Correspondent, Author at Stop Street Harassment

USA: When will street harassment finally be categorized as a crime?

June 15, 2014 By Correspondent

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

Minister Omonte. (Photo Credit: Ministerio de la Mujer/Flickr)

In case you missed it, Carmen Omonte, Peru’s Minster of Women and Vulnerable Populations, announced her intention to include sexual street harassment in the penal code as a crime.

It’s been reported that sexual harassment and assault on the streets of Peru has recently sparked outrage after actress Magaly Solier was assaulted by a man who masturbated behind her at a bus station. In Peru, sexual street harassment is categorized as a civil offense, not a criminal offense.

While I am all for the idea if making sexual street harassment a crime, how many women need to be harassed before people realize it’s a serious issue? Women and girls experience street harassment every day, so why did it take an actress to be harassed for it to be considered a crime? I truly believe if we just dealt with sexual street harassment in the appropriate manner, we wouldn’t need to wait for someone famous to do something about it.

In Baltimore, I really think we could do a lot better. There’s a lot more we can be doing to protect women and girls from street harassment, and as a whole, we just aren’t doing enough. The only organization I know that’s actively doing work on a consistent basis is Hollaback! Baltimore. They have been doing a great job on educating people on what street harassment is and how people can help to stop it.

Here are a few upcoming summer events on their radar:

June 19 – Hollaback! Baltimore will host a Baltimore Bartenders Safer Spaces Meeting, in which they’ll be chatting with bartenders & bar staff from all over the city face-to-face on crisis response skills and ways to intervene while maintaining a women & LGBTQ-friendly environment.

June 24 – Hollaback! Baltimore will be tabling at the 2014 Baltimore Youth Sexual Health Conference, which is geared towards increasing knowledge & skills among youth to promote health behaviors, especially around sexual health.

June 28 – Hollaback! Baltimore will be co-hosting two “Make Your Own Quilt Square” workshops at the Monument Quilt with FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture. They’ll be working on quilt squares to add to the public monument to support victims of rape and abuse.

While I appreciate everything Hollaback! Baltimore is doing, I still think there are other organizations that can do just as much advocacy around this issue. Just as Carmen Omonte took a stand to stop street harassment in Peru, I feel that our mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, should take a stand too. Not only should she develop a campaign to educated people on street harassment, but she should also work on making it a criminal offense.

I certainly applaud Peru for it’s efforts, but I really hope Baltimore is not waiting for a celebrity to experience street harassment to push forward in stopping it. Street harassment needs to stop now because it’s affecting people who have to deal with it daily.

Instead of clearing out the encampments of the homeless and criminalizing youth, our mayor and every other politician in the state of Maryland need to focus their energy on real challenges. And street harassment for women, girls and the LGBTQ community is most definitely one of them.

Read more on Peru’s initiatives to ending street harassment.

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 brittuniverse.wordpress.com and publicly rants on Twitter, @btiara3.

USA: Spokane Talks About Street Harassment

June 11, 2014 By Correspondent

Lorna M. Hartman, Spokane, WA, SSH Blog Correspondent

Spokane is the second-largest city in Washington state by population, located in a mostly rural area in eastern Washington. Despite its size, to visitors and many residents, it still has a distinctly small-town feel.

Unfortunately, small town or not, street harassment has not passed us by. Fortunately, the discussion about street harassment has not passed us by either. The conversation has at least begun in the Spokane area.

On June 3 our local newspaper, The Spokesman-Review, re-posted a USA Today article by Jaleesa Jones titled “4 Free Apps That Could Help Prevent Sexual Assault.” While the article headline specifies “sexual assault” as a general topic, all four apps listed (bSafe, Circle of 6, Hollaback! and Guardly) were intended to be used as people go about their lives in public spaces—precisely where women suffer street harassment. These apps are useful to anyone out in public who feels unsafe.

The article referenced the recent tragedy of Elliott Rodger’s shootings and the #YesAllWomen hashtag. Jones wrote, “The amount [of] interest in the hashtag points to a blatant truth: Sexual assault and street harassment are far too common.”

Inlander is a local alternative weekly newspaper that publishes news and entertainment pieces for a large geographic area around Spokane. On May 29 it ran a story called “One of the billion tales that yes, all women, can tell about sexism” written by Taylor Weech, a local writer, photographer and radio host. Weech actually began writing her piece on street harassment before Rodger committed his murders, and she finished writing it after the news had spread.

Weech wrote before the shootings, “I felt a lot of pressure from past conversations to pre-empt the commenters in proving that street harassment is not flattering, that it is one of many disturbing expressions of male entitlement to sex and women’s bodies, and that it is part of a continuum of disrespect for female autonomy that too often culminates in severe or even deadly violence…”, citing the new Tumblr site “When Women Refuse.”

After the attacks, Weech wrote, “In an unfortunate twist of fate, the proof of that statement became the most visible news story of the weekend…”

Weech tells several of her own stories of harassment–#YesAllWomen have those stories to tell—and concludes with an appeal to teach our children differently for the sake of both girls and boys. One commenter in the thread of her article wrote of how sad it is that “it takes a man writing a hate-filled manifesto and then going on a killing spree to really make a conversation about this problem hit the mainstream.”

Rodger’s murders, while I give them no credit for anything good, have resulted in a more open discussion of what it’s like to walk around female in Spokane. It hasn’t always been a welcome discussion or a wanted topic—but now it’s out there and it isn’t going back. We will all be better for continually shining a light on it.

SRTC is Spokane County’s designated metropolitan transportation planning organization. The SRTC Transportation blog featured a piece on street harassment back in 2012 called “Website Aims to Stop Street Harassment” and described StopStreetHarassment.org. (I didn’t know SRTC was so plugged in!)

The writer, an unnamed female SRTC staffer, mentions a few of her own experiences with street harassment. She says of Spokane, “Besides being irritating and in some cases scary, street harassment limits people’s mobility and access to public spaces. It is a form of gender violence and makes our downtown and other areas less inviting and therefore less vibrant.” She’s right. People don’t realize how different downtown Spokane would be, particularly in the evenings, if no one ever had to worry about being harassed or followed. It’s an extensive problem, and Spokane unfortunately isn’t unique at all in facing this problem.

Spokane does, however, have the beginnings of action and conversation around street harassment. Even further back, in mid-2011, activists organized SlutWalk Spokane. SlutWalk, you might remember, started after a Toronto police officer participating in a law school campus safety session counseled female students that if they didn’t want to be sexually victimized, “Don’t dress like a slut.” The group’s Facebook page is still active today.

While the reality is still depressing, these lights shining publicly give me hope for the future.

Lorna is raising three young, kindhearted male allies and has worked on rape and interpersonal violence since the 1990s, including serving on the local rape hotline, answering calls, and driving to emergency rooms to advocate for victims and connect them with resources they needed.

USA: Interview with “Streets To Call Our Own” Filmmaker

May 6, 2014 By Correspondent

Katie Monroe, Philadelphia, PA, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

I had the honor of sitting down with Kara Lieff, a Temple University senior getting ready to graduate with a degree in Film & Media Arts and a minor in Women’s Studies. Over the course of her undergraduate career, she’s become a documentarian of street harassment and anti-street-harassment efforts in Philadelphia. Her fifteen-minute documentary on the topic, “Streets To Call Our Own,” premiered last week at Temple University.

What inspired you to make films about street harassment?

My first interest in the topic of street harassment came from my older sister. She has done workshops on street harassment. She was a women’s studies/gender studies major…a super feminist. So I got a lot of that kind of stuff from her; she definitely influenced me. When I moved to Philly for school, it was different from [living in the suburbs.] That kind of opened my eyes.

I did my first project on street harassment during my sophomore year. We had to do an “action project” – something that propelled viewers to action. I wanted to propel viewers to talk about street harassment, or if they engaged in that behavior or see it, to do something about it. So I made this short PSA: Asking For It. Then I did another one junior year for another short class project: “Make A Woman Smile.”

And from there you decided to do your Senior Project about street harassment. It’s such an under-discussed topic – did that affect your choice?

Yeah. There’s not a lot of media about it. Compared to other things…and I feel like a lot of times, the media that’s out there is within “the circle.” So that’s one of my biggest challenges – I have this project, now how can I show it to people who don’t know about the topic, who I actually want to reach? Of course it’s great to have people within the community watch it and appreciate it, but that might not make as big of an impact.

How did you get started?

Last April I filmed the sidewalk-chalking and subway discussions for Anti-Street-Harassment week, which was how I got in touch with Nuala Cabral [she was the organizer]. And I think that’s where I met Rochelle Keyhan and Anna Kegler [from Hollaback! Philly].

“Meet Us on the Sidewalk” | “Meet Us on the Subway, Part I” | “Meet Us on the Subway, Part II”

Then there were a couple of things happening last November. Hollaback! Philly hosted a talk at Wooden Shoe Books, and then the next morning was the City Council Hearing. So I went to the City Council hearing and I filmed that. [Side note – the hearing was where I met Kara!] The following weekend, I did sit-down interviews with [Hollaback! Philly leaders] Rochelle and Anna. And then it just kind of snowballed from there. I wanted them to keep me in the loop about what they were doing, and they’ve been so helpful…they’re so busy themselves, but they’ve taken the time to sit down with me, to answer all my crazy questions, email back and forth a billion times.

And this point I’m geeking out – because I look up to them, you know what I mean? And now I know them as people, not just as “Hollaback Philly.” I feel weird talking about myself, promoting myself…so I never would have imagined that I would be one to know all these people in the community. And now I do!

That’s great! I feel the same way about the bike community in Philadelphia – so welcoming, incorporating me into the fabric of what’s going on…it’s amazing. So what happened next?

At the City Council hearing I met Jordan Gwendolyn Davis, and I knew that I wanted to interview her, because she has a unique perspective on street harassment.

What changed over the course of the project?

Well, my original proposal was just to talk about the Anti-Street-Harassment movement in Philly. And then I realized that I really needed to have people share their stories. I can’t just talk about what people are doing to fight this problem without explaining what the problem is.

Especially if you want it to be accessible to a broader audience.

Yeah. So at some point I made that shift. And I decided I wanted to interview people about their experiences with street harassment – just regular people [not necessarily involved in the movement]. So I interviewed three people – and we went to the location where they were harassed to film. Everyone had such unique perspectives – I didn’t have time to fit it all into my 15 minute project.

My first subject was harassed at Temple. Basically she was taking off her sweater, because it was hot out, and this man driving by yelled out, “Ooh yeah baby, take it all off.” And it really affected her – first of all, it ruined her day. I mean it happened in September, and she still remembers that incident. She reported it to Temple Police and that got nowhere, which is very disappointing…

And the next person talked about how every morning, she walks one block to the train, and she called it “a gauntlet of street harassment.” And someone actually said something to her while we were filming! And she brought in the aspect of how she used to go [a different block], but that’s out of the way, and why should she have to change her route? She should be able to go wherever she wants.

And then a third woman I interviewed was harassed in Fishtown. And she talked about how a bunch of workers harassed her, and so she called the number on their truck and reported it to their supervisor. And she doesn’t know if anything actually happened, but at least the person she talked to was really supportive, which was kind of a nice story. A lot of times don’t want to report it, because they think they’ll be laughed at – and that could totally happen, but at least in her case that didn’t happen, which was really validating.

And then I included Jordan and Sarah’s story from the testimony. And then Erin from Hollaback animated some of the stories – so there’s animation in the film.

Have you gotten any negative feedback as you’ve been filming?

Well, most of the people who’ve seen it are my classmates at this point. One of the criticisms is that my classmates wanted me to include the other side of the story – like, a man who didn’t think it was a big deal and why he thought that. But for various reasons, I ended up not having that viewpoint in this film. I think it’s really nice to have these people [folks who have been harassed] just tell their side of the story and not necessarily have a rebuttal in there. In a longer piece, that might work better…

When will this get screened?

It premier[ed] on April 30^th at Temple University, with all of the senior projects.

And then on May 6^th, it’ll be part of Diamond Screen, a film festival at Temple. It’s been nominated for Best Nonfiction Film. [For more info on that screening, see the Diamond Screen Film Festival website. Good luck, Kara!]

Will it be available online?

No – it disqualifies me from entering it into other film festivals if I post it online, and also some people who donated to the Kickstarter get the DVD, so I didn’t want to take away from that.

What was the Kickstarter experience like?

We were paired with producers for our projects, and my producer pushed me to do it. And honestly, I really just wanted to pay the people who were helping me: my Editor, my Director of Photography, and Erin who was doing the animations, and then music and sound. So that was most of the budget!

It was a nerve-wracking process…but towards the end, everyone donated – I got alerts on my email, so I’d be checking…but it’s a great feeling when someone you don’t even know donates to your project! And we did make our goal.

So the film will be shown at these screenings, and then is your long-term goal to do a bigger project?

Yes! I have so much more material, and there’s so much more material I could get. My obstacle after graduating will be the equipment – because right now I can rent equipment from Temple – but I won’t have access to it once I graduate. So my first step is saving up to get at least a camera.

Long term, I definitely want to make a longer film. Realistically, features take years…so I’m not going to stress too much about it right now, but I definitely want to at some point. And I really want to plan events over the summer using Streets To Call Our Own – programs, talkbacks, stuff like that. Cause I don’t want to just make it and have it sit there – not do anything with it.

Any closing thoughts?

Well, the structure of the film is that first I want to define what street harassment is. And then move into people’s personal experiences with it, and then end with what people are doing here in Philly to fight back against it. I guess ultimately I just hope that it helps people understand – on some level – this issue. For the people who don’t know about it at all, hopefully I can teach them something. And with the personal stories – I want to humanize the issue. To say, “Look, these are real people in your city who are experiencing this! This is a real thing that happens all the time!”

In talking to Kara, I was struck by two things – one, how inspiring it is that Kara has incorporated this issue so fully into her undergraduate work and is using her filmmaking skills to make a real difference in our community. Two, how lucky Philadelphia’s Anti-Street-Harassment movement is to have a documentarian in its midst – I’m so excited to see what’s next for both this movement and Kara’s career!

Learn more about Streets to Call Our Own by checking out its website, Facebook, and Twitter (@STCOOfilm).

Katie Monroe founded the Women Bike PHL campaign at the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia and she works at the Philly nonprofit Gearing Up, which gives some of Philadelphia’s most marginalized women – those in transition from incarceration, addiction, and/or abuse – the opportunity to ride bicycles for exercise, transportation, and personal growth. Follow her on Twitter, @cmon_roe.

USA: “Stop Telling Women To Smile” Comes To Baltimore

April 30, 2014 By Correspondent

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

During the week of April 21st – 27th, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh traveled to Baltimore to introduce Stop Telling Women To Smile (STWTS), which is an on-going traveling public art series that attempts to address gender based street harassment.

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh is an illustrator and painter based in Brooklyn, NY who is mostly known for her oil paintings, but recently branched out into public art as a muralist. STWTS started in the fall of 2012 and was born out of the idea that street art can make a difference.

On two different days, Hollaback! Baltimore co-sponsored an open discussion and artist talk at Station North Chicken Box in Baltimore City. The process of STWTS consists of shooting photographs of local women, using them as references for drawing, and composing them into a design with captions that speak directly to offenders of street harassment. The large black and white prints that feature local women are then wheat pasted throughout cities all over the country and aims at raising awareness of the unwanted, unwelcomed, and dangerous treatment of women in the public.

The open discussion was held on Monday, April 21st and allowed women share how street harassment affected them in different areas and what was so specific about it. The more I listened to other people’s stories, the more comfortable I became to share my own. It has never been easy to discuss my experiences with street harassment, but this discussion provided me with a safe space to vent and connect with others who felt the same.

Afterwards, I met with Tatyana to tell her what I wanted to say to my harassers and to have my photo taken. After discussing a few ideas, we both decided to use “Men do not own the streets,” which would be the quote used if she did my portrait.

The artist talk held on Thursday, April 24th involved Tatyana discussing her background in visual art and how STWTS was created along with questions from the audience. This session was specifically interesting to me because I too have a background in the arts and have recently decided to incorporate feminist art into my work as an activist.

A couple days after while browsing through Instagram, I discovered a photo of Tatyana wheat pasting her very first piece at Station North and noticed that the mural included my portrait. I had no idea I would be featured in the first mural and was overwhelmed with empowerment and emotion when I saw it.

STWTS coming to Baltimore is one of the most memorable experiences I’ll ever have. This powerful campaign allows women to stand up to their harassers and it sends a strong message that street harassment is a serious issue that affects women worldwide.

The message is clear: Stop Telling Women To Smile.

USA: Don’t Let Their Sexism Fuel Your Racism

April 30, 2014 By Correspondent

Heather Frederick, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

Race has always been an issue in the United States, and even now everyone from Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to basketball legend LeBron James are talking about its impact. From how we speak to how we’re educated to what job opportunities are afforded to us (or not) our race is one of the most impactful pieces of our identity. Feminism has recently learned the importance of examining intersectionality–how the intersection of each facet of one’s identity comes together to create an individual who is simultaneously privileged and oppressed by life in America.

Much as it can be difficult for someone who is oppressed in many ways to see their privilege(s), when someone is harassed, or worse attacked, it can be difficult to recognize the humanity of the person being violent. While I believe in nonviolence, especially strategic nonviolent action in the form of civil resistance, to create change, I am not nonviolent on principle like Gandhi or King. I believe that I have the right to use violence to defend myself from physical harm, however, if the violence coming at me is not physically damaging but emotional, how do you defend against that?

One thing I make every effort to do is to see a street harasser as an individual. Period. This one person, or perhaps carload of people, is acting alone, not in cahoots with the Universe to make my day worse or make me feel unsafe. As a feminist I recognize that this one individual acting out sexism and misogyny is in cahoots with the Patriarchy to continue to oppress women/LGBTQ folk, but, this individual does not speak for all men, nor does he speak for all people of his race, or class, or education level. He speaks for himself alone.

Because America is still so segregated, it’s common for people to live in communities where they don’t often interact with people of other races. The fewer interactions one has with members of any given race, the more likely the negative interactions they do have will stand out. And because rape culture still encourages the idea that “real rape” is a black man jumping out of the bushes to rape a white woman, the reality that most sexual assaults are committed against someone of the same race as the perpetrator is ignored. While it can be difficult to be logical after being harassed, reminding yourself that not all people of the harasser’s race are “like that” can help you keep an open heart to the rest of your community.

The other tactic that has been therapeutic for me lately has been to remind myself, after I am harassed, of how many men, how many cars have passed me up until that point that have *not* harassed me. For those men are the example we want others to follow. We are surrounded by men all the time who treat us with respect, and we should remind ourselves of these men when we are harassed. We should point them out to the guy at the bus stop who won’t leave us alone. We should enlist their help in re-educating men about what masculinity and being a man mean. We should not let their sexism fuel our racism.

Heather Frederick works a Supervisor for The National Dating Abuse Helpline, www.loveisrespect.org. Her passions include intersectional feminism, reproductive justice, languages, travel, blogging at www.FeministActivism.com (@FeministSNVA) and bringing an end to human rights abuses.

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