Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Australia: Is Street Harassment a Police Issue?

By

Tara Willoughby, Canberra, Australia, SSH Blog Correspondent

[Content Note: links include descriptions of violence and harassment]

It is difficult to write about street harassment in Australia without writing about the criminal justice system and ultimately, police. Whether as responders or as harassers, police often take a central role in media discussions of street harassment. In my final post as a blog correspondent, I hope to outline where police fit in with people’s experiences of street harassment and also make an argument about what they should be doing to deal with this issue.

Do people report street harassment to police?

As has been discussed many times (including in my March blog correspondent article), the types of behaviours that constitute the majority of street harassment in Australia are often not easily reported to the police. Of the countless stories and conversations I have been a part of concerning street harassment, only once have I heard of someone reporting an incident of street harassment (being ‘egged’ from a moving car) to the police. And even in those serendipitous circumstances where the victim happened to have a notepad and pen on hand and the car happened to move away slowly enough to catch the licence plate number, the process of reporting was still a considerable investment of time and effort.

Do police act on street harassment?

Police can only take substantive action on individual instances of street harassment if they are against the law. While many types of harassment are crimes in Australia, many are not. The responses of police to reports of even criminal street harassment can be quite mixed. International law firm DLA Piper (writing in conjunction with iHollaback! And Thomson Reuters) note that “in practice, “one-off” incidents of minor street harassment, such as using offensive language in public which is not threatening, will often not be investigated by the police.” Police in the incident I described above spoke with the young man responsible for throwing eggs to tell him to ‘pull his head in’. Other reports describe police responses as anything from non-existent to actively hostile.

In a broader sense, police in Australia have taken some steps to address street harassment as a larger phenomenon. This includes speaking out about sexism and violence against women and acting in partnership with local government and communities to attempt to design safer public spaces. However, to date, police have not taken any high profile stances targeting street harassment specifically.

Do police commit street harassment?

Short answer, yes. Like any large group of people, within the police there are those who behave inappropriately and deliberately harm the people around them; at the beginning of 2014, 1 in 40 New South Wales police officers had been convicted of a criminal offense. Police forces around Australia have well documented issues with sexist, racist and homophobic violence.

What SHOULD police do?

There are two main reasons why police ought to take action on street harassment.

Firstly, addressing street harassment is within the stated goals of the police. NSW Police, as an example, states its goals thus: “We aim to protect the community and property by preventing, detecting and investigating crime [and]… maintaining social order”. The many forms of street harassment which constitute crimes in Australia fit directly into this credo, and if we acknowledge those which don’t as part of a self-perpetuating spectrum of violence, then addressing these forms of street harassment must be part of effective policing.

Secondly, interactions with police around harassment (either reporting harassment from other members of the public or experiencing harassment from police themselves) are identified as the key area where relationships between police and young people have become confrontational and hostile. Maintaining functioning relationships with the community is vital to effectively fulfilling the role of the police, since they rely on people trusting them and providing them with information.

How?

As addressed above, addressing individual instances of street harassment on a case by case basis has not been effective for police or victims so far, and it will not help to change the attitudes that allow people (including some police) to engage in street harassment with relative impunity. Police are one of many influential public entities that can help to create change in our society. In order to actually make a difference to this issue, they must commit to working with the wider community in partnership to eliminate the prejudices and violence-tolerant attitudes that support street harassment in Australia today.

Tara works with AWAVA (the Australian Women Against Violence Alliance) indulging her love of social media. You can find her on Twitter as @angelbird72 or @Tash_Because or being silly as one half of the ‘slice-of-life’ podcast Heaps Funny But.

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Brazil: When did we become enemies?

By

Juliana Guarany, Brazil, Blog Correspondent

The discussion over street harassment – and violence against women in general – has grown to a level of insanity on the Internet. I have been watching several debates online ending in a series of mutual insults from men to women and vice-versa. On one side is the argument that men are only trying to give a compliment to a stranger. On the other side, women say that this behavior is invasive and annoying, to say the least.

Of course we can find women and men on both sides, but essentially, this has turned into a battle of the sexes in a very aggressive way. Whenever there is an argument against street harassment, a man shows up to show how offended he is by being accused of harassment just by saying a girl is pretty. Or even trying to prove he knows better and women should listen to him. On the other hand, women – mostly feminist activists – simply can’t deal with men anymore and the minute a man decides to talk he receives aggressive answers (not that they aren’t justifiable, this simply happens).

What I don’t understand is: if women are saying this behavior is bad, why is it so hard for men to acknowledge that and simply stop? Why do men counter-argue it by saying it wasn’t their intention to be mean?

Intention vs effect

I’m sure a strange man would not have the intention to hurt a strange woman on the street, but this is the problem right here: no matter what the intention is, the effect of it is unwanted by women. For that reason, and for that reason only, they should stop.

It’s like getting a meat dish for a vegetarian everyday because you think that dish is good, even though the vegetarian doesn’t like it. Just stop!

Instead of stopping, men become aggressive and Internet debates are filled with hate and we can see men and women growing apart. This movement is hurting both sides and not having much of an effect on those who actually practice violence.

So, what should be done?

First of all, if you are a man, think about your actions towards women in general and notice if, maybe, you tend to invade their personal space uninvited. It is important that you pay attention to it and respect a woman just as you would respect another man. Change that and you will be ok.

Now, if you are a man and you don’t catcall and you do respect everyone’s personal spaces, I guess there is no reason for you to be offended by it, is it? So don’t get offended if you’re not the target.

Now, if you’re a woman, know this: it’s hard not to get offended by hurtful responses online, but keep the debate to an upper level, otherwise aggressiveness will just take over.

It is important to understand that a message of respect is being passed here and if we act aggressively, the only message that goes through is more violence.

When we elevate the debate, there is a chance to get the message across and create collaboration. Let’s try not to look at every man as an enemy, so then we can get along and respect each other.

Juliana is a fellow from Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and, together with Hamburg University, in Germany, is creating a digital campaign to connect all feminist initiatives around the globe. Read her blog Whistleblower and follow her on Twitter, @juguarany.

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USA: Rolling Stone’s Failure is Our Opportunity to Believe Survivors

By

LB Klein, Georgia, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

Content warning: sexual violence and media attention

Credit: C-Ville

In late 2014, Rolling Stone released an extensive article entitled “Rape on Campus,” that included the story of “Jackie,” a student who reported that she was gang raped in a fraternity. On Sunday night, the Columbia School of Journalism released an investigative report on how Rolling Stone mishandled their reporting of this story. Some have interpreted Rolling Stone’s journalistic failure as a sign that the pervasive public health problem of sexual assault, particularly on college campuses, is overblown. While journalists should certainly use Columbia’s report as a teaching tool, this debacle should have no bearing on how we view the endemic issue of sexual assault on campus or the necessity that we believe survivors. In fact, believing survivors is more important than ever.

I’m grateful to have had many survivors of sexual violence trust me with their stories. I’ve received these stories whispered in anonymous hotline calls; revealed through the course of twelve hours in an ER or full years in the courtroom; screamed into microphones at speak outs; or given to the world through public activism or anonymous reports. These survivors have been strangers, clients, friends, significant others, and family members. I also see a survivor every day when I look in the mirror.

If I did not have this lived experience as a survivor, advocate, and activist, there are countless studies on the endemic nature of sexual assault in our communities and on our campuses. For every survivor who tells their* story publicly, there are countless others who choose silence as the best decision for their survival. Our culture so endorses the silencing of survivors that speaking out is considered exceptionally brave. The scope of gender-based violence spans all spaces in which we live our lives from the bedroom to the boardroom to the street. Even though street harassment occurs in a public place, speaking out about it is rare and survivors fear the consequences of calling it out, even anonymously.

I have watched the horrified faces of hundreds of survivors as they turn over choices no one should have to make in their minds. Risk scrutiny or to stay silent? Seek justice or to stay silent. Seek solidarity or stay silent? Each choice has drawbacks and is subject to endless public or private criticism. Many survivors choose silence or telling only a few people, chosen strategically. Even after this careful deliberation, survivors are still blamed, betrayed, and called “liars” and “crazy” by the loved ones and systems they hope will help them.

Many survivors certainly live in fear of their abusers but all survivors live in a greater fear of disbelief, harassment, criticism, isolation, community retaliation, loss, and judgment. Survivors who have gone public or sought justice face these issues on an amplified scale and the backlash they face shows other survivors the costs of coming forward.  The response to Rolling Stone’s poor reporting choices is yet another example to survivors that if one story faces scrutiny, all survivors will be assumed to be lying.

Over the past few years, I have read many stories of people faking a cancer diagnosis to solicit donations for their own personal gain. This exploitation of real tragedy is clearly far more nefarious than journalistic or police investigations have even insinuated “Jackie” to be.  These stories of faked illnesses for cash, however, have not inspired us to question friends or strangers when they disclose their suffering to us. We don’t ask, “are you sure you really have cancer? I hear a lot of people lie about having cancer, can you show me your medical records? Are you sure you’re not just looking for attention? You look fine to me, do you really need time off of work or school to get treatment for cancer?”

As a culture, we become collectively appalled that someone would make up a cancer diagnosis, and anyone who tries to use one of these stories as evidence that “cancer survivors lie” would be lambasted. The same consequences should be dealt for those who disbelieve the staggering numbers of survivors of sexual assault on college campus due to scrutiny applied to one story. Even if “Jackie’s” story is patently false, it should not lessen our outrage when we hear about sexual violence. In fact, the response to “Jackie’s” story should cause us to redouble our efforts to believe survivors. This backlash is a reminder of how far we still have to go to foster a survivor supportive culture that is truly intolerant of sexual violence.

Our culture is a rape culture.  Through disbelieving survivors, we perpetuate abuse, violence, and trauma.   According to FBI crime statistics, about 2% of reports of rape prove false, which is consistent with false reporting of other violent crimes. I would much rather give the unwavering benefit of the doubt on the side of that 98%, especially knowing that the reaction a survivor receives when disclosing what happened is the single best predictor of the severity of their trauma reaction and time it will take them to heal.

While none of us truly know “Jackie’s” truth and lived experience, even if her story could be proven to be fabricated, I remain steadfast in my stance that we must believe survivors.  If “Jackie” is a part of that 2%, the potential debunking of her story does not cause the other 98% to evaporate. The public attention to rare false reports, however, does cause survivors to remain silent. The spectacle created by the Rolling Stone story requires us to increase our public, unapologetic support of survivors. We must recognize the suffering of survivors that is exacerbated by the attention paid to this one story and this one article. There has been immense harm done to survivors through this very public scrutiny of one case. Because of Rollins Stone’s failures, we must commit to believing survivors now more than ever.

*I use “their” as a gender neutral pronoun to refer to survivors, recognizing that women and trans people  disproportionately experience sexual violence but men are also sexually assaulted, particularly before the age of 18.  The vast majority of perpetrators are men but there are perpetrators of all genders.

LB is an Atlanta-based advocate, student, educator, and consultant who has dedicated her professional and academic career to ending gender-based violence, supporting survivors, and advancing social justice.  You can follow her on twitter @LB_Klein.

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USA: From Harassment at School to the Streets

By

Dr. Dena Simmons, New York City, USA, Blog Correspondent

Girls working with The Women Worldwide Initiative in Brooklyn

“Leave me alone,” I screamed.  Stop it! Stop!

But he kept inserting himself into my space no matter how hard I pushed him away.

I was in sixth grade when one of the boys from seventh grade cornered me so that he could grope me. After taking what he wanted, he left me in a corner, violated.

This inappropriate touching was an unwelcomed part of my middle school years. During class trips, during transitions in the hallways, at lunch, and at recess, the boys would sneak free-feels of the girls’ butts for fun. Many of us girls disliked the sexual harassment, but back then, no one did anything to protect us.  We did not even have the vocabulary to describe what was happening to us.

Worse, one of my male English teachers would gently pinch my ears and stomach and rub my shoulders intimately, which made his class an unwelcomed part of my middle school years.  I had no power to tell him to stop. I felt paralyzed by his actions.  He touched other girls inappropriately too—without any shame. Fed up, I organized a movement against his casual touching, which included having our parents come into school to complain about his behavior.  The principal reprimanded him, but he kept his job.

I never felt justice from reporting my teacher’s unwanted touches or the harassment from my male classmates—and still today, I walk the streets of New York City, subject to harassment that, for me, began between the walls of my school.  Too often, young feminine bodies are sexually objectified in the very school buildings that should keep them safe.  As a teacher, I would walk through the hallways and hear adolescent boys throwing their bravado around through derogatory comments about their female-bodied peers.

I can’t wait to hit that!

Did you see her ass?

I like her boobs.”

I hear she’s easy. You should go for her.

I want to fuck her.

I would hear stories from my female students who complained about the ways their male peers touched them when no one was looking, the way it bothered and distracted them from learning.  Similar to when I was a middle schooler, many teachers did little to address the unwanted touching and the verbal harassment about which our students complained. Often times, these events happened when we were not looking. Most teachers and school leaders never learn how to handle the inappropriate touching that happens between students at school.

How are we supposed to have safer streets if we have not prepared adults at school to keep our school communities safe from harassment, safe from victimization and bullying?

Our pedagogy as a nation has been so watered down with test preparation that there are so few opportunities to teach students to be respectful and kind to people regardless of their differences, to have conversations about feminism, sexism, and gender with students and colleagues, and to teach lessons about power and privilege among other topics.  There is so much work to do.

As adults, parents, school leaders, big brothers, uncles, teachers, and fathers, let’s do more for our youth. Let’s call out street harassment and other forms of victimization when we see it.  Let’s build our youth’s problem-solving skills, empathy, self- and social awareness, and conflict resolution abilities. And, let’s model the type of respectful, thoughtful, and loving behavior we want to see in our youth.

Dr. Dena Simmons serves as the Associate Director of Education and Training at Yale’s Center for Emotional Intelligence. She is a recent graduate of Teachers College, Columbia University, where her research focused on teacher preparedness to address bullying in the middle school setting.

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Kenya: I Confronted Street Harassers Today

By

Linnet Nyawira Mwangi, Kisumu, Kenya, SSH Blog Correspondent

Over the weekend I attended a friend’s birthday party in town but I had to leave early because I had a busy day the following day. After saying goodbye to my friends I decided to go get a cab outside and declined the offer to be walked out by some friends since everyone was having fun and after all, I would get one outside…or so I thought. After waiting for a few minutes I decide to walk to the next block which is usually more open so that I could get a cab with ease. Three men appeared from the direction I was heading to and from the noise they were making and their sluggish walk, you could easily tell (assume) they were drunk.  The path was well lit so I had no fear and I continued walking towards them.

As I got closer to them, one shouted, “Hey sexy lady where are you cat walking to at this time of the night?”

A second voice asked, “Business is not good today, ha?” By now they were right in front of me.

Another voice crept in “Come with us we can pay you handsomely.”

By now, one of them had blocked my way and as he stepped close to me I shoved him angrily with my purse. This angered his counterparts who in turn started shouting at me in a language I could not understand. I had walked through this street many times during the day and evenings as I left work and I knew there were guards on duty in these business premises and if it got any worse I would scream and draw their attention. But I was not ready to let these men have their way. Harassing every woman they saw walking at night and misjudging us felt totally unacceptable!

By this time I was so angry and I quickly raised my voice at them and told them to treat women with respect and dignity and respect themselves too. One of them asked me why I was talking back at them and whether my mother did not teach me to listen to men talking as he took a step towards me and I told them it was my right to defend myself against harassment. They all burst out laughing asking me what right I was talking about. I then told one of the men to excuse me and if he touched me I would scream loud enough to attract the soldiers who were guarding a bank a few yards away and they would all end up in prison.

This worked and as I walked past them I could hear them shouting after me that I would never get married like other feminists with that kind of attitude. So they actually knew what they were doing if they referred to women who stood up for themselves as feminists? Luckily a cab appeared and I got in and I could not help but feel good that I had actually stood for myself and stopped some men from taking advantage of me. I realised that street harassers know what they are doing they are just preying on scared and fearful women to take advantage of.

Linnet is a student at Maseno University in Kisumu, Kenya pursuing a bachelor’s degree in sociology with IT. Follow her on Twitter @Shantel_lyn and Facebook @lynnette Shantellah.

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