Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

One Year Anniversary!

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Thank you readers and street harassment-fighting allies — this marks the one-year anniversary of the Stop Street Harassment blog!

I didn’t know how long I would be blogging when I started, but here I am, still going strong one year later 🙂

I’d love to hear more from you during the coming year. You can share you story/ies via an anonymous online form or e-mail them to stopstreetharassmentATyahoo.com and I’ll post them here. Also feel free to comment on posts!

Do you have any suggestions or overall thoughts for what you’d like to see covered on this blog or ways I can improve it during year two?

P.S. Over the weekend I made several updates to the companion Stop Street Harassment website, including a new banner and stories illustrating various types of harassment women experience (click on the links in opening paragraph on the homepage).

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Bystander Intervention in Savannah Sexual Assault

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Sunday night a woman was approached by three men while she was walking alone in the Savannah-Chatham (GA) metro area. They tried to talk to her and she ignored them (as most women do when they experience street harassment from unknown men, especially when they’re alone at night). Then two of the men pushed her to the ground while the third sexually assaulted her.

A wonderful bystander was driving by and yelled at the men, who then ran away. The driver helped the woman get home and she filed a police report. The police are currently investigating the incident.

Via Savannah’s local NBC station: “Anyone with information concerning this incident is asked to contact Detectives at 912-651-6742 or Crime Stoppers at 912-234-2020 or text CRIMES (274637) and in the body type ‘CStop2020’ plus the tip.  Tipsters can remain anonymous and may qualify for a cash award.”

Safety is always a concern during street harassment incidents and one never knows when a harasser might escalate his actions into assault. The safest (but not necessarily the most empowering) course of action usually is to ignore a harasser, which she did and they still assaulted her. Men who harass and assault women must change their behavior!  All women should have the right to be out in public – regardless of whether or not they are alone or if it’s dark out – and be safe.

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Street Harassment Round Up – May 24

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Stories:

On Holla Back DC! a contributor tells how a metro employee made kissing noises at her as she raced for her train.

As mentioned in the last three week round ups, since April 26, HollaBack NYC has been posting one photo a day of street harassers. They will continue to do so for a month. All of the photos are being submitted by one woman, Sally N., a New York City resident. Emily at HollaBack NYC says, “We believe these pictures tell the story of what it’s like to be a woman in the big apple.” Visit HollaBack NYC to see these photos.

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem!

In the News:

  • Young women in Sri Lanka get harassed on their way to and from work by “zipper men.”

Upcoming Events:

Street Harassment Resource of the Week:

Ross Macmillan, Annette Nierobisz and Sandy Welsh’s article “Experiencing the Streets: Harassment and Perceptions of Safety Among Women” (2000).

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Polite Smile = Invitation to Stalk?

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Almost everyday I deal with men who are trying to get my attention just because I am a young woman who commutes to work everyday by myself, so I am always keeping to myself. However, if spoken to I am usually a cheerful person and will smile and take the other person into consideration in certain cases.

One day while commuting home during rush hour, I accidentally smiled politely as I walked by a man boarding the train a couple of cars down from where I was walking to, and without realizing it he started following behind me to board the same car as me.

After that, he wouldn’t stop trying to talk to me, and made it clear that he assumed many things about me like he thought I was a German foreigner (probably because I hadn’t acted like he either didn’t exist or scowled at him or something), and he insisted on trying to find out as much as he could about me and following me off when I was trying to transfer. I eventually lost him in the rush of people while going to another train, but ever since I have changed my commute route after work so that I don’t have to run into this guy again.

-anonymous

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“Zipper Men”

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In Sri Lanka, thousands of young girls travel from their rural villages to places like Biyagama to work in factories. They usually work for five years before returning to their villages to marry (this description reminds me of factory girls in New England during the Industrial Revolution). The living and working conditions are generally grueling.

An article from the Sunday Times says:

“For the girls working in the FTZ, malnourishment and poor facilities such as lack of water and lavatories sans doors a distance from their rooms are the least of their problems.

Away from their families and villages, these girls not only face sexual harassment on the road but also within the congested compounds they live in.

Sexual harassment was seen as a serious problem for young girls going to or returning from work, by 21-year-old Kumari*, who says with stoic resignation that they are compelled to come to towns far away from home because they cannot get the same wages. ‘We are forced to come to the city for work,’ she laments, explaining that they move around in groups to avoid these problems.

As girls work at odd hours and also sometimes have to go to the common well for their baths, chain snatchings have become routine, while catcalls and obscenities are also everyday happenings which they ignore. “Zipper men”, the girls’ name for perverts, stalk them.

“Three-wheeler drivers stop and ask, ‘Nangi koheda yanne’, offering to give a ride,” said Kumari.
Certain groups in these areas think they can do whatever they want with the girls, stresses Mr. Marcus, explaining that in addition to harassing them, they sometimes strike up love affairs to get money from the girls. “The girls are lonely and sometimes gullible,” he says adding that many of them fall into trouble and undergo illegal abortions.

There are many quacks operating in these areas, according to him, but these problems are never discussed in the open. “It’s accepted and forgotten.”

A recent trend has also been cyclists and motorcyclists “putting vettu” (veering) towards them and sometimes going out of control and actually knocking them down. A girl who was seriously injured was not even paid for her medical treatment, some alleged, adding that even though a complaint was made to the police no action was taken against the culprit.”

This story breaks my heart. What power do they have against these men? What power do they have to change their lives of poverty?

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