Here are some of the articles I’ve been reading the past two weeks.

Korea Times:

“Concerned residents in the Haebangchon neighborhood, located next to Itaewon in Seoul, have formed a community awareness group in response to an increased amount of sexual harassment in the area. People Unite against Street Harassment (PUSH) was established in March this year.” Read street harassment stories in the Korea Observer.

Global Times (China):

“One of my friends from Chengdu, Sichuan Province, told me that she was groped by a man who covered her mouth to keep her from screaming out.

Apart from empty streets, crowded subway trains in China are also common places for sexual assaults to take place. There are numerous photos and videos on the Internet taken by bystanders of women being harassed in various ways, including men trying to take photos up women’s skirts.

Some reports state that up to seven in every 10 women have experienced some form of sexual harassment. Public transportation authorities in some cities have launched campaigns to crack down on sexual harassment on the subway, but they are not always effective.”

Y Net News:

“400 people embarked on a SlutWalk on Friday afternoon in Jerusalem, protesting sexual violence, sexual harassment and the objectification of women…

Tamar, a Jerusalem resident in her 20s, said she was taking part in the walk to protest against sexual violence. “It doesn’t matter what I’m wearing, my body is not public property. I’m not a sex object, I can dress however I feel like and it doesn’t give anyone the right to touch me, make offensive comments about me or talk to me disrespectfully,” she said.

Tamar said she experienced verbal sexual harassment in the past. “There is a lot of harassment on the street, a lot of terror. I have been harassed by men on the street since the age of 14. It happened in other cities in the country and actually anywhere in the world,” she said.”

Guardian:

“It’s never been my style, but dudes have been hollering, cat calling or cracking on women years before I was even born. I grew up in east Baltimore’s dope-boy culture, where the coolest guys attracted women by dressing nice, being popular and having conversations. Screaming at women and acting thirsty always looked stupid to me and always will. Seeing the look on that young woman’s face while she was walking with her child made me realize how scary it can be for a woman to walk down the street.

If we men are the problem, we can also be part of the solution…Us men are responsible for not only stopping guys from harassing women, but also telling others to do the same. For this is the only way to shift the culture.”

Herald-Review:

“Oregon lawmakers on Tuesday advanced a proposal aimed at closing a loophole in state privacy laws that recently let a man go unpunished after he took photographs up a teenager’s skirt.

The state Senate unanimously passed the bill, which would make it a misdemeanor to surreptitiously take photos up women’s dresses without their consent. A teachers union proposed the measure after a student took so-called upskirt cellphone photos of an educator and shared them online.

The Senate vote came three months after an Oregon judge ruled a 61-year-old man did nothing illegal when he snapped photos up a teen’s skirt in a Target store.”

Fortune:

“A driver contracted with U.S.-based online taxi company Uber Technologies was arrested near New Delhi on Tuesday, police said, after a woman passenger accused him of sexual harassment when she hailed his cab over the weekend.

Uber was banned in New Delhi in December after another woman passenger accused one of its drivers of rape. The company resumed its services in January after applying for a radio taxi licence, which it still awaits.”

Vice News:

“Holly Kearl, an adjunct professor of women’s studies at George Mason University in Virginia and author of two books about sexual harassment, said that many state laws haven’t caught up with technology, and that it often takes someone being acquitted for a crime before politicians are even aware laws aren’t adequate.

“One of the biggest weakness with many voyeurism laws is that they don’t include public spaces as places that people have the right to privacy,” she said. “Places like locker rooms or bathrooms are protected, but places like subways and parks often aren’t.”…Kearl said that while laws concerning voyeuristic photography become stronger, most would benefit from additional punishments for those who upload those images to the internet, something few laws currently address. And, as depressing as it might sound, we might not see any improvements to the law until more high-profile cases make upskirt photography impossible to ignore.

“This isn’t so common that it’s happening to someone every day,” Kearl said. “Until it is more prevalent, it might not gain traction or become a priority.”

Ravishly:

“It’s incredible how a short interaction can have such a huge effect on your day. Just one catcall can make me go from feeling fabulous to wishing I could curl up into a ball and disappear. It’s bad enough when I’m street harassed out by myself — I feel vulnerable and deciding how to respond can be hard. But it gets really complicated when I’m harassed and with my child.”

Three stories have been going back and forth in my mind over the past 24 hours. The first is so horrific I literally got sick last night after I read it. All three are connected by showing how much our culture fosters rape and limits girls’ and women’s mobility and sense of safety in public spaces and in society as a whole.

1. Boko Haram has kidnapped many women and girls (with school girls kidnapped from their school a year ago the most well-known globally) in Nigeria. Many have been treated as sexual slaves. The very visible proof? 214 of the 234 teenage girls rescued were pregnant. Let that sink in. Fortunately they have been rescued and their communities are welcoming them back and they will receive medical help and counseling. But. No one should have to live through that pain, fear, and suffering, with their lives changed forever by not only the experience but by being forced into motherhood at a young age against their will. It shows how disposable and with how little respect or regard some men have for girls’ and women’s bodies.

2. Taylor Yocom, a 22-year old photography student from the University of Iowa created the “Guarded” project to show what women carry to protect themselves, like mace or their keys, which they hold as a weapon. Via BuzzFeed: “These loaded objects on key chains where trinkets should be really do portray how women are expected to always be on guard to protect themselves…when the rapists should not be raping,” she said. “I want people to see the sexual assault statistics (whether they are from strangers who attack on the streets or from date rape) as actual individuals impacted, not simply numbers.”

Good for her. I have carried mace with me since I was 14 years old. It is ridiculous that we have to live this way, have that mentality.

3. In New York City, via Gothamist: “[The] suspect attempted to engage the victim, a 34-year-old female, in conversation. When the victim ignored the suspect, the suspect spat at the victim, who then began to laugh at the suspect. The suspect then took out a sharp instrument, slashed the victim in the arm and then fled the station.” The woman was treated at the hospital and is okay. The man is at large.

But harassers are just trying to be nice and it’s a compliment, right? WRONG. Street harassment is about power, it’s about disrespect, and all too often, it’s about an underlying threat of violence.