Rebecca Smyth, Spain, SSH Blog Correspondent

Feminism and related activism require a huge amount of personal reflection and exploration. This is a reflection. My opinions are open to reconfiguration and nuancing. You are entitled to agree or disagree in part or completely. I’d be really interested to hear back from people as to what they think and feel on some of the issues raised here.

There’s been a lot in the media (well, on Buzzfeed…) lately about high school dress codes in North America and students’ challenging them.* It’s something I’ve been following with keen interest for many reasons, not the least of which being that it’s almost completely alien to my Irish school experience.

The vast majority of schools in Ireland require their students to wear a uniform. It’s just the norm for us. There’s a lot to be said for school uniforms: they’re convenient (it’s half seven in the morning and you can get dressed on auto-pilot); they can keep costs down for parents (lots of supermarkets and cheaper high street shops stock school uniform-type skirts, pants and shirts at those low, low prices we all love and not-that-deep-down know to be the product of egregious human rights violations in someplace far, far away); and they tend to eliminate, or at least, ameliorate bullying related to clothing, fashion, style and what have you.

And yet, perhaps, dear reader, you can sense my hesitation. I genuinely feel there are many positive aspects to uniforms, not least those enumerated above.

But I hated it. Hated it.

I hated that there was no avenue for personal expression. I hated that we had to wear a tie. I hated the lumpen jumper and tent-like skirt and bin-bag-like school jacket that swamped me. I hated that pants weren’t an option, as though girls automatically must wear skirts. I hated what seemed to me to be arbitrary demarcations – formerly raven-haired students could have bleach blonde hair as it was a ‘natural’ colour, but anything more outré was out. Dubarrys were fine but Doc Martens weren’t. One set of ear studs in the traditional ear-stud place were acceptable, but other piercings and larger earrings most certainly were not. Nail varnish was banned on health and safety grounds, but you’d be sent to the loos with all sorts of huffable chemicals to remove it. ‘Subtle’ make-up was permissible but ‘too much’ and to the loos with you with a stack of make-up wipes. That last one was probably the least heavily enforced.  I think it was out of deference to the fact that many people wear heavy make-up to hide their skin and the adolescent travails it can suffer.

Now, before y’all get up in arms about this, I want to put it firmly in context. This is pretty much the norm, give or take a few specifications here and there, for school dress codes in Ireland. Furthermore, I cannot commend highly enough the staff of my former school who very much have the best interests of their students at heart. Finally, and something that international readers may be intrigued by, it was an all-girls school. None of this was to do with ‘distracting’ boys – at least not within the school walls.

Nevertheless, it certainly conforms to and perpetuates many of the stereotypes that underpin dress codes in businesses worldwide and those North American schools. As Shauna Pomerantz, an associate professor at Brock University says in an interview with Buzzfeed, ‘appropriateness’ is defined in terms of class- and race-based values, namely that “[Y]ou have to look like a middle-class, heterosexual white woman.”

And this is where I really have to start challenging myself, because I am all those things, and one of my style icons is Audrey Hepburn.**  So I am very much of the less-is-more, the eyes-or-lips-but-not-both, the legs-or-boobs-but-not-both school of make-up and style. To a point. That’s what primarily works for me and my appearance and body type and gender identity. But that doesn’t mean it’s right or good or works for everybody, nor would I be arrogant enough to assume so.   And I have to call myself out on this regularly because unfortunately I have internalised the prejudices that float around us just like everybody else. If you want to wear a ton of make-up in whatever configuration you see fit, you should be allowed to. If you want to wear whatever clothes it is you want to wear, you should be able to. Unfortunately though, there is a catch.

That word.

Should.

I sure as hell don’t like it, but we are judged on our appearance and the way we present ourselves to the world. We shouldn’t be, but we are.

How do we go about challenging this? Are there limits to how far we should go?

I don’t want to reclaim the word ‘slut’. I just want it binned. But I think the Toronto-based Project Slut is really on to something big. I don’t think crop tops are the ideal choice of clothing attire for anywhere except by the pool or at the beach, but I sure as hell don’t think someone should be stared at, harassed or raped for wearing one elsewhere. I think ideally your foundation should match your skin tone, but I think it’s messed up that ‘skin colour’ usually means ‘white people’s skin colour.’

I also wonder if all this stuff is a big, steaming pile of misdirection – a symptom being mistaken for an illness.

Unless we recognise that dress codes, ‘slut shaming’, ‘beach bodies’ and all the rest are about controlling and regulating the already disenfranchised, we’re going to keep missing the point.

Street harassment has nothing to do with what you’re wearing or not wearing. I know this from personal experience and far too many stories of other people’s experiences.

Enforcing rigid dress codes and reiterating ideas of what is appropriate and inappropriate that have their basis in racist, sexist, classist and heteronormative ideas perpetuate the false connection between how we present ourselves to the world and how the world should treat us.

Other than thinking and talking and writing about this, I don’t know how best to tackle it. If anyone has any better ideas, please enlighten me!

For further reading, here are a few articles from BuzzFeed.

* One important issue I don’t touch on here, at least directly, is that of natural hair. I am white. I am Irish. I have read about and followed with great interest and anger the hostility, snide remarks and suspensions meted out to people of colour of all ages who wear their hair naturally or in locs or braids and myriad styles. I don’t feel it’s my place to say anything other than I think natural hair and natural styles are beautiful. And I don’t mean that in any exoticising, othering, oh-my-God-can-I-touch-your-hair way. I just mean it’s beautiful and the fact it’s seen as ‘unprofessional’ or ‘not in keeping with school dress codes’ is disgusting.

** Also Santigold and St. Vincent and Karen O and M.I.A. but I wouldn’t be quite confident enough to wear exact replicas of their finery nipping to the supermarket. Someday, someday…

Rebecca is currently living, working and stumbling through ballet classes in Barcelona. Originally from Kilkenny, she has a degree in European Studies and a Master’s in Gender and Women’s Studies from Trinity College Dublin, and will be doing an LLM in Human Rights Law in Edinburgh this fall.

Julka Szymańska, the Netherlands, SSH Blog Correspondent

This article is the second installment in a two part series, you can find the first set of portraits here.

Sophie.

A real people’s person, 22 year old Sustainable Agriculture student Sophie is based in Germany when she is not away on one of her hitchhiking adventures. One of the core reasons for wanting to hitchhike is her love for being around many different kinds of people, another revolves around the journey from festival to festival during summer’s festival season. In the middle of nowhere you can more easily find a ride than a train- or bus station.

Harassment while thumbing is familiar for Sophie, she recalls: “During my third time hitchhiking, I was in Romania with a friend when we had just waited for two hours in the scorching hot sun. Finally a car stopped and a Romanian guy offered a ride, but we were having troubles with the language barrier. He took me aside and after some attempts at understanding each other it became clear he only wanted to take us in exchange for sex. Of course I declined, but I felt really embarrassed and unsafe. I would not have known what would have happened if my friend wasn’t there with me and I think every girl should be informed that this can happen. I was a little bit too naive. This incident was a warning for me, now I communicate more with drivers before I get into their car.”

Knowledge and experience in hitchhiking is a factor Sophie thinks a lot about these days; she wants to be prepared for all the challenges she might face. She doesn’t carry pepper spray, because using that in a closed car can literally backfire and the only knife hidden in her shoe is a utility knife with a safety switch, so she herself won’t be cut by accident. Another method to feel safe for her is reading a lot of resources by more experienced hitchhikers, like blogs, guides and documentaries.

“I’m proud when I hitchhike alone, the sense of self confidence and freedom feels great. I wear practical clothes, nothing sexy and I meet a lot of nice people on the road who go the extra mile for a young woman alone. They compliment me and respect my character for being out there on my own, I love that,” Sophie cheerfully laughs.

Diana.

Diana is a 24 year old woman of the world; originally from the United States, but currently living in Thailand. She first hitchhiked in Japan with a friend who taught her the ropes, following this nice introduction to hitchhiking she started doing it alone. After utilizing her fluency in Spanish on the road in Chile, many different countries would be next on Diana’s list.

Her experiences with harassment during hitchhiking are fortunately limited, unfortunately that can’t be said for other travels or destinations. In Australia she had to face a lot of micro-aggressions (such as being called “a spicy Latina” and men even groped her a few times. And during an emergency couch surf for a night in Paris her host expected her to have sex with him, which resulted in her locking the guest room she stayed in and leaving at sunrise to get away from the creep. Similar situations happened more than once, but always were resolved safely.

“The controversy surrounding women’s safety when hitchhiking is very frustrating”, Diana sighs, “In my opinion it perpetuates the patriarchal notion that women are weak and aren’t able to take care of themselves. Which is not the case, because I’ve been hitchhiking alone many times and I even introduced another girl who never hitchhiked before to the world of it. ”

She explains that traveling alone isn’t the problem. “It’s really suffocating for women to be told that we shouldn’t do it, people should just stop harassing and preying on women. Women aren’t asking to be prayed upon. As a feminist I’d want women to be safe, that is their right, this includes exploring the world and hitchhiking is an amazing way to do that.”

Diana lives by a proverb in Spanish that translates to something along the lines of “Go with a good vibe”. She endorses passing the ways of the hitchhiker on to new people who want to embrace this way of traveling, to both teach them by setting a good example and give them more self confidence; to ultimately simply share the vibe.

At the end of the road.

All in all I think we can conclude that no matter the risks of hitchhiking and the warnings women in particular receive about it, a lot of women aren’t repelled from raising their thumb at the highway, either alone or with a traveling companion. Many women use strategies to ensure their own safety, just like hitchhiking men do, although perhaps a little more consciously. Harassment does happen, but not as often as many people think, nor more often than in other public places, such as the street, trains or other public transport or behind the doors of a building. The responsibility of stopping highway harassment and any street harassment in general lies with the people doing the harassing. Women can only do so much to ensure their own safety and are armed with their intuition and wits to cope in a world that can be considered outright hostile to women. Despite this animosity, every single woman is brave for going on with their lives and doing what they want to do with it in the face of harassment. And that demands nothing less than utter respect.

Are you curious about hitchhiking after reading these courageous women’s stories? If so, be sure to check out some of these resources on the subject of hitching rides risk-aware and as safe and comfortable as possible.

• Hitchwiki: The guide to hitchhiking the world.
• A Girl And Her Thumb: A blog about hitchhiking while female.
• Women On The Road: An inspirational website dedicated to women who travel.

Julka is a 25-year-old feminist activist and soon-to-be Cultural Science student with a generous amount of life experiences -including street harassment – and even more passion for social justice.

Ruth Mair, UK, SSH Blog Correspondent

I attended Holla:Revolution in London a few days ago and it was so inspiring, uplifting, moving, exciting, and many other good words. The main thing I felt attending the event was involved. I felt that I already AM involved, just by being there and aware, interacting with others, hearing their stories, and all the astonishing ways they’ve come up with to combat harassment and address the central problem, but also involved with a more ambitious tint to it.

I felt that I wanted to be up there, on that (pretty small) stage, with all those inspirational humans, saying something relevant, adding my voice, and working on something new to contribute even if I don’t quite know what yet. I wanted the younger me to be there and get inspired by it, and I wanted future me to be there, feeling joy at what has been achieved and the pleasure of knowing that sometimes hard work pays off, even when as Julia Gray from Hollaback! London said, everyone is telling you it won’t work out. Sometimes, human beings are brilliant, and those in the Amnesty International building at this three hour conference were a stellar example of that.

The talks began with an introduction from Emily May, founder of Hollaback!, explaining the history behind the project and what inspired her. Many of us found our own stories being reflected in her account of what inspired (if that is the right word, when we’re talking about the frustration involved in being harassed frequently on the streets) her to begin talking to others about their experiences. We had all had those moments of realisation, the first discussions of what street harassment was, the sharing of stories, just at different times, different places, and with different people, and May’s introduction created an intimate space for all of us to interact, and start creating this revolution that we all want to take place.

Then the first speakers were Bryony Beynon and Gray who co-found Hollaback London in 2010, and since have worked incredibly hard to educate various organisations about the issue of street harassment, including most recently the creation of the Good Night Out campaign and their on-going work with British Transport Police to help make reporting incidents of harassment on public transport significantly easier for all.

Following them was Susuana Antubam, currently NUS National Women’s Officer, discussing harassment on campus, along with various campaigns relating to good consent rules and combating lad culture- both of which, she reminded us, are significant in educating about street harassment and the culture that supports its continued existence.

American Nicola Briggs’ confessions of a subway badass was next. She told her story of confronting the man who had sexually assaulted her on a subway train, as well as the experience of dealing with the aftermath when the videos taken by by-standers went viral.

Samayya Afzal from Bradford University’s students union then discussed the specific experience of street harassment as an identifiable (headscarf-wearing) Muslim woman, particularly the normalisation of this kind of harassment for many of her peers, who had come to simply expect such treatment when stepping outside of their own houses. She also touched on the issue of online harassment, and how much weight that can place on the shoulders of activists (and others) who have to cope with multifaceted harassment.

The last speaker before the 10 minute break was a representative from the Sex Workers Open University, along with a proviso that we must not tweet or photograph this speaker. Through the process of relating stories of harassment, the speaker emphasised the importance of addressing why people feel offended if they are called a whore, or identified as one mistakenly, as well as talking about the difference between clients and harassers, and finishing with an emphasis that sex workers need to be included in discussions of harassment, and that we need to end exclusion of sex workers by feminist groups.

The repetition of these stories of harassment may well make the event look like a great big group therapy session, but hopefully that’s only to the cynical reader. It is incredibly important still that these stories are repeated, shared, and added to even if we keep hearing the same thing. Because it’s only through taking part in that kind of cathartic exercise that we will be able to educate others, allow ourselves to recover from what we have experienced, and most importantly, remind ourselves whenever we’re starting to feel weak or tired out by it all, that such harassment is NOT OK, in those big intentional capital letters. We have the support of so many others who have experienced the same, and are sympathetic to the exhaustion that comes with the armours that we clothe ourselves in to cope.

After the break there was an immensely moving performance by (50% of) Sauna Youth, of their piece that will eventually be worked in to a bigger piece called “A Thousand Tiny Pinpricks,” but at present is on their album Distractions as (Trying to take a) Walk. It has stories of harassment in the form of spoken word repeated and layered over music, with both the views of the harassed, and those of bystanders and allies expressed.

Then Laura Bates from Everyday Sexism Project spoke about education and solidarity, the importance of standing alongside one another in order to stand against sexism and sexualised harassment, and reminding us all of the hypocrisy that sometimes occurs, where women are treated equally in some situations but as second class citizens in others.

Bisi Alimi, an LGBTI campaigner, and the first gay person to come out on national television in Nigeria, spoke next about the differences between homophobia and the street harassment experienced by LGBTI people. He touched on the occurrence of corrective rape and aggression faced by trans people, and those with non-binary appearances. Alimi was full of energy, and the talk, although only 10 minutes, was packed full of information, much of which I had not encountered previously even though I am relatively engaged with discourses and media concerning street harassment and campaign work.

Sabria Thompson from Hollaback! Bahamas showed a video explaining the projects they are undertaking, including asking average professional women to wear cameras for several days to record the harassment that they receive, in order to make others understand how frequently the average women receives such harassment and how pervasive it can be.

The final speaker was Vanessa Smith-Torres from Hollaback NOLA, who spoke about how her experience as an architect had influenced her approach to street harassment and the ways in which public spaces need to be changed to make them fully accessible to women. She gave us a preview of the designs for a large scale art project to be created in New Orleans in order to draw attention to the experiences of women and their interactions with being outside and using public spaces.

To finish the event, there was a group panel of all the speakers, taking questions from the audience and discussing various points such as the future of anti-street-harassment work, and finishing with each speaker relating to us the two main things they thought were most important when it comes to combating street harassment.

The one that stuck with me, and has been chiming in my head, every time I go out my front door, has been Briggs’; “Use your voice!”. I think this struck a chord with me, because personally I have always been of a quiet inclination, more likely to ignore someone pressing up against me on the Tube, or simply scowl and say nothing if someone catcalls me.

It served as a reminder also, that we are at our most powerful as a movement when we use our voices in all the ways we can- by communicating the issue, bringing it out in to the open, and making sure that no one can look away or sweep it, or us, under the carpet, or into the quiet corners of nightclubs, or the badly lit streets that we walk down at night, again. That is how we will make this revolution happen.

Ruth is a human rights MA student finishing her MA dissertation on the legal and normative rights of terror suspects in the UK (spoiler alert: rights are being violated). She also plays bass in a band called Kinshot, sews as often as she can, and spends time getting annoyed at the cat sleeping on top of her computer.