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SSH stands with Terry Crews

January 29, 2019 By HKearl

All survivors of sexual assault and harassment deserve support and respect. 

Photo by Gage Skidmore

In October of 2017, actor Terry Crews courageously added his voice to a growing wave of survivors breaking their silence about sexual harassment and assault on a global scale.

This week, Terry Crews’ status as a survivor is making headlines again, but for all the wrong reasons, as Crews endures victim-blaming, skepticism, and other forms of revictimization following several celebrities’ mockery of Crews’ sexual assault.

Stop Street Harassment stands with all survivors of sexual harassment and assault, and we know all too well that Terry Crews is not alone in his experience. Our most recent survey research confirms that all genders experience harassment or assault: forty-three percent of men surveyed in 2018 said they’d experienced sexual harassment or assault. Twenty-six percent of men reported experiencing some form of physical sexual harassment. 17 percent said they’d experienced unwanted sexual touching, and 7 percent said they’d been sexually assaulted.

There is no “right” way for a person to act when they are disrespected, sexually objectified, made to feel unsafe, or touched without their consent. When someone comes forward and courageously shares a story of harassment or assault, the last thing they deserve is to have others speculate on what they could have or should have done, either in the moment or in the weeks, months, or years that follow.

Stop Street Harassment remains committed to ending gender-based public sexual harassment, and part of that work is uplifting survivors of any kind of harassment or assault. Thank you again to Terry Crews for adding his story and his support to a movement we hope will continue making the world a safer place for all survivors.

–Stop Street Harassment Board of Directors

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Filed Under: male perspective, national study, News stories

We Need More Ads Like Gillette’s

January 16, 2019 By HKearl

Gillette’s new advertisement “The Best Men Can Be” is making some people mad. But we need more ads like theirs, not fewer.

The Gillette video released this week encourages men to speak up and take action when they witness sexual harassment, bullying and fights. It also encourages them to model positive behavior for boys who are watching them.

“We believe in the best in men,” the narrator says, “To say the right thing, to act the right way. Some already are, in ways big and small. But some is not enough. Because the boys watching today, will be the men of tomorrow.”

This messaging may seem non-controversial: be your best self, help stop bad behavior. Yet, a scroll through the video’s comments on Facebook show that a vocal group of people — mainly men — are deeply offended by the message, with some encouraging a boycott of Gillette. One man called the ad “sexist against men.” Other men said they are mad that Gillette for “lumping all men into one group” and challenging what they see as “normal, healthy masculinity.” A few others said the company is “lecturing” them on morals, with one saying, “if I want a preacher I’ll go to church!”

Many of the positive commenters, mainly women, pointed out that those who take offense with the ad’s message or feel attacked by it may want to look at themselves in the mirror because they are probably part of the problem. I agree.

The reality is, aspects of our culture do need to change when it comes to what is seen as acceptable male behavior, and companies like Gillette can help. “Boys will be boys” should no longer be an excuse for fighting and bad behavior. Sexual harassment should no longer be framed as a joke nor a form of flirting. Bullying should not be a rite of passage. The more places these messages are said, hopefully the more likely it is that they will stick, and change will occur.

I work to end sexual harassment, particularly in public spaces. As someone who also has experienced literally hundreds of instances of sexual harassment in school, work, online and in public spaces by boys and men, I am especially grateful that the Gillette ad encourages men to be active in preventing and stopping that behavior.

The personal #MeToo stories plus research show that sexual harassment is a widespread issue, and it is mainly perpetrated by men. A national study Stop Street Harassment spearheaded last year found that 81 percent of women and 43 percent of men had experienced some form of sexual harassment or sexual assault in their lifetime. Respondents of all genders reported men as the main perpetrators. In the school setting, a national study I co-authored at AAUW found that 56 percent of girls and 40 percent of boys in grades 7–12 had experienced sexual harassment, and again, the main perpetrators for all genders were boys.

Most efforts to address sexual harassment traditionally target women, telling them to speak out and share their stories, report it to authorities and learn to defend themselves with self-defense and mace. But we can all do that until we are blue in the face, and it won’t necessarily stop sexual harassment from occurring. Men must also be part of the solution and companies like Gillette can encourage them to be.

The ad shows possible ways that men can intervene in instances of street harassment, sexual harassment and bullying and that is particularly important. Research shows that bystander training can be effective at addressing sexual harassment, more so than something like a traditional sexual harassment training. Bystander training invites people to be part of the solution — as does the Gillette ad to men — and model possible ways to act.

Showing fathers modeling positive behavior in the ad was also a good move. Joyful Heart’s national study on redefining manhood conducted last year found when describing a male role model, nearly two-thirds of young men (65 percent) said they are describing a male relative, with nearly half (48 percent) choosing their father. Men need to think about how they act — or don’t act — in front of boys and what message that sends.

And of course, women are not off the hook when it comes to raising a respectful next generation. Mothers and other female relatives must also model appropriate behavior and give age-appropriate guidance on treating others. I am the mother of an eight-month-old boy and one word you’ll often hear me say to him right now when he wants to touch the humans or dogs in our house is “gentle” and then I show him what that means. His father does the same for him.

As my son grows older, I want him and his peers to see a range of messages about men and masculinity, messages like men can be gentle and kind and athletic and strong. Men can be intelligent and helpful and speak out against injustice.

An ad like Gillette’s gives me hope that those will be the sorts of messages with which he grows up, as he strives to be the best man he can be.

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Filed Under: male perspective, street harassment

16 Days – Day 4: A Dad Stops a Harasser

November 28, 2018 By HKearl

Each day across the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, we will highlight a 2018 activism effort undertaken to stop street harassment or a personal story about stopping harassers!

Day 4: A Dad Stops a Harasser

When a dad in California noticed a 29-year-old man start videotaping his 15-year-old daughter in a Target and crouch by another woman to take footage up her skirt, he kicked away the phone and then, when the man ran, tackled him in the parking lot. Then the dad called the police and got a photo of the man’s license plate number as he drove away. The man was later arrested for “invasion of privacy.”

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Filed Under: 16 days, male perspective, News stories, Stories, street harassment Tagged With: bystander, dad, harasser, teenager, upskirt

USA: A Case to Bring Bystander Interventionism and Anti-Harassment Education into Primary Schools

January 30, 2018 By Correspondent

Patrick Hogan, Chicago, IL, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

Credit: Brian Evans, Flickr

Harassment is not an uncommon occurrence, but it is often a taboo subject to address. Now, in the wake of the popularization of the #MeToo movement, it is time harassment is discussed openly. The obvious first question: How should we as a society deal with it?

Many activists think the most efficient way to fight street harassment is via culture change—to teach students, as young as primary school students, to dispel negative gender stereotypes and to be active bystanders in harassment situations.

Street harassment is largely ignored as a societal issue though, despite 65 percent of women and 25 percent of men in the United States having been harassed in public streets, according to a SSH-commissioned report. The same report found that 10 percent of victims were harassed by 12 years of age. Most legislative attempts made to stem the frequency of street harassment fall short of their goal: they consist of vague laws and statutes that are difficult to enforce. Harassment on public streets has become just something that happens—if this is the attitude we accept than street harassment will be ignored, left as a societal vice we must learn to live with.

Learning to live with street harassment has been the predominant educational initiative. That is, when discussing harassment with our children, we tend to teach them to be vigilant, how to dress, defensive measures, and how to behave in public so as not to be harassed. These are reactive measures; we assume harassment is an inevitability, so we teach methods of avoiding it, hoping a harasser will find a different person to victimize. While it is most certainly important to teach our children to be aware of their surroundings and how to protect themselves, reactive education is not going to end street harassment. We need proactive solutions: education that teaches not to accept harassment as an unfortunate reality of civil society.

Harassment should not be a taboo issue. If 10 percent of harassment victims were harassed by the age of 12, then educational initiatives should be enacted before children reach the age of 12. Bystander intervention should be championed: it is understood that if someone witnesses a bullying incident and does not interve, that person is siding with the bully. However, if that person intervenes, the bully is shown that his/her behavior will not be tolerated and is not supported, or the victim will know he/she is not alone and the aforementioned behavior is not appreciated.  The same applies to street harassment and gender based violence (GBV).

A report by Public Health England found evidence for bystander intervention as a productive method for combating GBV and creating a culture change on in college students. “Research evidence suggests that males who have negative gender role attitudes and who also endorse the belief that such violence is acceptable among their peers are more likely to perpetrate violence” (Fenton, et all, pg. 20). If a harasser’s own social circle refuses to tolerate harassment, the harasser is likely to stop. If harassment is not accepted as part of society then harassers (or would-be harassers) will likely refrain from harassment.

In Kenya, the nongovernmental organization Ujamaa Africa has seen phenomenal success in creating a culture change with bystander intervention. Ujamaa Africa hosts a 6-week course presented to school children called Your Moment of Truth that teaches positive masculinity, defense, and empowerment to boys and girls. The Journal of Interpersonal Violence found that Ujamaa Africa’s education program increased young boys’ intervention rate when exposed to GBV or harassment. Seventy-eight percent of the boys studied intervened when they witnessed violence and 75 percent intervened when they witnessed verbal harassment. Education-based culture change has and is working. Now we need to adapt education-based culture change into our communities and classrooms.

In Washington, D.C. City Councilmember Brianne K. Nadeau is on the forefront of the movement to change the culture surrounding street harassment with her introduction of the Street Harassment Prevention Act (SHPA) into the city council. The bill would require city employees to be trained as active bystanders to intervene in harassment-related situations, empower a committee to issue grants to initiatives to stop harassment, and would require a public awareness campaign. This is a positive step in the right direction: a campaign to create culture change and train community members to intervene.

This sort of effort should go further, to extend to the schoolhouse. Nuala Cabral of Temple University Community Collaborative (and former SSH board member) said at a Nov. 2017 roundtable discussion with a Philadelphia State Senate Committee, “We need to emphasize the importance of teaching consent. Honestly, we can start at kindergarten, we can start talking about consent. Students are hungry about this conversation and they’re not having it.”

This idea of beginning education into empowerment, toxic gender stereotypes, sexuality, harassment, and consent might seem a bit shocking to many in the U.S., but it has shown success in Ujamaa Africa’s program and is already institutionalized in every school in the Netherlands.

Preventing harassment should not merely be the responsibility of victims and potential victims. Harassment is not a merely a personal issue, it is a societal one. By creating culture change, by teaching children at a young age to dispel negative gender stereotypes and to intervene in harassment we can purge the acceptance of street harassment from our culture. Harassment is not uncommon and talking about it often seems taboo, but we can create a culture in which the opposite is reality.

Patrick is an undergraduate student majoring in anthropology and minoring in Islamic World Studies at Loyola University Chicago, preparing to continue onto law and graduate school. He is particularly interested in legal anthropology and the ways victims are viewed by legal systems.

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Filed Under: correspondents, male perspective, Resources, street harassment Tagged With: bystander, education, intervene, schools

Nigeria: Ending the Deafening Silence on Street Harassment

January 26, 2018 By Correspondent

Adetayo Talabi, Lagos, Nigeria, SSH Blog Correspondent

“I was walking from my Ikeja Local Government office after my weekly community development service as a Youth Corp member when a young man between the age of 30-35 years walked close to me [and began talking]. I thought with his responsible look, I should hear him out, but then he asked if I was married and talked about how sexually appealing I look, [said] very irritating sexual words about my body shape, body features etc. I felt so embarrassed and angry. I had to increase my walking pace, but he kept walking faster and the disgusting words made me run…” (Itote)

“Someone grabbed my boobs. Another time, a man touched my face. Another time a man boldly told me that he wanted to give me oral sex on the street.” (Lu)

“It happened in school (University of Benin, Benin City, Edo State)… I had a rosette on my hair as I walked past the area where the young men were. One of them said I was trying to show to the world that I’ve been de-flowered, because of the rosette I had on my hair. I ignored them and kept walking.” (Oluwatobiloba)

“A male colleague once told me that if he took me into a room and touched me sexually, all my hidden features would come out.” (A. Oluwaseun)

“I was once walking home and some boys were saying, ‘Baby how are you?’ I ignored them and they called me a prostitute.” (Opeyemi)

These stories reflect the routine experience of women — not from India or the United States — but from Nigeria. They shared their experiences in an online survey I conducted about the prevalence of street harassment. I undertook this research because, in preparing to write on the topic, I discovered there was no existing study for my country. After I created the online survey, I shared it via Whatsapp groups; Facebook and Twitter while also encouraging close friends to take it and share it with their contacts.

What my survey showed is that street harassment is not peculiar to any country; in fact, it is part of  Nigerian women’s everyday live. From the seemingly innocent “hello” to vulgar, obscene suggestions, and in some cases outright threats of (sexual) assault, it is no easy task being a woman in Nigeria, especially in the major cities like Lagos, Abuja, and Port-Harcourt.

Out of 105 women who responded to my online survey, I found that about 92 of the women (88 percent) had experienced street harassment. Among them, 52 had been physically touched (50 percent) and 89 had been verbally harassed (85 percent). When I asked some men I found indulging in such despicable acts, they were quick to assert that their goal is simply to acknowledge and complement the qualities of the woman. On the other hand, some said that most women “ask” for the harassment by the way they dress. In response, I did not hesitate show them the Twitter post by Fauziyah.

There is no need denying the fact that street harassment dehumanizes women, by reducing them to sexual parts and functions, and it is an invasion of privacy which reminds the victims of their gender and vulnerability. It is also a dangerous public issue.

In Lagos, the commercial capital of Nigeria, street harassment thrives. The city was recently named by Thomson Reuters as the eighth most dangerous megacity for women in the world. It was clear from the survey that the markets are particularly bad. One of my survey respondents, Oluwaseun, said she tries to mentally prepare for her visits because, according to her, “Every time I go to Yaba market, harassment is certain.”

Unlike in Nigeria, street harassment incidents are presently, openly and publicly being tackled in various countries in North and South America, Asia and Europe. I believe the fact that this issue is at the forefront of public discourse in these countries will mean that societal behaviour and attitudes on this issue will be changed in a fundamental way.

The same needs to occur in Nigeria. Nigerian women should have the inalienable, basic right not to be eve-teased, cat-called, groped or fondled against their will or be subjected to inappropriate comments based on their gender, be it on the street or in the workplace.

Given that women are overwhelmingly the victims of this assault, Nigerian women must be at the forefront of the push for change. Nigerian women should not isolate themselves from the trending global #MeToo movement but must take advantage of this and other anti-harassment initiative to make our country safe for everyone, irrespective of his or her gender.

But women should not have to work alone to stop street harassment. Nigerians, irrespective of their gender, as global citizens, need to individually take steps towards creating awareness about why street harassment is harmful and not allow it to continue to fester in the “public” shadows. Indeed, I agree with Olamide Abudu that it is ultimately up to all of us to come together to change the culture of pervasive harassment in Nigeria. As a nation, we need to do more than just sit and fold our arms in akimbo wishing the menace away; we need to work hard to get the discussion about street harassment started.

I believe this medium is just a starting point, but it should not end here. It begins with you, reading this piece.

Adetayo is a Judicial Assistant/Law Clerk to Justices of the Lagos Division of the Court of Appeals. He volunteers with several Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) that focus on legal aid, domestic/gender-based violence, gender equality and human rights. You can reach him by mail here or follow him on twitter at @TalabiJ_

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Filed Under: correspondents, male perspective, street harassment Tagged With: nigeria, survey

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