By: Tilly Grove, London, England, SSH Correspondent

When people talk about the street harassment of women and the street harassment of the LGBT community, it is not always acknowledged that whilst sexism and homophobia are different oppressions, they meet at a significant intersection, too. This phenomena, known as lesbophobia, sees lesbian and bisexual women subjected to abuse that although certainly fueled by bigoted views regarding sexuality, has a distinctly misogynistic tone to it as well. It is a very tangible reality for many lesbian and bisexual women, as the Everyday Lesbophobia project endeavours to document.

Of course, women who are perceived to be intimate with other women still face the same hostility, threats and actual violence that the LGBT community face generally. But they also receive harassment of a different kind, which is not just underpinned by the assumption that only heterosexual relationships are natural or legitimate, but that this is the case because women exist for the pleasure of men.

Having asked on Twitter for women to share their experiences on the matter, I immediately had a woman describe how she and her partner had been accosted in the street by men declaring that a “good f**k would sort them out” – implying that lesbian relationships are not real, that there is something wrong with them, and that a man can ‘fix’ it. This incorporates the homophobic belief that same-sex relationships are inferior to heterosexual relationships into the idea that all women do and should want men, and that men are entitled to each and every one.

The men making these kinds of comments probably think that they are making a joke, in an attempt to reassert the masculine dominance undermined by a woman not being interested in them, but it has very real implications. Corrective rape is a threat for lesbian women across the world. Some men are so sure that a “good f**k” will make lesbians interested in men that they give it to them, forcibly and without consent. All it actually does is cause unnecessary harm, fear and possibly lead to death. That’s no joke.

It doesn’t help that lesbian sexuality is heavily constructed in the public perception to cater for male consumption. This is no surprise; all women are portrayed in the patriarchy as a sexual conquest of some kind. But for lesbian and bisexual women, the fetishisation of their relationships in anything from pornography to sitcoms means that in public they are treated as novelties, or masturbatory tools. Women intimate with each other in public are cheered on, jeered at, and openly leered upon, with tales of male harassers doing everything from asking if they can join in to actually masturbating.

Any woman who strikes up the courage to protest this objectification is invariably told that “they know it’s hot” and thus, apparently, cannot complain. This is entitlement to the extreme – the idea that lesbian and bisexual women must accept threatening behaviour and invasions of their privacy because men are used to viewing images of their relationships for pleasure. As if this is the natural way of things.

All the while society and its institutions present women as things for men to play with, and not human beings with their own desires and a right to respect, this will be the natural way of things. And street harassment won’t end.

Tilly is studying for a BA in War Studies at King’s College London, where she is writing her dissertation on the effect that perceptions of gender have on the roles which women adopt in conflict. You can follow her on Tumblr and Twitter, @tillyjean_.

By: Molly Redding, San Francisco, CA, USA, SSH Correspondent

An experience I had the other day got me thinking about how much street harassment has to do with heteronormativity and the presentation of gender in public spaces.

It was Pride weekend and the streets around my apartment in San Francisco were filled with revelers coming to soak in the atmosphere of pure elation after the Defense of Marriage Act was killed and Proposition 8 – a California ballot initiative restricting marriage to one woman and one man – was overturned.

My roommate and I ventured out to get dinner, and as we were walking down the street a gentleman looked at both of us and called, “Hey, lesbi-ans!” Now, given that the Dyke parade had passed not 20 minutes earlier, his assumption wasn’t crazy, but it made me stop for a second, because it was the first time someone had assumed for me a sexuality that I didn’t claim.

For me, this happened once. For many people, this is a daily experience.

Heteronormativity (one of my favorite words, btw), is exactly what it sounds like – the assumption that everyone is heterosexual unless proven otherwise. Much of street harassment rests on this notion, since many (but certainly not all) street harassment incidences are men sexualizing women’s bodies or body parts. They assume the woman is heterosexual, and thus, available to interact with them under the guise of “courting.” That any of the harassers ever think their actions are going to actually win them a date is a whole other blog topic.

On the flip side, non-compliance with heteronormativity also begets street harassment, when the person walking down the street does not fit within the heteronormative framework. This is why there is a high incidence of street harassment aimed at the LGBQT community. Being in a public space and outside of what the harasser might consider “normal” allows them power to point out and ridicule those differences (this, of course, seems insane to many of us who at one point in our lives learned that differences are opportunities for learning, not ridiculing).

And finally, there’s the issue of performativity – the “performance” of one’s gender. A large focus of street harassment has to do with clothing – how much or how little a woman was wearing when she was harassed. Wearing too little clothing is considered a sexualization and “overperformance” of the female gender – and leaves the situation open to blaming the victim.

But “underperformance” of one’s gender can also leave a person vulnerable to harassment. Judith Butler outlines this in a video where she discusses a young boy who was killed by his classmates because of a certain “swish” in his walk (start around minute 4:30 until 6:45):

“So then we have to ask why would someone be killed for the way they walk? Why would that walk be so upsetting to those other boys that they feel they must negate this person, must expunge the trace of this person, they must stop that walk, no matter what . . . it seems to me that we are talking about an extremely deep panic or fear, an anxiety that pertains to gender norms.  If someone says you have to comply with the norms of masculinity otherwise you will die, or I kill you now because you do not comply, then we have to start to question what the relation is between complying with gender and coercion.”

Expectations of gender performance need to stop. Heternormative assumptions need to stop. Their outcome, street harassment, needs to stop.

Molly received a graduate degree in International Development and Gender from the London School of Economics in 2011, where her dissertation focused on websites allowing victims of harassment to post about their experiences. She has worked in the non-profit sector for over 10 years. You can follow her on Twitter, @perfeminist.