Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Documenting street harassment on maps

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Does street harassment really happen that often? Doesn’t it just happen in big cities? Doesn’t it just happen in “bad” neighborhoods?

Maps are an easy way to help SHOW that street harassment happens all the time and everywhere. Do you want to help raise awareness about street harassment? Consider doing so with maps.

1. When you share your street harassment stories for this blog, add the location so I can add it to my Global Street Harassment Map. You can do the same if you live in Washington, DC, and submit a story to HollaBack DC!

2. Donate to Hollaback NYC’s Kickstart initiative to launch a phone app that will allow anyone to map their street harassment incident in real time (they have until May 28 to raise $12k – please help now!).

3. Create your own map of street harassment incidents, just as the two women I will profile next have done.

Hannah’s and Valerie’s Street Harassment Maps

First up is Hannah, a cinema student at the University of Iowa who recently created her own street harassment map. I asked her a few questions about it.

Regarding the impact of street harassment on her life, she said,

“Street harassment, both what’s happened to me and what’s happened to other people, makes me afraid to walk down the street. I dress in a certain way to try to avoid it, though I think my map proves how ineffective that is. I also take certain routes, like avoiding downtown if at all possible, simply to avoid being harassed.”

As to why she created her own map, she told me:

“I think it’s really interesting how many things have happened to me, personally, and I feel that what has happened to me has largely been different from what people typically associate with street harassment. I feel like the myth is that women who dress ‘provocatively’ and/or are really pretty are the only people who are harassed. I’m evidence to the contrary. I’m pretty plain – I’m curvy, too, and a little overweight on top of that – and I like to dress comfortably, which for me is in loose-fitting clothing that covers my knees and my upper arms. I don’t like to show a lot of skin, and I don’t wear tight clothes. Another common misconception is that street harassment only comes from, say, construction crews, or truck drivers, men like that. I’ve never been harassed by a construction worker OR a truck driver. Plus I also think that people believe that street harassment only happens in big cities, which Iowa City (thought I love it) certainly is not. I guess the short answer is that I wanted to debunk myths and raise awareness.”

She has found that her map creates opportunities for very helpful discussions, but that she’s also had people tell her she is “getting worked up over nothing.” She plans to add every single incident that happens to her to the map, and that “I hope more than anything that I don’t have to add to it, but realistically I know that’s probably not going to be the case.”

Next up is Valerie Aurora, a software programmer and writer in San Francisco, who created her street harassment map a few years ago.

Street harassment has a similar impact on her life as it does on Hannah’s:

“I have very carefully researched routes to and from places I visit that have the lowest rate of harassment and I take those religiously. I just don’t take certain BART stations (like 16th and Mission) because they are so surrounded by people who harass me and instead take longer routes.  I always sit near the driver on the bus or train. I take taxis if I’m out after 9pm at night – night buses are hell. Getting harassed pretty much ruins my day and reduces me to a 10-year-old level of emotion for several hours.”

Why did she start her map?

“Initially, it was because very few people believed me when I told them about what was happening to me.  I wanted to prove that my reality existed – people were so disbelieving that I began to wonder if I were making it all up somehow.  Then I realized that I felt much better when I had something to do when someone harassed me.  I’d pull out my notebook and note down the time and place and what happened, and that distracted me enough that I’d only feel a little bit scared and bad. It was my way to prove that what was happening was really happening, and to get a little control back.”

Her map is having an impact. She said that some people who view it say, “Wow, I had no idea it was so bad!”  and some others question whether individual incidents were really harassment.  “Most people,” she notes, “are shocked.”

When I asked her about her plans going forward, she told me:

“I quit adding to this one after a while because I got used to it and I no longer cared whether my friends believed me or not – I knew it was happening, and that was all the reality I needed.  But writing this has reminded me of the good parts of keeping the map.  I may start doing it again, but keeping it on Global Street Harassment Map instead. And if the Hollaback iPhone app becomes a reality, then hell yeah, I’ll keep updating it.”

What would your map look like if you documented all of your street harassment experiences?

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Can you predict another person’s actions?

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Dr. Kimberly Fairchild, co-author of “Everyday Stranger Harassment and Women’s Self-Objectification,” is looking for survey respondents for a new study. Let’s help her out!

“I’m conducting a study on the ability to predict another person’s actions and personality and we need participants. Our research suggests that even from limited information people can make accurate judgments about the dominant traits, emotional reactions, and behaviors of other people.  The survey takes about 20 minutes to complete.  If you are interested in participating, follow the link below.”
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Harassment Hotline

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Should employers be responsible if their employees harass women in public, while the employee is on the job?

Recently I read Deborah Thompson’s article “‘The Woman in the Street:’ Reclaiming the Public Space from Sexual Harassment” (a 1994 article in the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism) and I like her ideas on this topic.

“While Title VII [of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits workplace discrimination] was never intended to apply outside the workplace, its hostile environment principles provide a useful framework from which to develop a liability regime to protect all women who are street harassed by ‘men at work.’

This regime would hold employers vicariously liable for public sexual harassment by their employees if the employer failed to warn workers that street harassment is intolerable, failed to implement as system by which members of the public could formally file a complaint, or failed to take remedial action when members of the public complained about harassment by their employees.

It would be relatively easy to develop a complaint procedure for street harassment. For example, instead of signs on the back of company trucks that read, ‘How’s my driving, call 1-800-555-1212,’ trucks and taxis could display signs that read, ‘If the driver of this vehicle harasses you, call 1-800-555-1212.’

Similarly at construction sites, there should be a number for women to call to complain about harassment by workers. Such a ‘Harassment Hotline’ would be a first step in ending the hostile environment of outdoor workplaces.

It would send a valuable message that a particular company cares about its image and does not tolerate workers who invade and bombard communities with sexual harassment…

In sum, the societal interest of promoting the privacy, safety, mobility, and equality of women should outweigh the desire of employees to engage in recreational sexual harassment while on the job.”

What do you think?

Here are two stories submitted by contributors who were able to report a harassing man or men to the employer and meet with success. And it would be even easier to make these kinds of reports if the number to call regarding harassment was prominently posted.

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Is it harassment?

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Many men must know their street harassment behavior is wrong (especially based on how many of them only do it when women are alone or do it in such a way that women can’t react or don’t know which man in the group was the harasser). I think that some men, though, simply have never thought about it and just assume they have free reign to say and do whatever they want because they’re men. But they don’t necessarily intend on insulting and frightening women in the process.

Until there is better socialization and education that stops men from harassing women and until there are more penalties for those who do harass, the first group of men may sadly be a lost cause. For the latter men who are just blissfully ignorant about the damage of their behavior, here are questions* they can ask themselves to determine if their actions/words toward unknown women in public spaces are harassment:

Would I mind if someone treated my spouse, partner, girlfriend, mother, sister, or daughter this way?

Would I mind if this person told my spouse, partner, girlfriend, mother, sister, or daughter what I was saying and doing?

Would I do this if I was with my spouse, partner, girlfriend, mother, sister, or daughter?

Would I be comfortable saying the same thing or acting the same way to my mother, sister or daughter?

Would I do this if the parent, spouse, or boyfriend of the other person was present?

When a person objects to my behavior to I apologize and stop, or do I get angry instead?

Is my behavior reciprocated? Are there specific indications of pleasure – not ‘she didn’t object’ but specific behaviors indicating she is pleased by my behavior?

Would I mind if a reporter wanted to write about what I was doing?

(Keep in mind that if you have to ask, such behavior is likely to be high risk and it is probably better to not do it.)

I realize there are limitations to these questions because some guys disrespect all women, including their mothers/sisters/girlfriends, but they’re a start.

What else would you tell men to ask themselves to determine if their behavior is harassment?

*I’ve adapted these from Women’s Research and Education Institute Senior Scholar Bernice Sandler’s document “How Men (and Women) Can Tell if Their Behavior is Sexual Harassment”
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