Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming
Yay, I love it when I can end the week on a positive note — watch Kamau tackle street harassment in a very funny way on his show “Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell”!
“The women of NYC are sick of being harassed on the street so Kamau tries something different—treating them with respect. Afterwards, Kamau provides tips for men who want to make a change.
Watch “Totally Biased” all new Thursdays at11:30 p.m. only on FX!”
My boyfriend and I were out in Charlotte’s NoDA district, walking to the car after dinner. Someone behind us started calling out, “Hey baby” and a few other things, then he asked something like, “Is that your girl” to my boyfriend.
I turned around angrily to face him. He approached, told me his name and some other crap I don’t remember, and asked me my name. I told him that I don’t give out my name, and that I was trying (emphasis on trying) to enjoy a night out with my boyfriend. I had a pretty strong sense that he would respect that I had a boyfriend more than he would respect that I on my own was not interested in him, and aside from that, I wanted to have a nice night out with my partner, and he was ruining our good time.
As expected, he respected that I had a boyfriend more than he acknowledged that what he did was harassment. He shook my boyfriend’s hand, said a few things, and left.
I’ve also submitted this story to Hollaback and my personal blog, because the last thing I want is to be silent about this. Harassment is not okay and it’s not a compliment.
– Anonymous
Location: Charlotte North Carolina, NoDA District
Donate to help fund a national study on street harassment.
Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem.
I was pulling money out of the ATM at a Bank of America, and a young man in his late teens or early twenties calls out, “Give me that juicy bootie, girl.”
– Veronica Rojas Munoz
Location: Hollywood, CA
Donate to help fund a national study on street harassment.
Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem.
Once again, I turn to Egypt for inspiration.
Yesterday, about 25 members of the new “Catch a Harasser” movement and members of the Egyptian Democratic Institute in Baharia held a silent protest in the northern Delta city of Damanhour (near Alexandria) to speak out against street harassment, which increases during holidays.
“Contributors, women and men, carried signs declaring slogans such as ‘no to harassment’ and ‘catch a harasser for a harassment-free Eid.’
During the event, which lasted about an hour, participants also distributed a statement to drivers and passers-by, ‘Do as you please; you reap what you sow.’
The statement addressed those who sexually harass women saying, ‘I’m your sister, your mother, your wife, your daughter. Do you stand for my humiliation and the loss of my dignity?’
‘If you dislike my clothes or my walk, is that an excuse to molest me? If that was so, why do you still harass me when I’m veiled or fully veiled? All the aforementioned are just justifications you use to explain your shameful actions. I would like to walk freely and safely. I want your respect. No to harassment. No excuse for harassment. Harassment is a disease. You reap what you sow.'”
I love it!
Meanwhile, the women’s complaints office at the National Council for Women set up the hotline number 08-008-883-888 that people can call if they are harassed during Eid al-Adha.
“In a statement, the council said the operations room of the Egyptian Company for Metro Management & Operation would also collect harassment complaints at 16048 and 25-747-295, as will Fouada Watch, an initiative launched by youth to counter harassment, at 01-150-118-822.”
I’m glad these initiatives are underway and I hope they can help more people enjoy a harassment-free Eid.
Today one woman shared with Ebony readers how she turned to eating and weight gain to lessen the street harassment she experienced as a young teenager.
“In high school, the boobs came in, followed by some hips and a nice little butt. However, I wasn’t moved one way or another by this development since; at that age, I was more concerned with Video Music Box than being a ‘video vixen’ or chaising boys. But while I was busy being the child I was, the men in my neighborhood began getting busy with fantasies of the woman they felt my newfound body made me to be.
It started off subtle at first. Lingering stares and comments under the breath that you couldn’t quite make out. I couldn’t understand why these men were speaking to me that way. I may have had breasts and hips, but I still looked like a child. I tried to hide my budding womanlyness under oversized baggy clothes, but that didn’t work. After I turned 16, it got unbearable/ I literally had men grab me, pull at me, hiss and whistle at me. I felt like everyone knew I had breasts and hips and thighs, everyone knew I was a woman. But I didn’t want to be a woman. I hated it, I hated the men and I hated me.
I longed for a way to fade into the background. One day the answer came to me like an epiphany: food. See, those lustful men didn’t have eyes for the chubbier ladies. They were pleasant with them, laughed and joked with them, but those girls were spared from the constant hissing and cat calls. They became my idols and I wanted to be them. So I ate. And ate and ate. I didn’t even realize that food became my new baggy shirt, until one day on a break from college one of my childhood male friends stopped me in the street and said “What happened to you? You got big!”
Victory.
I was finally free. I was just another girl walking down the street and I loved it…..
I realized that the food was my way of physically stuffing down of all the emotions I felt over being sexualized and treated like a piece of meat by men as a child. I didn’t know that the issue wasn’t me and my womanlyness, but the men and their lack of respect for my body. I bore their cross as a burden and allowed it to weigh me down in more ways than one.
I now understand where my struggle with weight comes from and even though getting it off is a day-by-day process, I know that with every pound I work to lose, another piece of that emotional weight I’ve been carrying comes off as well. I’m learning to love myself despite my flaws. I’ve decided that I no longer want food to be my baggy shirt and I’m shedding that for good. My happiness is no longer about food or men; it’s about me and finally learning to love my body for what it is. A Heaven-sent, honorable and worthy vessel of life and of love.The body of a woman. “
She isn’t alone. Ten percent of the 811 women who took a survey for the Stop Street Harassment book said they had purposely gained weight to try to avoid experiencing street harassment.
Thoughts? Stories?