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Street Harassment Snapshot: August 7, 2011

August 7, 2011 By HKearl

Read stories, news articles, blog posts, and tweets about street harassment from the past week and find relevant announcements and upcoming street harassment events.

Street Harassment Stories:

Share your story! You can read new street harassment stories on the Web from the past week at:

Stop Street Harassment Blog

Hollaback Buenos Aires

Street Harassment in the News, on the Blogs:

"Eve teasing" in India — Via Deccan Herald

* Deccan Herald, “No safety for women anywhere…“

* Venus Genus, “‘I didn’t want to give a strange man…my phone number and got slapped for my troubles“

* Feministe, “The Politics of ‘Hello‘”

* Daily Bhaskar, “Youth murdered for objecting to eve-teasing of sister“

* Care2, “Should Seoul’s Subway Have Women-Only Sections?”

* Gothamist, “Upper East Side Serial Groper Strikes Again!“

* XO Jane, “True Tales of Street Harassment (And My Anger Issues)“

* Cluth Magazine, “Ladies Beware: Flasher Website Targets Black & Asian Women“

* The Times of India, “CISF leads drive to check eve-teasing in Delhi Metro“

* My High School Journalism, “Harassed on the Subway? Say Something!“

* SexGenderBody, “Growing into Street Harassment“

* IBN Live, “CISF undertakes anti-eve-teasing drive in metro stations“

Announcements:

New:

* Next Sunday, August 14, the Washington Post is publishing a major piece on street harassment in the magazine!

Reminders/On-Going:

* Do you have a stare that can turn #streetharassers to stone? Then participate in the Medusa Gaze Project! http://tinyurl.com/6fhh3tz

* Sign Mend the Gap’s petition to address subway harassment in Delhi, India

* Are you in Egypt? Use HarassMap to report your street harassers

* Have an iPhone? Download the Hollaback iPhone app that lets you report street harassers

20 Tweets from the Week:

1. butilovememore it’s not a compliment. its harassment. #streetharassment

2. ruthie_dee Reading tweets about #streetharassment… I’m SO angry that this happens to so many women and girls. Our bodies are not your property!

3. jennpozner Started w/me@ 12, too! MT @thehotnerd #StreetHarassment must stop, esp 2kids. Like pedophiles. Didn’t need 2know how nice my boobs were@ 12

4. Karnythia I see a lot of guys who are struggling with hearing about this, but #streetharassment is coming from men that you know too.

5. lashonp I’m thankful guys don’t grab my arm anymore. I’ve cut mofos w/words & wanted 2 do more yrs ago. #streetharassment is real & dangerous

6. resistasista #arentyoutiredof sexual harassment in the workplace and on the street #feminism

7. originalMiss_R Wlking thru southend hi street wiv shorts on equals HARASSMENT rite now

8. NajmMyriam Dear soldier standing on the sidewalk, just keep your mouth shut when i pass by! Sincerely, tired of street harassment. #fb

9. Bell_Bajao RT @womensweb: #whatareyoulookingat street sexual harassment needs no reason cept that a woman is around. presence = reason. cc @Bell_Bajao

10. ArriannaMarie Leaving the house, at one time, was a point of great anxiety b/c I hated to be subjected to the gauntlet of street harassment.

11. jAD0ReQUi @dreamhampton guys don’t understand how scary that is & the extra constant precautions we have to take as women because men don’t accept no

12. LilEsBella When you can’t walk down the street because some man old enough to be your grandfather is trying to touch you there’s a prob @dreamhampton

13. dreamhampton I was 5, in a bathing suit at a beach, when a grown ass man interrupted me from sandcastle building to tell me ‘damn! I wanna meet yr Mama!’

14. ttaraturk @dreamhampton I stopped riding the Detroit buss because some OLD dude exposed himself . I was traumatized. My parents couldn’t explain it.

15. dreamhampton As a mother of a teenager blk girl Id like to say: blk girl gets harrassed by adult blk men a trillion xs more often than blk boy do by pigs

16. Cx87 Why do some men think hollering at a woman is acceptable? How would they feel if it was their wife/daughter/mother? #streetharassment

17. thehotnerd #StreetHarassment needs to stop, especially toward children. No better than pedophiles. Didn’t need to know how nice my boobs were at 12.

18. PoshBirdGabi Did you know #streetharassment is not allowed in Libya? #hollaback @iHollaback #nwo

19. asrichardson I wish I could rt @dreamhampton‘s entire timeline. I’m enraged by the harassment women face but empowered by the sharing of our experiences

20. Crislex @dreamhampton I agree with you. Black women on a DAILY BASIS are dehumanized and degraded in broad daylight by their own counterparts. sick

Win for bicyclists in Los Angeles

July 30, 2011 By HKearl

A week ago, the Los Angeles (CA) City Council passed a pioneering new law making it a crime for drivers to threaten cyclists verbally or physically, and allows victims of harassment to sue in civil court without waiting for the city to press criminal charges.

While the main purpose of the law is to try to protect cyclists from dangerous or aggressive drivers, the verbal threat part intrigues me. Could someone who is sexually harassed in a threatening way be able to sue under the law? It seems plausible.

This is not the first time a broader law meant to protect folks outside of cars from those inside could potentially give people who are street harassed legal recourse should they choose to take it. Last year in Independence, Missouri, lawmakers passed an ordinance making it illegal for people in cars to harass pedestrians and cyclists.

I’m interested to see what happens and how people use the new Los Angeles law.

Builders in the UK Suspended for “Wolf-Whistling”

July 29, 2011 By HKearl

The building site Fish Hill Square, via Daily Mail Online

Ahh, so classic and stereotypical…

Two builders (construction workers) in the UK were suspended from work for harassing a woman walking by their work site at Fish Hill Square. The woman felt so uncomfortable, she told her husband how she didn’t want to walk past there again. That led him to write a complaint to the construction company.

This part is less stereotypical and very laudable on the part of the company: the men were identified and taken off the job for a few days.

Via the Daily Mail Online:

“They will now be allowed back after their accuser decided not to take matters further, although they are still facing a ‘discussion’ with bosses today. Maylim yesterday insisted sexist behaviour was ‘terrible for the company image’ and it was taking the allegations seriously.

Managing director Thomas O’Mahony said: ‘We acted within half-an-hour of being alerted to the complaint. It’s company policy to immediately suspend anyone who is made the subject of a complaint by the public.

‘We don’t tolerate wolf-whistling or any form of sexual harassment. It’s unacceptable – we are in the public eye and our image is important.

‘The two men are in their mid-20s and they have been invited in for a discussion. They denied the allegations and were frustrated to be off work. Now we know that the complainant doesn’t want to take this further the men will be allowed to go back to work.’”

It’s great to hear that sexual harassment is not tolerated at that workplace, by that company. A few local residents were interviewed for the Daily Mail article and everyone cited agreed with the harassers:

“Hairdresser Jane Westley said: ‘I don’t think wolf-whistling’s too much of an issue. If I got wolf-whistled I think I’d find it a compliment. It’s just what builders do.’

Another woman, who asked not to be named, said: ‘I guess it’s their bit of harmless fun while working – to admire girls walking past in the summer.’ A 34-year-old man added: ‘Everyone thinks it’s a strange complaint to make. I feel bad for the guys off work.’”

I find the comments from the residents to be unsurprising since so many people construe sexual harassment as a compliment (in neighboring Ireland, they even had a wolf-whistling contest a few years ago) or not a big enough deal for men to have to lose pay over. But it IS a big deal. Sexual harassment in public places has a very real impact on women’s lives and their perceptions of themselves and of their worth. It needs to stop.

I hope the construction company will stand firm to its policy and that the men will stop harassing women in the future!

(Many thanks to Vicky Simister at the UK Anti-Street Harassment Campaign for the story tip!)

ECWR says no to women-only taxis in Egypt

July 28, 2011 By HKearl

Via Al-Masry Al-Youm

“The Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights on Wednesday rejected a project approved by Local Development Minister Mohamed Attiya to designate taxis exclusively for women in an attempt to counter sexual harassment.

The project would be implemented over three stages, starting with 15 taxis in each coastal city at a cost of LE15 million.

In a statement, the center said the project pulls Egypt 100 years backwards, isolates women within society and hinders their freedom of movement. It warned that the concept could be extended to include universities, workplaces and public places.”

Agreed. The Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights rejected the introduction of women-only taxis in Alexandria, Egypt last year, too. Countries like Lebanon and Mexico already have women-only taxis to prevent drivers from sexual harassment or assaulting female passengers.

Just when I thought I’d read it all…

July 26, 2011 By HKearl

I read this story in the Washington Post that took place in a mall I used to shop at when I lived in Fairfax during graduate school:

“A woman was slashed and cut in a Fairfax County shopping mall Monday evening in what may be the latest of a series of similar incidents, Fairfax County police said.

The woman, whose wound was not considered life-threatening, was cut about 5:30 p.m. in a store that caters to young women in the Fair Oaks Mall, said police spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell.

The woman was attacked after her attention was drawn to the sound of a package dropped behind her, Caldwell said. The woman felt a sudden pain and turned to see someone walking away.

She had been cut on the buttocks through her jean shorts with a box cutter or razor, Caldwell said.

According to Caldwell, investigators have recently recognized a pattern of about four or five incidents similar to Monday’s that occurred in retail stores in the county in the last six months.

No description of the assailant was available in Monday’s incident, Caldwell said. But in previous incidents, the assailant was described as a Hispanic man about five feet six, in his late 20s to early 30s. Victims have all been in their late teens to early 20s, Caldwell said.”

Some guy with a box cutter is running around women’s stores in Fairfax slashing the backsides of young women?! What the hell?!

[Thanks MRH for the story tip]

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