Correspondent, Author at Stop Street Harassment

Croatia: Map the Violence, Break the Stereotypes

December 10, 2015 By Correspondent

Marinella Matejcic, Croatia, SSH Blog Correspondent

Today, information is everything. The possibilities are endless: by using your computer, you can check the weather in a village behind the seven seas, read about growing carrots in a jar or, in some countries, check what’s the crime ratio in your neighborhood by clicking a couple of icons.

Yes, the last one is the topic of today’s blog post: is it possible to map violence? Sure it is. You just have to know how and where to look for the data.

In the early spring of 2015, a group of volunteers from two organisations – Hollaback Croatia and Code for Croatia – decided to join their forces to produce a website that would deliver information on the numbers of different crimes that happen in the Republic of Croatia. The initiative is aware that there is a strict and proper frame for combating violence in the family or the workplace, but that does not stand for street violence and/or harassment. They’ve recognized the possibilities of technology and wanted to change things. “The initiative works with zero funds and on the entirely voluntarily basis” – Miroslav Schlossberg from Code from Croatia told us.

One of the goals of the project was to raise the transparency of work of the bodies of public and state administration. As Croatia has a good Law on the right to access information and the Ministry of the Interior is open to cooperation, they started collecting information on crimes that occurred in the last five years. Ana Maria Filipovic Grcic, a volunteer from Hollaback Croatia said, that the idea itself was nothing new: similar things already exist in other countries. Per instance, India has the most criminal maps like the Croatian team is developing, except that they’ve already made an app that refreshes the data in real time. After all, India, unfortunately, is one of the countries with highest sexual violence and harassment ratio, and this is one of the ways that the community decided to fight it.

Hollaback! Croatia is already mapping citizen’s personal experience of harassment in public space. The team that develops Croatian application believes that by joining more sources of data (the official ones, from the police, and the data submitted by citizens) they will be able to provide a more reliable service. For that matter, they are collecting the general data, without names and details, just plain facts: when and where, and what the qualification of the crime is from both the Ministry and the citizens. The initiative is interested to find out how often do the particular crimes occur and what is the general safety level of the cities they are collecting the data for.

By mapping and providing the information on the crime rates in the capital of Croatia, Zagreb, and the rest of the country, it would be easier to learn what the real problems are and why is that violence happening after all. With an information sheet like that, it would be possible to conclude what can be done by the municipalities, do prevent the crimes from happening. It is important to highlight that the a map like this would help break the stereotypes on some neighbourhoods’ reputations and to show that the attacks are happening all over the country, and it’s not related to the time of the day and a particular public space.

The biggest part of the project is carried by the expert group Code for Croatia with help from the HollaBack initiative. There are five people on the team, but they are always looking for an extra pair of hands and a source of reliable financing. Mapping the violence is a significant joint project, which is a substantial evidence that, for starters, good will, time and experience really can change the world.

Marinella is a freelance journalist/writer, feminist activist, and soon-to-be administrative law student. She writes for Croatian portal on gender, sex and democracy called Libela.org and covers CEE stories for globalvoicesonline.org. Follow her on Twitter @mmatejci.

Italy: Street Harassment and Gender Stereotypes

December 6, 2015 By Correspondent

Sara Rigon, Italy, SSH Blog Correspondent

You are walking down the street and a man screams at you “hey, you are beautiful, babe”. You ignore him and keep walking. A million thoughts cross your mind: “Oh no, not again”, “Should I thank him so he doesn’t get mad”, “Does he look hostile?”, “Should I cross or walk faster?” etc.

The bottom line is you just want it to be over and with no consequences, so you rarely ask yourself why. It has happened so many times and it will happen again: it feels so pointless to wonder why.

Nonetheless, if we want to put an end to this we should learn from the best and follow Sun Tzu’s art of war rule: know your enemy. So, where does street harassment and violence against women come from? Where does it all start?

Social norms often view violence against women as a private matter and street harassment as women’s responsibility. Basically it is your fault: the way you walk, the clothes you wear, the way you look or don’t look, you are causing the problem: it is you. But it is not, it is a matter of gender and power. As the United Nation Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, adopted by the General Assembly on 20 December 1993, states “[violence against women] is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women, which have led to domination over and discrimination against women by men and to the prevention of the full advancement of women, and that violence against women is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position compared with men”.

In other words gender violence is a matter of gender equality and street harassment is the daily proof that despite of what some people think in 2015 men and women are not equal, not even in the civil and democratic western world. This is when I get the feeling life is like monopoly: we got the “go back 3 spaces” card. Back to gender equality and the question remains: how do you fight historically unequal power? I say we start from stereotypes and prehistoric clichés.

They say stereotypes are not a bad thing, on the contrary they can save your life as they help you categorize the world and quickly make sense of the mass of data that compose your day which will take forever to interpret if taken individually. However I’m not so sure this is always the case as nothing is entirely good (or bad, of course). Clichés and stereotypes about women, for example, are not necessary true and they definitely don’t simplify your life, especially if you belong to that group of people who is believed to be superficial but caring and maternal, good listener and compassionate but also gossipy and bitchy, ornamental and absolutely not good at STEM.

You may have heard of the term STEM, it seems like everyone is talking about it, creating hashtag and launching campaign to increase the number of students in such an innovating field. For those who are not familiar with it, STEM (previously SMET) is an acronym that refers to the academic disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

I have never really thought about it, but with all this talking about STEM and the lack of women in STEM education I started reflecting on my relationship with math and science. Did an old and narrow-minded stereotype put me off STEM? That’s not possible, I love science, I am a doctor, after all, and I have plenty of women colleagues. As a recent bmj career article reports that back in 2009 the Royal College of Physicians predicted that by 2017 most doctors would be women. I thought we were doing well, however I was forgetting that medicine is not strictly considered science, but more of an art and doctors artist armed with basic scientific knowledge in medicine.

STEM is more about hard science and so my studying to become a physician doesn’t really count. To be totally honest, I’ve always thought I wasn’t good at math and I’ve never contemplated the idea of pursuing a career in engineering. Now that I think about it, even with good grades in math I’m not so sure I would have enrolled in a STEM program at Uni knowing what the boys in my class thought and said about girls who majored in engineering and mathematics.

Reading the recent L’Oréal Foundation international report on the perception of women in science I can say it is not just me, conscious and unconscious bias and cliché on women in STEM are real and they discourage girls from undertaking a scientific education and ultimately a STEM job and career, the same and old cliché that undermine women and sustain gender inequality. Now more than ever, we know the limiting factor is not women’s brain but culture. Science needs diversity, we need a cultural shift.

Unfortunately, cultural changes are known to be slow and painful, especially when they are lead by grown-ups, in such cases it gets a lot easier if you start from posterity. It is not simple to separate nature from nurture and all different aspect of creating gender role in kids, however studies shows that drawing clear distinction in gender roles plays a role in pushing kids toward a specific career and gender stereotype.

So it’s up to us, to you, to be the change you want to see in the world: enroll your daughters to math camp and football teams, ask Santa to bring your son cooking and baking toys and dancing shoes: this could be the first step to stop street harassment for good.

Sara is a registered General Practitioner in Italy and New Zealand. She is the founder and current lead of the newly established Equally Different group within the European Junior General Practitioners Organization, the Vasco da Gama Movement, branch of the World Organization of Family Doctors. Follow her on Twitter @rgn_sr.

UK: Venues Must Help Make Gigs Safer

November 30, 2015 By Correspondent

Tracey Wise, London, UK, SSH Blog Correspondent

Since establishing Safe Gigs for Women, one of its core aims has been to get venues and festivals on board. Whilst it is clear venues themselves cannot be fully held accountable for the actions of individuals, there are many actions they can take to ensure a better experience for all their customers, male and female alike, and make it clear that such behaviour is not acceptable in their establishment.

Firstly, having been on the receiving end of unwanted attention by a festival security guard, it should go without saying that staff at such events and venues should be the first line in preventing harassment in the first place. They should also be taking reports of harassment seriously and doing everything they reasonably can to assist the complainant. Venues in Boston, USA provide a safe refuge for anyone in trouble at a gig, and this seems like a fairly simple approach. Dedicated members of staff can then engage with anyone with any concerns or needs. This seems a very practical, low cost approach towards safety.

I understand the music industry, live music in particular, cannot exist without the support of alcohol companies. However, isn’t it time this was reframed? Whilst there has been a campaign in the UK to ‘drink responsibly’ and be drink aware, with so much attention surrounding alcohol and its role in sexual assault, is it perhaps not time that am alcohol company came out to state it will be taking proactive action against this? Actually take the initiative and be the first to challenge this head on? And whilst we’re at it… Soft drinks companies, how about lowering the price of your products in venues, in order to contribute towards greater safety and the enjoyment of others? And venues can reinforce this with greater provision of free water, available at any time, to those who need it. Better use of cooling systems in venues would also reduce the instances of people getting drunk and improve safety all round.

Quite early on from establishing safe Gigs for Women, I was approached by a local authority in London, Camden Council, an area well known for its musical history and links to alternative cultures. To enact the above changes we will need support from local authorities, those ultimately responsible for licensing venues. We’ve been lucky to have Camden on our side. But what about venues and authorities not in favour of projects like this?

Then consider this. I am a self-declared music obsessive person. In working with Camden Council, I did some tough sums, and estimated that with the gigs I have attended in Camden alone this year, the cost of tickets, food and drink that I have spent in their local economy is somewhere between £1500 – £1800. When women who have experienced harassment at gigs state that their experiences now stop them going to gigs, venues should consider the effect on them, economically.

Safe Gigs for Women welcomes any venue that wishes to work with us — and thanks Camden Council for its support.

Born and raised in London, Tracey is a graduate of City University. She has spent the best part of her life at gigs and festivals and obsessing about music and created the “Safe Gigs for Women” project.

USA: Intimidation is a Currency of Power and Control

November 29, 2015 By Correspondent

Hannah Rose Johnson, Arizona, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

Michel Foucault writes in Discipline and Punish (1975) that discipline is used to control entire populations through organizing space and the self-policing of individuals. For instance, he writes extensively about the panopticon—an architectural design of a prison, where a tower sits high in the middle of a circle of cells and while guards can see out of the tower, prisoners cannot see in. Without telling if a guard is or isn’t in the tower, prisoners are forced to police their own behavior and the behavior of others because, what if the guard is in the tower and watching? The architecture of communities plus the management of people is a way in which power is exercised. Power is a producer of reality that includes objects, rituals, examinations, individuals, “norms” and truths. He says, on the panopticon: “Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals which all resemble prisons?” (p. 228).

Is it surprising that sexual violence resembles white supremacy, compulsive heterosexuality, heteronormativity, neoliberal economics which all resemble sexual violence? (Please refer to my previous article Police Violence is a Form of Street Harassment). We live in a culture of discipline, watching ourselves and others, which is shaped by an architecture of domination. Sexual violence and oppressive systems are about power and control.

This month I have been thinking about intimidation in public spaces. On the Power and Control Wheel, which is used to identify patterns of physically and sexually violent behavior within intimate partner violence, there is a section for intimidation. Wheels differ from varying degrees, but generally intimidation highlights: placing partner in fear by looks, actions, and gestures; smashing things; destroying property; displaying weapons; sending frequent, unwanted messages and expecting the partner to respond immediately; and stalking. What I’m interested in exploring is the link between intimidation, control and power. That the use of intimidation, the behavior, is a performance of control and shaped by experiences of domination.

When I think of public spaces, I think of streets, I think of the commons, parks, I think of state and county buildings, I think of school systems and universities. I think of signs and lights and billboards and advertisements. I think about how power is exercised in ways that allow communities to organize themselves based on interlocking systems of oppression. When I think of public spaces, I think about the social contract that binds most of us together.

Social contract theory refers to the things we give up in order to come into public spaces; moral and political obligations, like agreeing not to take matters into one’s own hand and put faith in a legal system. Social contract theory explains how some people are locked away from public space and other people are not recognized even though they are here all the time, on the basis of race, gender identity, class status, sexual identity, HIV+ status, and unregulated labor.

I’d like to explore reproduction coercion within the context of intimate partner violence and expand the conceptual understanding. Reproductive coercion is forcing a partner into pregnancy when they do not wish to be pregnant, or forcing a partner to have an abortion when they wish not to. Reproductive coercion includes the murder of Native women during colonization so that an entire race of people would be wiped out. It includes the raping and forced pregnancies of Black women during slavery in the US to birth an entire disposable and exploited labor force (please read Incite! Dangerous Intersections).

And then there is reproduction in the performative sense- the reproduction of social roles and systems. In this instance, intimidation. If you play the intimated, you are the role that is the reason of power and control. Intimidation is white supremacy, compulsive heterosexuality, heteronormativity, and neoliberal economics. These systems of oppression feed an exercise of power, from anti-abortion billboard messaging to construction of the welfare queen—the image of the sexually immature Black mother who is both draining government assistance and creating poverty. Reproductive livelihoods are constantly threatened and queered.

In public we are surrounded by intimidation and it is a tactic of sexual violence. In the expanded understanding of imperfect victims (again, please refer to my article Police Brutality is a Form of Street Harassment), we see that not only is street harassment bound to sexual violence, it’s also dependent on reproducing instances and interactions of intimidation. So that when some people can control other people by a look or a gesture, or a certain kind of eye contact, power is running through the exchange. And actions, looks and gestures exist between partners, strangers, and the public/private. The look/gesture is the panopticon of intimidation.

It is the self-policing and submission for survival in violent relationships and interactions. Intimidation is a currency. It is intertwined with reproducing fear—in the context of street harassment it is the fear of harassers, from catcallers to police officers. Fear instills control, a conduit for power. And power, of a sexually violent nature, is sustained through systems of white supremacy, compulsive heterosexuality, heteronormativity and neoliberal economics.

Hannah Rose is writing from Tucson, Arizona and Lewiston, Maine (US) as she transitions from the Southwest to the Northeast for a career in sexual violence prevention and advocacy at the college level. You can check her out on the collaborative artistic poetic sound project HotBox Utopia.

Nepal: Fuel Shortages Lead to Carpooling… and then to Harassment (Part 2)

November 28, 2015 By Correspondent

Smriti RDN Neupane, Nepal, SSH Blog Correspondent

In Part 1, I discussed how a fuel shortage in Nepal has led to an increase in carpooling. However, carpooling has not been free from harassment for girls and women, and so a few young women created a closed Facebook group called “Carpool Nepal (Women).” Part 2 is my interview with one of the women (who wants to be anonymous).

What do you mean by carpool or carpooling?

Simply, carpooling is ride-sharing. To elaborate, carpooling is a way of sharing rides by several participants to save on fuel and the cost. However, in Nepal’s context, most of the time, the owners have shared a ride out of generosity.

Ok, so what is Carpool Nepal (Women) – closed group and how does it work?

Carpool Nepal (Women) is a closed women’s group on Facebook for carpooling. We are a small group of individuals. We have also created a Facebook profile with the username “Carpoolers” to keep people updated personally and by best to our collective abilities.

The women in the group mention hashtags such as #Ask to ask and #Offer to offer rides to each other.

How do you want to be addressed as – administrators, initiators, campaigners, others?

We saw some people already sharing rides and many groups already being created to help one another through ride-sharing because people were starting to have problems getting rides due to shortage of fuel. So, we do not identify ourselves as being initiators. However, we started and administered the group Carpool Nepal (Women) which was made specifically for women.

Are the administrators of Carpool Nepal open group and women only group page same?

No, we are different. After 5-6 days of Carpool open group page started, we formed a women-only closed group. We requested the admins of open group to help by posting about the women’s group page so that women would be more secure and comfortable because clearly most of them weren’t. We did not receive any reply from the administration. However, we received a message from a woman saying that there is no need for our group. But we only wanted to feel safe while carpooling by asking and offering rides for and by women.

Some people also harshly said that there was no need to divide the group. Their logic was that creating a different “women’s only” group is like segregating the country on the basis of religion, caste and ethnicity, and that the creator and members of this “women’s only” group are the narrowest of minds. It was ironic because toilets are divided based on gender; dormitories are divided based on gender, but all that they saw were us being as one of the culprits. Despite seeing so many women being bullied and harassed on Facebook, all they saw was us dividing and somehow failed to see that specific segment of women that we were targeting to help.

Were there many instances of harassment?

Women who asked for offers were bombarded with harsh comments, were teased and made fun of. One time, one of the women expressed that she felt uncomfortable while receiving a ride with strange men and that was met with so many derogatory comments from many men and few women as well. Some (or most) men made outrageous comments and that made women feel harassed and bullied. Then women who asked and offered rides to women only were ridiculed as being discriminatory towards men.

Many women were skeptic of the rides because there were some posts stating that some women were harassed. Also, some men asked for rides with needing one, just for the excuse of riding with a woman on her scooter.

There were women who needed rides and some were willing to offer rides but were too uncomfortable to post on the Facebook page because they knew they would be attacked by dreadful, awkward, perverted and crazy comments.

Also, the purpose of the initial group was to post to ask and offer with respective hashtags. However, people used to post irrelevant posts, spam posts and jokes and a lot of selfies. So, the important posts used to pile below thus very few people were getting rides. We also wanted to make it clean, so we stuck to no other things being posted except asks and offers.

What has been the overall reaction from members and non-members?

Our group is clean as there are no irrelevant posts. However, the posts have been decreasing in number. Although many women were getting rides, the stacks of posts for asking and offering that the women made would pile below and it is inconvenient to search for posts on Facebook group. Another reason is that, people would get a lot of posts in there news feed, which may have forced them to turn off notification. This has happened in both the groups and happens in Facebook groups often.

We believe that it is because of just having it as a Facebook Group. A mobile app would have helped a lot of women in need. The negative feedback which we received, we have mentioned it. The good ones, the ones who have personally sent us a message to ask us for help have thanked us a lot and we feel as much thankful to them as well for giving us an overwhelming share of delight.

Though there are only 6K+ members, women were active, very comfortable and happier than in the other group.

Do you intend to continue the campaign and your page even after easy availability of fuel?

We will help the group as long as we can from our Facebook profile. We have also helped a few by personally finding rides for them. We thought of creating a mobile app specifically for women, however the cost and time constraints kept us away from doing it. Despite that, we want to keep on helping our women by whichever way we can and we have been as well to the best of our abilities and resources.

Smriti coordinated Safe cities campaign in Nepal with a team of feminist activists of various organisations, networks and community groups from 2011 to 2014 and is still voluntarily engaged with it. She is currently engaged in an action research and advocacy on women’s leadership in climate change adaptation focusing on women’s time use.

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