Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Street Harassment is a Hate Crime in Nottingham, UK

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HarassmentisaCrimeThere’s big news out of the UK this week.

Via the Telegraph:

“”A police force has become the first in Britain to recognise misogyny as a hate crime, in an effort to make the county a safer place for women.

Nottinghamshire Police is recording incidents such as wolf whistling, street harassment, verbal abuse and taking photographs without consent within the hate crime definition.

It also includes unwanted sexual advances, uninvited physical or verbal contact and using mobile phone to send unwanted messages….

Sarah Green, acting director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said: ‘We welcome this because it comes off the local police force talking to and listening to local women’s groups. What we are talking about is not trivial behaviour – some harassment that women and girls receive in public is upsetting and should have the attention of the authorities.’

She added: ‘Police in Nottingham have not changed the law but they have listened to local women who said the behaviour bothered them. Together, they are recording it so they can monitor it and look back on who is doing it and where it happens.'”

While there are a lot of complications regarding criminalizing street harassment, and there are a lot of nuances for why it’d be hard, possibly unfair, and largely unenforceable to make all verbal street harassment illegal (especially in the USA), I still can’t help but cheer and tear up a little bit to see these horrible, demeaning and needless interactions classified as a HATE CRIME!! They should have no place in our society.

More about this story from Washington Post and Guardian.

“Misogyny hate crime is classed under the new policy as “incidents against women that are motivated by an attitude of a man towards a woman, and includes behaviour targeted towards a woman by men simply because they are a woman”…

Rachel Krys, co-director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said: ‘It is great that police in Nottingham will be capturing the way a lot of harassment in public spaces is targeted at women and girls. In a recent poll we found that 85% of women aged 18-24 have experienced unwanted sexual attention in public places and 45% have experienced unwanted sexual touching, which can amount to sexual assault.

‘This level of harassment is having an enormous impact on women’s freedom to move about in the public space as it makes women feel a lot less safe. The women we spoke to do a lot of work to feel safer, including avoiding parts of the city they live in, taking taxis and leaving events in groups.’

Krys said recording such incidents would give police and policymakers a much clearer grasp on the levels of harassment women and girls are subjected to, and better understand measures which could reduce it.

‘It should also challenge the idea that women and girls in public or online spaces are ‘fair game’,’ she added. ‘We know that ignoring harassment and sexist bullying creates the impression that other types of violence against women will be tolerated so we welcome any action which counters this.'”

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This New Survey on Trans Bathroom Discrimination Should Alarm Everyone

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Patrick Ryne McNeil, SSH Board Member

Toilet sign 4.pptxThis is a fact: LGBTQ people experience public harassment – and according to our spring 2014 report, LGBTQ people in the United States are more likely than straight, cisgender people to report experiencing it (both verbal and physical forms). The sample size in our research forced us to group the entire LGBTQ community into one category. While this lumping is not ideal and cannot account for the ways that intersecting identities lead everyone to experience the world differently, it did show that queer people – as past research has shown – are victims of public harassment.

Preliminary findings from the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, out this month from the National Center for Transgender Equality, show that trans people face one particularly dangerous form of public harassment: the kind that takes place in public restrooms.

According to the preliminary results:

  • 59 percent of respondents have avoided bathrooms in the last year because they feared confrontations in public restrooms at work, at school, or in other places.
  • 12 percent said they’ve been harassed, attacked, or sexually assaulted in a bathroom in the last year.
  • 31 percent said they’ve avoided drinking or eating so that they didn’t need to use the restroom in the last year.
  • 9 percent report being denied access to the appropriate restroom in the last year.

These findings should concern and anger everyone. In the same way that street harassment can force women and other marginalized communities into making consequential life changes – like adjusting their commute, moving homes, or switching jobs – harassment of trans people in public bathrooms, as the survey shows, can cause them to avoid using public facilities or can discourage them from drinking or eating in the first place. Those are harmful choices that no one should have to make.

While 12 percent reported experiencing harassment, attacks, or sexual assault, 59 percent have avoided restrooms because they’re afraid it will happen to them. That fear – even in the absence of harassment – is unhealthy. And bills popping up across the country to restrict restroom access aren’t helping.

The full U.S. Transgender Survey will be released later this year.

Patrick works in communications at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, where he writes on a range of social justice issues. He is a board member of Stop Street Harassment and he wrote his thesis on the street harassment of gay and bisexual men at the George Washington University. He was awarded SSH’s Safe Public Spaces Trailblazer award in 2013 for his street harassment-related work.

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USA: Street Harasser Shoots Into Women’s Shelter

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Kathleen Moyer, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, Past SSH Blog Correspondent

On Thursday, one Philadelphia man showed just how much street harassment can escalate, just how entitled some people feel to other’s bodies, and just how little regard some have for women’s lives.

Police are currently searching for a man who fired shots into a North Philadelphia women’s shelter Thursday afternoon.

According to investigators, the unidentified man approached a woman outside a Rite Aid and attempted to speak to her. When she refused, he followed her into the store and trailed her as she shopped. When the woman was finished shopping, she began to walk back to the women’s shelter where she lives and noticed that the man was still following her. Shortly after she entered the shelter, surveillance footage shows the man standing outside, then pulling a gun out of his pants and firing several shots into the building.

Fortunately, no one was hurt.

This case shows that street harassment truly is a heinous act. Some people may dismiss it as a way of complimenting someone or guys just joking around, but it’s not. It goes much deeper than that. Think about what must have gone through that man’s head for him to get to the point where he was motivated to potentially kill people because a woman didn’t want to talk to him. He didn’t see a woman outside that Rite Aid; he saw an object he was entitled to conquer. When he failed, his pride was hurt so much that he felt the need to stalk her, instill fear in her, and assert his dominance over her. Then, when she finally got to safety, in a building filled with women who had possibly been treated like objects by other men with the same mentality, he decided that she didn’t deserve to live. None of the women, who were presumably safe, deserved to live. Even if the shots were only intended to be a threat, he knew very well that he could end up killing someone and he decided that was a fair outcome. Why? Because a woman didn’t want to talk to him.

Street harassment is not flattering, it’s not funny, and it’s not a trivial problem. Street harassment kills, and it’s time to acknowledge that horrifying fact. Luckily, no one died in this case, but far too many people have been killed as a result of street harassment. Someone who was stalked and shot at should not be considered lucky, because at least she’s still alive. It’s time for society to start addressing street harassment like the serious issue it is, so no other person has to endure what this woman did, and so no one dies in such a senseless way in the future.

No arrest has been made in this case yet. Anyone with tips should contact the Philadelphia Police Department.

Kathleen is a full-time graduate student studying professional and business communication. She plans initiatives to increase awareness of sexual assault, domestic violence, and other related issues through her university’s anti-sexual violence group, Explorers Against Sexual Violence.

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Afghanistan and Canadian Efforts

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HarassMapAfghanistanAfghanistan:

Check out the new HarassMap campaign in Afghanistan where people in the country can share their street harassment experiences.

Canada:

Via CBC:

“With the Calgary Stampede just a week away, a social media campaign using the hashtag #SafeStampede is gearing up.

Organizers say they want to spark a conversation about sexual harassment, consent and respectful behaviour.
 
“I think changing attitudes is what’s going to change behaviour,” said Elizabeth Booth, one of the community advocates who started using the hashtag during last year’s event.
 
A lifelong Calgarian, Booth says she loves the Stampede, but she sees a dark side to the debauchery.
 
“There’s a lot of alcohol and just this long-standing tradition that it’s a time to misbehave,” she said.”
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Plane Assaulters & Perv Busters

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First, I cannot even believe that a SECOND man was arrested this month for groping a teenage girl seated next to him on an airplane.

An Alaska Airlines flight from Portland to Anchorage was recently diverted to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport mid-flight. A 23-year-old man allegedly repeatedly groped a 16-year-old girl seated next to him. Another man in their row intervened and alerted the flight attendant who then notified the pilot. The pilot diverted the plane and the assailant was arrested in Seattle.

In a similar incident this month, a man groped a 13-year-old girl seated beside him on an American Airlines flight. The flight attendant saw it and moved her and he was arrested at the airport.

What is wrong with these men?? I’m angered by their predatory behavior and blatant disregard for the feelings and bodily autonomy of the girls. And I’m grateful for the bystanders on the planes who took action to stop the abuse.

But in better news, I am loving the new “Perv Busters” effort that launched last week in New York City. We need a similar effort in every community!

Perv Busters - photo by Matthew McDerrmott, via NY Post
Perv Busters – photo by Matthew McDerrmott, via NY Post

Via the New York Post:

“Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa…was training an all- ­female group called the Perv Busters. Their mission: Finding and shaming subway perverts.

“You know the signs that say, ‘See something, say something’? Well, we’re doing something,” said Sliwa, 62, who founded the Guardian Angels in 1979.

After the MTA backed out of a plan to deploy eight MTA cops to battle a recent surge in subway sex crimes, Sliwa decided to take matters into his own hands.

“I’ve got eight girls doing what the transit cops apparently can’t do,” he said.

His crew gathered at Columbus Circle at 8 p.m. Friday for their first night of prowling for “weenie ­wavers.” …

“We all know what it’s like to be harassed and followed. But you don’t have the right to complain if you don’t do anything about it,”
she said.

The team’s youngest member, 13-year-old Veronica Pagan, is a third-generation Guardian Angelette. She sported her grandmother’s beret.

“I joined because I wanted to make them proud, but I also did it for myself. I want to show guys that we are not weak, we can step up just the same,” Pagan said.

After a demonstration on how to handcuff, the girls lined up in formation on the subway platform.

Silwa ordered everyone to board, break off into pairs and stand in the doorways on lookout.

“The first thing we have to work on is the look. If you’re standing there all smiley, people won’t take you seriously,” Sliwa said.

Sliwa then instructed the Angels to hand out the official Perv ­Busters flier.

Rider Daniel Martinez, 33, was excited that the Angels were back, and asked Sliwa how to join.

“I just think it’s beautiful. It’s about time that we see women step up and be warriors. We need more Joan of Arcs in our city,” Pagan said.

 

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