Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Street Harassment Weekly – Jan. 5-11, 2015

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Welcome to the Street Harassment Weekly, your update on all the street harassment news you missed from the past week. Here’s what’s been going on:

The ATM At Which Women Can Report Sexual Assault – “In the Indian state of Odisha, the state government estimates that around 60 per cent of sexual assaults against women go unreported. The ICLIK, developed by the Odisha government and OCAC, a local computer company, allows women to log a report of assault or harassment while appearing to visit a bank machine.”

Indian “Sex Offender” Forced to Bend Over To Be Smacked By Women– “Is this India’s new, creative way of disciplining sex offenders? A man, 23, accused of sexually harassing several young women in central India was reportedly forced to bend over in the middle of a public street to have his buttocks smacked by a group of angry schoolgirls.”

Commentary: Why Do We Ask For Gender-Segregated Transport For Women If The Problem Is Men Behaving Badly? – “Women need to be able to occupy public spaces and use public transport in the same way that men do. We need to go to work and school and walk the streets without fear – and a women-only train car doesn’t do anything but offer a temporary solution filled with too many gaps. If we want to stop harassment on subways and buses, we need to start with men and getting them to change their actions.”

Acid Attacks: The Other Half of the Story You Don’t Know– “Acid attacks are seen as one of the most horrendous crimes against women. However, not only women, men are equally prone to the attacks. Chandras Mishra from Meerut is an acid attack victim. He was attacked with the lethal chemical three years back by his landlord’s son, who he had stopped from eve teasing a woman.”

Four Arrested for Eve-Teasing in Hyderabad – “The victim, in her complaint to the police, said that on Friday while she and her sister were returning from a shop the accused started to tease her. When she stopped and questioned them, one of the accused tried to pull her scarf.”

One Tweet Sums Up The Struggle Every NYC Woman Faces On the Sidewalk – “This is called “manslamming,” which Jessica Roy, who interviewed Breslaw about her experience for the Cut, defines as “the sidewalk M.O. of men who remain apparently oblivious to the personal space of those around them” who “will walk directly into you without even acknowledging it” should someone fail to move out of their path.”

It Happened To Me: I Was Catcalled Wearing the Equivalent of a Down Comforter – “Women get catcalled in skirts. They are catcalled in jeans. They get whistled at in trench coats, in yoga pants, in business suits. The problem with catcalling does not lie with women’s clothing. Rather, the problem is with the men who do it.”

The Backlash Against African Women – “Public strippings represent the front lines of a cultural war against women’s advancements in traditionally conservative but rapidly urbanizing societies. They aren’t really about what women are wearing. They are much more about where women are going.”

Street Harassment: Why It’s Not Ok To Comment On Me – “A woman’s body is part of a person; it’s not an object. I am a woman, and my body belongs to me and no one else. Strangers on the street having the right to comment on it? When did that happen? Did I miss the memo?”

CONTEST:
Female Singer-Songwriters wanted to help create anti-street harassment video

UPCOMING EVENT:
Challenging Violence Against Women and Girls on UK Public Transport–
DATE: Tuesday 20th January 2015
TIME: 10.45 to 13.00 (with lunch provided 13.00-14.00)
VENUE: Room G1 & G2, British Transport Police Force Headquarters, 25 Camden Road, London NW1 9LN

 

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Street harassment and women’s equality in Africa

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There have been numerous incidents of men scrutinizing, harassing, and stripping women of their clothing in the streets from Cameroon to Zimbabwe, from Kenya to South Africa as “punishment” for dressing “immodestly.” Sisonke Msimang writes about this alarming practice in a very powerful New York Times piece today and how street harassment is connected to women’s equality. This is an excerpt:

“Public strippings represent the front lines of a cultural war against women’s advancements in traditionally conservative but rapidly urbanizing societies. They aren’t really about what women are wearing. They are much more about where women are going.

And many African women are going places quickly. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala became the first female finance minister in Nigeria; Liberia’s president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is one of a handful of elected female heads of state in the world. Lupita Nyong’o’s Oscar win and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s literary successes have brought attention to the artistic triumphs of a younger generation of women.

Nowhere has progress been more remarkable than in Africa’s legislatures. Africans have significantly outpaced their female peers in America and Europe. In the United States, women hold less than 20 percent of the seats in Congress; similarly, in Britain, women make up just over one-fifth of the members of the House of Commons. Compare this to South Africa, where more than 40 percent of representatives in the National Assembly are women, or Rwanda, where 64 percent of all members of Parliament are women — making it the only country in the world where women outnumber men in the legislature.

Beginning in the 1980s, many African countries started to invest in girls’ education and in small enterprise projects. A generation later, an equal number of girls and boys are enrolled in primary schools across the continent. Many women are successful entrepreneurs and, of course, politicians. Precisely because of these rapid changes in women’s status, the backlash from churches, political parties, traditional leaders and rural officials has been forceful. Outrage at bold women is both spontaneous and organized. The mob mentality that leads to public strippings arises in urban milieus where male aggression against women is seen as acceptable. Meanwhile, many churches systematically preach female subservience, while traditional tribal leaders often blame women for dislodging men from their rightful places in modern societies…

Ordinary African women, it seems, are bearing the brunt of their sisters’ progress. Street harassment is often a sign of deep-seated resentment of women’s changing status in society. For men who were raised to believe that they are entitled to be breadwinners and receive sexual gratification and domestic subservience from women, the shift hasn’t been easy. For younger men, modern values have jostled sharply against the lessons about manhood they learned at home. With high levels of unemployment and gaping inequalities, old conceptions of masculinity die hard.”

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“I was followed by about six teenage boys”

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While I was still attending high school, I would often walk to meet my mother at her place of work. My mother is a middle school teacher and her school is very close to mine. Walking to her school was hardest when I was alone and the boys would comment about how “fine my body was” or how pretty I was, often in rude and creepy detail. Once I made the mistake of leaving my school late, because I had a club meeting. Consequently, I was followed by about six teenage boys, a posse I suppose. They were cat calling me, and became angry and aggressive when I calmly refused to respond. It wasn’t until I finally saw a security guard still on campus that my body stopped shaking and the fear subsided. The boys saw him as well and walked in the opposite direction. I ran to my mother’s school that day.

– Miramar

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See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more idea

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Nepal: Separate buses now, separate walking lanes in the future?

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Aakriti Karki, Kathmandu, Nepal, SSH Blog Correspondent

Image via ekantipur.com

Recently, a female only bus service launched in Nepal. The idea behind this service is to provide more safety to women from harassment.

When I read about it in the morning paper, I smiled. I was glad that the public transport authorities were finally paying heed to our concerns. Moreover, to know that the bus services would soon have lady drivers and lady conductors meant that more opportunities were going to be provided to women. Also, this would break the gender stereotypes in our society. We don’t see women as bus drivers or as conductors in Kathmandu even though there is a rise in the number of women who drive their own cars. Even the tempos have more female drivers compared to bus drivers. As for conductors, I’ve seen only a handful in Kathmandu so far. So I was really happy about the news that morning.

That very day, while I was returning home, I was treated rather rudely by a male bus conductor. As soon as I took my seat next to a window, he stared at me. A few other passengers gave me quizzical looks. A few minutes later, the conductor started yelling and pointing his finger at me. I had my earphones in so I removed them in time to hear him yell at me for not sitting in the “women’s seating area,” meaning the few seats designated for women-only on the bus.

I apologized and sat where he wanted me to be seated. Throughout that ride I kept questioning myself – Why could I not sit any other place? Wasn’t this “seat reservation” system put in place for the ladies who couldn’t find a seat in a packed buses? Why did I have to sit here if I could sit anywhere else? The bus wasn’t completely occupied! I didn’t have to sit just there. I knew I could sit anywhere else. But how was I supposed to explain it to them? The conductor followed the system. But was that the right way? He just did that to avoid the scolding from the police in case there was an inspection.

This is where our problem lies. No matter how much our society chants “women equality”, “women empowerment”, “women safety”, we never manage to make that happen. Will females not be allowed to travel in regular buses because there are “all-women buses” available for us? What if I want to travel someplace with my guy friends? Will we have to use separate buses? I hope this doesn’t become another misinterpreted system or another excuse for people to tell me where to sit. The last thing I need now is people telling me which bus to travel in and whom to travel with.

The new women-only bus “tactic” will surely help physically challenged women and older women. It’ll definitely put parents with young daughters at ease. But not me. I don’t mind defending myself when someone makes lewd comments about me or even stares me with that grin on his face. I like fighting with perverts and harassers. I like my freedom and I want all that any guy in my society gets.

I also like making people aware about the inequalities and dangers our society holds for girls. I like it when men show some respect to women – not because they are women but because they are humans. I like it when one human respects another human.

With these new buses, maybe we’ll be safe. But what about the “perverted” minds that will still wander free? Will we start having separate lanes to walk in? Because hey! We aren’t safe on the streets either, are we?

Aakriti is a student at Jalalabad Ragib Rabeya Medical College and member at Women LEAD Nepal – the only leadership development organisation for young women in Nepal. You can follow her on Twitter @karki_aakriti or Facebook.

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