Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Help More People in the UK and Ireland Enjoy a Good Night Out!

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From Hollaback! London:

“Since March 2014, we’ve been working with pubs, clubs, bars and venues across London to prevent harassment and create safer nights out. The response has been overwhelming. Now, organisers across the UK and Ireland want to bring Good Night Out to their towns and cities. We’re fundraising £5000 to make this happen – watch our crowd funding campaign video and find out more.

Good Night Out is a pioneering new campaign designed to transform the way pubs, clubs and bars handle harassment and assault at their establishments. We’ve designed a pledge which we invite venues to sign up to, which reads:

‘If something or someone makes you feel uncomfortable, no matter how minor it seems, you can report it to any member of our staff and they will work with you to make sure it doesn’t have to ruin your night.”

Upon signing up to our campaign, all participating businesses

  • display our pledge posters informing customers what to expect
  • fully brief staff on the new addition to the workplace policy
  • have access to our special training workshops for staff
  • are named and linked to on the Good Night Out website
  • feedback regularly to us for advice and support about dealing with harassers

Since March this year, we’ve worked with venues, pubs bars in clubs ranging from local bars, to 1000+ capacity venues to improve their safety policy. We’ve had 100% positive feedback from the venues we’ve worked with so farwho include Village Underground, Dalston Superstore and Fabric. Since launching, we’ve been inundated with enquiries from organisations and activists across the country who want to see Good Night Out in their area, so we’re working with them to make this happen!

Here are some of the venues we’ve already worked with across London.

We’re now organising with groups around the UK and Ireland from Sheffield to Galway, Glasgow to Kent, Limerick to Oxford, Brighton, Bristol, Norwich, Nottingham, Edinburgh, Coventry and more to get the message out and ensure we have a real impact on the way the nighttime economy deals with harassment, whatever form it takes.”

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Vancouver Transit Police Agree to Change their PSA

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Advertisement by the Vancouver Transit Police. Photograph by Anoushka Ratnarajah.

The Vancouver Transit Police have been working to address sexual harassment and assault on their system. Their latest effort included this poster, which suggests that not reporting an assault is the real shame (as opposed to the assault) and ignores valid reasons why someone may choose not to report.

Vancouver-based artist Anoushka Ratnarajah shard the poster’s message on Instagram and Ms. Magazine and other outlets covered the story at the end of last week. The Vancouver chapter of Hollaback! issued a powerful statement to the Vancouver Transit Police and Lucia Lorenzi wrote an excellent essay about the ads, Lost in Translation: What The Vancouver Transit Police Advertisement Teaches Us About Language Use.

Thankfully, the Vancouver Transit Police issued an apology: as the CBC reports, they will be taking these posters down, and replacing them.

Hollaback! Vancouver shared this on their site today:

“Anne Drennan of the Vancouver Transit Police (VTP) called Shannon Fisher, Hollaback! Vancouver Team Lead, last night to apologize and say that the VTP will have the victim-shaming ads down by the end of the week as train cars return to service yards.

Anne spent the day calling everyone who complained about the ads to apologize for the harmful messaging. The VTP didn’t mean to blame victims, and they genuinely wish to encourage people — victims and bystanders — to report what they see as they feel comfortable and safe.

Anne invited Hollaback! Vancouver to be on a team with other women’s support groups to approve the copy on replacement ads. We said, yes!

Thanks to everyone who saw something and said something. Together we made change. Let’s keep using our voices until street harassment and the culture that supports it is no longer tolerated.

Thank you VTP for being swift and respectful. We’re thankful for the effort of the VTP, the See Something Say Something campaign, and the ways you’re willing to include us to make it as effective as possible. If you see something on transit, say something by texting 87-77-77.”

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Ireland: In Conversation with Vanessa Baker of Hollaback! Dublin

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Dearbhla Quinn, Dublin Ireland/Brussels, Belgium, SSH Blog Correspondent

Dublin Pride 2013, Photograph by Aidan Murray

I was no stranger to street harassment when I attended the launch of the Dublin branch of Hollaback! in November 2012 and first met the people who are hard at work combating this social plight. Vanessa Baker is one of the four founders of Dublin’s branch of a globe-spanning network of activists that includes 79 cities in 26 countries, all contributing to the growing movement in opposition to what they describe as “the most prevalent form of gender based violence.” She agreed to chat with me about their campaign.

Hollaback is a movement that started in New York in 2005 when Thao Nguyen photographed a public masturbator on the subway. Ignored by police, she uploaded the photo online, prompting a city-wide discussion, not just about street harassment, but also the power of the Internet to combat it.

Eighteen months after the launch of the Dublin branch, Vanessa told me how the site allows the victims of harassment to share their stories online and receive the support of other visitors who can click the “I’ve got your back” button alongside published stories and another interesting feature, a map. “Once you’ve submitted a story I can see where it happened and so it kind of records a virtual map of street harassment in the city with dots showing where people have experienced their stories taking place,” she told me.

Vanessa told me how she had become involved. “Before I moved to Dublin in 2011, I had been living in Ottawa for four years…one of the other women who I met there was in the process of setting up Hollaback! Ottawa… So anyway that was my first exposure to Hollaback.”

Anti-Street Harassment Week 2013, Photograph by Aidan Murray

This proved to be a fortunate discovery when street harassment in Dublin left her feeling powerless. “It didn’t matter what I was wearing, or what time it was. Some guy would always try to walk home with me or be shouting something and it got really frustrating that I didn’t have any control over it…In Ottawa if you walk home after midnight you expect it, but at Dublin you find that even at 3 p.m…So I looked up to see if there was a Hollaback! Dublin and there wasn’t, so, but there was an option to start your own. I sent them an email explaining who I was and why I wanted to start it and then it turns out that Jenny Dunne had sent a similar message around the same time and so we were both interested in starting the site and that’s how we met.”

Before meeting Vanessa, through the online training course, Jenny had thought she was the only interested Dubliner. She sought out other eager volunteers through the Irish Feminist Network Facebook page and soon Eavan Magner and Aimée Doyle joined the team.

I asked Vanessa if she understood the reluctance of many women to describe themselves as feminist and if she would consider Hollaback! to be a feminist movement. “I’m 25 now and I’m comfortable with it now but at undergrad level I felt uncomfortable with that label. I do understand the reluctance to identify with that label. We try to be more inclusive through not using the words in our posts, so that people can interact with the site even if they don’t identify with that label. I do think it’s sad though…We tried to stay apolitical but I think that was a mistake, because abortion is such a hot button topic and I think that stopped us from integrating with the Dublin feminist community. Even though we’re all Pro-Choice we didn’t want Hollaback! to have an official stance and that isolated us.”

By Chrissie G Photography

So what’s next? Vanessa described the initial challenge of maintaining momentum. “When we started, we were very focused on launch day, so afterwards we had a bit of a ‘what now’ moment’. Vanessa believes that the next step is to ‘bring it more offline- story sharing is cathartic, but it’s a very self-selecting group that look at the site.”

Through events like their “Chalk walk” and workshops, Vanessa hopes that they may contribute to a dialogue, not just with the victims, but with harassers too. She is optimistic for the future and understandably proud of their achievements so far.

“I like to think that we’ve made a difference and changed a few minds. Even if we don’t end street harassment in Dublin anytime soon, at least we can provide support to those who suffer it.”

Dearbhla graduated from BESS (Business and Sociology), in Trinity College Dublin, last year. She currently lives in Brussels, Belgium, where she has a think-tank internship working in the areas of gender, equality, and employment. Follow her on Twitter @imoshedinheels and her blogs.

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USA: Dance Party to Benefit HollabackPHILLY coming April 5

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Katie Monroe, Philadelphia, PA, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

There’s a great quote from activist Emma Goldman – it comes in various forms, but basically it says, “A revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having.” I couldn’t agree more.

Philadelphia’s Hollaback chapter has been doing a lot of innovative work lately – from launching a subway ad campaign that got tons of press last year, to helping create a comic book about street harassment, to managing to get a City Council hearing about street harassment this past fall, they’ve been working hard.

But they’ve never had a dance party before. Until April 5, during International Anti-Street Harassment Week.

The party’s at Underground Arts in Philadelphia, an awesome space that hosted the bar for Philly’s LiveArts/Fringe Festival for the past few years. Doors are at 8pm, $5 presale (http://tktwb.tw/1kLRxfL) /$8 at the door. There will be various DJs, spoken word, and more, all to benefit HollabackPHILLY.

Rochelle Keyhan, Founder and Director of HollabackPHILLY, says, “We’ve been talking about wanting to have a dance party frequently over the past few years. It would be a great way to rally behind a cause in a more lighthearted setting than our usual events. Despite wanting a dance party, we were never quite sure of how to pull it off. Last Fall we heard about Get Lucid and loved what they were doing, so reached out to them about partnering up. We met with the awesome Get Lucid team, Pete, Miguel, and Cedric, planned this event to coincide with Anti Street Harassment Day, and couldn’t be more excited!

We went to the last Get Lucid party which fundraised for Philly Urban Creators, and the crowd and vibe was so supportive and energetic, while highlighting a great cause in our community. We’re excited to see who else Get Lucid highlights throughout the year!”

For those not in the know, Get Lucid! The Activist Dance Party describes itself as “featur[ing] a blend of innovative local musicians and djs with unique visual and performance art. The result is a visceral experience for attendees, where we hope to unite passion with activism. Get Lucid! provides a safe, fun, and collaborative environment for all communities to network and rally around local social justice initiatives, for which the Get Lucid! events themselves become a tool for promotion and fundraising.”

Sounds good to me! As someone who’s experienced plenty of harassment – verbal and physical – on dance floors in Philadelphia, it’s exciting to imagine a dance floor full of folks who are all there because they respect the other humans dancing around them… perhaps I’ll be able to actually dance without being groped, leered at, aggressively approached from behind, etc.

RSVP on Facebook here / Get your presale tickets here.

See you there!

Katie Monroe founded the Women Bike PHL campaign at the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia and she works at the Philly nonprofit Gearing Up, which gives some of Philadelphia’s most marginalized women – those in transition from incarceration, addiction, and/or abuse – the opportunity to ride bicycles for exercise, transportation, and personal growth. Follow her on Twitter, @cmon_roe.

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Get Ready for a Good Night Out

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By Kendra Corbin, SSH Intern

Sexual harassment in bars is a terrible obstacle for many women just looking for a night out with the girls. At least, that’s what I’ve been told. To be honest, I can’t speak from personal experience about the sexual harassment that occurs specifically in bars. My personality falls more along the lines of, “Let’s binge-watch Netflix together this weekend” rather than, “Let’s go out to a bar this weekend.” While I might lack first-hand experience with sexual harassment in bars, I understand that it regularly happens to countless women and LGBQT individuals. Whether walking down a street or having some drinks in a local bar, all people deserve to feel safe in any public space.

Hollaback London‘s new campaign intends to make that happen. The fellow anti-street harassment organization recently launched the Good Night Out campaign. This campaign’s goal is to keep nights safe and fun by eliminating sexual harassment in bars and clubs. Hollaback London will be providing training for staff members, resources, and posters to participating venues. The strategically-placed posters will emphasize that sexual harassment will NOT be tolerated. The posters declare:

We want you to have a good night out. If something or someone makes you feel uncomfortable, no matter how minor it seems, you can report it to any member of our staff and they will work with you to make sure it doesn’t have to ruin your night.

Participating establishments will sign a pledge vowing to make their environments safe and welcoming for all. Hollaback London encourages patrons to tweet to @hollabackLDN about their experiences using the hashtag #goodnightout. This campaign is a wonderful step to making London’s nightlife harassment-free.

A similar project, Safe Bars, exists in Washington D.C. Safe Bars is supported by Collection Action for Safe Spaces and the self-defense organization Defend Yourself. This project works directly with local nightlight venues to provide safety training for the staff, increase awareness of sexual harassment, and promote safety for all customers.

It is common knowledge that sexually aggressive behavior is prevalent in bars, hence the necessity for the aforementioned projects. However, a new study found that alcohol is not the sole factor to blame for sexually aggressive behavior in bars. Rather, it found that male aggressors intentionally target inebriated women. If you need an example of what constitutes sexually aggressive behavior, Jezebel featured an article on ABC’s new series Mixology. A short trailer shows the male characters hunting for drunk women at a bar. The normalcy of their behavior (and the fact that it’s meant to be funny) is repulsive. While the show is fictional, their behavior is not. This is why campaigns such as Good Night Out and Safe Bars exist.

Overall, every person has the basic right to safety in all public spaces. Alcohol has the ability to coexist with a fun, healthy environment as long as patrons and staff members respect one another. These great organizations and campaigns will continue to ensure that nights out are fun and safe for everyone.

Kendra Corbin is senior at Shenandoah University. She is majoring in Mass Communications and minoring in Women’s Studies.

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