Correspondent, Author at Stop Street Harassment

USA: Anti-women trolls try to hijack #YouOkSis Twitter discussion

July 17, 2014 By Correspondent

Brittany Oliver, Baltimore, MD, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

Fighting street harassment was never an easy job.

In case you missed it, Feminista Jones, a popular blogger, Black feminist and creator of the #YouOkSis hashtag, faced harsh backlash from Internet trolls for starting a discussion on how Black men should support Black women to combat street harassment. As motivating as this sounds, some people just couldn’t handle women speaking out and it took a turn for the worst.

With what was supposed to be a virtual space to express our frustrations to create dialogue, men immediately attacked Black women and their allies. At some point, I decided to join in on the conversation and the same thing happened to me.

How bad was it? You be the judge.

In defense of the movement, I tweeted back at trolls and was called an “angry Black feminist” who was on a mission to help organizations like Stop Street Harassment (SSH) put Black men in jail.

Really? Is that the best they could come up with? The work I do during the day consists of upholding racial equality and combating racism in all forms, especially within the criminal justice system. And believe me, the LAST thing I want is for the prison population to increase. That made absolutely no sense and is a cop out from the real problem: men not taking responsibilities for their actions.

This debate made me think about a film I saw in college called “Tough Guise: Violence, Media & the Crisis in Masculinity,” which is headlined by activist and educator Jackson Katz. Katz argues that the epidemic of male violence that plagues American society needs to be understood and addressed as part of a much larger cultural crisis in masculinity and I couldn’t agree more.

We live in a society that tells women and girls to dress a certain way to avoid unwanted attention and abuse. It blames victims first and asks questions later. It teaches men that they are entitled to women’s bodies and showing aggression is the “American” way.

Because the hashtag #YouOkSis wasn’t about the trolls, they were determined to ruin a time of solidarity. What people need to realize is that Stop Street Harassment has given me more support than any man ever has. Now, let that sink in for a minute.

If street harassment didn’t exist, why are organizations like SSH and Hollaback! Baltimore doing work on these issues? Why is visual artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh traveling around the country to wheat paste portraits quoting things women want to say to their harassers? Street harassment is not an illusion and these are real issues and challenges we face every day.

In 2014, SSH commissioned a 2,000-person national survey in the USA and found that 65% of all women had experienced street harassment, while 25% of men were harassed. With all of the research it took to get these results, why would anybody make this stuff up?

Instead of Black men supporting Black women on this issue, sadly some of them let us down once again. When was the last time you heard a woman deny a man’s experience of being stop and frisked by the police? Most likely never.

And although anti-women trolls hijacked the #YouOkSis hashtag, they proved exactly why the fight to ending street harassment continues.

So, what’s next? Continue to stress the importance of ending street harassment among your family, friends and allies in your community because as you can clearly see, the work is far from over.

Brittany Oliver is a recent graduate of Towson University and works in the non-profit communications sector and supports local anti-street harassment advocacy through Hollaback! Baltimore. She blogs at http://btiarao.wordpress.comand publicly rants on Twitter, @btiarao.

USA: #YouOkSis Street Harassment Tweet Chat

July 14, 2014 By Correspondent

Kirstin Kelly, Monterey, California, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

As an editor for The Women’s International Perspective, I often find myself involved in Twitter chats and campaigns that deal with social issues, especially issues pertaining to the treatment of women around the world. On July 11, I participated in one such chat using #YouOKSis (here is the recap). It quickly became clear that this was not your ordinary Twitter chat.

The sheer numbers of trolls and naysayers making themselves heard was truly astounding. The #YouOKSis chat was intended to be a discussion about street harassment faced by Black women. In particular, it called for men of color to engage in bystander intervention when they witness women of color being harassed. These kinds of conversations are important. Stop Street Harassment’s recent National Street Harassment Report demonstrated that persons of color face harassment at higher rates than their white counterparts and that overwhelmingly it is men who do the harassing, regardless of the victims’ gender.

The #YouOKSis chat aimed to address this problem on two fronts. It first and foremost provided a space for women of color to share their experiences. #YesAllWomen, a campaign in which I also took part, similarly invited women to share their experiences. However, it did not address how race plays a role in a person’s experience with street harassment the way #YouOKSis did. The second critical component of the #YouOKSis chat which is largely absent from other similar conversations is that it attempted to educate men on how they can actively become part of the solution by intervening on behalf of people facing harassment.

Participating in both of these conversations provided me with a tiny window into the complexities of issues that are both racial and gendered. #YouOKSis drew a level of harassment I could not have expected. Not only were people complaining in the usual manner that women sharing their experiences were creating problems where previously there hadn’t been any, being whiny, or failing to recognize that not everyone is guilty of harassment, but many of them were critiquing participants for turning on their own race.

The viciousness of these attacks is exactly why campaigns like #YouOKSis are important. We need to do more to create safe spaces for people to share their stories about how race, sexism, and classism affect their lives because without fostering a better dialogue, any attempt made to solve these problems will be limited by the experiences of the organizers.

Furthermore, a lot of the criticism was coming from men who felt attacked, pointing out that not all men are guilty. To me, it seemed the larger point of the conversation was not to hate on men for harassing women, but rather to help educate men that are not allies yet and to further empower those that already are by giving them more to go on than simply “don’t harass people.” For social issues that are gendered, engaging the entire population, those with group identities most common to aggressors is critical. Male allies are just as important to changing the norms of acceptable behavior as women; they do make up half the population after all!

My guess is that allies both from within and outside of racial groups are similarly critical in creating the changes that are so desperately needed.

Kirstin is a Master’s Student in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and a news editor at the Women’s International Perspective (The WIP). You can follower her on Twitter at @KirstinKelley1, where she regularly posts about human rights issues around the world.

Belgium: Interview with Ingrid of Hollaback! Brussels

July 14, 2014 By Correspondent

Dearbhla Quinn, Dublin Ireland/Brussels, Belgium, SSH Blog Correspondent

wechalkwalksafefeel-1 — ChalkWalk N°2: @night, June 2012. Credit: Ingrid Vanderhoeven / Hollaback! Brussels

Street harassment is a fact of life for women and LGBQTIA people living in cities all over the world, however, since arriving in Brussels, I have experienced more street harassment than ever before and it was my frustration with this that inspired me to volunteer to contribute to this blog.

Hollaback! an international organisation of activists dedicated to combatting street harassment, works to empower those who are harassed, and Ingrid Vanderhoeven, one of the four founders of the Brussels branch, kindly agreed to discuss their work with me.

Ingrid explains that while Hollaback! is “an international movement with local volunteers and activists”, it is also a method “to respond to street harassment. It’s responding in a way that suits you and it started out as a blog, but now it’s turned into an international movement …Through the internet, but also through on the ground activism, through street actions and yeh, stuff like that.”

Ingrid was born in Brussels, grew up in Flanders and speaks Dutch, and it was only upon arriving back Brussels for university that she first encountered consistent street harassment.

“I had one particularly bad incident in which a group of men followed me and one grabbed my eh… vagina,” she said. After this and other incidents, Ingrid began to change her own behaviour in an attempt to avoid these unpleasant encounters. However, upon returning to Brussels after some time away, her perspective changed.

“(I realised) how much I’d given up my freedom and it was only just coming back into Brussels (that) I decided to do something about it.”

When Ingrid attended the Brussels ‘Slutwalk’ in 2011, she discovered a like-minded community both on and off-line. On the Slutwalk Facebook group “there was a German girl (Angelika Hild) that posted something about Hollaback, and we started a conversation and there with two other girls I didn’t know…one was American (Anna Whaley) and another one was also Belgian (Julie Richel), like me, but from the French speaking part…we just came together in a café and we just discussed if we could start one in Brussels, and that’s how Hollaback Brussels started.”

Inspired by their experience at the ‘Slutwalk’, which Ingrid described as an “empowering… demonstration against rape culture”, these four girls were ambitious in their desire to make Hollaback more than just an online platform.

“When we started we had these ideas of creating empowering experiences for women by sharing our stories of street harassment together, like our experiences, in a sort of sharing circle, and then going back to the spot where it happened. And we started doing and then writing in chalk on the pavement that this was the place where I was street harassed, but also leaving a message for their harasser,” she said.

“Chalk Walks” have become something of a Hollaback! Institution, and hearing these same methods and sentiments from Ingrid as I’d heard from Vanessa of the Dublin branch, I got a strong sense of the unity existing within this network of feminist activists and like Vanessa, Ingrid is confident in her identity as a feminist. “There seems to be a reluctance to identify with the word ‘femme’ in feminist, people want to be called humanists… But I do consider myself a feminist,” she stated.

Holla.Rev.Q.1-1 — Quentin Daspremont : Hollaback! Brussels’ current Co-Director and French Coordinator. Credit: Ingride Vanderhoeven

Hollaback! Brussels is currently in a stage of renewal as Ingrid is the only remaining original member still living in Brussels. This renewal makes it clear that feminism is not just for femmes. “There’s now a guy that joined, which is nice. So it’s just me and Quentin at the moment and there’s three new people joining, so I think we’ll be going through a change, because when they join they will have new ideas, new plans.”

Ingrid and her team seem to have no shortage of new ideas, from branching out from collecting stories, to using this experience to conduct a research, to visiting schools. “We have a little creative project for school, that when we find the funds, that we would like to do” as well as “developing a box with cards that can be given to harassers…we wanted to provide people with a sort of reacting kit.” It is no exaggeration when Ingrid concludes, “We have a lot of ideas.”

Dearbhla graduated from BESS (Business and Sociology), in Trinity College Dublin, last year. She currently lives in Brussels, Belgium, where she has a think-tank internship working in the areas of gender, equality, and employment. Follow her on Twitter @imoshedinheels and her blogs.

TRANSLATION BY SENNA REES:

Straatintimidatie maak deel uit van het dagelijkse leven van vrouwen en LGBTQIA mensen over de hele wereld. Maar sinds mijn aankomst in Brussel heb ik meer straatintimidatie moeten ondergaan dan ooit, en dit vormde de bron van mijn inspiratie om een bijdrage aan deze blog te leveren.

Hollaback, een internationale organisatie toegewijd aan de bestrijding van straatintimidatie, streeft ernaar de slachtoffers een stem te geven, en Ingrid Vanderhoeven, een van de vier oprichters van de Brusselse afdeling, was zo vriendelijk om hun werk toe te lichten.

Ingrid leg uit dat hoewel Hollaback! “een internationale beweging met plaatselijke vrijwilligers en activisten” is, het ook een manier is om ‘om te gaan en te reageren op straatintimidatie’. “Het is een reactie geven op je eigen manier die jou het beste past, en het begon allemaal als een blog, maar nu is het een internationale beweging geworden… Dankzij het internet, maar ook door plaatselijke acties en acties op straat, en jah, zulke dingen.” Ingrid groeide op in Brussel en leerde straatintimidatie te aanvaarden als een constante van het leven, totdat ze op een dag een zeer nare ervaring meemaakte. “Het was voornamelijk door een zeer ongewenst voorval, waarin een groep mannen me volgde en een ervan graaide naar mijn…euhm… vagina.” Na deze en andere ervaringen, begon Ingrid haar gedrag te veranderen in de hoop deze onaangename confrontaties te vermijden. Maar bij haar terugkeer in Brussel na een tijdje weg te zijn, begon haar perspectief te veranderen: “ik besefte hoeveel vrijheid ik had opgegeven en het was bij mijn terugkeer naar Brussel dat ik besloot om er iets aan te doen”.

Toen Ingrid de Brusselse versie van de “Slutwalk” in 2011 bijwoonde, ontdekte ze een gelijkgestemde gemeenschap zowel on-line als offline. “En zo deed ik mee in die Slutwalk en was er een Facebook event en een Facebook groep en daarin zat een Duits meisje (Angelike Hild) die iets poste over Hollaback, en we begonnen een discussie en er waren twee andere meisjes die ik niet kende… eentje was een Amerikaans (Anna Whaley) en de andere een Belgische (Julie Richel) zoals ik, maar uit het Franstalige gedeelte. We ontmoetten elkaar in een café en we besproken of we eentje in Brussel zouden kunnen oprichten, en zo begon Hollaback Brussels.”

Geinspireerd door haar ervaring tijden de “Slutwalk”, die Ingrid beschrijft als een krachtige demonstratie tegen de rape culture, waren deze vier dames ambitieus om Hollaback om te vormen tot meer dan een online platform. “Toen we begonnen hadden we enkele ideeën om daadkrachtige ervaringen te creëren voor vrouwen, door het delen van onze eigen verhalen van straatintimidatie, in een soort van kring, en dan terug te gaan naar de plaats van het voorval. En dat deden we en dan schreven we ook in krijt op de stoep ‘dit was de plek waar ik werd lastig gevallen op straat”, en lieten we ook een boodschap na voor de dader.’

‘Chalk Walks’ zijn zowat een Hollaback! gebruik geworden, en toen ik dezelfde methodes en opvattingen hoorde van Ingrid zoals die van Vanessa van de Dublin afdeling, kreeg ik een zeer sterke indruk van eendracht binnen dit netwerk van geëmancipeerde activisten. En net zoals Vanessa is Ingrid overtuigd van haar identiteit als feministe. “Er lijkt wel een afkeer te zijn om geïdentificeerd te worden met het woord ‘femme’ in feminist, mensen worden liever humanisten genoemd… Maar ik beschouw mezelf als feminist.’ Hollaback! Brussel doorgaat in feite een stadium van hernieuwing, want Ingrid is de laatste van de vier stichtende leden die nog in Brussel woont. Die hernieuwing maakt duidelijk dat feminisme niet enkel voor ‘femmes’ is: “er is dus nu een man die erbij is gekomen, wat leuk is. Het is dus nu enkel ik en Quentin op dit moment, en er zijn drie nieuwe leden, dus ik denk dat er verandering op til is, want met hun erbij zullen er ook nieuwe ideeën en nieuwe plannen ontstaan.” Hollaback! Brussel en hun associatie met holebi verenigingen zijn een goed voorbeeld van hoe feministische organisaties partneren met andere verenigingen om steun te bieden aan de slachtoffers van gendergerelateerd geweld.

Ingrid en haar team hebben geen tekort aan nieuwe ideeën, gaande van het inzamelen van verhalen, het gebruiken van die ervaringen om onderzoek te verrichten, tot het bezoeken van scholen. “We hebben een creatief projecteren voor op school dat we zouden willen gebruiken als we de fondsen ervoor verwerven” “We willen ook een doos met kaarten ontwikkelen om die te geven aan de daders… We willen mensen een soort van ‘reactie kit’ geven. Het is niet overdreven wanneer Ingrid besluit dat ze “heel veel ideeën” hebben.

USA: “Lock Up Your Daughters”: Teaching Them Early?

July 11, 2014 By Correspondent

Kasumi Hirokawa, PA, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

When I was scrolling through my Facebook feed this afternoon, I saw a photograph of a plump baby boy innocently smiling at a sock monkey. But neither the smile nor the plush monkey caught my attention first. Not even the bright green frame that matched that shirt. It was his bright green shirt (or a onesie) that made me linger on the photo. The graphics of the shirt said: Lock Up Your Daughters.

I think it was meant to be cute. It was meant to be funny. It was meant to be a corny innuendo, with a dash of age-appropriate naughtiness only his older relatives are able to chuckle at. Only that, for me, it wasn’t any of those things. I was made uncomfortable. Because I knew the woman who posted the photo has a daughter who is in elementary school.

To me, the slogan screams: this boy will grow up to be a stud; tell your girls to shut their legs while I, as a parent of the irresistibly charming boy, will do nothing to prevent him from taking away the purity of your precious princesses.

That makes me fear what the baby’s shirt may teach the little girl and the little boy about themselves, what is expected of them and how they view others around them. Will the lesson be that it is the responsibility of parents who have daughters to police their sexuality? Are girls responsible for protecting their purity? Is confining girls’ movement the only solution for them not to be bothered? Is sex something men take away from women? Is a woman’s worth dependent on how many sexual advances she refuses before marriage? If she is not properly “lock[ed] up,” does she deserve anything bad happening to her?

Of course, I’m not saying the boy’s parents were to blame for dressing him in such a shirt. Sexism is so insidious yet pervasive, it is hard to catch. The saying goes that a fish doesn’t know that it is swimming in water.

Rearing a child is no easy task, let alone raising a future feminist in the society infected with misogyny. But I hope the sock monkey-loving baby boy will grow up to be a man who stands up for his sister, not because he thinks she should be locked up but he sees her as a human being whose rights are equally important as his own.

Kasumi is a recent graduate from Penn State with a BA in journalism. Her writing has been published in Valley Magazine, City Weekend Shanghai, Penn State GeoBlog and Shanghai Daily. You can follow her on Twitter, @kasumihrkw

USA: Phone camera shutters and women-only cars: Japan’s answers to chikan

July 10, 2014 By Correspondent

Kasumi Hirokawa, PA, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

Recently, I ran into a friend of mine who graduated from Penn State in May. She was on a month-long graduation trip to various locations in the Middle East and Asia, including Japan. She shared her stories of exotic food and unfamiliar customs she came across and I listened eagerly. I always enjoy good travel stories.

She said she enjoyed visiting Asia but was bugged by leering from locals. She attributed it to her being one of very few white girls in the vicinity. People were probably curious, she said. Some would stand too close to her when they hiss “helloooo.” Others would try to take sneaky pictures of her, only to be caught because of their shutter sounds. Street harassment was there to spoil the fun, like always.

Ah, the camera shutters. They were doing something to curb chikan crimes after all. Chikan is a term for a sexual predator and crimes involving one, be it unwanted flashing or groping, in Japan.

I remembered that, in Japan, it is impossible to turn off the shutter sounds on camera phones. Women commuters filed complaints that chikans wouldn’t stop taking upskirt photos in packed train cars. A bill called the Camera Phone Predator Alert Act, which required all mobile devices to have camera shutter sounds that could not be turned off, was proposed in 2009. The camera shutters were sort of a follow-up to women-only train cars that were implemented in 2001.

I haven’t had the experience of owning a camera phone with a mandatory shutter sound or riding a women-only train car since I moved to China, so I am not in a position to say how effective they are in deterring chikans.

While I do not oppose the shutter sounds, I am not fond of women-only train cars. First, they are not always women-only. There are a certain number of designated cars on a train with pink signs on the windows with hours. During those hours (typically rush hours in the morning and the evening), do they become women-only cars.

I know women-only cars were proposed by well-meaning policymakers. However, limiting women’s presence in public spaces is at best reductive and at worst, downright sexist. It’s easy to tell women to ride on designated cars or sign up for self-defense classes. It’s easy to blame a victim that she should have known better than to not get on the women-only car. But women-only cars are not dealing with the problem at its roots: men who harass women on trains. I’d like to see “Beware of chikans!” billboards replaced with ones that say, “Don’t be a chikan! Make public places safe for everyone!”

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