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Kenya: Is public transport a nightmare for you?

May 4, 2015 By Correspondent

Linnet Nyawira Mwangi, Kisumu, Kenya, SSH Blog Correspondent

There have not been any cases of street harassment in Kenya in the media since last year. I would like to say we are heading in the right direction, men are learning to respect our women, but that is not really the case. There are quite a few isolated cases that you will experience as you transverse the country even as you shift from the urban areas to the rural areas.

Last week I traveled to Nairobi (Kenya’s capital city) and I had two bags with me since I had just left school for holiday. On arrival I had to wait for my friend to pick me up so I moved to a less crowded spot at the station. A lady walked past me obviously in a hurry by the strides she was making and as she tried to make her way out of the station, a man asked her where she was going and grabbed her hand. This is one behavior that is rampant in this place where you just alight from a vehicle and the conductors are all around you asking you where you are going and some will even seize your luggage in attempt to get you in their vehicle. For me it is always a nightmare if I have to travel with too much luggage.

Back to the lady, she started shouting angrily at the man and this brought the attention of the people around her as some moved towards the scene. I could not move any closer because I risked losing my belongings if left untended but I could hear the people as they all aired their opinions. A man appeared from the ticketing office and the conductors and the other men responsible to ensure the vehicles are fully packed tried to find their way out but the man called them back and everybody else fell silent.

When the man found his way to the lady, he introduced himself as the manager of the Sacco (company) and asked her to explain what had transpired and she told him how the man had followed her insisting she get in the vehicle and even grabbed her hand when she said she was going somewhere else. The conductor on the other hand said the lady had insulted him. An old woman from the crowd raised her voice and said that it was untrue because the conductor was the one who had insulted the lady and other voices agreed with her.

The lady told the manager that such behavior was unacceptable since everybody knew where they were going and if they did not they would ask for help and she told him she was going to sue the Sacco and the people around nodded in agreement. They would be glad to support her because harassing passengers was unacceptable some even started saying that they had lost their goods in that manner. The manager asked the conductor to apologize, which he did and then asked the lady to accept the apology and promised everyone around that the situation would not be repeated. He then asked the conductor to follow him and everybody watched, with some suggesting that he should be fired. I did not exactly wish that he was fired but if that would teach others a lesson or two…

Linnet is a student at Maseno University in Kisumu, Kenya pursuing a bachelor’s degree in sociology with IT. Follow her on Twitter @Shantel_lyn and Facebook @lynnette Shantellah.

USA: YouTube Trolling and Street Harassment

April 30, 2015 By Correspondent

Dylan Jane Manderlink, Arkansas, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

I recently watched a few anti-street harassment videos made by nonprofit organizations and I was so elated and proud to see the anti-street harassment movement get traction and attention. But then I read the comments below and my mood drastically changed.

I could write a rant on every single misogynistic comment I saw and feel better about getting it off my chest. But I’m not sure how much good that would actually do at the end of the day. I don’t think there will ever be a feminist article or blog post to end all misogyny and hateful trolling, but I am tired of waiting for my turn to speak and I am getting impatient with feeling punished for my feminism. Above all, the anti-feminist and misogynistic discourse is precisely why we need feminism in the first place.

Online misogynistic trolling is a form of harassment and violence – just like street harassment. The two serve to promote a harmful and pejorative notion that women are fundamentally subordinate, invalid, incapable and solely exist to be ineffective and powerless. So when I was scrolling through the deluge of vulgar and demeaning comments on YouTube, one troll particularly fired me up by saying “People are free to hit on you” in response to a video about catcalling. Of course all of the trolling and misogynistic comments were derogatory and slandering, but this comment just represented the distance that exists in society from shared humanity.

This comment wasn’t even a disguised attempt at male supremacy, misogyny, and self-satisfaction – it was brazenly there for all to see with every lack of care, decency, and respect as possible. Allowing men to have a “free pass” at hitting on and catcalling us is a denial and complete neglect of my rights and personhood. No one is free to hit on me. I should be free to walk through a public space without falling victim to harassment, unwanted comments and glares, public sexualization, and unsafe circumstances.

With this being my last post through the Blog Correspondent’s Program, I’ve been searching for a particular aspect of social activism and advocacy surrounding street harassment to write passionately about. I’m certainly passionate about ending and raising awareness of street harassment but I think what I’m most fired up about right now is in reaction to the dejection I often feel when advocacy efforts are severely ridiculed, trivialized, and damaged by online trolls.

I know activists and advocates often recommend not reading the comments posted by trolls on feminist articles, videos, and social media but it’s difficult to ignore the blatant disregard for an important fight against the mistreatment, inequality, and marginalization of others. The misogynistic online trolling I’ve seen on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter has not only made me feel stunningly uncomfortable and uneasy, but it has showed me how comfortable people are with defaming, dehumanizing, and attacking others. Although reading the comments posted on feminist and female activist videos and articles upsets and offends me, it’s also what motivates me to keep fighting this fight. And if the trolls want me to give up and throw in the towel, they couldn’t be more wrong. If anything, the anti-feminist trolling has given me more ardor in my commitment and involvement in women’s rights, feminism, and social activism.

I want this post to not just serve as a strong grievance and indignation with misogyny and trolling against feminism and anti-street harassment activism. I want to put this hateful act of misogynistic trolling on display so that it’s no longer thinly disguised and permissible. It’s harrowing to admit how normalized anti-feminist online trolling has become and I want to call attention to how much of an anomaly it should be (or how non-existent it should be).

Don’t get me wrong, I think free speech is a basic right we all deserve and should be entitled to, however, when this form of free speech serves the sole purpose of “putting women back in their place”, making women feel even more unsafe and inferior, objectifying women through abhorrent commentary, and invalidating women’s existence in society, then I cannot and will not support it. I will no longer stand for an online narrative that is incredibly short-sighted, unjustified, offensive, and inglorious. As advocates and activists, I understand that the idea of changing this narrative and pushing back on the trolls is a lot easier said than done. Not only can responding to the trolling make women feel unsafe (because people who speak up against trolls are often threatened), but sometimes it can seem like a lost battle because it doesn’t end. I’m not fully recommending we respond to every anti-feminist and misogynistic trolling instance, but I am certainly fired up to out them and put their inflammatory and insolent behavior on display.

So that’s what my last post is about. I will no longer allow women to fall victim to a false belief system and disempowering narrative due to the pervasiveness and poisonous impact of online trolling and public misogyny. Although standing up to the trolls or raising public awareness of the harms of trolling are difficult and disheartening, if you are creating change you believe in, then don’t feel discouraged.

For anyone looking to improve the quality of social media and virtual spaces for women, let’s start now. Who’s with me?

Dylan is a recent graduate of Emerson College and currently teaches 8th, 10th, and 11th grade Digital Communications and Audio/Visual Technology in an Arkansas high school. You can visit her personal blog and follow her on Twitter @DylanManderlink.

USA: No, Anti-Harassment Laws and Policies Don’t Violate Your Constitutional Rights

April 24, 2015 By Correspondent

Emily Gillingham, Washington, DC, USA, Blog Correspondent

Every now and again, someone in a newspaper editorial, blog post, or conversation will argue that a law or policy restricting street harassment violates Americans’ First Amendment right to free speech. Though these people’s dedication to their desire to hurl sexual remarks at strangers or defend those who do so is admirable, here’s why that assertion is way off-base.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution reads in pertinent part, “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech . . . ” This is about things that Congress does; an easy way to think about it is whether the government is restricting the speech.

The First Amendment protection against government abridgement of free speech is not absolute. While the First Amendment has been found to protect rights to things like the speech of protestors outside of abortion clinics, it has been found to not protect “speech” like public school students holding a banner at a school event that reads “BONG HITS 4 JESUS” and unsolicited mailing of graphic brochures advertising pornographic books. For how often the old adage that the First Amendment doesn’t protect falsely shouting “fire” in a crowded theater is brought up in free speech arguments, no such set of facts was ever before the US Supreme Court, and in fact the case from which the concept sprung has since been overruled. But the basic premise remains: First Amendment rights are not absolute.

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld laws restricting public place speech before. For example, in Chaplinsky v. State of New Hampshire, a man was convicted of violating a state law that read, “No person shall address any offensive, derisive or annoying word to any other person who is lawfully in any street or other public place, nor call him by any offensive or derisive name, nor make any noise or exclamation in his presence and hearing with intent to deride, offend or annoy him, or to prevent him from pursuing his lawful business or occupation” for standing outside City Hall in Rochester, New Hampshire and saying things like, “[y]ou are a God damned racketeer” and “a damned Fascist and the whole government of Rochester are Fascists or agents of Fascists.”

The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the state law over Chaplinsky’s argument that the law violated his First Amendment rights because the law was limited in scope, Chaplinsky’s words lacked social value, and the law did not “unduly impair liberty of expression.” The Court wrote that Chaplinsky’s words “by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.”

First Amendment cases use several different rules and rationales because they are so heavily fact-dependent. And we don’t have a Supreme Court case directly on this issue to compare. But one line of cases focuses on whether the restriction focuses on the content of the speech, or instead the “time, place, or manner” of the speech, which is scrutinized under a less stringent standard. This line is drawn in several Supreme Court cases.

An anti-street harassment law which regulated the content of speech, like a law that prevented shouting “compliments” at strangers in public, might fail. But a law that prohibited a certain manner of speech, like unwanted verbal contact with another person on public transportation, should pass constitutional muster. Not to mention, street harassment can sometimes be prosecuted criminally or civilly as hate speech, sexual assault, threats, defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, “fighting words,” intimidation, or obscenity, which receive limited or no First Amendment protection.

Street harassment is about exerting power over others who dare to enter a public space to go to work or the grocery store. The man who rode his bike dangerously close to me to force me to make eye contact and then hissed “I WANT TO TASTE YOUR PUSSY” was not trying to pay me a compliment. He was not trying to make friendly conversation. He was not informing me about a political issue he’s concerned about. He was not asking the time. He was not letting me know that I dropped a glove a half block back. He was not wishing me a good morning or remarking on the weather. His speech was not designed to convey an idea; it was intended to intimidate, dehumanize, and subjugate me.

Street harassment impacts what I wear, how I travel to work, how late I stay out, and whether or not I feel safe outside. Would educating and persuading street harassers to change their ways be a preferable course of action to legislating against that type of behavior? I think so. But that isn’t going to change attitudes overnight, and frankly, certain people, like “TASTE YOUR PUSSY” guy, probably aren’t going to change short of a criminal or civil statute giving him a reason to change that he cares about (because intimidating strangers is clearly not enough).

So while it’s an easy cop-out to blurt “BUT MAH ‘MERICAN FREEDOMS” when the government acts to prevent people from making others feel unsafe, the First Amendment argument falls flat. If this topic interests you, I’d strongly suggest reading Cynthia Grant Bowman’s wonderful Harvard Law Review article on the subject and articles and a book by Dr. Laura Beth Nielsen.

Disclaimer: this article is an opinion and is not intended to be used as legal advice.

Emily is a 3L at Michigan State University College of Law, and the president of her school’s chapter of LSRJ. Follow her on Twitter @emgillingham.

Romania: Anti-Street Harassment Week in Bucharest

April 21, 2015 By Correspondent

Simona-Maria Chirciu, Bucharest, Romania, SSH Blog Correspondent

We had a week full of events for International Anti-Street Harassment Week in Romania. Activists and feminists were very active in raising awareness about this problem by posting online testimonials about street harassment experiences, sharing international events, participating in flashmobs and distributing fliers.

FILIA NGO and volunteers posted testimonials all week on Facebook and other activists Tweeted about street harassment. These kinds of online posting and discussions with people about street harassment is important. For example, some young women commented on our testimonials, opening up about their own experiences. Is vital for us to start talking more and more about this problem, in online but also in public spaces.

When it comes to street harassment in Romania, people tend to ignore it, to minimize the gravity of it. They excuse the harassers and blame the victims, so for this year’s International Anti-Street Harassment Week, three feminist NGOs from Bucharest — FILIA, FRONT and AnA: Society for Feminist Analyses — organized a public action in a park in Bucharest.

We gathered in a large park on Saturday, 18 April, to raise awareness about victim-blaming and the importance of bystanders intervention. How did we do that? We begun with writing chalk messages against street harassment like: “My skirt doesn’t concerns you!”, “I was harassed HERE”, “I don’t harass women”, “The public space must be safe for all of us”, “Take action against street harassment”, “Brave against street harassment”, “STOP street harassment”, “Harassment is violence”, “Respect women”.

Many people in the park took a moment to stop and read or asked us what are we doing, what is street harassment or just stopped to congratulate us on our work. After the chalking, we made a flashmob – an artistic dance to symbolize the “relation” between the aggressor and the harassed woman, a relation of dominance and submission, a power relation. A powerful woman, an actress and activist on Roma rights – Mihaela Dragan – recited testimonials about street harassment to go with the dance. It was great! Then, the other participants made a circle, surrounding the dancers with banners and placards with messages against street harassment, for the people to see them.

At the end of the activity we shared fliers with this simple message:

“When was it the last time you saw a girl or a woman catcalled, whistled, groped on the street, bus or park? What was your reaction? Street harassment is a daily problem for girls and women worldwide. Whistles, honking, leers, groping, sexual commentaries about women’s body, stalking, flashing, masturbation in public, threats with rape or physical aggression and other behaviours of street harassment in public space are making girls and women to feel unsafe. Street harassment has nothing to do with sexual attraction or what a woman is wearing. Is about the need of the harassers to demonstrate their power on their targets, the women who are seen just like sexual objects, walking down the street to please the men. Is time to get over stereotypes and stop blaming the women, but their aggressors. Say STOP to street harassment! Women have the right to a safe space too! Take attitude if you see a harassed women on the street!”

I was very glad that so many women and men in Bucharest got involved in this amazing week and I hope will be that way and something more in 2016 too!

Simona is the Vice President of a feminist NGO – FILIA Center and a PhD student in Political Sciences, working on a thesis on street harassment in Bucharest. You can follow her on Facebook .

Photos by Ana-Maria Popa.

Germany: Women-Only Transit Options

April 21, 2015 By Correspondent

Lea Goelnitz, Berlin, Germany, Blog Correspondent

In more than one dozen countries, women-only public transportation is chosen as a short-term (or mid-term!) solution to street harassment. These countries are as diverse as Japan, India, Brazil, the Philippines and UAE, and offer sex segregated compartments in their trains or subways. In India public buses have benches reserved for women, entire trains for women and a women-only carriage in the Delhi metro. On the platform of the metro stop, the pink sign marks the “safe” area.

As the latest example of women-only transit, in the beginning of April the Guardian reported that there would be a new women-only rickshaw- service in Pakistan. The founder was fed up with facing daily harassment and now offers safe rides in pink rickshaws. I disagree with celebrating this business idea too much if the reason for the need of such women-only services is not sufficiently seen as a problem. We have to address the root causes.

Although I used to ride in the women-only carriage in Delhi and I guess it created a certain feeling of safety, I always felt like I was being put on display. Having all the women gathered in one space surrounded by men felt awkward. It is frustrating to know that these women-only spaces are a big move away from a gender equal society and from achieving real safety. Through sex-segregation, men do not need to adjust to a society in which women are equal and have the right to be in public spaces. The onus is on women to change.

In addition to women-only trains there are taxi services for women, which are even more widespread. There is SheRides in New York, Cab for Women by Women in Delhi and the Women´s Night Taxi in Hannover, Germany. In Germany there are also women-only parking lots, which are the ones closest to the building.

These interventions and businesses run by women create a safe option for women who otherwise might not go out or who will feel uncomfortable when they are out. As long as politics and culture fail women, this might be the only way to go. On the upside, in most cases it even provides women with economic empowerment. But of course even that is not perfect; the few female drivers may face safety issues as long as they are in the male-dominated space of taxi waiting lanes and rest areas.

Since January one of the major taxi companies in Delhi incorporated women drivers, catering to female passengers as well. This might be a small step forward. At least the men driving for this company will have to get used to having female colleagues.

In order for women to be safe, more women need to be out in public, as passengers and drivers.

Lea works in journalism and women´s rights and is involved in the women´s rights NGO Discover Football, which uses football as a tool for empowerment and gender equality. Follow her on Twitter, @LeaGoelnitz.

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