Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Kenya: Undress Me Not

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Linnet Nyawira Mwangi, Kisumu, Kenya, SSH Blog Correspondent

A screenshot of the woman stripped because her miniskirt was “ indecent”

I recently watched the widely viewed street harassment video “Ten hours of walking in NYC as a woman” where a young woman wearing jeans and a crewneck t-shirt walked through Manhattan, and I couldn’t help but notice the countless times she was harassed on the streets.

This made me realise there is more to street harassment than just the mode of dressing. See, in Kenya, towards the end of last year there was a wide spread campaign dubbed #MyDressMyChoice. This was as a result of women being stripped naked on broad daylight by men who gave the excuse of indecent dressing.  Since when did a miniskirt become indecent dressing? Stripping a woman who is supposedly indecently dressed does not make her more decent but robs her of her dignity. The most appropriate action would be giving her a ‘kanga’ to cover herself.

Looking at the issue of dressing keenly, we find that even the women who were attacked were not actually indecently dressed but they were attacked because they tried to defend themselves from the comments made by the harassers. It is not uncommon that some of the comments made are bound to make you angry  but sometimes it seems that the more you argue with them and challenge them, the angrier they become and behave indecently towards you. I am happy that the government and human rights activists intervened and some perpetrators of the acts were caught and charged. The issues of stripping women in public is now unheard of and I hope this continues.

But street harassment is not just about clothing. Even women in hijab get cat called on the streets too. Street harassment occurs because many of us let it happen. We watch as the men perpetrate the act and assume that it is none of our business. Some of us even stand back to listen and giggle at the comments made by the street harassers instead of helping the victims. I would like to challenge each and every person to stand up for the women in these situations.  

For the men out there, you should know that the woman you harass is someone’s sister or mother and they could also be your sister, mother or wife. I am sure you would not like it if the same was done to them.

Linnet is a student at Maseno University in Kisumu, Kenya pursuing a bachelor’s degree in sociology with IT. Follow her on Twitter @Shantel_lyn and Facebook @lynnette Shantellah.

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Women’s History: Street Harassment Resistance in 1944 and 1970

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Happy Women’s History Month! Here are two examples of street harassment resistance in the U.S. about which you may not know. They are both included in the introduction of my forthcoming book about global street harassment activism that I submitted to my editor on Sunday (!). The book will be out in early September 2015.

Via ColorLines

1. From the 1940s to 1960s a large number of black women collectively challenged the centuries-old practice of white men harassing and raping black women with impunity. In 1944, for example, white men harassed and then gang raped a twenty-four-year-old black sharecropper, wife and mother Recy Taylor as she walked home from church with female friends. Her story caught the attention of a Montgomery NAACP member Rosa Parks, an established anti-rape crusader. Parks led a national campaign for justice for Taylor that resulted in the assailants admitting they committed the crime — despite white male police trying to cover for them — and the case went to trial. Sadly, the all-white, all-male jury did not indict any of Taylor’s assailants.

Despite not gaining justice for Taylor, Parks’ campaign lay the foundation for other campaigns. In Danielle McGuire’s 2011 book At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance, she chronicles Taylor’s story and this important time period and how the civil rights movement began not just out of outrage over the lynching of black men, segregation, and general discrimination, but also because of people’s indignation over white men’s assaults of black women in public spaces.

2. During the 1970s and early 1980s, street harassment was occasionally addressed within the Women’s Liberation actions, the rape crisis center movement, and Take Back the Night rallies. Women hung up and distributed flyers, patrolled places with high rates reports of rape, and even held demonstrations. An example of a demonstration occurred in New York City in June 1970. Newspapers routinely printed the commuting schedules and physical measurements of pretty women who worked in Wall Street, and men would line up outside their workplaces to harass them. In response, Karla Jay and Alix Kates Shulman organized an “olge-in” during which they yelled sexualized “compliments” at men on the street.

“We’re trying to point out what it feels like to be whistled at, pointed at constantly every time we walk down the street…they think that we’re just sexual objects. And we don’t want to be sexual objects anymore,” one of the women said in an interview.

The work we do today builds on decades of resistance and the bravery of women like Recy, Rosa, Karla and Alix.

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What I’m Reading: Early March Edition

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Here are a few street harassment-related articles from the past week or so!

But first, some exciting news:

New Jersey Assembly Bill No. 3938 (to strengthen legislation so it includes up-skirt photos in public spaces) is scheduled for consideration by the Assembly Judiciary Committee on Thursday, March 05, 2015 at 10:00 AM in Committee Room 12, (4th floor), State House Annex, Trenton, New Jersey. We are proud to know & have inspired the actions of the assembly woman who introduced the bill.

Kill Screen Daily:

In Swetha Kannan’s game Stasis, players must learn how to endure  street harassment‬….Nivetha Kannan, Swetha’s sister and a fellow game designer who helped conceptualize the game, says that “when we were developing the system, we wanted to really focus on that repetition. When the speech bubbles block your path once or twice, it’s mildly annoying. The third and fourth time, it’s aggravating. But by the end, when the woman cannot walk very fast or far at all, it’s absolutely enraging.”

Khaama Press:

Kubra Khademi, a 25-year-old Afghan artist, wore metal armor as she walked the streets of Kabul for her artistic protest of street harassment called “Armor.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Medium: 

After she was harassed, Indian teenager Rajkumari “stood by her demand that the boy himself apologize to her and be punished for his behavior. So, threatening legal recourse, the council gave him only one option. They required the boy to bow down and apologize to Rajkumari in the presence of the entire village, which he finally did.

Promising not to mistreat any girl again, the boy was given a chance to mend his ways or face police intervention. The incident not only brought the issue of “eve-teasing” and street harassment to the attention of the village council, it also strengthened Rajkumari’s confidence in her own power to demand respect and to create change for herself and others.”

Run Haven:

“As a transgender woman and activist, I fight for people to understand that I’m just like any other woman. In reality, I’m not. I’m different. Not in how much of a woman I am, but because I actually know what it’s like to just run and to do so without fear.”

The Telegraph: 

“A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy,” said one of Delhi college student Jyoti Singh’s rapists and killers.

“The interview [with him], which BBC Four will air on its Storyville programme to coincide with International Womens’ Day this Sunday, will be seen by women’s rights groups as compelling evidence of the appalling attitudes shown by many Indian men towards women.” Yes, so appalling!!!!!!!!!

Daily Dot:

Mantouching is “an assertion of one’s masculinity, at the expense of the personal comfort of those around you. When a man touches a woman without asking, he’s doing so because he feels entitled to access to her body. For him, it might feel like a meaningless or friendly gesture. After all, what’s the matter with touching the small of a woman’s back? It’s not like you’re sexually assaulting her.

But for women, it sends a different message. Nancy Qualls-Shehata of Patheos writes, “Your body is not your own, and any good ole boy can grab your butt and no one will stop him. Oh, and you have to pretend it’s OK even if you are seething inside. You have to smile and give him a friendly wag of the finger and hug him.”

The Guardian:

“Men will only stop killing, raping, injuring and oppressing women if they change. That means tackling attitudes within their ranks that make possible the objectification of women, for instance, or which normalise violence against women.”

The Telegraph:

“Men in Azerbaijan have been posting photos of themselves wearing mini-skirts to protest against the murder of a Turkish woman who resisted rape.”

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“You’re gonna make me cum!”

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On my way to work, I heard a man yelling “uhh!! Uhhh!! You’re gonna make me cum!!” and looked up to see a man violently masturbating at me with his pants down around his knees. I called 911 to report this, and waited 45 minutes before anyone showed up to take down any information. It was 9 a.m. in broad daylight on a Thursday.

– Alice

Location: Brooklyn, NY

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

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“I’m just trying to go home with you”

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On Friday, February 20th, a man started verbally harassing me in the Prospect Park Q train station, asking if he could get inside my coat with me. I abruptly walked down to the platform to be around more people. When the train arrived, I got on and noticed he’d sat down across from me. Three stations later, I got off at my stop and he got up and did the same. Hoping to leave with the crowd, I left the train station and walked across the street and down one block.

I looked behind me and saw he was following me from across the street. I walked back towards the train station to ask the attendant to call the police. The man cut me off at the corner and I yelled, “What the f*** do you think you’re doing?!” He responded “Nothing I’m just trying to go home with you.” I threatened to call the cops if he kept following me, and he backed away and walked down the block.

An older woman saw what happened and was nice enough to accompany me home. When I called the precinct to file a report, the attendant told me that nothing had actually happened, then proceeded to hang up on me, laughing. It was 2 a.m. I called 311 to see if there were any resources, and was given the same treatment by two different people after being put on hold for 10 minutes.

– Alice

Location: Brooklyn, NY

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

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