Correspondent, Author at Stop Street Harassment

USA: Claim Your Space!

August 26, 2013 By Correspondent

By: Molly Redding, San Francisco, CA, USA, SSH Correspondent

“Caution: May cause Twitter abuse.” Via South London Today

By now you have probably heard of what happened to Caroline Criado-Perez a few weeks ago. If you haven’t, I’ll break it down for you:

She noticed that there will not be any (non Royal) women featured on the back of British banknotes.
She campaigned to make sure a woman is included.
She succeeded: Jane Austen will be featured on the back of a 10-pound banknote.
She is then subjected to an endless barrage of insults, rape, and death threats on Twitter. (Read my Storify for some of the highlights.)
She is told to “just ignore it.”

A lot has been said written about it, for example here, here and here. I caught wind of this on my Twitter account shortly after it started, but I couldn’t find the time to write about it until now (although maybe a cooling down period was in order so I didn’t write this entire post in ALL CAPS).

What happened was disgusting, despicable, and yes, criminal (one man has been arrested for his threats). At moments I would follow the action riveted by the speed under which the tweets were coming in, only to find myself traumatized by the language and vitriol that was being used. I would distract myself and go do something different. But Caroline didn’t have that choice. And the tweets were directed at her.

You’re probably wondering by now why a blog for a street harassment site is discussing harassment on Twitter. It’s all about power over space. In trying to assert their power over public spaces, men harass women on the street. In trying to assert their power online, they harass women on places like Twitter and Facebook, and in the comments of other websites. The message is the same – you do not belong here. Your presence is not welcome here.

Women also get the same message online that they do on the street – just ignore it, you’re just encouraging them, etc. Caroline was even accused of fighting back just to get attention. To get attention? Are women not allowed to just say, “No!” anymore?

Caroline is not the first woman (or person) to be harassed online, and she certainly won’t be the last. Even when I was considering applying to blog for this website, I feared what would happen if I came out as a Feminist to the Internet. What would they say to me? Could I handle it?

But that’s what this site is about. Reclaiming space. We are fighting for space that allows us to get dressed and not think about changing our outfit to reduce the possibility of comments. We are fighting for space that allows us to express our opinion and be treated with respect and dignity, rather than drowned out by threats of sexual violence. In a public setting you might not be able to shout back or defend yourself, but just by being on the street, on the bus, and posting your thoughts on Twitter, you are sending the message that you cannot be silenced, penned in, broken down.

Caroline is still Tweeting. I applied to blog for SSH, and you are still walking down the street. We are all reclaiming our space.

Molly received a graduate degree in International Development and Gender from the London School of Economics in 2011, where her dissertation focused on websites allowing victims of harassment to post about their experiences. She has worked in the non-profit sector for over 10 years. You can follow her on Twitter, @perfeminist.

USA: The Act of Cultural Imposition Through Street Harassment

August 25, 2013 By Correspondent

By Nikoletta Gjoni, Maryland, USA, SSH Correspondent

When I recently read about an American woman’s street harassment experiences in India and the negative impact they had on her, I couldn’t help but think about how a) it vaguely reminded me of stories and experiences from my native country of Albania and b) how unsurprised I felt overall reading about RoseChasm’s experiences in a foreign country. Not to say that sexual harassment and lewd behavior doesn’t occur in the good old U.S. of A, but there’s a distinctly different discomfort and fear that courses through you when it occurs in a new place you are unfamiliar with.

People who think street harassment is a form of a compliment driven by attraction are wrong. Street harassment, not unlike rape, is about control. It’s about men claiming their dominance over women and feeling that essential right to comment on or act upon whatever they want. Because boys will be boys.

This can come across as more muted in countries like the U.S. where it is essentially known that no, you cannot just scream out sexually explicit phrases to a passerby or touch someone without their permission. Though today this is general knowledge (or should be general knowledge) in most places a person may live in or visit, the lines become blurred when a society is historically patriarchal to the core, and while women may be respected, they are also kept at a safe distance from men. Just in case.

My country, Albania is steeped in rich tradition, old history, and vast contradictions. Traditionally a patriarchal society with “the man is the head of the house” cliché, it is a country that both honors its women but can easily shame them. Catcalling and whistling is the norm. Being followed for a few blocks by a gaggle of boys is the norm. Being singled out because of your accent is the norm. Most is harmless and amounts to nothing in the end, but sometimes you get the occasional stranger that makes you pick up your step a little bit.

A good family friend of mine (also Albanian) was visiting a few years ago. Out with her mom, aunts, and cousins, she was ahead of the group with one or two other girls. What essentially started out as the “typical” come on (whatever that is) turned into a more frightening experience with the man threatening to take her around the corner and “really show her what he could do to her.” Why? Because she retaliated when he grabbed her while walking by. His ego was bruised and he was humiliated in public.

Forget her humiliation. Forget the fact that she was minding her own business. Forget the fact that had she even noticed him in the first place or made eye contact, grabbing her would still have been a highly inappropriate way to reach out. Forget the fact that he wasn’t even really interested in her as an individual. Forget everything but the fact that he asserted his dominance over a young woman walking down the street and then became verbally abusive when she reacted negatively instead of just walking on.

Is this experience special to Albania? Of course not. One of the first things my friend told me after sharing the story was: “I wished then I had my pepper spray with me.” She’s Albanian, as am I. But we haven’t been raised there. We didn’t grow up with the casual mentality that “girls ask for it” when they dress a certain way, speak a certain way, or act a certain way. And when they don’t—well—just keep on walking and don’t give the perpetrator ammo.

It was a little jarring to see just how often I would get hassled, for one absurd reason or another. And the fact that I didn’t know just how to respond (or whether to respond at all) was what added to the frustration. I am Albanian by blood, traditions, and rearing, but I was a stranger to the minute details that made someone quintessentially from there. And all I could think about was how this kind of behavior just doesn’t happen in the States—a common misconception about the sleek ‘modern’ world vs. everything else that’s old.

But it does happen in the States and it certainly does happen in Washington, D.C. Maybe not to me, not all the time, but to others it does. What we have going for us here is that there is a cultural awareness slowly growing. There are programs, sites, people, and places one can refer to for help. We are becoming better at practicing bystander intervention. RoseChasm didn’t have that luxury in India and there are still so many places in the world that don’t understand the damage caused by victim blaming.

Albania, too is slowly getting there, though it is stuck in a crevice found between tradition and modernity. For all its collective machismo and testosterone driven decision making, it is a beautiful country with much to learn from. I just hope next time I go there will be one less car slowing down on the street just so heads can come out of the windows to whistle and gawk.

Nikoletta Gjoni graduated from UMBC in 2009 with a B.A. in English Literature. After graduation, she did almost four years of freelance work in a D.C. broadcast station, in addition to having worked as a literacy and linguistics assessor for pre-k classrooms in D.C.’s charter schools. To get to know her better, she can be tracked on both her creative blog and Twitter, @nikigjoni.

USA: Interview with Burlesque Dancer Fancy Feast (Part 2)

August 24, 2013 By Correspondent

By: Maggie Freleng, NYC, USA, SSH Correspondent

I met Fancy Feast, a two and a half year burlesque dancer and sex educator, at Murray Hill’s annual Miss Lez Pageant, , an alternative beauty pageant for queer womyn. In part one of my interview with the fearless, fierce Feast, she explained how burlesque is a way for her to dictate how she feels about herself and her body in a positive way to combat the powerlessness she feels being harassed on the street.

In continuation, she explained how herself and many other burlesque dancers are frustrated they are not able to perform their sexuality in non burlesque settings. For example, not having to be concerned with covering up on the street and feeling comfortable and safe no matter what they are wearing.

“Burlesque is always going to be safe and comfortable for me, it offers an outlet to experience joy and pleasure with my body in a public way without fearing violence and reproach.”

Fancy Feast explained a recent incident in the burlesque community where a male fan posted on a burlesque dancers status that she should take unwanted comments as a compliment because she’s beautiful person and should be flattered by the attention.

“Performers analyzed and dismantled the ways this person was thinking…anybody who can’t separate a sexualized performance from the rest of one’s daily experience is really oversimplifying things,” she told me.

“The two experiences are not at all to measure and the two come with their own different set of rules. I am very lucky to work in an industry where there are so many extraordinary people in charge of their own images and own sexuality who are able to call the shots when it deviates from that.”

In Part 1 of the interview, I explained Fancy Feasts nickel idea –setting aside a nickel to be donated to anti-violence shelters every time she is street harassed — as a way for her to mark these constant occasions and make sure something good can come from the bad.

Fancy Feast explained the time she saw NPR was doing a show on street harassment and were asking for individual stories. Fancy Feast thought this was ridiculous.

“It was a way of saying that there was just one experience that stood out when really it is so continual,” she said.

So she wrote to NPR:

“I wish I had “a story” about being harassed on the street, as if it were some kind of discrete experience that stands out as exceptional. It’s not like that. Men say things to me all the time. I’m hot or I’m fat but they’d fuck me anyway, they’d tear me up or hit it from the back. Men touch me too. With their hands, their eyes, erections pressing into my back on crowded subways or clubs. It takes only my most primitive brain to discern what is a compliment and what is not. The men who presume otherwise, saying that women ought to be flattered by these behaviors, assume women to be simpleminded enough not to tell the difference. The difference between “Hey, awesome necklace!” and “You look good enough to get raped.” But the other thing is: don’t compliment me. Interrupting my day to tell me that you like the shape of my dress or the body underneath it asserts that your opinion about me matters. Interrupting a woman to comment on her body or sexuality reinforces that she has no right to public space, to move freely and without comment. The men who assume I will be flattered by sexual remarks from strangers do not understand the reality of living in a woman’s body, the implicit and explicit threats we experience, the keys poised between our knuckles on the way home — just in case.

I wish I had “a story”, but I have thousands, and they get lost or metabolized in the space of a day.These days I set aside a nickel for every time I am harassed on the street. I wanted something to mark the occasion, to not let it simply vanish. I’m donating that money to a women’s anti-violence shelter, so something good can come from something ugly.”

NPR never responded to her story. However, Fancy Feast didn’t write to have her story told, she just wanted to let it be known that for so many people harassment is not just one story, it is a collection of daily, life-long experiences that we just learn and are told to deal with and take as compliments.

We shouldn’t have to deal with street harassment–it needs to end. But in the meantime, while we patiently wait for legislatures and society to finally realize we are suffering, we will find other ways to to reclaim our bodies and sexualities how we want them to be perceived.

For some of us, that is being an over-the-top sex-kitten in a leather harness shaking it on stage.

Maggie is a Brooklyn based freelance writer and photographer focusing on social justice and women’s issues. She currently writes for Vitamin W. Maggie graduated with a B.A in Journalism and English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2011, concentrating on dystopian literature. You can read more of her writing on her blog or follow her on Twitter, @dixiy89.

USA: Interview with Burlesque Dancer Fancy Feast (Part 1)

August 23, 2013 By Correspondent

By: Maggie Freleng, NYC, USA, SSH Correspondent

Sunday night at Murray Hill’s annual Miss Lez Pageant, an alternative beauty pageant for queer womyn, something caught my attention. It wasn’t the contestant with a vintage vagina puppet or the plethora of boob tassels or even the contestant in the Winnie the Pooh outfit doing a strip tease pouring honey on her body. No, it was the one contestant in a bondage harness whose pageant platform was on a serious topic — street harassment.

“In my personal life it is something that I am very deeply and seriously passionate about. I am very concerned about it,” Fancy Feast, a burlesque dancer, told me.

Fancy Feast caught my attention when she took the stage with her extravagant beehive wig, kitten heels and form-fitting mini dress and told the audience that in her daily life every time she is street harassed she puts a nickel aside to be donated to shelters and abuse programs for women and LGBTQ folk.

“My performance is sexual and big and public,” Fancy Feast told me, who explained that people tell her she should expect to be harassed because she has such a sexualized performance. “But there are a different set of expectations when I’m in control of my image when I’m performing and presenting sexuality than when I am trying to get to work and get a smoothie.”

“Some people feel like every contact should be a level playing field and I should expect the same attention doing burlesque and taking the subway. To me its one of those ludicrous things…there is a separation.”

She said the differentiation comes when she is wearing no makeup and going home sick from work and minding her own business to when she is wearing makeup and a wig on stage where she is intending to be in control and powerful.

“When people are harassed on the street they have a lack of control. Someone is dictating how you should feel about your body walking down the street.”

“I tend to get harassed a lot when I have my stage makeup on when I am coming home after my gigs. It doesn’t matter if the makeup is really over the top or grotesque, or if I have fake bruises (I have a fake black eye for one of my acts) — I get harassed way, way more, especially if I look disheveled. It sometimes feels like I’m getting attention more for the performance of femininity, the artifice, as well as a perceived weakness,” she told me in a follow up email.

“It’s in those moments when people take advantage of perceived weakness that does not show up in my performances.”

Burlesque allows her to dictate how she feels about herself and her body, and she says the reaction is always positive.

Fancy Feast, who is also a sex educator in her day job, says she has never gotten harassed during one of her performances. She has found the burlesque scene to be very body positive and accepting.

While she does not always make her performances about her personal politics, Fancy Feast was excited she had the space to do at Miss Lez.

“My job to make sure people are having a good time and being entertained and taken care of,” she told me. “I don’t always intend to use that space to talk about personal politics. Often times it is not the right atmosphere.”

However, if she does have a moment with the mic she will try to make jokes and add satire to the serious issue, to aware people and get the message out while also keeping the audience entertained. For example, at a performance she told the audience her leather harness was made from the last guy who told her to smile on the subway.

When I asked Fancy Feast about her nickel idea that initially caught my attention she told me, “The nickel thing came from being in SoHo a few months ago and this guy started making comments about my body, his son was 8 or 9 and he encouraged his son to yell things too. I got so upset thinking about how many times I get harassed a year. These experiences happen so quickly and then they just pass.”

The nickel idea was a way for her to mark these fleeting occasions and make sure something good can come from these horrible moments that happen far too frequently and make a difference in something so many of us feel powerless against.

This piece is a part one of two on Fancy Feast. Burlesque dancers reactions to sexual harassment and the rest of the nickel story (which made its way into a letter for NPR) to come in part two.

USA: Don’t Tell Me to Smile

August 16, 2013 By Correspondent

By Angela Della Porta, SSH Correspondent

I don’t get it – why do men want me to smile so damn much?

I have two states of being: laughing at something hilarious, and Bitch Face, which is really just a neutral face that means nothing hilarious happened. I, personally, don’t use the word “bitch,” but it is the most common description of this phenomenon. Now, I always thought that Bitch Face was something I had to do intentionally, like when I don’t want someone to sit next to me on the bus or I want to show someone who was rude that I don’t appreciate their comments. But, I’ve learned that Bitch Face is what I look like neutrally, and I’ve accepted it. Not everyone has gotten to that same level of acceptance.

Men of every age seem to be so bothered that I don’t constantly look ecstatic. Their obvious grievance with my face is enough to intensify Bitch Face, but often they take it one step further – they tell me to smile. For all you dudes who can’t stop telling women to smile, you should probably know:

1. Women are not dogs. They don’t sit and lay and smile on command. They don’t want your treats, so please stop with the commands.

2. Women, just like everyone else, have a wide range of emotions. Perhaps a woman is angry and upset. Perhaps she is not. It’s none of your business which emotions women have, feel, or display, and nobody asked your permission to feel their feelings because nobody wasn’t seeking it.

3. Women don’t smile at every moment of neutral feelings. A woman may not be upset at all; she may be feeling nothing particular. However, women are not constantly wowed and amazed with the world around them, broadly smiling at streets, traffic lights, and each and every person who crosses their paths. The world is not pure, bewildering bliss to all women. If it’s a normal day, the average woman won’t be spending all 24 hours smiling.

4. If you see a woman looking less than pleased, it’s likely that someone just harassed her on the street. If not, she may be considering the alternate route she took to her destination to avoid some asshole who usually harasses her on the street. Nether make most women too smiley.

Plus, can you imagine the reverse? Can you imagine a world where women approach men they don’t know and demand they feel and act a certain way? Doesn’t it just sound silly? And that’s what leads me to my initial question – why do men want me to smile so damn much? Does my smiling face brighten their day? (I’m not here to brighten anyone’s day.) Maybe. My theory is that is has less to do with my facial expression and more to do with a need to assert one’s power and dominance that male privilege affords them.

So the next time I hear, “Come on, why don’t you just smile?” I’ll continue on my way, making whatever face I want, and that might just make me smile… a little.

Angela Della Porta is a recent graduate of Clark University in Worcester, MA. She will join with Teach for America in Detroit in the fall. Until then, she’s spending her time in rural Maine. Follow her on Twitter: @angelassoapbox

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