Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

“Avoiding my silent cry for support”

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While walking to the train the other day, I noticed a group of young men ahead of me who were standing off to one side of the sidewalk. At this point, there was plenty of room for me to walk by, but once they spotted me approaching, they seemed to all exchange a look and moved to spread themselves across the width of the sidewalk, blocking my path. Once I reached them, I had to attempt to weave my way through. While I was doing this, they started at various volumes to say nasty things to me, some leaning close to hiss in my ear, and one grabbed my butt.

I quickly got past them and continued to hurry to my train stop. The whole experience was infuriating on so many levels. I wanted to lash out at them and to defend myself, but being outnumbered, I felt powerless and concerned for my safety not knowing what else they would do seeing as, clearly, they had no respect for me or my body. Even more frustrating, I was on a busy street and there were plenty of people around. NONE of them responded to the situation or tried to help. Some looked in my direction, but when I met their gaze, they quickly averted their eyes, avoiding my silent cry for support.

It’s incidents like this that have infected my daily life. They have become contributing factors when I’m making decisions about what to wear, if I’ll go somewhere, which route I’ll take, what time of day I’ll be out, etc. I feel as though the right to walk freely in public spaces is one I’ve been denied.

– anonymous

Location: Chicago

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Include your location and it will be added to the Street Harassment Map.

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Weekly Round Up: August 1, 2010

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Story Submissions Recap:

I accept street harassment submissions from anywhere in the world. Share your story!

In the News, On the Blogs:

Announcements:

10 Street Harassment Tweets from the Week:

  • Mdotwrites Just had a street harassment moment on Rhode Is. + 3rd. I felt Like Oprah in Color Purple right before she goes to jail.
  • ethuiel Is barking the new catcall? Twice or thrice I would shrug, but this is confusing – I thought “woof” applied to dogs, not girls?
  • lpipes just angrily confronted a man who was following me down the street taking pics of me #HARASSMENT/STALKING
  • mmmbutters @blondemonde someone catcalled me from a PROFESSIONAL truck, so I called the number & told their boss.
  • tromano #1 reason I do not miss living in nyc? continuous sexual harassment on the street. continuous http://hollabacknyc.blogspot.com/
  • RENEGADE_C Working downtown equals street harassment. #LeaveMeTheFuckAlone
  • ShelbyKnox Reps from @ihollaback talking about street harassment. Male rep: ” I lived in a different city than female friends…it was a power dynamic”
  • Hkearl Connections between street harassment and sex work http://tinyurl.com/26f7b36
  • KiangaEllis @iHollaback I’m different since reading about you. I believe together we can change the culture. Women will go froth harassment free
  • Chris__Richards Washington ladies: Does DC have the worst street harassment in America? Seems insanely over the top here.

Resource of the Week:

  • The website “A Woman in Cairo” (focuses on public sexual harassment in Cairo)
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45-year-old man leers at 14-year-old girl

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This happened yesterday. I’m a guy in my mid thirties from Delhi. I was standing in a store, waiting for the counter boys to be free from the earlier customers awaiting my turn. This young girl aged about 14 was standing in front of me. She was dressed in dark shorts, which weren’t too short and a red tee which covered everything.

This middle aged man walks in, and while he’s standing in the store he looks the little girl up and down again and again. I felt like giving that old man a tight slap across his face, but did not want to create a scene in the store. After a while they left, but the incident left a very bad taste in my mouth.

That man was about 45 plus and the girl not a day over 14. Now I wish I had slapped that old man!

– Tbg

Location: Delhi, India

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Include your location and it will be added to the Street Harassment Map.

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UNICEF addresses “eve teasing” in Bangladesh

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Via UNICEF

I’m so pleased to hear that UNICEF is tackling the huge problem of eve teasing/street harassment in Bangladesh!

Recently they helped organize more than 600 people for a rally in the Narsingdi district of Bangladesh to speak out against eve teasing. With local groups they helped organize parents, community members and adolescents in Narsingdi for a motivational workshop aimed at protecting adolescent girls. UNICEF and its partners also are working to create awareness by establishing and supporting local adolescent groups called ‘Kishori Clubs’. The clubs allow girls and boys to learn to socialize in positive ways and they participate in activities that empower them to become agents of change.

(Watch the YouTube video of the march and Kishori Club)

Via UNICEF’s website:

“At the workshop in Narsingdi, adolescents from a local Kishori group presented a play that explored the negative impact of Eve teasing and suggested ways to prevent it. The powerful performance reflected the strong opinions of the young people involved.

”I have a friend. A boy used to tease her,” explained performer and Kishori Club member Marzahan, 13. “But after we staged this play at our school, the boy began to understand. Our teachers also taught him about the damage that Eve teasing can cause. Now he is friendly to everybody and he doesn’t tease any girls anymore.”

Shohagh, 13, another club member, is among the boys who believe the time has come to take action on Eve teasing. “Girls need to have access to education and be able to live healthy lives,” he said. “They should be able to enjoy their rights.”

Fantastic. I love how they are taking a preventative angle rather than just telling girls to not go out at night or to ignore harassers. That doesn’t work, but education, dialogue, and prevention do.

12.14.10: Here’s another news story about this problem that looks at it across the past year.

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The winner of the free book is…

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Woohoo! We’ve got a winner! 30 people entered their names in a random drawing to win a free, signed copy of my book Stop Street Harassment: Making Public Places Safe & Welcoming for Women (out Aug. 30, 2010). One of my twitter followers @Sebhar is the lucky winner!

How can you read the book if you don’t win?

  • You can pre-order the book on Barnes & Noble or Amazon.com. It will be available Aug. 30.
  • My publisher mainly distributes to libraries, so look for it at a library near you.

I’ll be doing another drawing on Aug. 30 to celebrate the book release, so enter then and maybe you will win!

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