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Welcome, First Blog Cohort of 2016!

January 11, 2016 By HKearl

Since 2013, cohorts of people from around the world write monthly articles about street harassment and activism efforts in their communities in four month cohorts.

We’re excited to welcome our newest cohort (and welcome back LB Klein and the ProChange team who have been excellent correspondents before!!) and look forward to reading their articles!

Meet the Correspondents of the First Cohort of 2016

LB Klein, MSW, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

LB has dedicated her academic and professional career to ending gender-based violence, supporting survivors, and advancing social justice. She is currently an independent consultant based in Atlanta, GA. LB serves as a lead trainer for Prevention Innovations Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, through which she trains colleges, universities, and community organizations to implement Bringing in the Bystander®. She is also a graduate student in the Program on Gender-Based Violence within the University of Colorado Denver School of Public Affairs. Her research currently focuses on campus sexual assault and intimate partner violence prevention programs, trauma-informed organizational cultures, and compassion satisfaction. She holds a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree in social work from Washington University in St. Louis and a graduate certificate in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender health from Drexel University. LB previously lead Emory University’s Respect Program and the St. Louis County Domestic Violence Court volunteer program. She is a board member for Jane Doe Advocacy Center and the Association of Title IX Administrators. She serves on the founding leadership council of the Campus Advocates & Prevention Professionals Association (CAPPA). You can follow her on twitter @LB_Klein or on her website at http://www.lbklein.net.

Rupande Mehta, New Jersey, USA

Rupande is a writer passionate about women’s rights in India and the world. Having experienced physical and sexual violence from a very young age has made Rupande a fervent advocate of violence against women. Rupande grew up in Mumbai, India where she was consistently subject to street harassment and various cultural norms that force women to live as second class citizens. All these experiences made Rupande’s resolve stronger to campaign for equal rights for women and girls. Rupande has an MBA and is currently working towards her MPA, looking to specialize in Non Profit Management. Rupande writes for the Huffington Post and various other websites. You can find her writing on her blog at Rupande-mehta.tumblr.com or follow her on Twitter @rupandemehta. In her spare time, Rupande loves to spend time with her family, cook healthy foods and read.

Kathleen Moyer, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Kathleen is a full-time graduate student studying professional and business communication. After earning her master’s degree, she hopes to pursue a career in which she’ll be able to dedicate her life to her greatest passion: social justice. As a proud feminist, Kathleen feels strongly about striving for equality in all areas of society. She is currently involved in planning initiatives to increase awareness of sexual assault, domestic violence, and other related issues through her university’s anti-sexual violence group, Explorers Against Sexual Violence. In addition to this work, she has also assisted with volunteer recruitment for Philadelphia’s 2015 March to End Rape Culture, and plans to be involved in organizing the United Nations Association of Greater Philadelphia’s 2016 International Women’s Day event. Some of her feminist role models include Alice Paul, Gloria Steinem, and Malala Yousafzai. Outside of her activism, Kathleen enjoys reading mystery novels, watching the Philadelphia Eagles, listening to U2, and anything involving dogs.

Kayla Parker, Washington, D.C., USA

Kayla is a sophomore acting major at Howard University and is a native of Birmingham, Alabama. She is passionate about theatre arts and film and strives to use her craft to create positive societal change. In addition to focusing on school, she spends her time working on her web-series, “Black Girls R Us” that aims to uplift black women of all different shapes, sizes, and shades. For updates on episode releases, you can follow her on twitter at @TheTimidLioness.

Julia Tofan, Connecticut, USA

Julia is a student in a rural town in Connecticut. She’s passionate about gender equality and feminism and she aspires to be an activist for marginalized populations. She first became interested in human rights when recognizing the great inequality in the world. She realized that education was a powerful way to combat inequality, so she joined Givology, a nonprofit dedicated to improving access to education, as a blogger. She now also writes for Dreams That Could Be, an organization telling the stories of students facing great challenges but persevering in their education, and is excited about being a Street Harassment Correspondent. She believes raising awareness about issues and educating others is the most powerful way to make a difference, and that’s what she seeks to do. Read her blog posts on Givology and Dreams That Could Be and follow her on Twitter @Julia_Tofan!

ProChange, Germany

ProChange is a group of people between 20 and 64 years of age who are active. ProChange consists of a small group of core members in a network of other activists. Their main focus is on street harassment, sexism and sexualized violence. They are opposed to all forms of exploitation which are all inter-connected.

Most Sexual Abuse on London Tube Happens During Rush Hour

January 10, 2016 By HKearl

New information was released about sexual abuse on the London Tube.

Via The Independent.

“The majority of sexual assaults on the Tube are committed during peak travel times, according to new figures which challenge the popular belief that women are most at risk when travelling late at night.

Statistics from the British Transport Police (BTP) showed that between 1 January 2014 and 8 December 2015, 322 sexual assaults were reported on the London Underground network between 5pm and 7pm, along with 291 from 8am until 10am. This compares to just 110 between 11pm and 1am.

Sarah Green, the acting director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said: “These figures tell a compelling story about how sexual harassment is mostly experienced during daytime commuter journeys – not during late-night social hours.”

The findings “explode a myth that women who have been drinking or who are dressed a certain way provoke sexual harassment, because the victims at peak morning and early evening travel times are largely working women making commuter journeys”, she added.”

This has also been true on other transit systems where data have been collected. It shows that the advice to women to stay in at night isn’t effective… most harassment and violence is happening during daylight hours, in crowded places.

“Stop sexualizing MY BODY”

January 9, 2016 By Contributor

I am 14 years old and I have been sexually harassed, whistled, had my way blocked, gestured to get into six different vehicles, and displeasing comments on the side. I AM 14 YEARS OLD. I developed fast! Stop sexualizing MY BODY.

– Anonymous

Location: The road where I live, mall, the city

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

“It is a woman’s fundamental right…to walk the streets and not be groped”

January 8, 2016 By HKearl

In the wake of the mass attacks on German women last week, Musa Okwonga (“a poet, author, sportswriter, broadcaster, musician, public relations consultant and commentator on current affairs”) wrote a powerful piece on his blog titled, “How to deal with the sexual assaults in Cologne and Hamburg.”

The whole piece is worth a read, and I especially appreciate his final paragraph:

“Why don’t we just start with the premise that it is a woman’s fundamental right, wherever she is in the world, to walk the streets and not be groped. And why don’t we see this as a perfect moment for men, regardless of our ethnic backgrounds, to get genuinely angry about the treatment of women in public spaces: to reject with fury the suggestion that we are somehow conditioned by society forever to treat women as objects, condemned by our uncontrollable sexual desires to lunge at them as they walk past. Let’s do our best to challenge the rampant misogyny which has gone on worldwide for far too long, and reject whatever lessons of sexist repression we may have been taught. Because women are tired of telling us about this, and exhausted of fighting a battle that for too long has gone overlooked.”

YES!. Thank you, Musa.

It is sad that a statement like his is so rare. We MUST have more men step up and speak out against gender-based violence.

Woman Killed in U.S., Women Migrants Targeted Abroad

January 7, 2016 By HKearl

Trigger Warning

Here are two upsetting stories for the new year so far (in addition to the attacks on women in Germany). We have so much more work to do.

First, I am sorry to share the news of another senseless death that started as a benign conversation, escalated to street harassment and then to gunshots!! Our thoughts are with Sara’s friends & family.

Via CNN:

“Sara Mutschlechner was driving through the Dallas suburb with three passengers around 2 a.m. (3 a.m. ET) Friday when a gray Honda Pilot with five to six males inside pulled up next to them, Kizer said at a Tuesday afternoon press conference.

“It was an amicable conversation to begin with, but quickly went downhill and some derogatory statements were made toward the female occupants of that vehicle,” the Denton Police spokesman told reporters.

Kizer described those “very derogatory” remarks as being of a “sexual nature,” adding that a male inside Mutschlechner’s vehicle responded by calling them out as offensive.

“Some comments were made back towards him, even a couple of threats were thrown,” the police spokesman said. “About that time, they were driving through the intersection … when several shots were fired.”

One of those shots struck Mutschlechner in the head, according to Denton Police.

She quickly lost control of her car, which first hit another vehicle leaving a nearby parking lot before veering into an electrical pole.

The Honda Pilot, meanwhile, fled.

Mutschlechner, a University of North Texas student and member of the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority, died after being transported to an area hospital. She was a designated driver that night and had not been drinking, witnesses said.”

The second story comes from the New York Times and is about men targeting migrant women from countries like Syria for sexual abuse.

“Interviews with dozens of migrants, social workers and psychologists caring for traumatized new arrivals across Germany suggest that the current mass migration has been accompanied by a surge of violence against women. From forced marriages and sex trafficking to domestic abuse, women report violence from fellow refugees, smugglers, male family members and even European police officers. There are no reliable statistics for sexual and other abuse of female refugees….

As some women painted their hands with henna and others traded frustrations about the time it was taking to get refugee status, Samar, a 35-year-old former employee of the Syrian Finance Ministry, opened up about the particular stress of being a woman on the move. Bombed out of her home in Darayya, a suburb of Damascus that early in the civil war became known for antigovernment protests, Samar spent 14 months on the road alone with her three daughters, ages 2, 8 and 13.

“I did not leave them out of my sight for one minute,” she said in Arabic, speaking through an interpreter. She and other single mothers slept in shifts along the way, watching over their daughters and one another.

But in Izmir, Turkey, about to board a boat to Greece, Samar was robbed and left with no money to pay the smuggler. A stocky man who called himself Omar, he offered to take her for free, but only if she had sex with him. Samar had heard him before, at night, in the hostel where she and other refugee women were staying, “going to this room and that.”

“Everybody knows there are two ways of paying the smugglers,” she said. “With money or with your body.”

But she refused, and Omar became angry. That night he burst into Samar’s room, threatening her and her daughters before her screaming chased him away. Samar stayed in Turkey for almost a year to work and save up the 4,000 euros needed for the remainder of the journey.

Sitting with her youngest daughter curled on her lap, Samar concluded: “Almost all men in the world are bad.”

Across town, in west Berlin, Ms. Höhne sympathized, but had a more nuanced view. There are no easy solutions, she said. Female-only shelters are not an option because most families want to stay together. Some women rely on men for protection. And, she added, “We mustn’t forget many of the men are traumatized, too.”

“There is no black and white, good and evil,” she said. “If we want to help the women, we need to help the men, too.”

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