Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

USA: Hypermasculinity and Street Harassment

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By Sean Crosbie, SSH Correspondent

Street harassment is one of the by-products of the culture of hypermasculinity that is so pervasive in our society. David L. Mosher and Mark Sirkin provide an excellent list of the typical behaviors of hypermasculinity in “Measuring a macho personality constellation,” published in the Journal of Resarch in Personality: degrading attitudes towards women (i.e. viewing them as property), violence as a manly ideal, and the thrill of danger. All of the behaviors that Mosher and Sirkin describe create cultures of both entitlement and silence. Some men feel entitled to interact with women in an inappropriate manner; likewise, a culture of silence ensures that these behaviors will be accepted and not judged by other men in the group. Men on the sidelines may be afraid to break what Michael Kimmel refers to as the “guy code.”

In a previous blog post, I wrote about how women feel like targets in our male dominated public space, and how this has effects on women’s use of that space. The two friends who I interviewed for the post also had strong opinions about how hypermasculinity is a factor in street harassment. While both cited the culture of silence as a hindrance to constructive action, interviewee 2 noted how “having a girl on your arm” and playing games to get a woman’s attention (even if she is not interested) is seen as macho:

…Having a girl on your arm is seen as masculine. Being able to get that girl with a cat-call I suppose is macho…Society definitely plays a part in how people act because, naturally, we care what others think of us. And there are games that people play to get each other’s attention. It is when one of the people involved is clearly uninterested or feeling uncomfortable with the game that I think it becomes harassment.

Men feel they have a right to “…get that girl with a cat-call” just as they believe they have a right to “own” public spaces; both are symptoms of a culture of entitlement. Interviewee 1 pointed out how the culture of silence has a negative effect on men in a group. In this “perverse support system,” any man who goes against the “guy code” is considered an outsider:

We know that humans act differently while they’re in groups. Groups of men seem to reinforce “masculine” attitudes toward women, and cheer each other on while one is behaving inappropriately toward a woman or group of women. This perverse support system exacerbates the problem of harassment … I wish more men would step up and say “hey, that’s not cool, let’s go” instead of standing on the sidelines.

Both of these women agree that something must be done to change a culture where entitlement and silence create unsafe spaces for women everywhere. We must empower male allies to take action against harassment and not be relegated to the sidelines. Since none of the behaviors associated with hypermasculinity are biological, there is much we can do to change the education of men and boys and put an end to the attitudes that create street harassment. I will address some of the ways in which local communities and governments can work to accomplish this in a future post.

Sean has written for Stop Street Harassment since April 2011.  He is a library/research assistant at a labor union in Washington, D.C. and holds a Bachelor’s degree in economics from American University.

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We need equal access to public spaces now!

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On Saturday night around 2 a.m., after dinner and card games with some friends, I exited the metro in Arlington and began my very routine ten-minute walk home. The temperature was below freezing and I was bundled uncomfortably in my coat, trying my hardest to make it home as quickly as possible. Moments after beginning my trek, two men walked toward me.

One of them sort of walked past me – and stopped a few feet away – while the other man came up to me and started to talk. And from the way he began his interactions, I was fairly certain that they wanted something sexual. I’ve been approached on the street for this reason before and the timing seemed right. And so did the conversation. He asked me what I was doing and where I was going and, when I said I was going home, he wanted to know where I lived. I motioned up the hill in the obvious direction that I was walking and tried to get away. I was sandwiched between him and a building.

Then the conversation’s tone changed. He pointed to my North Face jacket and said I must have a lot of money. I’m not sure what kind of rich white boy he thought I was, but the comment was almost laughable. But he said it again. And again I said I wasn’t rich. In a sort of startling way he asked what my name was and, after repeating the question several times and me saying it didn’t matter, I escaped up the hill and didn’t look back. Home was only a few blocks away, and thankfully they didn’t follow me. I couldn’t tell if the other man was annoyed that his friend was doing it or if he was there to offer support in some way. A lot was unclear from my interaction with them.

I didn’t know what they wanted. I thought they were going to ask to go home with me, or ask me to go home with them, but then I thought they wanted to rob me. And then, when he kept asking for my name, I thought he might have wanted something sexual again. I also didn’t know why they targeted me. Did they want someone shorter than them? If they wanted to sleep with me, then possibly. If they wanted to rob me well, then, probably. Did my race affect their decision to pursue me? And how important was it that they perceived me to be male? I wanted to be active in my dismissal of them, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t sure how to respond because I didn’t know what I was responding to.

And as scary as it was, and as I try now, still, to conceptualize exactly what happened to me, it’s raised some interesting questions in my mind about how I sort of binarize male-on-male street harassment. I think about it in a very plain way. The perpetrator might be a homophobic straight guy, or a group of men (not necessarily all straight) operating within a homosocial space as they prove their heterosexuality via the harassment of others. Or the perpetrator could also be gay and approaching another gay man as I thought the two men above were initially. While these two options use hate-filled and sexualized language, respectively, in both instances the man is targeted because he is perceived to be gay. And either way, access to public spaces is being restricted.

So it’s more complex than my assumptions. My perception of the situation included both of these models. It was murky. I’m not sure that I would have rather been harassed in a clearer way, because I don’t want myself or anyone else to ever be harassed, but not understanding this incident has certainly stayed with me in a very different way. Did they want to sleep with me? Did they just want to rob someone? Or did they want to rob me because they perceived me to be gay? I can’t draw many conclusions, because if they wanted to rob me they certainly could have, and if they wanted to assault me they could have accomplished that as well. Maybe they were drunk and really had no goal other than to mess around with the nearest passerby. I’m really not sure.

What I do know is that I perceived the event in a way that I’m not sure all men would have. Men who are perceived to be gay or bisexual expect harassment in public spaces because of the ways that we interfere with some men’s ideas about appropriate masculinity and sometimes because our appearances might be pleasing to other men. In my own research that I’ve cited before, more than 70 percent of the gay and bisexual men I surveyed said they constantly assess their surroundings when they are navigating public spaces. This number, I imagine, is lower for those whose appearance is consonant with societal gender expectations.

So while I can’t be sure about what I experienced that night, I know what it felt like, and how it would have felt for others who experience harassment regularly. Not everyone walking down the street is about to harass, but when it happens often enough it’s hard not to think about. And that’s one of the things that makes street harassment so dangerous. It’s not forgotten. It takes up mental space. It’s complex. Sometimes we can’t make sense of it, but that shouldn’t be our responsibility. Equal access to public spaces is something we need now.

This is a guest post by Patrick McNeil. Patrick is finishing his master’s thesis at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he is pursuing his Master’s in Women’s Studies. His work focuses on whether and how gay and bisexual men experience street harassment and how this form of harassment intersects with and diverges from the gender-based street harassment of women. Follow him on Twitter at @patrickryne.

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“These guys were prevented from groping passengers”

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I’m a middle-aged man who lives in Antwerp, Belgium (EU). Today I experienced first-hand what street harassment is all about and it’s an ugly experience.

Coming of my commuter train at about 7:30 PM accompanied by a female colleague we entered an elevator with an odd 10 other people, to bring us up to street level.

When we wanted to get out of the elevator four brash youths aged between 15-17 years old were waiting for the elevator, and were standing in the doorway pressing themselves in against the flow as all passengers were pressing to get out of the elevator so that people had to press trough them. Together with a male colleagues we told the youths to get out of the doorway and reprimanded them on their behaviour. One of the youths addressed very improperly our female colleague and again we intervened.

The youths made lots of noise and were insulting us when suddenly one of them attacked me. However he hit his nose onto my fist so as he darted back he undid his belt to attack me again. In the meantime security guards had shown up that herded them away from us. They kept shouting abuse. Until the police showed up and they legged it.

I was lucky security staff were quickly on the scene, and my female colleague wasn’t too shocked about the matter, but this could have turned nasty.

I’m sure these guys were prevented from groping passengers in the doorway, perhaps stealing a wallet, which is why they made such a fuss.

– Derek

Location: Antwerp, Belgium

 

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T.I., “Gender Night,” and Unlearning Misogyny

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By Joel Anderson

Who knows what @doope_4evr was really looking for when he ventured onto @starquality’s Instagram account and asked her the following: “Can we fuck?”

Maybe he lacked the confidence to earnestly ask a pretty girl out for a date. Maybe he lacked the decency to better disguise his most base urges. Maybe he just wanted some attention.

If it was the latter, @doope_4evr should consider his indecent proposal a success: he got all of the attention of @starquality’s father, hip-hop and reality TV star T.I.

“U ever disrespect me and mines like that again,” he warned, “I’m gon throw more $$$ at ya head than it cost to build yo mama a new house.”

And on and on it went.

It all made me wonder where @doope_4evr developed the temerity to approach a woman in such a manner, and whether T.I. was suffering from a total absence of self-awareness.

Of course, few people could blame T.I. for his anger and protective instincts. That’s his daughter — “mines,” he said.

He’s also the same guy who once rapped, “Ay T.I.P. been bangin’ thick dames since he was 15/the click came ran trains if her shit clean.”

This woman, real or imagined for musical purposes, is someone’s daughter. Maybe girlfriend. Possibly mother. Someone else’s “mines.”

Before we go any further, here’s an admission: I love T.I. and his music. As far as hip hop artists go, he’s fairly progressive in his attitude toward women. Check “Freak Though,” if you don’t believe me.

I know I have my own hypocrisy to deal with, from my previous romantic entanglements to my music choices.

But at the least, I got a headstart on confronting that hypocrisy. It started in earnest when I was 17, the summer before my senior year of high school, at a leadership camp just outside of Houston.

There were about 75 of us, teenagers who came from all over southeast Texas. We were there to challenge our beliefs, confront our prejudices, and push our boundaries. I was also there to meet cute girls and earn the service credits needed for graduation, but I didn’t share that with anyone.

It was a great week. I met one of my very best friends there. We put on a moderately entertaining talent show. Every night had a theme: the one I remember most vividly, 17 years later, was Gender Night.

Camp counselors separated us, boys and girls, and told us we couldn’t sit together or speak to each other until later that night at a so-called “War of the Sexes.” This would be our summer airing of grievances.

Imagine the ripple of excitement that went through our camp.

Fledgling misogynists that we were, it didn’t take long for the boys to come up with a lengthy list of complaints about girls: too much talking, putting out too much, not putting out enough, excessive whining, no swallowing. Basically, the kind of mature discussion points you’d expect from guys who had little experience with women or girls other than with their mothers or sisters.

So before the big event, the boys were told to get into a single line as we gathered outside the camp’s central building. Then, a twist: we were told we had to go in one at a time. The girls would be waiting on us.

I was first in line. The room was dark. All was silent.

I nervously walked inside and briskly walked down the narrow path to the other side of the room. The girls were lined up on each side of the path, and bombarded me with the sorts of lewd catcalls that I had laughed off for much of my life.

No, I wasn’t scared or intimidated. In fact, I was flattered at the attention because I didn’t know any better. I was later told the girls had turned their backs and gone silent to the boys who made a game of it.

Later, and even more affecting, were the stories of harassment from our female campers. Virtually everyone had a story to tell.

One girl told of being followed home by a stranger during one of her evening runs. Another told us of her daily walk to school, which was essentially the experience our camp counselors had tried to recreate for us a few minutes prior. The last story of the night was told by bright-eyed girl who had caught my eye earlier in the camp: her laughter sounded like wind chimes, she moved with uncommon certainty for a teenager and, yes, I made my way over to the pool when she laid out to get some sun.

She had all of my attention. And soon enough, she had everyone’s attention.

A couple years ago, she told us, she and one of her friends had been gang-raped after leaving a house party. That was all I remember because, for me, it was enough.

Just like that, the war was over. This was no longer a silly teenage exercise in unpacking our most lewd thoughts.

Either we could be complicit in a culture that permitted the mistreatment and harassment of women, or we could hold ourselves, our friends and our family members accountable for the misogyny. 

We had a responsibility to unlearn.

As boys, we had to learn that all women and girls deserved better than our crude war-room banter, whether it came at camp or from our favorite musicians. We would need to, from that point forward, respect more than “mines.” And as men, we have to pass these lessons on to our boys.

Which brings me back to @doope_4evr, @starquality and T.I.

I’m fairly certain T.I. never envisioned his daughter as the thick dame getting a train ran on her. How could he?

But I do wonder what he thought when that world he created for other women showed up on his daughter’s Instagram account.

Joel Anderson is an award-winning reporter at the Tampa Bay Times and a regular contributor to PostBourgie, a blog that deals primarily with issues of class, race, gender, culture and media.  He has previously worked at the Shreveport (La.) Times, the Associated Press in Dallas, Oklahoma City and Houston and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Anderson has also contributed to publications including The Huffington Post, The Root, and The American Prospect, among many others. He is better known in the blogosphere and Twitter-verse as J.D. Bell, @blackink12 and@jdhometeam.

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India: 25 Men March in Skirts to Condemn Victim-Blaming

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Image via the Deccan Herald

In India, 25 men in their 20’s restored my faith in humanity when they marched through their town in skirts to condemn victim-blaming and to say that wearing a skirt is not an invitation for rape.  Their walk name? Skirt the Issue.

A crowd of 100 gathered at the end of the walk and the men pledged: “I promise that I will be sensitive to gender issues in the way I speak and act. I promise not to be passive. I will step in if I hear offensive speech or views. If I see something wrong happen in front of me, I will create a discussion and talk about my beliefs.”

One of the participants, Adithya Mallya, said, “Clothes and personal attitudes cannot cause sexual assault. Don’t waste time highlighting elements that have no importance. Instead address areas which require change.”

Another participant, Deepak, declared, “We joined the issue to share our voice, facilitate an awakening and stir the consciousness of narrow minded. Rape is not always determined by circumstance. It is our duty as men to take responsibility for our unforgivable actions.”

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