Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

“College-aged men on the patio felt it was important to yell at me that I was ugly”

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Drove through Taco Cabana one evening. I’d spent the day taking care of a sick relative. I was tired and I just needed to get something to eat. College-aged men on the patio felt it was important to yell at me that I was ugly. I was 48-years-old at the time. When I get up in the morning, my goal isn’t to titillate college-aged, beer-swilling man-children. How would they feel if someone acted that way to their mother? I was in a moving vehicle and I just kept going, but in retrospect I should have gone in and told the manager, or better yet, just thrown my soda at them.

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

Next time I am harassed, and unfortunately I know there will be a next time, I’ll tell the manager so they have the opportunity of making the harassers leave. If I’m in my car, I’m going to nail them with a soda.

– Anonymous

Location: Denton, TX

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

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USA: Benefits to Ending Harassment

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Daniel Burdick, CA, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

My previous contribution to this blog entitled, “Men Harassing Women Represents a Loss for Everyone,” due to size limitations, contained little elaboration about why this title statement makes sense.  The question could be asked: what possible effect could a few incidents of harassment make to those with apparently no personal involvement?  Why should we men concern ourselves with the sophomoric behavior of a few other men towards women?

In the words of anthropologist Margaret Meade: “Every time we liberate a woman, we liberate a man.” (La Abogada,1967)

Please allow me to separate the topic of gender-based street harassment (GBSH) away from the general context of women’s equal rights, if this is at all possible.  Simply, my intent here is to channel the GBSH dialog within an even broader context of social equality for all people.

Harassment is one of those bad behaviors that tends to be marginalized because the harm it causes is psychological, cumulative, and therefore intangible.  We were all taught at the playground, often teary-eyed, the “Sticks and Stones” rhyme where “words will never hurt me.”  Unfortunately, words are exactly what inflict us with a variety of mental health issues.   Among the negative attitudes which promote turmoil in relationships is low self-esteem.  When someone becomes convinced they have shortcomings regarding appearance and personality, they are very likely to over-compensate for it with various forms of clinical narcissism. (Not to be confused with narcissism, the vice.) This is highly evident in the current popularity and pervasiveness of self-improvement products and strategies.

A story of street harassment, the toll it takes away from our simple friendships, and the tyranny of the clothing industry…  One of my car-free female friends was very late to attending a casual soiree one evening, much to my dismay.  It was revealed later that while she was on her way, some strange male had made a judgmental, derogatory critique of the comfortable tights she wears while riding her bicycle.  She responded by returning to her home in humiliation in order to change her clothes, and apparently experienced other changes there as well.  This happened months ago, and now I know by how she has altered her dressing strategy that she may still bear the pain from whatever was said.  I feel physical pain myself when I imagine this happening to her.  Not all of us are able to find, much less afford, stylish clothing that fits our diversely-shaped bodies perfectly and thus free of attracting misguided commentaries of how we present ourselves, including other unwanted attention and victim-blaming.  (The hyper-critical fashion-entertainment scrutiny of celebrities only amplifies this disturbing trend.)

Then there is a social media contact (another inspiration for my involvement with SSH) who occasionally vents understandable rage by posting online flames about the street harassers she regularly encounters when accessing public transit.  Simultaneously, she is quick to disavow any sympathy or connection whatsoever for what she considers as “feminism,” at least openly among her friends and contacts in the social media forum.  While I would like to ask her to elaborate further about this, I expect probable sarcasm and less-than-honest responses… as besides being pressed for time, she apparently must also bear more than her fair share of an emotional load to try explaining this to some guy who claims he is doing research for some blog article.

While I certainly respect this woman’s privacy and only seek to improve her situation by documenting her observations; although until she offers to share her thoughts openly and unsolicited, she represents a person unable to contribute to the human cause of equality – apparently due to the perceived social stigma of being intimidated by harassment.  She is not the only woman I’ve encountered who actively seeks disassociation with “the movement,” which seems to be judged by some to exist for others who are somehow inferior to themselves.  However, this person’s apparent method of coping with her harassers, while valid, is similar in endearment value as the car engine-revving, horn-honking and intentional tire-squealing.

I’m by no means a mental health professional, yet no one really has to be in order to identify many other methods we cope with issues caused by street harassment.  The bottom line is the culture of street harassment and related posturing seems to affect both men and women toward acquiring overly competitive, detrimentally aggressive attitudes toward each other that make it difficult to initiate and share the intimacy and connections we all crave.  Male friends often confide in me regarding their frustration with establishing equitable relations with women; yet it’s simultaneously and painfully obvious why women must often respond to even well-intended men with mistrust, the avoidance of contact, and even hostility.

Please consider the plight of women who enter the male-dominated fields of scientific research and academia. This is a crucial area where humanity desperately needs the brightest people who are not only trained intellectuals, but possess common sense and social balance. Research shows that many women who possess these qualities are realizing this career path isn’t workable for them, due to an atmosphere of harassment and gender-biased competition, among other reasons.  One can only begin to imagine the loss of discoveries, breakthroughs, and other possible benefits to our existence that are lost.  There are potentially so many fabulous minds that are oppressed, discredited, and forced away due to stupid, selfish remarks and innuendoes.

What I’m honestly trying to accomplish amounts to convincing other guys that we actually share an important stake (other than that hopeful side effect of attracting a mate of sufficient intelligence to enable establishing a survivable, sustainable relationship) within the context of street harassment, and that the quality of our lives and relationships will improve if we can somehow jump-start a process to stop street harassment from continuing its heinous oppression of women.  I wouldn’t be out here trying to help put an end to it I didn’t think this was a realistically possible goal offering significant benefits.

Daniel is a longtime activist for peace, the environment, and social equality. He currently works as a design engineer and is an avid bicyclist.

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SlutRock DC

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Despite chilly, extremely windy fall weather and a periodic light drizzle, around 150 people marched in the fourth annual SlutWalk/SlutRock DC today. This is the fourth year I’ve tabled at the event and I really love it. I spent three hours talking to people about their street harassment experiences, brainstorming strategies, and sharing stickers, resources and leftover trick-or-treat candy.

So much of the work I do is from behind my computer, emailing people, tweeting, writing here, and even when I give talks, there isn’t always time to have many one-on-one conversations with participants so it was a real treat. Here are a few of the photos, with credit to Mark Webster for the last two.

   
   
   
   
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What is street harassment & what can I do?

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Street harassment is the top story on The Today Show this morning and has been covered by every major media outlet this week.

So if you’re just learning about this issue and/or us, welcome. Here are a few quick things to know:

What it is:

Street harassment is any unwanted action or comment between strangers in public places that is disrespectful, unwelcome, threatening and/or harassing and is motivated by gender or sexual orientation or gender expression. It happens in every country and disproportionately to all women and to men in the LGBQT community.

It impacts harassed persons’ ability to navigate through and be in public spaces and thus is a human rights violation. It is part of the same continuum as sexual violence as it can escalate into it (and we never know when) and it can be retriggering for survivors of sexual violence.

History of the Issue:

Since at least the late 1800s, women have been speaking out and challenging street harassment. The term was first used in 1981 and the first website about it where women could share their stories launched in 2000 by the Street Harassment Project.

Women of color have led many of these efforts, in more recent times, they have done amazing work through the Rogers Park Young Women’s Action Team, Girls for Gender Equity, Stop Telling Women to Smile, Brooklyn Movement Center, the Window Sex Project, and #YouOkSis?

History of Stop Street Harassment:

This website began in 2008 to fill a gap in information/resources about the topic — it grew from my master’s thesis on the subject at George Washington University, which I began research for in 2006. I wrote one of the only books on street harassment in 2010, Stop Street Harassment: Making Public Places Safe and Welcoming for Women, and commissioned a nationally representative survey on street harassment this year.

What we Do/Get involved:

Currently, SSH does a lot of education and community mobilization work.

* You can share your story.

* You can find suggestions for dealing with street harassers as well as the relevant USA laws

* You can find information on being a male ally and how to talk to women with respect.

* You can find toolkit guides for taking action in your community on this topic.

* You can read articles from our blog correspondents in 9 countries to learn about the problem globally. (We will be recruiting a new cohort of correspondents in December.)

* You can get an update on the community projects our Safe Public Spaces teams are doing in this fall in 6 countries and DONATE to support the 2015 programs (and apply to be one of those programs in 2015).

* You can plan to participate in the 5th annual International Anti-Street Harassment Week.

* You can request me to lead a workshop or give a talk in your community, to your business, or in your school or community (in 4 years I’ve given 130+ talks).

* You can donate to support our work, which currently is largely done on a volunteer-basis and anything we do fund comes solely from individual donors.

 

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A viral video cannot be the only way to understand street harassment

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Whenever I left my college campus in California, inevitably at least once man would honk, whistle or call out to me from his car. Usually it was several. It annoyed me, it made me dread going places, and I felt there was little I could do about it as these men whizzed by, safely removed from me in their cars.

I will never forget the day a man harassed me while I was on the phone with my dad and my dad heard it. He asked me in surprise if that man was talking to me. I said something like, “Yes, dad, it happens all the time when I’m walking along this street.”

He was shocked. In that moment I realized he had no idea how many times men harassed me.

At that time, I didn’t know the term “street harassment” but a few years later in 2006, I found the term on the Street Harassment Project website and wrote my master’s thesis on it. During the course of my research, I began not only educating myself about the issue, but also the men in my life, like my dad and my male partner.

They, like many straight men, were clueless about how often the women they knew faced unwanted comments, following and even touching in public spaces. So I made it a point to mention when and where I was harassed to help them understand. They believed me, they cared, and now they are outspoken against it.

In the nearly 8 years that I’ve been studying, writing and speaking out about this topic, I’ve encountered countless people who similarly have no idea how common street harassment is or how bad it can be and also those who willfully believe it doesn’t happen and that we are exaggerating or lying.

Over the past four months, there have been four different viral videos of street harassers filmed with hidden cameras on the streets of Washington, DC, Minneapolis, Cairo, Egypt, and this week, New York City. Two years ago, there was a similar video made in Brussels, Belgium. They show just how common street harassment is and provide visual examples of what it looks like. These videos are easy to digest and they are raising many people’s awareness about the problem. They prove street harassment is not made up.

But these hidden camera videos only go so far and they cannot and should not be the only way to understand the problem and raise awareness about it. This is why.

First, the women who are the subjects of these films comprise just one demographic: they are all young adult, able-bodied, seemingly heterosexual, attractive women walking alone in big cities, and the three women in the USA and in Belgium are all white. Collectively, they make the experiences of everyone else invisible. To help see the bigger picture of who experiences harassment, you can turn to Twitter, blogs, art projects, and to a nationally representative survey conducted earlier this year by GfK.

In the survey, 25% of men – largely in the LGBQT community – said they had been street harassed, as had 65% of women. Half of all harassed persons said it began before they were age 17, so lots of teenagers are harassed. Persons of color were more likely than white people to say they had been harassed. People from every region of the country and every income level reported experiencing harassment. While the survey did not ask specifically about disability or include enough transgender individuals to speak about their experiences statistically, there is no doubt from people’s stories that that they face a lot of street harassment, too.

Second, the videos do not show the full extent of harassment people experience, like being grabbed or flashed or assaulted. In the national survey, nearly one in four women had been sexually touched or groped, one in five had been followed, and nearly one in ten had been forced to do something sexual. Recently, a woman in Detroit was murdered by a harasser, while a woman in New York City was slashed by another. These scary, violent experiences is what makes a lot of the “just verbal” experiences upsetting. And of course that underlying discomfort and fear is hard to depict in a short video.

Third, by limiting the video taping to the streets, you don’t see the full range of harassers. Like men – and most harassers of women and men are male — who harass from their vehicles. Men who harass on public transportation. Men who harass in stores, restaurants, clubs, bars, parks, movie theaters, and beaches. Men who stand outside their college fraternity house or sports field and harass women walking by. I believe there would be more racial diversity, age diversity and income-bracket diversity among the harassers than the viral videos depict if it was possible to capture harassment in all of these places.

Since it is impossible to video tape every type of harasser and harassee to document – to prove – this is a problem, we need to listen to and believe everyone who speaks out to share their stories. Believe the gay man who says he is called a fag or queer; believe the transgender person who says they are called tranny and he/she; believe persons of color when they say they are called racial slurs, misidentified as a criminal or as a sex worker; believe persons with disabilities when they say they are laughed at, pointed at, and harassed; believe the teenagers who say they are harassed while commuting to and from school.

Then go a step further beyond belief, try to empathize with their experiences — even though they are not like your own — and commit to helping create a world that is safer and more welcoming for them.

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