Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

USA: Halloween costumes can be clever, not just “sexy”

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By: Taylor Kuether, Minnesota, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

“Sexy” Hamburger, Image via Yandy.com

While it is one of my favorite holidays, Halloween is also hard. As a feminist against street harassment, I think women should be able to wear whatever they want and not be harassed for it, but as a feminist against cultural appropriation and heteronormativity, I think there are some costumes that are hurtful, degrading, and demeaning.

Consider the popular skeleton costume with a tape measure around the waist, “playfully” called “Anna Rexia.” Such a costume trivializes a real disease that hurts thousands of people. Or what about dressing up as sexualized Disney princesses, which both infantilizes women by dressing them up in costumes traditionally reserved for very young girls and hurts said young girls by showing them highly sexualized versions of otherwise innocent children’s characters. And how many countless costumes are there that – literally – objectify women by turning them into objects? Sexy USB Port (with matching USB Stick for your boyfriend…)? Sexy Brick House (and, of course, Brick Layer for the guy…how clever…)? And of course, Sexy Hamburger, which literally turns a woman into a piece of meat.

Yes, these costumes are harmful, reducing women to sexualized objects. Even worse, though, are costumes that make fun of other cultures. Halloween is a time to dress up and pretend to be someone you’re not – but why do we need to try on other races and nationalities for size? Some examples include Native American, Mexican, and Asian “costumes,” all shown here. Commodifying an entire culture to dress up in it for Halloween devalues the richness and history of that culture.

So just don’t do it. Pick something else, please.

I value creative, clever, or funny Halloween costumes. I value Halloween costumes that allow you to dress up as someone you admire (Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, anyone?). And I especially appreciate costumes that bend gender binaries – rather than the predictable presentation of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, characters from one of my favorite American folk tales, last year it was I who dressed as Paul Bunyan (faux-beard and all!) and my then-boyfriend went as Babe. This year, I’m excited to dress up as Tobias Funke from the popular TV series “Arrested Development,” and one of my gal pals is going as his wife Lindsey. It’ll be fun and funny, and I know we’ll have a great time and make some people laugh.

That’s what Halloween should be about. It’s a holiday that’s meant to be fun – for children, that means trick-or-treating, for adults, that means dressing up and handing out candy or attending a Halloween party. It’s not meant to be serious or stuffy, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t carefully consider our costume choices.

This Halloween, I implore you to pick the funny, clever costume over the “sexy” one. Try it; you’ll probably end up having a blast.

Taylor Kuether is a senior journalism student at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in northwestern Wisconsin. She has previously written for The Washington Post and Minneapolis’ Star Tribune, worked as a reporter at her city’s daily newspaper, The Leader-Telegram, and its arts and culture publication, VolumeOne, hosted a local-music centered radio show on Wisconsin Public Radio, and worked as Editor-in-Chief at her student newspaper, where she enjoyed writing biting, slightly rant-y columns about feminist issues.

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UNiTE to Make Public Places Safer!

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Community Members in Bangladesh recently met to discuss how to make their public places safer for girls & women.

On the 25th of every month, the UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign focuses on different types of violence against women and girls. Today they are focusing on harassment and violence in public places and how we can make those spaces safer for women and girls. This is something we at Stop Street Harassment strive to do every day and we are happy to support the campaign!

From the UNiTE’s website:

“Violence and the fear of violence reduces women’s freedom of movement and rights to access education, work, recreation, and essential services, and can restrict their participation in political life. It also negatively affects their health and well-being. Despite these wide-ranging consequences, violence against women and girls in public spaces remains a neglected area, with few laws or policies in place to prevent and address it.

At the 57th Session on the Commission of the Status of Women, governments made specific commitments directed towards making public spaces safer for women and girls.

For the first time the Commission on the Status of Women, the highest global normative body on women’s rights, during its 57th Session specifically included several clauses in its Agreed Conclusions document devoted to safety of women and girls in public spaces, and particularly, in the cities.  It expressed “deep concern about violence against women and girls in public spaces, including sexual harassment, especially when it is being used to intimidate women and girls who are exercising any of their human rights and fundamental freedoms.”  (23, p4)

It called on the States “to increase measures to protect women and girls from violence and harassment, including sexual harassment and bullying, in both public and private spaces, to address security and safety, through awareness-raising, involvement of local communities, crime prevention laws, policies, programmes such as the Safe Cities Initiative of the United Nations. (ZZ, p13)“

What YOU can Do:

1. Learn more about the issue, why it matters, and what you can do about it. Here is an article I wrote for Ms. Magazine’s blog about how street harassment can escalate to assault – and three ideas for what we can do to change our culture so street harassment is no longer acceptable.

2. Join the Tweet chat throughout the day, led by UN Women and UN Habitat (#OrangeDay). Our friends at the Huairou Commission are hosting it at 10 a.m. EDT.

3. Donate to Stop Street Harassment — we’re working to fund the first-ever national study on street harassment. This data is sorely needed before we can adequately tackle the problem. We also do a lot of other work that is solely funded by donations.

 Update: Read what groups around the world did to speak out in support of space public spaces for women and girls!

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UK: What am I supposed to do when I get harassed?

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By: Levi Grayshon, Manchester, England, SSH Correspondent

When you hear someone’s street harassment story, it is very easy to tell them “you should have…” or “If I was you, I would…”, but most of the time, it is not so simple.

Reacting in a certain way can only antagonise the harasser, placing the victim in a much more dangerous and/or hostile situation. In addition to this, it may be frightening for the victim to challenge their harasser, especially with aggression, particularly if they are alone and are being targeted by multiple people.

When harassed, it is easy to feel as though you are at fault. When a stranger is shouting lewd comments at you, or touching you, or wolf whistling at you, it is easy to feel small, hurt and under threat. It is hard to remember that it the harassers problem, and not yours. We are told as women to be polite, and that it happens because men are trying to show us that they find us attractive, but when telling friends about situations in which we were harassed we get asked why we didn’t act more assertively, so it’s little wonder that figuring out how to react to harassment is often so confusing, as well as scary.

Something that can make harassment situations a lot easier to handle is the involvement of allies in the street. When other men tell the harasser what he is doing wrong, it can soothe the problem. It is not ideal (and a world when harassers actually listen to the victim – wait, a world where there are no harassers – would be much better), but educating the harasser is a much better way to ease the problem, rather than fighting it with more aggressive behaviour. The recent youtube video, “Shit Men Say to Men Who Say Shit to Women in the Street” highlighted that not all men are on the same team as men who harass, and are willing to speak up against them. Unfortunately, in a lot of instances, bystanders feel uneasy about becoming involved.

Some more helpful Stop Street Harassment tips are to be firm with the harasser, and avoid being apologetic, whilst calling them out on their unsavoury behaviour, but without insulting them. Following on from this, try to avoid engaging further with the harasser (as tempting as it may be if they try to argue with you), and to keep moving, detaching yourself from the situation. As well as this, it may prove helpful to report the harasser, for instance, if they are wearing a uniform, or driving in a company vehicle. Even threatening to report them (especially to their employer) can encourage the harasser to see what they are doing wrong.

Even some institutions are going out of their way to ensure that women feel safer in public. For instance in Tokyo, women’s only carriages were introduced on the problematic Saikyo line a few years ago, the route used by many schoolgirls, and labelled a “gropers paradise” by many. Even male commuters welcomed the changes. But is segregation the answer? Would education not work better?

There is no right or wrong answer to the question “what should I do when I am harassed in the street?”, but there is one thing to remember– you are not the one in the wrong.

[Check out the new book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more ideas.]

Levi graduated from university with a degree in Film and TV screenwriting this summer. As a freelance writer, she has been writing for The F-Word and Gamer-UK. You can follow her rants and ramblings on Twitter, @part_heart.

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Saudi Arabia: Men Harass Women at Shopping Mall

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This week, a group of young men harassed a group of young women outside a shopping mall in Saudi Arabia and many people who have seen the video footage blame the women — for not covering their faces, for wearing makeup, and for not having a male chaperon. Learn more from a Global Voices article.

This is not okay. Women all over the world deserve equal access to public spaces and should be safe from harassment!

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Important Discussion with GBTQQI Men in D.C.

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The Gay District says NO to harassment!

By: Patrick Ryne McNeil

On Friday, October 18, I joined Holly Kearl to co-facilitate a discussion group at Gay District, a “social and discussion group for 18-35-year-old GBTQQI men” that meets twice each month in Washington, D.C.

The discussion focused on sexual harassment and sexual violence experienced in public spaces specifically by this community of men in D.C. Stories about particular incidents of street harassment, how these experiences impact the way these men navigate public spaces, and solutions – both in D.C. and beyond – were of particular interest during the discussion.

I was incredibly appreciative for the number of men who attended this important discussion and was struck by just how many of them had stories to share. They underscored for me both how common this issue is for so many men in D.C. and just how many separate venues it permeates – not just on the street, but in stores, at bus stops, on the bus and on metro. And it starts so early. Several men discussed being harassed at alarmingly young ages, well before they identified as gay or some other non-normative identity.

One solution discussed that is specific to D.C. was making sure everyone knows they have access to WMATA’s anti-sexual harassment ad campaign, something that many men thought was really (perhaps exclusively) for the use of women. In addition, ensuring that everyone knows where they can report harassment is critical; one participant who experiences harassment at his bus stop was unaware that he could report harassment at that location, which is in fact an option on WMATA’s reporting page.

Friday’s discussion is one of ten taking place across the United States with various demographics as part of Stop Street Harassment’s national study on street harassment.

My master’s thesis focuses on how gay and bisexual men experience street harassment. To learn more about my research in particular, you can check out my op-ed from this year’s International Anti-Street Harassment Week, or contact me at patrickryne@gmail.com.

Patrick McNeil is finishing his master’s thesis at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he is pursuing his Master’s in Women’s Studies. His work focuses on whether and how gay and bisexual men experience street harassment and how this form of harassment intersects with and diverges from the gender-based street harassment of women. Follow him on Twitter at @patrickryne.

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