Two new reports/studies illustrate important points relating to street harassment.

1. Street harassment, like all forms of sexual harassment, is about power/control, not about attraction or someone just trying to be nice to someone else. A new study provides more evidence that this is true.

“Adolescent boys who bully peers and engage in homophobic teasing are more likely to perpetrate sexual harassment later on, suggests a new study of middle-school students conducted by researchers at the University of Illinois and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…

The association between bullying and sexual harassment may be indicative of a developmental pathway for some bullies and warrants greater prevention and intervention efforts in schools, said Dorothy L. Espelage, who is among the first researchers to investigate these problems in middle-school populations.

Primary prevention efforts may need to begin even earlier than middle school – in late elementary school – and focus on gender-based aggressive acts that precede sexual harassment perpetration, especially homophobic name-calling, Espelage said.”

The existence of a “bully-sexual violence pathway” among boys is shows that sexual harassment/street harassment is about power and itis behavior that can and should be prevented at a young age.

2. Street harassment reinforces and is a by-product of gender inequality.

The World Economic Forum released their annual Global Gender Gap Report a few days ago. Yet again, no country has achieved gender equality. Street harassment perpetrated by men against women is one more indicator and manifestation of this inequality. No country will ever achieve gender equality until street harassment ends and street harassment will not end as long as women are second-class citizens globally.