Correspondent, Author at Stop Street Harassment

Scotland: Single Woman Policy

January 21, 2014 By Correspondent

Rocío Andrés, Scotland, SSH Blog Correspondent

How-people-in-Muslim-countries-prefer-women-to-dress-in-public — Via Muslim Village

It´s almost one year since Hollaback! Edinburgh conducted a survey asking young people (12-25 years-old), mostly females (85%), about their experiences of street harassment. The study aimed to answer questions like where the street harassment usually took place, what type of experience was or how they felt after the incident. The results were wandering around in my head for a few months.

On average, 60 to 85% of the respondents had been harassed by being shouted at, whistled at, told remarks about their appearance, made unconfortable by harassers being too close, told obscene gestures, touched with no consent or had their way blocked.

The consequences of such experiences had been great. For example, more than 50% of them avoided going out at certain times, more than 70% avoided specific places and 80% avoided eye contact.

In other words, street harassers transform habits and behaviours.

As a woman, you know you must dodge shortcuts or parks at night. You should not obviously be listening to your iPod and should systematically look over your shoulders every two minutes to see that no one is following you. You should cross the street if you happen to see a group of overly drunk and/or overly loud guys. And if you can’t avoid being near them, you will never look at their eyes. You just set them on the horizon or perhaps lower your head to watch your almost military pace.

They also said those experiences had made them feel sad, disgusted, scared, nervous, unsafe, embarrassed objectified, disrespected, angry and horrible.

Last Christmas a campaign promoted by Colin Keir, the Edinburgh Western MSP, indicated that things have not probably changed much this year.

Basically in response to the unsafe situation for women, TAXI and some private firms agreed on establishing a system in which women travelling alone would have preference. Even some firms were already offering a single woman policy. Of course, this is a very much appreciated gesture. You want to get home safe, not to be harassed, not to feel fragile and not to be alert, which is the same as to be anxious.

In any case, the bad guys are still around. And also, sometimes you just want to walk the streets late, so what?

All this brings me back to a recent study carried out by the University of Michigan´s Institute for Social Research on how people in Muslim countries prefer women to dress in public.

In it, you can see that people are very happy with women who are fully covering their hair, although not necessarily their face. And that leads me to Egypt, where street harassment occurs on a daily basis whether you obey the conservative norm of hijab/niqab (head covering/full face and body veil) or not and which last November was also considered the worst country in the Arab world for women.

Thus, what I think. You can veil your women, you can reserve seats exclusively for them in the bus, entire subway cars, you can tell them not to walk in the Meadows when it´s dark, you can give them a cab, keep them in a box if you want and still, street harassment happens. What´s more, even considering sexual assaults, the very truth is that, as Jacq Kelly, the chair of anti-street harassment campaign group Hollaback! Edinburgh, pointed out, any measure to protect women is welcome, however most women are assulted by someone they know.

In brief, short-term solutions often help to relieve the reality but often as well without combating the authentic issue. This is the case. Out there, women are yet vulnerable, susceptible of sexual harassment and maybe potentially more open to self-blaming – I wish I had taken that taxi…

Inevitably, the urgent need involves prevention through information-(re)education and solely by promoting public awareness campaigns and by implementing in-depth educational programmes which kill traditions, stereotypes and cultural norms, gender-based violence and, extensively, inequality will be eradicated. See some examples here.

Rocío Andrés holds a Bachelor´s degree in Audiovisual Communication, History of Art (both Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain) and a Master´s in Education (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain, 2010). She has six years experience as a TV and advertising producer.

En Español

EDIMBURGO: POLÍTICA DE “MUJER SOLA”

Va a hacer un año desde que Hollaback! Edinburgh condujera un estudio en el que se preguntaba a jóvenes (12-25 años), mayormente mujeres (85%), sobre sus experiencias de acoso sexual en la calle.

El estudio intentaba responder a preguntas como dónde el acoso tenía lugar normalmente, qué tipo de experiencia fue o cómo se sintieron después del incidente.

Los resultados se pasearon por mi cabeza durante algunos meses.

Básicamente, los ticks decían que, entre un porcentaje del 60 al 85%, las encuestadas habían sufrido acoso mediante gritos, silbidos, comentarios sobre su apariencia, gestos obscenos, cuando alguien estaba demasiado cerca, siendo tocadas sin consentimiento o porque se les había bloqueado el camino.

Las consecuencias de tales experiencias fueron también reflejadas. Por ejemplo, más del 50% evitaba salir a ciertas horas, más del 70% evitaba lugares específicos y el 80% evitaba el contacto visual.

En otras palabras, los acosadores “de calle” transforman hábitos y comportamientos.

Como mujer, sabes que debes esquivar atajos o parques por la noche. Obviamente, no deberías estar escuchando tu iPod y deberías, sistemáticamente, darte la vuelta cada dos minutos para comprobar que nadie te está siguiendo. Deberás cruzar la calle si ves a un grupo de tíos demasiado borrachos y/o haciendo demasiado ruido. Y si no puedes evitarlo, nunca les mirarás a los ojos. Miras al horizonte o, quizás, bajas la cabeza para observar tu paso, casi militar.

Dijeron también que esas experiencias les había hecho sentirse horrible, tristes, asqueadas, asustadas, nerviosas, inseguras, avergonzadas, cosificadas, irrespetadas y enfadadas.

Las navidades pasadas, una campaña promovida por Colin Keir, miembro del Parlamento Escocés, indicaba que, probablemente, las cosas no han cambiado demasiado este año.

Básicamente, TAXI y algunas compañías privadas acordaron establecer un sistema por el cual las mujeres que viajaban solas tuvieran preferencia. Incluso algunas compañías ya estaban ofreciendo esta política de “mujer sola”.

Por supuesto, se aprecia el gesto. Tú quieres llegar a casa a salvo, no ser acosada, no sentirte frágil y no estar alerta, que es lo mismo que estar nerviosa.

En cualquier caso, los tíos malos aún andan por ahí. Y, además, a veces sólo quieres caminar por la calle tarde, ¿y qué?.

Todo esto me remonta a un reciente estudio llevado a cabo por el Instituto de Investigación Social de la Universidad de Michigan sobre cómo la gente en los países musulmanes prefieren que las mujeres se vistan en público.

En él, puedes ver que la gente se siente muy feliz con mujeres que se cubren completamente el pelo, aunque no necesariamente la cara. Y esto me lleva a Egipto, donde el acoso sexual en la calle ocurre a diario tanto si obedeces las normas conservativas de hijab/niqab (cabeza cubierta/cara y cuerpo completamente velados) como si no y el cuál, el pasado Noviembre, ha sido considerado el peor país del mundo árabe para la mujer.

Así pues, lo que pienso. Puedes ponerle velo a tus mujeres, puedes reservar asientos exclusivamente para ellas en el autobús, vagones enteros de metro, puedes decirles que no se paseen por las Meadows cuando está oscuro, puedes darles un taxi, guardarlas en una caja si quieres y, aún, el acoso en la calle sigue sucediendo. Lo que es más, incluso considerando agresiones sexuales, lo cierto es que, tal y como Jacq Kelly (jefa de campaña anti-acoso sexual en la calle del grupo Hollaback! Edinburgh) apuntaba, cualquier medida para proteger a las mujeres es bienvenida, sin embargo, la mayoría de ellas son asaltadas por alguien que conocen.

En resumen, soluciones a corto plazo a menudo ayudan a aliviar la realidad, pero, a menudo también, sin combatir el auténtico problema. Este es el caso. Ahí fuera, las mujeres son aún vulnerables, susceptibles de acoso sexual y puede que, incluso, potencialmente más abiertas a auto-culparse – ojalá hubiera cogido ese taxi…

Inevitablemente, la necesidad urgente implica prevención a través de información-(re)educación y únicamente promoviendo campañas de concienciación pública e implementando programas educativos en profundidad que maten tradiciones, estereotipos y normas culturales, la violencia de género y, más ampliamente, la desigualdad serán erradicadas. Puedes ver algunos ejemplos aquí

India: Nobody’s Daughter

January 14, 2014 By Correspondent

protest in Kolkata for gang rape victim — AAP activists protesting against the death of a 16-year-old gang rape victim in Kolkata. Image via Daily Mail

By Pallavi Kamat, Mumbai, India, SSH Correspondent

Trigger Warning

It was barely a year after the brutal gang-rape in Delhi, India, on 16^th December, 2012, that news of another shocking and terrible incident surfaced – this time from the City of Joy, Kolkata.

A 16-year-old girl was gang-raped twice: the second time after she was returning home from the police station having lodged a complaint for the first gang-rape. Her family was subjected to insults to withdraw the complaint; when they refused, the girl was set on fire on 23^rd December, 2013, and she died. It was also later revealed that she was pregnant.

The contrasts between the Delhi and the Kolkata incidents stand out. When the Delhi gang-rape came to light, almost the entire country took to protests and candlelight marches; women and young girls were out on the streets demanding justice for the victim and stricter laws to prevent any further such incidents. However, except for Kolkata, in no other city were there protests about the Kolkata gang-rape.

Even the national media chose to turn an almost blind eye to this news. The same media, who had given the Delhi gang-rape victim, all sorts of epithets from Braveheart to India’s Daughter, relegated the Kolkata news to the inner pages of newspapers for a day or two and then stopped tracking the story.

As if that was not bad enough, this issue, too, was politicized. Members of other political parties criticized the ruling party in Kolkata for ignoring the plight of the girl and not providing her adequate medical facilities which could have saved her life. Recently, a member of one of the opposition parties has demanded that the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) initiate a probe into her death.

These are all perfunctory responses and the graver, more important issue remains unresolved. When the Kolkata victim registered a complaint at the police station, why did the police not arrest the accused immediately? When it was known that the family was facing insults, why was no action taken? Sadly, in the political posturing and the blame game, all these questions take a backseat.

The victim’s father, who drove a taxi in Kolkata, has been offered a police job in his native in Bihar by Bihar’s chief minister. Disheartened and disillusioned with the state of affairs, he has decided to accept. He has also urged the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate and has requested the President of India for his help.

Whether the CBI or NHRC do actually investigate the case and whether the victim actually gets justice remains to be seen. The Chief Minister of the state, herself a woman, is strangely silent on the issue. And for ordinary citizens of the nation, it is a game of wait and watch, and a daily prayer that they and their loved ones reach home safely.

Pallavi is a qualified Chartered Accountant and a Commerce Graduate from the University of Mumbai, India, with around 12 years of experience working in the corporate sector. Follow her on Twitter, @pallavisms.

South Africa: How not to pick up women in SA

December 27, 2013 By Correspondent

By: Gcobani Qambela, South Africa, SSH Correspondent, with Rethabile Mashale*

City Press ran a news article on Sunday (22 December) by Charl du Plessis titled “The art of picking up women in SA”. The article on Pick Up Artist SA’s boot camp on picking up women is about “the secret psychological techniques that will help [men and lesbian women] get lucky with South African women” every time. The co-founder, Ryan Peimer goes on to say that the Pick Up Artist is a global community that collects teachings from thousands of pick-up artists on “approaching, developing attraction and sealing the deal with women.” This movement appropriates this “secret” information they access to use it to the advantage of men over women.

Responding to the question of the obvious misogyny of the boot camp, Peimer says the camp teaches men “to use their pick-up skills with integrity” and yet reading the five tips Pick Up Artist SA’s provides to City Press it is clear that the programme is not only misogynistic, but is demonstrative of white male capitalistic patriarchy. At the centre of the programme is a clear concern with encouraging male dominance (for profit) at the expense of women’s bodies.

The five tips for picking up women by Pick Up Artists SA include assertions that men must get out of their shell because “women want to be approached”, that men must “give women nicknames” and that women love to be touched and thus men should touch themselves to a woman’s heart and the iceberg being the last tip asking men to “take control”. They say “women are attracted to dominance. They’re attracted to guys who have a certain element of dominance and carelessness”.

Throughout the article, there are no voices from women about how they would like to be approached by men; instead the white male voice is the dominant one in dictating what men should do to women and the confines of women’s agency. That an organisation like Pick Up Artist SA should encourage forms of manhood that encourage men to dominate women and say that women are naturally always wanting to be approached by men is a clear encouragement of rape culture. These assumption based on “medicine” is in the same tone as men who sexually assault and rape women and then say “she asked for it”, or “I know she wanted it” without women having consented.

This type of manhood we know doesn’t just affect men, but has very deleterious effects for the lives and bodies of women and children. These types of boot camps for men encourage male dominance over women, without clearly teaching men how to practice healthy manhood. Furthermore the uncritical coverage by City Press which hypes these programmes without examining the harmfulness of the ideas presented reinforces male dominance and rape culture. Barely a month out of 16 Days of Activism against Gender Based Violence against Women and Children, this article, along with the Pick Up Artist SA is basically telling men to go around sexually dominating women.

The writer of the article, a white male, could have easily been writing a promotional pamphlet for Pick Up Artist SA in promoting the service to men who want to get “lucky” with South African women. Articles like these by City Press, and particular programmes like the Pick Up Artist SA embody what we should be telling men (and women) NOT to do when picking up a partner. If one bases it on the five ‘pick up’ tips by Pick Up Artist SA, we should be telling men to do the opposite.

Not all women want to be approached by men, thus men should first gather consent from women. Men should not present body language that is “up there” but should rather present and learn friendly accommodating non threatening mannerism. Men should not give women “nicknames” or catcall them, but should when consent has been gathered, learn from the woman what she would like to be referred to as. Men should not learn from other men that women “love to be touched”, but should establish trust and consent and allow the woman to negotiate her agency about what she will allow a man to touch. And lastly men should not “take control” and practice “dominance and carelessness” but rather should realise relationships are partnerships not the sovereign domain for men to dominate.

To imply that the simplistic and dangerously patriarchal ideas by Pick Up Artist SA are the way to go for men is extremely problematic, especially in the context our high rape and sexual assault reports in South Africa. These ideas are dangerous for both men and women and take us back in the agenda to do away with sexual violence.

Gcobani is completing his Masters in Medical Anthropology through Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. His research centres around issues of risk, responsibility and vulnerability amongst Xhosa men (and women) in a rural town in South Africa living in the context of HIV/AIDS. Follow him on Twitter, @GcobaniQambela.

*Rethabile Mashale leads a women’s rights organisation in Cape Town. She holds a Master’s Degree from the University of Cape Town.

USA: Strong Women and Harassment

December 16, 2013 By Correspondent

By Sara Schwartzkopf, Colorado, USA, SSH Correspondent

As cold weather draws ever more present, I’m relieved. I’m relieved for the reprieve from shaving my legs every day, the ability to wear large comfy sweaters, cool-looking boots, and the drop in street harassment tales, both personal and otherwise. Not that they stop by any means. Maybe it’s just as simple as fewer people taking their time when walking the streets. Less public interaction means less opportunity for street harassment.

Instead we spend more time inside. More time is spent reading, watching movies, and getting caught up on television series. More time spent absorbing pop culture and common narratives about women. I bet some of you can see where I’m going with this. But I have neither the time or space to go through all the things that can be upsetting about media depictions of women. From catty and mindless reality tv shows to romantic comedies and “chick lit,” there’s a pretty common theme that women are horrible, or spend all their time worrying about guys. Or that they’re horrible because of a guy. It seems the antithesis to this is to seek out female lead characters, and make women be as perfect as a heroine can be.

This doesn’t work for me. There’s more than one reason for why we need diverse and well-rounded characters. It seems to me that women leads in media, especially women in sci fi/fantasy and action flicks, have a requirement to be strong (let alone a good many of them aren’t strong characters so much as just strong). They become a Mary Sue of a sort, where they react to challenging situations as we wish women could. So when we find ourselves faced with a similar situation or challenge, we often expect ourselves to be just as flawless. Media creates unrealistic depictions, and then we hold ourselves to these unrealistic expectations.

The problem is we are flawed. Everyone is. Yet when we have an issue with say, harassment, it’s natural to judge ourselves on what we’ve had modeled for us. So what’s the natural outcome when every time we see a woman in a male-dominated environment who responds to harassment by physically or verbally beating up her antagonist? I think it reinforces that we should be able to do this for ourselves. It’s incredibly satisfying to watch, but when it’s the only narrative out there we act as though it’s the woman’s job to overpower their aggressors. It ignores consequences, forgets the possibility of continued contact, and it plays into this idea that men only need to respect women who are physically stronger than them.

It’s one solution to the Damsel in Distress trope, but it’s also one that puts responsibility squarely on the victims. If the heroine of the story can’t stop what’s going on then it becomes her fault, rather than the aggressor’s. It doesn’t really challenge rape culture, it just shifts how women are supposed to deal with it.

Maybe that’s why we judge passive reaction more harshlythan we should. We think that if we were confronted with harassment of any sort we would stand up for ourselves and give a verbal equivalent of a beat down. Instead, a lot of us feel threatened, ignore comments, and try to leave as quickly as possible. That doesn’t keep up from blaming victims though. We forget that we need to place the blame solely on the harasser. After all it was their decision to shout things, to grab, to make obscene gestures, or do sexually explicit things that were never asked for in the first place.

Sara is a recent graduate of the University of Denver where she majored in Sociology, International Studies, and minored in Japanese. She has previously written on issues relevant to the Native American community at Le Prestige Du Monde, pulling heavily on her experiences as a mixed-race Kiowa and Chickasaw.

South Africa: The Role of Men during #16Days

November 29, 2013 By Correspondent

By: Gcobani Qambela, South Africa, SSH Correspondent

Trigger Warning

I was shocked to see a tweet by controversial South African blogger, Sentletse Diakanyo on the first day of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence in South Africa. In the tweet, Diakanyo says that: “We must not ignore the slaughter of unborn babies during this 16 Days of Activism.” He went on to have more tirades about how “life begins at conception” and that even if women conceived children under “violent circumstances” it’s still unacceptable for women to “slaughter” ‘innocent life’. His main premise being that during 16 Days women should not look at gender-based violence but also at murder women commit to “unborn babies”. He further likens abortion to rape and says both should be “equally condemned” as they are criminal.

What triggered me as I read these tweets was not the inaccuracy of the statements made by Diakanyo, but the extent to which he successfully managed to derail the conversation from 16 Days to a conversation where many people had to move from sharing about gender-based violence to correcting this misinformation he was sharing. Yes, scientific evidence indicates that life does begin at conception, but personhood/humanness only begins after birth so women are not slaughtering babies when they terminate pregnancy. Yet, Diakanyo concludes “We will condemn criminal acts [of abortion] regardless of what feminists think.” This is despite the fact that abortion is legal in South Africa.

Many people have noted that Diakanyo gets some self-pleasure for triggering and making others angry, especially if they respond to his ignorance. This appears to make him happy and satisfied with himself. This is what has made writing this post difficult as I wondered: how do I respond to this bigotry without giving so much meaning to patriarchal garbage spewed by Diakanyo? I further thought: what is my role as a man living in a violently patriarchal society like South Africa? And lastly I wondered: what is my role during this 16 Days?

In the chapter “Is Paris Burning” bell hooks notes that many heterosexual identifying black men living in white supremacist cultures like the United States (and South Africa I would argue) always behave as if the primary “evil” of racism is the “refusal of the dominant culture to allow them full access to patriarchal power” and hence they continue to exhibit “a phallic misogynist masculinity [that is] rooted in contempt for the female.” This is the way I choose to read Diakanyo. In many of his writings, Diakanyo appears to challenges white supremacy and white capitalistic forces in South Africa and globally, and yet instances like these show us that he is not driven by an attachment to justice and overcoming global systems of oppression but a concern with having what white patriarchal men have in South Africa. This is not only in reference to economic power and material ownership, but also the full patriarchal dividend that will allow him full ownership and control of the female body.

Diakanyo’s remarks in South Africa are a part of larger societal project of patriarchal men who want to demonstrate their phallic power by waging war on the bodies of women and all that is “feminine”, which as hooks notes includes also gay men (and the larger LGBTIQA community). It is not a coincidence that Diakanyo chose the 16 Days to express his misinformed opinion on abortion, rape and the bodies of women. It is his way of derailing a conversation from discussing patriarchal male violence into one that not only blames women for exercising their constitutionally given right to bodily integrity and reproductive choice but one that places women’s bodies at the centre of the patriarchal male gaze.

So what should be the role of men during 16 Days? There are many well documented problems with the concept of 16 Days because many argue that it should be throughout the year and not just 16 days and I agree. However, this does not mean that I do not recognise its importance. I live in a country a country where a woman has more chances of being raped than learning to read, so if women get 16 Days in a year where they can tell their stories and activism without threat of violence our responsibility as men should be to listen. When we talk it should be to help elevate the voices and agency of women, and not derailing like Diakanyo.

I really think Diakanyo’s tweets are worth reporting to the South African human rights commission. In South Africa while freedom of expression is also a constitutional right too, this right is limited in that it should not be exercised in a manner that unjustifiably limits the rights of others. Diakanyo is limiting the rights of women by intentionally spreading incomplete information to limit women’s right to bodily integrity during a time when women are meant to enjoy freedom from patriarchal male body policing. It’s just unacceptable!

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