On Instagram this week, Alexis Jones posted photos of four men who street harassed her and her 68-year-old mother in Hollywood, California. The men were in a vehicle next to theirs and made “vulgar, sexual gestures”, causing the women fear and her mother to cry. Later they learned that two of the men were Lakers players Nick Young and Jordan Clarkson.
Ironically, Jones works to address sexual abuse in athletics. Lakers spokesman John Black told ESPN that the team takes this matter “very seriously” and she was invited to speak to the players. I applaud Jones for sharing her story publicly and Lakers leadership for their response.
I also see the incident as a teachable moment for people everywhere since the story connects to several important points about street harassment.
For instance, it’s not uncommon for people to tell harassed persons to not go places alone if they don’t want to be harassed. But even when one is not alone — Jones and her mother were together — street harassment can occur. On the extreme end, this month, two Argentinian women, María Coni and Marina Menegazzo, were killed by men while backpacking in Ecuador together. Telling women to travel in pairs or groups is not only often impractical and a far cry from equality, but it won’t necessarily achieve the objective.
Some people may also tell harassed persons, “If you don’t like it, then drive.” It’s true that for those with the means to access a car, driving may reduce the amount of street harassment they face, but clearly from Jones’ story, it does not stop it. As part of the research for a 2014 national study on street harassment, I conducted a focus group in Los Angeles, California, and the participants concurred that street harassment is a problem in car cultures. It happens at red lights, in parking lots, and even while driving down the freeway at 70 miles per hour. No mode of transportation is completely free from harassment.
While street harassment is seen by some as “a minor annoyance” or “no big deal,” a growing body of research proves it is serious. Street harassment negatively impacts women emotionally, just as this incident was upsetting to both Jones and her mother. It can be traumatic for women, especially for survivors of sexual abuse. It restricts women’s mobility, and thus their equality with men, a reality the United Nations recognized in 2013.
Further, “mild” street harassment can escalate into physical harassment without warning. This year there have been two cases where street harassment escalated into death. One incident was in Texas where a man in a vehicle shot into another vehicle, killing one of the woman, after her male friend told the men in the other vehicle to stop harassing his female friends.
As the laughing faces of the men Jones and her mother say harassed them suggest, often men — who are the main street harassers of both women and men — treat street harassment as a game or as a bonding experience. The limited research on street harassers, including in the documentary War Zone, shows that harassers usually are either trying to intimidate or humiliate their targets, or they don’t consider how the persons they harass feel, period.
Fortunately, sexual harassment is learned behavior and so it can be unlearned.
