Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

India: Public Transport, Private Harassment

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By Pallavi Kamat, Mumbai, India, SSH Correspondent

The most common and recurrent form of street harassment encountered by any woman in my community is when she chooses to take the public transport. In Mumbai, where I live, tens of thousands of women choose to travel by public transport where distances between one’s residence and one’s place of work/study are significant. Though Mumbai is by and large a safe city and women can travel at any time of the hour by the public transport, it is not completely immune to the phenomenon of street harassment.

When I speak of public transport, I refer to transport by the local bus, train, autorickshaw or cab. Let me elaborate each mode separately and in detail.

In Mumbai, the local buses are almost always crowded, especially during peak times. Though the first five seats are reserved for women, it is no guarantee that a woman who boards a bus will not be harassed. Often, due to the crowd, she is subjected to groping. I have experienced this: a man sits next to me on one of the unreserved seats and tries to fondle or grope. Other than remaining silent, I frankly have no other option. The most I do is get up and go find a separate seat or stand.

A survey conducted by We The People Foundation in early 2012 found that 80% of women in Mumbai faced sexual harassment with the maximum cases taking place in crowded areas such as trains and railway platforms.

One huge advantage of the local trains in Mumbai is that they have separate compartments for women. In addition, there are also ladies’ specials trains being run at specific times. Despite this, women continue to face harassment as they board the daily train. This could be in the form of the men’s compartment adjacent to the women’s compartment from which there is catcalling and verbal harassment. Often times, as a train stops at a particular station, the men on the platform pass lewd comments and whistle at women. Harassment also exists in the form of snatching of purses and bags of women who are perched on the entrance of the train as it approaches a station for alighting. The Central Railway has registered 215 cases of sexual harassment in January-2013 and 314 cases in February-2013.

Compared to the buses and the trains, travelling by autorickshaws or cabs seems safer since it is like a semi-private travel. However, both these modes are not completely harassment-free. Many times, when the rickshaw or the cab is stationary at a signal, men on bikes peep inside and pass comments or point fingers and giggle. There have also been instances of bikers snatching gold chains from female commuters in cabs or rickshaws.

Sometimes, the auto/cab driver has tried to molest the woman passenger. To deal with this menace, women-only cabs (such as Viira Cabs, Mumbai Gold Cabs, Priyadarshini Taxi Service, etc.) have been launched in Mumbai and heartily welcomed by women commuters especially when travelling during odd hours of the day or night. Additionally, when a woman hails a cab from the domestic/international airport, a police official notes down her phone number with her destination and the number of the taxi for security reasons.

While women continue to experience varied forms of street harassment, the important thing is not to get dejected or depressed but continue to find ways and means to deal with it. These could be in the form of raising an alarm, filing a complaint or helping out a woman in need. It could also be in the form of working with the local authorities to make public transport safer and enjoyable for women. Women have as much right to public transport as men and there is no reason why any form of harassment should discourage or scar them from using it.

And it is equally critical for men to pitch in as well. After all, a woman being harassed is somebody’s mother, daughter or sister. Both genders need to work together to eliminate the monster of street harassment specifically in public transport.

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.

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UK: Harassment – and Worse – at Music Festivals

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By: Levi Grayshon, Manchester, England, SSH Correspondent

Kate Nash, photo by Alice Baxley

Sometimes, being a woman with an interest in music can be difficult. From being a fan to being a musician, you often find yourself doubted, harassed, and disrespected.

Whenever I wear a t-shirt of a band such as Joy Division, I’m am always approached by men who doubt my knowledge of the bands, and who feel the need to tell me about that time they saw them play at Eric’s in Liverpool, how they remember when Closer was released, or even worse, start quizzing me on what tracks I know.

The assumption that I have to prove that I like a band, just because the fanbase is predominantly older and male, is sexist, simple as that. Constantly having to prove yourself, as a music fan, is tiring and frankly, I am sick of it.

The sexism, however, doesn’t stop there. One of the main places, where I feel under threat as a female music lover is at festivals and gigs. Don’t get me wrong, I adore festivals. Most of my favourite moments have taken place at festivals, from seeing The Libertines reunite at Leeds in 2010, to being on the barrier gazing up at Ryan Jarman getting carried off stage at possibly one of the most exciting shows that The Cribs have played, just this month at Y Not Festival.

Festivals are amazing, but there can be a downside to them.

An example – the group queued behind me and my friend to get into Y Not Festival behaved grossly. Every time a young woman who weighed less than 12 stones wearing shorts walked past, they’d loudly discuss her figure, shouting “nice arse!” and sniggering.

My friend and I were left alone by them, thankfully, probably because we both kept sighing, rolling our eyes in disapproval and tutting at everything they said. Either way, their behaviour was gross and highly unnecessary.

Another time, we witnessed a group of “LAD”-types chanting, “I, I Will Tear You Apart!” at girls and women walking around the campsite. What a way to completely destroy a beautiful song and use it for your misogynist bravado, fellas.

What is perhaps more shocking is the fact that these incidents happened at the calmest, most friendly festival that I have had the pleasure of attending. Even more shocking than that is that this behaviour is seen as normal. Fun. A laugh.

Recently, this article was published on Thrash Hits, where Tom Doyle discussed what he witnessed in the crowds this year at Download festival, where young women who sat on men’s shoulders for a better view were pressured into flashing their breasts both by festival-goers and camera crew.

Unfortunately, this behaviour is not a one-off – I saw it happen again and again both times that I attended Leeds Festival. What’s worse is that the young women are usually booed when they refuse,  and even worse (yeah, it gets worse) is that some have had their shirts pulled down/lifted up. Sometimes even by “friends” (if a friend is willing to do that to you then newsflash – they are not your friend).

On Twitter, I asked for friends and followers to share a few stories of incidents at music events. Tales included being groped in mosh pits, being touched inappropriately, and more violent cases such as being assaulted in the form of threats and hair pulling. Seeing and hearing, and being at the receiving end of this kind of abuse highlights the fact that environments such as gigs and festivals are still very much a “boys club” and that women are about as welcome as a faulty speaker. Here are just a few of the tweets that I received:

However, it’s not just music fans who suffer from harassment at performances. Many artists that have unfortunately experienced this include Courtney Love, who had her dress ripped from her, when crowd surfing, as well as having someone attempt to sexually assault her in a much worse way, Kate Nash, who was groped at her gig, and managed to call out the perpetrator, and both Beyonce  and Florence Welch have come under attack. Florence was reduced to tears.

When watching Paramore play at Leeds festival, a man in the crowd repeatedly shouted to Hayley Williams that he was in love with her, and asked her to marry him, which was laughed off by the crowd. When young girls scream this sort of thing at One Direction, it is viewed as hysterical, so why is it funny for a grown man to behave in this way – it is really necessary for a “fan” to do this to an artist? And is it really necessary for fellow music fans to treat each other so badly?

Levi graduated from university with a degree in Film and TV screenwriting this summer. As a freelance writer, she has been writing for The F-Word and Gamer-UK. You can follow her rants and ramblings on Twitter, @part_heart.

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UK: New Campaign Addresses Transit Harassment

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By: Tilly Grove, London, UK, SSH Correspondent

Via www.BTP.police.uk

As a student at a London university, the city’s transport system is something I use daily during term time. Consequently, I stand alongside the 15 per cent of women who responded to a Transport for London (TfL) survey and reported that they had experienced some form of sexual harassment or assault on the London transport network. In fact, I consider myself to stand alongside a much larger percentage of women. That 15 per cent is only of the women who responded to the survey, and only those who felt comfortable talking about what had happened to them in the first place. Often, women do not even realise that what has occurred to them is sexual harassment. Either way, 90 per cent of the women in that survey said that they had not reported what happened to them to the police, and TfL have rightly identified that this is a huge problem.

Project Guardian is the initiative that seeks to change that. The British Transport Police (BTP), working closely with TfL, Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police, have recognised that sexual harassment on public transport is a major concern for travellers, and vastly under-reported. Having studied a similar exercise in Boston, and with guidance from women’s campaign groups like the End Violence Against Women coalition, Everyday Sexism, and Hollaback London, Project Guardian will see all 2,000 of the officers working on the public transport network receive training in victim awareness, and selected officers given extra training on sexual offences courses.

The core aim of Project Guardian is to increase awareness of sexual offences, and encourage victims to come forward. By clearly outlining what constitutes a sexual offence, the BTP are taking a good first step. A lot of women – myself included – will likely not have been aware, for example, that any comments or actions that make them uncomfortable on their journeys constitute harassment. When I have had men actively stalk me across platforms and through carriages, or make obvious efforts to stare up my skirt, or make sexually charged comments about my appearance, I would certainly never have thought that this was something I should report, and not just something I had to shrug off. The BTP insists that any offence of this nature will be taken “extremely seriously”, and urges anyone who has witnessed or experienced something to come forward.

While not the primary objective of the initiative, a reduction in instances of sexual assault would certainly be desirable too, as has been seen in Boston. Project Guardian seeks to deter offenders by deploying up to 180 officers to stations at a time, using undercover officers, creating a high police profile at vulnerable times and places (like quiet stations late at night), working in partnership with railway businesses, using CCTV footage, and publishing details of all successful prosecutions. Judging by the figures from its first week, it might be set for success: reporting of sexual offences increased by 26%, and 10 arrests were made. This may see the initiative rolled out elsewhere across Britain.

The Twitter hashtag #ProjGuardian illustrates clearly that experiences of sexual harassment are not a rarity, and not a one-off. There are thousands of women sharing their stories, all of them demonstrating that this has become an accepted part of our experiences as women in public. Even when it is not physically happening to us, the possibility of it is always hanging over us. If Project Guardian can change one thing, it can change the idea amongst so many of us that it has to be this way, that we must be silent and accept it. Ideally, it will change more than that. When Ellie Cosgrave had a man ejaculate on her on the train, she took matters into her own hands and put on a brilliant and intelligent protest, Take Back the Tube; she did this because she had reported it to TfL, who did not even respond. Women deserve more than this. We deserve organisations that listen to us and take us seriously, and most importantly, we deserve to be able to use the public transport network without constant fear and anticipation of someone violating us in the first place. Let’s hope Project Guardian is the start of that.

To report sexual offences to the British Transport Police, talk to staff or officers at the station, text 61016, or call 0800 40 50 40.

Tilly is studying for a BA in War Studies at King’s College London, where she is writing her dissertation on the effect that perceptions of gender have on the roles which women adopt in conflict. You can follow her on Tumblr and Twitter, @tillyjean_.

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USA: Street Harassment on college campuses: Does size matter?

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By: Taylor Kuether, Minnesota, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

My experience with street harassment has happened almost exclusively during my college years. I go to a mid-size state school in northwestern Wisconsin, and the harassment seems to follow a pattern: The number of catcalls rises and falls with the temperatures. Every spring, the first day I deem it warm enough to wear shorts, I can count on someone making a loud comment about it, usually from across the campus mall. If I decide to go on my first bike ride of the season, I know I’m going to hear men shouting at me from passing cars. And once the height of summer hits, if a friend and I want to go floating (tubing down the Chippewa River, which runs right through our campus), we should expect to hear lewd comments aimed at us as we carry our inner tubes to the riverfront.

Being yelled at as I try to live my life doesn’t make me feel comfortable or safe. It isn’t something anyone should leave the house expecting or calculate into their day. But in my experience, at least before this summer, the comments were just that – comments.

This summer, I’m living in Minneapolis – a much larger city than my college town – for an internship. Minneapolis is home to the University of Minnesota, a Big 10 school with an enrollment of about 50,000. And on any given weekend night, you can find many of those students in “Dinkytown,” the city’s college bar district.

A few weeks ago, a friend and I went out for a drink in Dinkytown. Just 20 minutes into our outing, a college-aged man came up to us on the sidewalk and tried to put his arm around me, asking us where we were headed. I was surprised, but I shrugged it off as my friend and I kept walking, wordlessly, heading to the next bar.

Once inside, we tried to go upstairs, only to find a second college-aged male who took it upon himself to drunkenly block us from doing so. He stood squarely in front of me, slurring pickup lines at me and making it impossible to ascend the stairs. Annoyed, I grabbed his shoulder and moved him out of our way.

At our last stop of the night, a burrito place where we were hoping to grab some food before heading home, a third college-aged man came up behind my friend, pressed himself against her, and asked her what she was up to. It was the third time in a span of maybe two hours that someone had come up to us and physically entered our space. This wasn’t the street harassment I was used to – words thrown from afar with the space between  my harasser and me acting as a buffer, a safety net.  This was much more aggressive, much more invasive.

I’ve speculated as to why there is such a difference: Is it the size of the school? Is it the presence of Greek life (my school doesn’t have it; at U of M it’s huge)? Is it the size of the city the school is in?

I’ve always assumed college-aged men think they can get away with harassment for three reasons: one, their new found freedom and lack of supervision, two, their age and lack of maturity, and three, the anonymity afforded by the sheer size of a college campus.

At a big school, your own stupid actions can disappear into the much larger sea of stupid actions. At a big school, you can “get away” with more – after all, if you’re not the only one doing it, it must not be wrong, right?

What have your own experiences been with street harassment on college campuses? Did the size or location of the school impact the harassment you experienced or witnessed?  Leave a response on the blog or tweet at me at @taylorkuether.

Taylor Kuether is a senior journalism student at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in northwestern Wisconsin. She has previously written for The Washington Post and Minneapolis’ Star Tribune, worked as a reporter at her city’s daily newspaper, The Leader-Telegram, and its arts and culture publication, VolumeOne, hosted a local-music centered radio show on Wisconsin Public Radio, and worked as Editor-in-Chief at her student newspaper, where she enjoyed writing biting, slightly rant-y columns about feminist issues.

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Canada: They Asked for the Numbers

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By: Lisane Thirsk, Ottawa, Canada, SSH Correspondent

Last week, Hollaback! Ottawa released Our city, our space, our voice: A report on street harassment in Ottawa. The report is based on an online survey with more than 300 respondents, as well as testimony from an open forum.

Among other findings, it revealed that:

* 97% of respondents had experienced a form of street harassment in the past year
* 44% of respondents had experienced street harassment at least once on public transportation
* Only 10% of respondents had reported an incident of street harassment

The report has prompted some important conversation among Ottawa residents. It’s a conversation Hollaback! Ottawa’s site director Julie Lalonde initiated with city officials back in February after noting a trend in the stories submitted and mapped on the Hollaback! Ottawa website: street harassment was often taking place on buses or at bus stops.

But at the initial meeting requested by Julie, local government and public transit officials maintained that she didn’t have enough quantifiable evidence to show that street harassment is frequent on buses in Ottawa.

Julie isn’t one to be deterred. She wasted no time in calling on other local feminist organizations and Hollaback! volunteers, including myself, to help organize the forum, design the survey, and analyze the findings to better understand the problem and potential solutions.

The data compiled sheds light on a diversity of experiences (many truly horrifying), reveals other ‘hot spots’ where harassment occurs (libraries and parks), and captures the community’s determination to put an end to street harassment by engaging bystanders (amazing!).

In the lead-up to the report’s release, I had the opportunity to attend a series of follow-up meetings with Julie and city officials. The meetings became more productive and were likely granted urgency by the city following news coverage about a series of sexual assaults on buses.

Throughout these processes I kept reflecting on how the problem of street harassment was at first dismissed by officials claiming that the stories submitted to Hollaback! Ottawa weren’t themselves legitimate enough to justify further conversation.

Yet there are too many successful initiatives out there to ignore the benefits of crowdsourcing this type of information about violence against women.

Whenever skepticism about these types of initiatives blocks or delays action to stop violence, we need to ask some questions. Are women being silenced, either in person or online? Are we erasing the meaning survivors attribute to their own experiences? Why are those in positions of power so inclined to say, “But someone could have just fabricated those online submissions”?

I do understand the necessity of more traditional data-collection methods. Are there downsides to drawing conclusions from crowdsourced data? Yes. But are there also drawbacks to sexual violence data collected through formal surveys, interviews, focus groups or police records? Absolutely.

Above all, we can’t assume that all women feel safe and empowered to speak out and report street harassment, especially to authority figures. As in any country, survivors in Canada face both social and institutional barriers to reporting sexual violence. Here in Ottawa we heard over and over at the forum and in the survey responses, “Reporting is really hard.”

Hopefully the results of Hollaback! Ottawa’s report will spur more efforts to address street harassment throughout the city. The results paint a discouraging but unsurprising picture, considering the available statistics on the prevalence of street harassment globally. The low level of reporting in Ottawa is also in line with government studies showing that about one in ten sexual assaults are reported to police (Statistics Canada). With this in mind, the official number of reported sexual assaults on transit, for example, represents only a fraction of the problem in Ottawa.

What kinds of numbers will we require before taking concrete action to prevent street harassment?

To me, it’s not just the numbers that speak for themselves. The stories submitted online also speak volumes about the need for action. Let’s trust those voices too.

Lisane works in the non-profit communications sector and supports local anti-street harassment advocacy through Hollaback! Ottawa. In 2012, she completed a Master’s in Socio-Legal Studies at York University in Toronto, where she wrote her Major Research Paper on gender-based street harassment. She holds a B.A. in Latin American Studies and Spanish from the University of British Columbia.

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