public harassment Archives | Page 15 of 20

USA: Building a New Culture of Consent at NYCC

October 17, 2014 By Correspondent

Katie Bowers, NY, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

Last week we discussed New York Comic Con’s shiny, new anti-harassment policy. Over Saturday and Sunday at the convention, I got to see the policy in action.

Thanks to the efforts of Geeks for CONsent, The Mary Sue, and others, New York Comic Con 2014 featured a plethora of reminders that “Cosplay is not Consent”. Prominent black and red standees stood throughout the Javits Center’s main lobby – a major site for amateur and professional photographers looking to grab a shot of attendee’s incredible costumes. The policy, which also covered a full page of the program booklet, forbids a wide range of harassment including unwanted physical touching and gestures, verbal comments, stalking and intimidation, and photos taken without consent. Offenders, the standees and program booklets proclaimed, run the risk of being kicked out of the convention.

I spent the weekend dressed up as one of sci fi’s favorite red heads: Special Agent Dana Scully. To my knowledge, everyone who took my picture asked for my permission – and everyone asked with enthusiasm. This isn’t a new phenomenon. In general, anyone excited enough about your costume to want a picture also wants to share their excitement – but one interaction in particular stuck out to me.

A man approached me on the show floor and asked to take my photo. “Sure,” I said and went to set down my stuff. My badge and bag got tangled and it took a minute to unhook the two. “Sorry, hold on,” I told him.

“No, no, I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. You don’t need to be sorry.”

In a place where people walk around on stilts and stilettos, strap proton packs to their back, and squeeze through overcrowded aisle ways, comfort is generally not the first thing on anyone’s mind. His response was totally surprising and wonderfully welcome.

In addition to visual reminders, NYCC also hosted “#YesAllGeeks”, a panel about harassment in convention spaces with Diana Pho of Beyond Victoriana, , Marlene Bonnelly of comics.tumblr.com, writer and prolific tweeter Mikki Kendall; Emily Asher Perrin of Tor, writer and #YesAllWomen creator Kaye M, and Robert Anders, a nurse practioner speaking about the psychological effects of harassment. The panelists did a great job of breaking down why having anti-harassment policies are so important:

* Obviously, a strong policy helps victims to recognize harassment when it happens to them and provides them with an immediate course of action. It can also help women, people of color and members of other frequently harassed groups feel more welcome – an important consideration as conventions grow larger and more diverse.

* With a well-publicized policy, harassers can be held accountable. It’s hard to convincingly claim ignorance when standing next to an 8-foot tall standee and holding the full text of the anti-harassment policy in your swag bag.

* Policies can also open up opportunities for bystanders. Often, bystanders witness harassing behavior but don’t step in. They’re not sure what to do, and they don’t want to be harassed themselves. With a policy in place, bystanders have more options. They can ask the victim if they are okay, if they’d like help, if they’d like to report, and even if they have heard about the “Report Harassment” feature of the NYCC app. Or, if it feels safe, they can remind the harasser about the “Cosplay is not consent” policy.

So there are lots of good reasons to create and publicize strong anti-harassment policies – but Mikki Kendall pointed out that the most important reason of all isn’t action and reaction. It’s prevention. When asked how we can make fan communities safe spaces, Kendall advised that we need to be communities that respond appropriately and immediately to unacceptable behavior. When we speak out against harassment and oppression – at conventions, online, or even in the media that we geek out about – we make our communities better and safer. We hold ourselves and other members of the community to a higher level. Or, since we’re at Comic Con, you could say we “level up”.

This weekend, NYCC became the most highly attended convention of the year with 150,000 fans walking through the front door. Those 150,000 fans saw costumes, sneak previews, art, comics, panels – and a new message: it’s time to level up.

Want to see the panel in its entirety? Visit Beyond Victoriana! Or read more at The Mary Sue.

Katie is a social worker and community educator interested in ending gender-based violence, working with youth to make the world a better place, and using pop culture as a tool for social change. Check out her writing at the Imagine Better Blog and geek out with her on Twitter, @CornishPixie9.

Bulgaria: Harassment-free schools: Whose responsibility is it anyway?

October 16, 2014 By Correspondent

Diana Hinova, Sofia, Bulgaria, SSH Blog Correspondent

Public schools are public spaces. Schools are also one of the places where we learn, ‘by doing’, about what public space is and what behaviors are acceptable in it. It is no secret that there can be serious problems with bullying and harassment in schools. In Bulgaria, though, teachers and school officials –underpaid and often burned out – tend to ignore anything that is happening between students and does not lead to serious bodily injury. They try to just focus on their job, insisting that they are responsible for educating, not protecting or disciplining the students.

So, a lot goes on in Bulgarian schools to ‘teach’ girls that they cannot count on their bodies being respected or their rights protected. Being groped and verbally harassed by classmates on a regular basis just seems to be part of the public school experience. When Bulgarian women who had experienced physical or sexual violence since age 15 by someone other than their partner were asked details about the most serious such incident, 22% cited someone from a school context as the perpetrator (European Study on Violence Against Women, 2012).

The message that girls cannot count on their bodies being respected or their rights protected is reinforced by street harassment. Bystander passivity compounds it. When they experience and witness street harassment, in their daily commutes to school and other activities, girls come to understand that this behaviour is seens as tolerable not only for their rowdy peers, but for any man. Boys similarly see that there is no incentive to stop harassing women.

As long as sexual harassment goes on between classmates, school officials will turn the other way and focus on their ‘educating’ work. This realization was certainly part of my stints in Bulgarian public school, and one of the most memorable at that. Is it any wonder then that some of these boys carry the same attitudes and behaviors out into the street? Or that we continue not to talk about gender-based violence as adults? A huge opportunity to break the cycle of tolerated harassment is missed.

A small proportion of cases though, in public school settings, are such where the perpetrator is not another student. An alleged case of this variety captured Bulgaria’s attention this week: the parents of a 13-year-old girl became aware that there was misconduct by staff against their daughter, probably of a sexual nature, at a special-needs school in Sofia. The immediate response by school officials was, in essence, ‘[shrug], I don’t know, I wasn’t there, and, nobody would believe an autistic kid, anyway’. The parents filed complaints with the relevant child rights agencies and the Ministry of Education, public protests and press statements ensued.

What bitter irony that this year the State Agency for Child Protection, along with similar national authorities elsewhere, marks “2014: Year of Child Rights”! It is on the occasion of the 25-year anniversary of the Convention of the Rights of the Child, ratified by Bulgaria in 1991. The Convention guarantees children, among other things, protection from physical and sexual violence and exploitation. In addition, while many school officials may not be aware of this fact, a coordination mechanism between the SACP, Ministry of Education, and law enforcement institutions, stipulates that anyone aware of potential violations of these rights bears responsibility for reporting these concerns to the relevant authorities.

As it turns out, there are (on paper) fairly adequate systems for dealing with sexual harassment and more serious offenses in Bulgarian public schools. It’s just that no one wants to take on the added responsibility for using these means.

There is a movement among young parents in Sofia to consider various forms of alternative education. How to educate your children is a huge decision – these people take it quite seriously. And they find themselves pushed away from the public school system not only because of what they perceive as poor quality education, but to a large extent also because it does not provide a safe environment.

They do not want their children to become either victims or aggressors by default, or to internalize the norms tolerant to violence. But Bulgarian public schools at present pretty much guarantee that they would.

Diana has a Master’s in Public Policy from Georgetown University and works as a consultant to INGOs. Follow her on Twitter @dialeidoscope or letnimletni.blogspot.com.

България: Училище без тормоз: Чия е отговорността?

Държавните училища са публични пространства. Училищата са и места, където научаваме, ‘от опит’, що е то публично пространство и какво поведение се приема в него. За никого не е тайна, че в училищата може да има сериозни проблеми, конфликти и насилие между връстници. В България, учителите и персоналът – обикновено с недодстатъчно заплащане и претръпнали – не обръщат внимание на отношенията между учениците, стига да не се стига до сериозни физически наранявания. Стараят се да се концентрират в работата, като настояват, че те трябва да обучават, а не да защитават или възпитават учениците.

Така много неща в училище “обучават” момичетата, че не могат да разчитат телата им да бъдат неприкосновени или правата им да бъдят защитени. Това съучениците ти да те опипват, задавят нежелано и обиждат, редовно, е просто част минаването през държавното училище. От българките изпитали физическо или сексуално насилие извършено от друг, а не техен партньор, 22% са посочили извършител от учебната си среда (Европейско Изследване на Насилието над Жени, 2012).

Идеята, че момичетата не могат да разчитат на уважение, заради телата си, или на правата си, се подсилва от уличния тормоз. Апатичните наблюдатели я потвърждават. Когато биват тормозени на улицата или наблюдават такива случки в ежедневното си придвижване, момичетата осъзнават, че такова поведение се толерира не само сред бурните им връстници, но от страна на всеки непознат. Момчетата също не виждат пример и причина да противостоят на такова поведение.

Стига сексуалният тормоз да се случва между учениците, персоналът на училищата извръщат поглед и се концентрират да ‘образоват’. Това прозрение със сигурност го изпитах лично в държавните училища и то остава най-яркият ми спомен от времето прекарано там. Да се учудваме ли, че момчетата после излизат на улицата и в обществото със същите нагласи и поведение? Или че продължаваме да не говорим за половото насилие и като възрастни? Пропускаме огромна възможност да спрем цикъла на толериран тормоз.

В малък процент от случаите на сексуален тормоз в училищна среда, все пак, извършителят не е друг ученик. Такъв е случаят на 13-годишната Ана-Мария, чиито родители повдигат въпроса за сексуален тормоз извършен от служител пред настоятелите на училището. Сблъскват се първоначално с отговора “Не зная какво е станало, не сме били там, а и никой няма да и повярва, защото е аутист”.

Каква горчива ирония – Държавна Агенция за Закрила на Детето (ДАЗД) в момента отбелязва “2014-та: Година на правата на детето!” по случай 25-годишнината от Конвенцията за правата на детето, която България ратифицира през 1991-ва. Конвенцията гарантира на децата, наред с други права, закрила от физическо и сексуално насилие и експлоатация. Освен това, въпреки нехаенето на болшинството служители в училищата, координационният механизъм на ДАЗД, Министерство на Образованието и Науката и органите на съдебната власт, задава задължение на всеки информиран за потенциално нарушение на тези права да сигнализира компетентните институции.

Излиза, че (на хартия) има сравнително адекватна система за сексуален тормоз и други сериозни нарушения в Българските училища. просто никой не желае да поеме отговорността да я използва.

Има една тенденция сред младите родители в София да търсят алтернативни методи за образование за децата си. Изборът на образование е много значимо решение, което тези хора приемат съвсем на сериозно. И се усещат отблъснати от държавната образователна система не само защото оценяват образователната програма като некачествена, но и до голяма степен защото не смятат, че осигурява безопасна среда.

Те не искат децата им да се превърнат в жертви или агресори по предопределеност, или да възприемат толерантността към насилието, на която българските държавни училища почти гарантирано ще ги научат.

(Развития по случая на Ана-Мария offnews и резултати от проверката на ДАЗД)

Следвайте автора в Twitter @dialeidoscope или на блога letnimletni.blogspot.com.

Ireland: Have a Good Night Out!

October 10, 2014 By Correspondent

Yvonne Ní Mhurchú, Limerick, Ireland, SSH Blog Correspondent

Good night out -- credit Colin Doherty — Credit: Colin Doherty

Harassment isn’t something that just happens on the street. It isn’t just confined to ‘outside’, it is something that happens everywhere; outside, inside, work, school, university, bars, concerts, sporting events and nightclubs. It is happening everywhere in every city and every country around the world. For proof of this, look no further than the Stop Street Harassment blog, it has stories and reports of harassment by various people from across the globe.

Last month I wrote about how I walked home for the first time ever without any fear of street harassment. This month I want to write about socialising without being subjected to harassment. I currently run a feminist group in my town, we frequently liaise with other likeminded groups. It is through this communication I heard about the Good Night Out Campaign.

Originally the brain child of Hollaback London, the premise of the Good Night Out Campaign is simple: we want nightlife venues to adopt and promote a zero tolerance policy when it comes to the harassment of their patrons – particularly female and those from the LGBTQ community. Venues show their commitment by displaying official GNO posters around their establishment and training staff to deal with any complaints that might arise.

The reason I feel so strongly about this campaign is because I am all too aware of how problematic nightlife harassment can be. My feminist group had a meeting to discuss the campaign. I shared some of my own experiences as did the group, and the stories just kept on coming. Comments, groping, sexually aggressive behaviour, being followed, yelled at and assaulted. It is difficult not to get angry after hearing what all of these people had to put up with. So, we decided to channel our anger positively and bring Good Night Out to Limerick.

The support we have received so far has been amazing. Local newspapers have written about it and a local radio station did a short piece on it too. Two weeks ago we asked the public to share their stories with us to help highlight just how serious a problem harassment in nightlife venues is. Here is an example of two incidents that people were kind enough to share with us (TW):

“I was on a night out with some friends, a few of them were dancing while I was minding the drinks. I saw a guy on the dance floor start to follow one of my friends around, he was trying to grind up against her and touch her. She was not interested in the slightest but he wouldn’t leave her alone, eventually she got fed up and left the floor, as she did he pulled up her skirt. My ass was grabbed 3 times that same night.”

“I was in _____ during my freshers week. I didn’t know many people, but I was there with a solid group of people. I was upstairs dancing and some guy started grinding on me. I tried to back away and he and a friend pinned me up against a wall. They were laughing, I was shouting at them to let me go. A friend of mine was also pulling at them to get them off me, to no avail. I ended up biting one of them so he’d take his arm off me and running outside, closely followed by my friend who hugged me while I hyperventilated. To this day I regret not going up to security or something, because I doubt those guys even realised how much they terrified me.”

Stories like these are regular occurrences for a majority of people when they go out. Not only can harassment completely ruin a person’s night out, it can also leave a lasting negative effect on them. We want venues and patrons of these venues to send a message that this sort of negative behaviour won’t go unchallenged and will not be tolerated. The more people that get involved the louder that message becomes. If you would like to bring Good Night Out or a version of it to your town/city please feel free to contact me via twitter and I will do what I can to help get you started.

Yvonne volunteers as a SATU (psychological support) worker for her local Rape Crisis Centre and is an advocate for women’s issues and equality. You can follow her, her feminist group or her anti-harassment campaign on twitter: @YvonneNiMhurchu, @lmkfeminist and @GNOLimerick.

USA: I’m Going to NYCC! Let’s Geek Out About Ending Harassment

October 9, 2014 By Correspondent

Katie Bowers, NY, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

This weekend marks my now-annual tradition: cosplaying at New York Comic Con (NYCC). I’ve attended NYCC as Ramona Flowers (from Scott Pilgrim) and Amy Pond and Donna Noble (both from Doctor Who). Needless to say, as a geek girl, cosplayer, and advocate for ending street harassment, I’ve been pretty interested in the work of Geeks for CONsent.

Geeks for CONsent is a group of female cosplayers and allies working to make sure that comic cons and the surrounding streets and events are harassment-free zones. They have produced comic books, info sheets, and online resources for attendees, and they also advocate for and help convention staff to create high quality, well-publicized sexual harassment policies.

On the street or in the convention center, cosplay grabs attention and can inspire a lot of picture-taking. If you ask for a photo and behave politely, most cosplayers are happy to oblige – we worked hard, after all, to look this awesome. Unfortunately, some con-goers don’t apply that basic level of respect to cosplayers. Harassment at cons often involves a camera: harassers may grab a cosplayer’s body parts during a photo, snap shots of cosplayers bending over, click quick up-skirt pics while sitting on the floor, and other clearly unconsented behaviors. Other times, it won’t be on film. It will be a passing comment in the hall about how a woman “fills out” a costume or the sudden, frightening sensation of a stranger’s hand feeling your costume or your hair.

This is a problem at every con, including that largest and most well known of the nerd conventions: San Diego Comic Con. Back in July, we reported that despite Geeks for CONsent’s 2,500 signature petition, SDCC would not be updating their harassment policies or changing the ways they publicize those policies.

Fortunately, Geeks for CONsent and other anti-harassment advocates know that San Diego isn’t the only con around. The work of the anti-harassment movement led both Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle and Rose City Comic Con in Portland to post some clear and beautiful signage throughout the convention center reminding attendees that “Costumes are not consent”. Awesome Con, which hosts shows in Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and Washington, D.C., brought in Geeks for CONsent as their in-house anti-harassment team and used their anti-harassment training manual to train all of their volunteers in 2014.

rsz_12014_04_19_-_3212_-_dc_-_awesomecon — Geeks for CONsent at Awesome Con DC, 2014

This weekend, NYCC will open their doors with a new anti-harassment policy, created by geek girl blog The Mary Sue and a panel of geeky advocates. The policy includes a pretty comprehensive definition of harassment and protocols for reporting and dealing with harassers. The policy also introduces the new Report Harassment feature of the NYCC app. This cool piece of technology allows users to file an immediate, detailed report (provided, of course, that they have cell service in the concrete depths of the Javits Center). Geeks for CONsent and Fan Girls’ Night Out will also be on hand to “spread the anti-harassment message, collect your stories, and provide a safe space to talk about your experiences”.

As geek culture becomes mainstream, making cons a place where all people feel welcome is more pressing than ever before. At its core, geeking out is about enthusiasm. It’s the type of unbridled exhilaration that gets you reading every installment, watching every episode, dressing up in character, traveling to cons. Geeks are thrilled by seeing our favorite fictional heroes battle the forces of evil. But what’s exciting now isn’t in the stories: it’s in us.

Major conventions are adopting new policies, geek celebs are speaking out against harassment, high traffic blogs and just-for-fun tumblrs are heralding the call that cosplay does not equal consent. Outside the geek-o-sphere, street harassment is being talked about by everyone from The Daily Show to Fox News (with, let’s say, “varying levels of support”). After years of work, and even longer years of stifled silence, the heroic efforts of anti-harassment advocates are starting to turn the tide.

This weekend, I’ll be at NYCC and I’m excited to see how things are different. Will the new policies eliminate harassment at the con? Of course not – but this is the beginning. It feels good to step into the Javits Center – wig, costume, and all – and know that the convention has my back. And that? That’s something to geek out about.

USA: Harassment Up in the Air

September 22, 2014 By Correspondent

Khiara Ortiz, NY, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

Sexual harassment isn’t something that only happens on the streets of our dear planet Earth. In a recent article on Mashable, Heather Poole, a flight attendant “for a major U.S. carrier” wrote about her experience with an “unruly passenger” when, eighteen years ago, he pinched her “you-know-what” not once, but twice, while she was working.

“I didn’t know what to do,” she writes, “so I nervously laughed and ran to the galley where I would’ve cursed him out – if he hadn’t followed me there. That’s when he did it again. Right in front of my crew.”

Having just started her career as a flight attendant, she didn’t report the incident because she didn’t know who to complain to. This is one of the major issues with sexual harassment, even when it’s happening at an altitude of 35,000 miles. Women don’t know who to turn to, who will listen to them, or who will care.

“I figured it was the sort of thing that came with the job of being a flight attendant,” Poole continues. “I knew the airline wouldn’t want to be inconvenienced by a call to law enforcement over a nonviolent, though unruly, passenger. Especially since the only person offended was me, an employee.”

Poole also cites that though companies in the U.S. have laws that protect their employees against this type of treatment, sexual harassment is just one of those practices that seem to slide by, not unnoticed, but simply uncared for.

“These young girls [the ones most frequently hired by airlines] are just too afraid to say anything for fear of losing their job,” Poole says, quoting a flight attendant who reached out to her after Poole became vocal about her sexual harassment experience.

Perhaps that is the exact reason why sexual harassment in the workplace still happens. The men who exhibit inappropriate behavior are aware of the vulnerable position that women are in because they are only supposed to be doing their jobs and nothing else. If they are harassed, they cannot act out or fight back against the harasser because it would violate the guidelines of their jobs. The men see those women not as humans, but just as employees and therefore below them, the men, in the hierarchy of humanity (though something like that shouldn’t even exist in the first place).

Flight attendants, like other female-dominated service industries like retail and waitressing experience a lot of harassment from “customers.” Earlier this year in February, the Hong Kong-based Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) announced that in a survey of 392 flight attendants between November 2013 and January 2014, 27% reported being sexually harassed while on-duty in-flight in the last twelve months. Of the survey participants, 86% were female and 14% were male.

So what would it take to end this type of sexual harassment? Poole cites that some airlines, mostly foreign carriers, uphold practices that make it more difficult for women to receive equal treatment from their male customers while on the job. “There are Middle Eastern airlines that make flight attendants resign after they become pregnant or get married, an Asian carrier with only one size of uniform, and an Indian carrier who only hires females between the ages of 18 to 22. Males, on the other hand, can be older.”

Of course, harassment and groping on airplanes doesn’t just happen to flight attendants, it can also happen to passengers by flight attendants, other passengers, and even air marshalls. No matter the perpetrator or victim, each case of harassment should be taken seriously as an assault on a human’s right over his or her body.

Khiara is a recent graduate of New York University with a BAS in Journalism and Psychology who works as an assistant in the contracts department for Hachette Book Group. She is also the co-social media manager for Stop Street Harassment.

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