even More Gross When It’s Scrawled On the Actual Street – “While traversing a jogging path in his hometown of Seattle, Marion spotted a message scrawled on the asphalt spelling out what your average catcaller shouts at female joggers — complete with the oh-so-wonderful command to smile (and some pretty dicey language — so be warned).”

Egyptian Women Take to Social Media to Expose Harassers – “Egyptian women have been using a number of hashtags — among them #Idon’tFeelSafeOnTheStreet, #AntiHarassment and #ExposeHarasser — on social networking sites to speak up about the daily sexual harassment they experience. These campaigns are part of an effort to expose harassers and break the silence surrounding their crimes, which are haunting women in Egypt. Women have tweeted myriad incidents along with advocating the courage to expose and confront harassers.”

Nashik Cops Launch Mobile App for Citizens – “The application helps citizens contact the police immediately, along with audio and video situational information. The app can be used to register incidents of robbery, accident, stalking, domestic violence, eve-teasing, unruly mob, road rage, security threat, medical emergency, sexual harassment, among others.”

#WhatMySHSaid Raises Awareness of Street Harassment – “California teen Chloe Parker came up with an idea to help combat the problem of street harassment. On her Instagram, @rebel.grrrl, women from all over the world submit pictures of themselves holding up a piece of paper. The words a street harasser said to them are written on the paper.”

The Bachelor Group Date That No One Is Talking About – “Let me repeat. The show’s producers (two out of three of whom are men, along with the show’s writer) equated ‘being country’ to women parading around downtown Los Angeles in only their bikinis while straddling tractor seats (no sexual innuendo there or anything). Not only this, but ‘being country’ also meant being subjected to street harassment as cars honked at them and men whistled at the nearly naked women – moments that have been conveniently edited out of the clip on YouTube.* Additionally, seeing as how Chris wore a zip-up sweatshirt on the date, one can assume that the weather was not conducive to swimsuit attire. Television at its finest.”

Walking Alone: Graphic Essay Takes on Street Harassment – “What seems like an erratic course through a familiar place is a way to survive. I walk through a city that is not made for me although I call it mine.”

Opinion: Why Good Men Catcall – “Guys – can we talk for a second? How is this normal? This is a big deal. Over the summer, I was talking with my fifteen year-old little sister and she told me that thirty and forty-year old guys harass and catcall her constantly. We have to do better than this. I have to do better than this.”

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