Blog | Page 143 of 906 | Stop Street Harassment

“Come here gorgeous”

April 17, 2016 By Contributor

I was walking home from a friends house when I was about 13 and I was in my school uniform; shirt, trousers and blazer, when two middle-aged white men came up behind me and started talking about my arse. They started getting closer to me until they were right behind me and they were trying to touch me. Needless to say, at 13 I was terrified, having never dealt with this before, and not in an area where I was familiar, and so I started walking faster, turning every time I could, but they continued to follow me.

I then ran down the street and ended up knocking into a lady walking home with her shopping bags and asked her for directions back to my school so that I would know where I was going to get home. This made the men behind me drop back and eventually I got away from them.

I then arrived on the road opposite my school and as I was walking down (it was a dual carriage way) a man in a van started yelling at me from his window and leaning half of his body out of it, trying to grab at me saying, “Come here gorgeous”.

That was the first time I was ever harassed on the street, but from the age of 11, men I didn’t know catcalled me.

Optional: Do you have any suggestions for dealing with harassers and/or ending street harassment in general?

It depends on how you feel at the time. At first I was too scared to do anything and so I ran away, but when it was boys from my school doing it, I reported it to my head of year. The next time it happened on the street I kicked the man and ran away because he had his head in my boobs. After a while you get used to having to deal with it, but the best you can do is to report it to someone who can actually do something about it.

– SKA

Location: London, UK

Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more idea.

“College-aged men inside began shouting rudely”

April 17, 2016 By Contributor

Walking back from a church service with my friend an SUV had it’s windows rolled down and college-aged men inside began shouting rudely.

– Anonymous

Location: West Lane Avenue, Columbus Ohio, 43210

Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more idea.

New Campaign in Costa Rica

April 16, 2016 By HKearl

Launched this week for International Anti-Street Harassment Week, It’s A Big Deal campaign “aims to raise awareness about street harassment, worldwide.

“It’s also about getting men to talk about it, because they are directly involved and it affects them as well.

Most of the time not taken seriously, street harassment is seen as a joke or an inoffensive game. However, its consequences are much more important than we think. Street harassment is a sign of structural violence that exists toward women in most societies; it perpetuates gender inequality and is a source of insecurity.

Because it is the problem of everybody (women and men), we need to talk about it. It’s A Big Deal!

It’s A Big Deal campaign was born on the campus of the University for Peace in Costa Rica. It is a project realized by two students for a course in “Gender and Media”.

Watch: “I Smile Politely”

April 16, 2016 By HKearl

Newly released this week, check out Ness Lyon’s spoken word piece “I Smile Politely,” performed by actress April Hughes. Director of Photography & Editor: Luke Bartlett.

Ness wrote about the back story for The Pool, here is an excerpt:

“I’d been harassed in the street personally as a young woman, and professionally I’d handled sexual harassment cases as an employment solicitor, but it wasn’t until I experienced street harassment in my role as a mother that I felt compelled to publicly speak out.

Last year, on a family holiday in Southeast Asia, the part of the world I grew up in and which I adore, a man in the street made a sexual remark to my 10-year-old daughter that left her feeling terrified. I asked her how she reacted to the man’s comment and she answered, ‘I just smiled politely and quickly walked away.’ I felt a surge of anger: how dare that man make my child feel she had to respond to being sexualised with a polite smile. I told her that if someone made her feel uncomfortable, she shouldn’t feel she had to smile. But then I hesitated, remembering the times in my teens and twenties when I’d been subjected to humiliating, provocative and threatening comments by strangers. Sure, sometimes I’d sworn or glared in response. And on one memorable occasion, merely responded with a look of pure disbelief when a man shouted at me to “smile love for God’s sake, it might never happen’…. when I was in a hospital. ON CRUTCHES. But a lot of the time, I too had simply smiled politely, not wanting to offend….

I wanted to explore this issue the best way I knew how: by writing about it. I started by having lots of conversations with a diverse group of women, hearing about the various ways they all ‘smile politely’.

I wrote a spoken word piece about it, performed by actress April Hughes (at WOW Festival and in a video to mark Anti-Street Harassment Week)….

My daughter’s phrase of ‘I smiled politely’ was a refrain echoed by nearly every woman I spoke to about street harassment. I want us to change that conversation: why, when we talk about politeness in these situations, is the word usually in relation to the woman in the scenario, and not the man? Instead of expecting us to simply smile, men need to learn to ‘speak politely’.

Day 7: International Anti-Street Harassment Week

April 16, 2016 By HKearl

It’s our final day!!

Here are photos from the week | Here are the media hits

Check out the events that happened today…

Read the Tweet Chat Storify, by Safecity.

Canada: Hollaback Peterborough did chalking in the main downtown area.

4.16.16 chalking organized by Hollaback Peterborough - Canada 5

4.16.16 chalking organized by Hollaback Peterborough - Canada 3

4.16.16 chalking organized by Hollaback Peterborough - Canada 4

Chile: OCAC Chile will organize an event called Festival Respeto Callejero (Street Respect Festival). They will have music, stand up comedy, workshops, self-defense class, and activities for children [April 16, time TBD, Parque Bustamante]. ** THIS WAS POSTPONED DUE TO WEATHER**

Costa Rica: UPEACE members did sidewalk chalking and more. Video by Sewon Choi.

Ecuador: Hollaback Cuenca is hosting Café-Tertulia por Espacios Públicos Seguros and women came together to share their street harassment stories over coffee.

France: HDR held an awareness event at a bookstore in Paris.

4.16.16 bookstore flyering HDR Paris, France

4.16.16 HDR Paris France evening discussion 2

Germany: ProChange distributed cards against sexism and homophobia across Dortmond.

Guatemala: OCAC Guatemala did street action.

India: 13 girls from Bandra Plot occupied a space generally used by boys – Safecity. Also, youth in Sanjay Camp and Dakshinpuri in India came together for a screening of a film on understanding gender roles.

Nepal: Numerous groups held a march against street harassment in Kathmandu

Philippines: UN Women Safe Cities and the Quezon City local government worked with the Tricycle Drivers Association to train 100 tricycle drivers (tuktuk drivers) on gender sensitivity and to come up with joint solutions for addressing sexual harassment and sexual violence against women and girls in public spaces. The workshop facilitated identification of the role of tricycle drivers as partners in ending street harassment and promoting the new city law passed to increase fines and penalties against all forms of sexual harassment in public spaces.