Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

“Do you want him to give you a foot massage along with that burger?”

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I was getting lunch at Wendy’s and a guy who was hanging out there asked me, “Do you want him to give you a foot massage along with that burger?” when the employee brought me my food. I told him, “Leave me alone.” When I asked for more ketchup because the machine was empty, the same guy said, “Oh here honey, I’LL help you” and grabbed a ridiculous amount of ketchup packets and put them on my tray, even as I was saying, “No, stop it.”

Optional: Do you have any suggestions for dealing with harassers and/or ending street harassment in general?

Don’t be afraid like I was! I should have confronted this creep more directly. What was he really going to try to do in the middle of the day in a busy fast food restaurant anyways?

– Anonymous

Location: St. Petersburg, FL

Need support? Call the toll-free National Street Harassment hotline: 855-897-5910

Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for ideas.

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USA: Popularizing Safe Spaces through Corporate Responsibility

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Turquoise A. Thomas (Morales), Kansas, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

Trigger Warning: Rape and other sexualized violence

635825453101623820-774336591_7.1201882740.09-safe-place-signIt should be very clear to those involved with or interested in the prevention of street harassment and sexualized violence that there is a clear intersection between sex trafficking and street harassment. The U.N. and other global forces are even developing task forces and support groups specifically to combat sex trafficking and sexualized violence.

It’s an abhorrently common habit of those in the U.S. to say that certain women are targeted for street harassment because they “look like a hooker”; furthermore when women are dressed this “certain way” in lower income neighbors they are told to expect street harassment and solicitation because it’s the “norm”.  Regardless of a woman’s style of dress or the neighborhood she’s in, no one deserves or should expect to be harassed. The idea that women or children should expect sexual advances from strangers in public (or private) based on their dress and location reeks of victim blaming and further allows those who walk among us everyday with a predatory eye to have the ability to move through society unchecked.

It’s widely accepted that traveling and stopping at a gas station can be a very dangerous act in and of itself. Gas stations are a hot spot for street harassment, particularly those adjacent to interstate highways. Highways are widely known in the U.S. as a lucrative tool of sex traffickers. In 2014, Sacramento and Oakland were named two of the largest sex trafficking hubs in the world by National Public Radio. Both cities are located directly along the heavily traveled Interstate 80 which spans from San Francisco, CA, into New York City, NY, allowing predators who harass, stalk, and traffic women to move almost effortlessly across the states.

Violent incidents involving street harassment, trafficking and domestic violence occur at gas stations. Women and children have commonly been kidnapped, molested, raped  or even at gas stations, rest stops and truck stops. With this information in mind, some gas station companies have developed on site “safe spaces.”

In the Midwest, Quiktrip (QT) is one of those companies. As summer approaches, festivals and other events occur, schools are out and families are traveling in higher frequency than during any other season creating more opportunities for people who seek to harass or traffic others.

Arguably, companies like Quiktrip are leading social responsibility in their industry by providing a bonafide safe space. Simply knowing that QT has this space available means more individuals or families can plan safe trips with QT safe spaces on their route. We need other companies to follow suit and join the fight against street harassment; safe spaces should be widely available in commercial spaces like gas stations, grocery stores and other places where people are street harassed. Non-profit organizations like United Way can easily assist corporations in building these spaces, but it’s up to us to demand they do so, after all…the customer’s always right!

Turquoise is a 26-year-old freelance journalist, a program manager at the Wichita Women’s Initiative Network, and a junior at Wichita State University. She is the founder of SHERO Coalition (SHERO Co) and you can follow her on twitter @anthroisms.

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USA: Clinic-Specific Street Harassment

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Mariel DiDato, NJ, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

Protestors harass a patient outside of a women’s healthcare clinic. Photo by and courtesy of Wendi Kent.
Protestors harass a patient outside of a women’s healthcare clinic. Photo by and courtesy of Wendi Kent.

Whenever a woman is in a public space, there is always a chance she will be shouted at, followed, or recorded without her permission. However, there is one place where that harassment is almost guaranteed.

Women’s health clinics have seen a rise in harassment and violence since the first murder of an abortion provider in 1993. This rate especially has risen within the past few years. The climate is so bad for these clinics that there are volunteer clinic escort teams simply to help patients walk from the sidewalk or parking lot to the front door. As a clinic escort myself, I have seen the extent of this problem first-hand.

Each clinic’s atmosphere is different, as each state has different political leanings, religious influences, and laws surrounding women’s healthcare. In general though, the themes are the same. Patients must walk through numerous, large posters depicting gory, aborted fetuses. They have their personal space violated by anti-choice protestors who follow them and try to convince them not to go inside the clinic. When they finally get to the door, there are protestors preaching loudly, sometimes through megaphones, chastising these women for going inside. It gets so bad that even some of the more peaceful pro-life demonstrators criticize the protestors who scream at and follow patients. To make matters worse, the sound of the megaphones permeates the clinic walls, so that patients inside have to listen to these protests for the entirety of their appointment. Oftentimes, the loudest of the protestors are men, who think they know what women should do with their bodies and health better than the women trying to receive care.

In addition to clinic escort teams, many clinics have been awarded legal buffer zones. Protestors cannot step foot in these areas, so that patients can feel safer in walking to the clinic. Although political buffer zones have been easily enacted in other scenarios, such as political polls, it is difficult to obtain a buffer zone for women’s healthcare clinics. Even when they are obtained, they may not be enforced, depending on the religious or political beliefs of the on-duty police officers. Anti-choice groups often try to repeal these buffer zones by citing of freedom of speech. Although freedom of speech does not protect harassment and intimidation, these cases often swing in the favor of the anti-choice movement. Just recently, anti-choice protestors were even given permission to violate the city noise ordinance in Portland, Maine.

A clinic in Madison, Wisconsin obtained a “floating buffer zone,” in which people within 160 feet of the facility have an eight-foot boundary that protestors cannot cross. Other buffer zones have spanned as wide as 35 feet. These boundaries allow protestors to practice their freedom of speech without causing any physical or emotional harm to patients trying to access the clinic. However, in most other places, the buffer zone can be as little as just eight square feet in front of the clinic entrance. This gives protestors more freedom to the sidewalk than the patients, who may not even be going to the clinic for an abortion. In many places like Richmond, Virginia, or Louisville, Kentucky, there is still no buffer zone at all.

These protests go beyond freedom of speech. The last time I escorted for a clinic, three different women were crying by the time they got inside. This is not an uncommon occurrence. These women and their companions are slut-shamed, insulted, and even threatened. Protestors sometimes violate the buffer zone, but these infractions are hard to prove. Oftentimes, since our focus is on the safety of the patients and not necessarily on the bad behavior of the protestors, we can only pull our cameras out to record after a threat has been made or the buffer zone has been invaded. For the safety and security of the patients, we also never take any photos or videos that could be used to identify them. On the other hand, this is something that anti-choice protestors are not afraid to do.

This issue is not pro-life verses pro-choice. Regardless of one’s stance on abortion, most people should agree that women deserve the right to feel safe on their way to the doctor. The clinic that I volunteer at received their buffer zone through clinic escorting, documenting harassment from protestors, lobbying, emailing weekly reports to the city council (as well as the city and clinic attorneys and the chief of police), and partnering with the local National Organization of Women chapter to draft buffer zone legislation. Buffer zones create harassment-free environments for patients. I urge you to fight for a buffer zone in your area. It can mean the difference between women being scared away from their doctor’s appointments, and women feeling safe enough to receive the care that they need.

Mariel is a recent college graduate, feminist, and women’s rights activist. Currently, she volunteers for a number of different organizations, including the Planned Parenthood Action Fund of New Jersey and the New Jersey Coalition Against Sexual Assault. You can follow her on Twitter at @marieldidato or check out her personal blog, Fully Concentrated Feminism.

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USA: Welcome to Campus: Peer-to-peer sexual harassment

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Hope Herten, IL, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

According to an informal study conducted by the organization Hollaback! in 2015, nearly 67% of female students experienced some sort of sexual harassment on campus.  This figure may seem shocking, but what I find the most disturbing is that despite research and meek attempts to curb catcalling and other forms of sexual harassment, this number has remained stagnant for years.  In 1996, a study was published that looked at two different colleges, reporting the 68% of the women in their study had experienced sexual harassment on campus, not only walking between classes, but many of them experiencing some sort of harassment by male peers while in class (Ivy & Hamlet).  Similarly, an extensive report published in 2005 by AAUW found that that two-thirds of their participants had experienced sexual harassment while at their university (Hill & Silva).  The 2005 study reported that the top three reasons student gave for harassing their peers were (1) “I thought it was funny”, (2) “I thought the person liked it”, and (3) “it is just a part of school life/ a lot of people do it/ it is no big deal”.

As a female college student in Chicago, I expected that I would experience harassment, but I never imagined that my peers would be the ones harassing me or my friends.  During her freshman year, a friend of mine experienced frequent harassment from a random guy in our university’s commons. To avoid that constant harassment, she had to go out of her way to avoid him in ways that made her own life much harder. Now that she’s in her third year, she is still occasionally approached by him on campus, whether he is following her to the bathroom or asking her out. To be faced with this issue not once, not twice, but multiple times from the same person is unacceptable. She says that she rarely feels threatened by him, but the frequent harassment is an additional unnecessary nuisance to her day.  She is not the only one of my friends who faces harassment on campus, whether it is the hallways, the quad, the student union, or even the classroom; many female students at my university face this frequent hurdle in their pursuit of academic success.

The deep-rooted integration of technology has been a blessing and a curse. Though more people have a voice on the internet and information is more readily available, it has opened a new door for sexual harassment on campus. Social media accounts meant for anonymous submissions of confessions and crushes at my university have allowed for a new avenue of harassment. Many women on campus have been publicly shamed and objectified using these platforms, with no repercussions for the men submitting them. One student complained about appearing on these Twitter accounts multiple times; one of the posts was even commenting on the clothes she wore to the gym and calling her a “sexy babe”.  Students should be able to go to public places on campus and feel comfortable walking around or working out without the fear of being talked about publicly, and anonymously, online.

Women have been experiencing harassment on campuses for decades across the country, both at public and private, big and small, and religiously-affiliated or secular institutions.  It seems that no matter how committed an institution is to providing the best education possible, this one issue is constantly put on the back burner.

All students, regardless of gender, sexuality, race, or ability, deserve their right to pursue their education in a place where they are valued and respected parts of the community. From personal experience, I know that it is difficult to focus on school when you are nervous about going to specific places at certain times, if you don’t want to go to class because of that one man who won’t leave you alone, or, now because of technology, fear being called out online for participating in a wide array of activities from going to the gym or drinking at a party.  College is a place to grow as a person intellectually, spiritually, and socially; everyone deserves to feel safe pursuing that education.

What can we do to draw attention to this issue and push administrators to action?  Once we have the critical mass to create change, what concrete strategies do we have to stop harassment?

Hope is a full-time undergraduate student studying public health and Spanish in Chicago, IL. During her time in Chicago, Hope has participated in many protests and events trying to call awareness to women’s issues on campus and in the broader Chicago community. Follow her on Twitter @hope_lucille or check out her public health blog.

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Late April 2016 News Round-Up

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Here are relevant news articles from the past few weeks.

Montreal Gazette, “Montreal police urge transit users to report sexual predators, help victims“

“Police in the Montreal region launched a campaign to encourage transit users to report incidents of sexual harassment on the métro, buses and trains. Many victims of sexual touching talk about their experience on social media or report it to transit authorities, but are reluctant to file a police report, said Inspector Carole Lalonde of the Montreal police’s métro division.”

Chicago Reader, “Could woman-only el cars prevent sexual harassment on the CTA?”

“The agency is addressing the problem through a new informational campaign. ‘If It’s Unwanted, It’s Harassment’ warns would-be offenders that abusive behavior will not be tolerated.

CTA anti-Harassment Ad April 2016

The centerpiece of the campaign is a new line of rail and bus advertisements encouraging riders who see a fellow passenger being hassled to speak up, contact CTA personnel via an onboard intercom, or call 911 if there’s an immediate safety threat.

But some of the credit for the new initiative should go to the Courage Campaign, a grassroots organization launched in 2014 by Uptown resident Kara Crutcher to fight harassment on the CTA. Last year the group successfully lobbied the agency to shift its focus from simply asking victims to report incidents to preventing abusive behavior by raising awareness of the problem.

‘We’re happy to see a couple of CTA ads up regarding harassment,’ Crutcher said. ‘It is definitely a step in the right direction. . . . Personally, I hope that we can work with them to produce more educational ads, but we shall see.’

As for female-only cars, while Crutcher says these could provide a safe space for women suffering from post-harassment PTSD, she argues they’re a Band-Aid solution that doesn’t get to the root of the problem.

‘A cultural shift must occur,’ she says. ‘We must recognize and respect each other everywhere, but especially in these public spaces. . . . Putting men in a train car separate from me will not stop them from harassing me when we exit the train. But education, antistreet harassment advocacy, and courage might.””

Guardian, “‘I cried all the way back’: sexual harassment on public transport“

“How does it feel to be subject to unwanted sexual attention on your morning commute? Or on your way to school? We asked readers to tell us their stories of sexual harassment on public transport … Some told us about being followed off trains. Others told us about men trying to sneak a feel of their breasts between shopping bags. Then there were those who witnessed public masturbation, or were just teenagers when they were first subject to unwanted sexual attention. These experiences were not limited to those living within the jurisdiction of Transport for London.”

Nepal Republic Media, “Public transport is living hell for young women“

“Many young women and girls in Kathmandu Valley don’t like to use public transport because of sexual harassment, which is rife despite several attempts by the authorities to tackle the problem.

Soyana Nyachhon, an 18-year-old student, says she has encountered harassment many times while using public transport vehicles in the city. ‘I was traveling in a micro-bus in the Maitighar area recently and a man of around 25 to 30 came close to my seat deliberately. It made me feel really uncomfortable,’ she said.
‘I asked him to move away a little but he didn’t respond. So I kept quiet and prayed that my stop would come soon,’ she added. She further said it was not the first time she had faced such situations while using public transport.”
Via Liverpool Echo
Via Liverpool Echo

Liverpool Echo, “Women took to the streets of Liverpool to Reclaim the Night“

“It was the fourth year in a row that Liverpool has hosted the event, a campaign to raise awareness of womens’ right to walk free from abuse and assault on the streets.

Around 100 campaigners met outside Liverpool Town Hall and then marched past the bombed out church to the Liverpool Guild of Students for a rally…

Kate Menear, RTN Liverpool communications officer, said: ‘We’re basically just demonstrating that women have the right to walk freely at night without fear of violence. We’re campaigning against street harassment and gender violence in all its forms.’

Reclaim the night began in Leeds in 1977 inspired by Take Back the Night marches which took place in Germany the same year.”

Daily News, “Taxi and Limousine Commission puts sexual harassment rules for cabbies on hold“

“The Taxi and Limousine Commission slammed the brakes on explicit new definitions for sexual harassment on Thursday in the face of outrage from the industry.

The rule would have put specific definitions of sexual contact and sexual harassment on the books, plus a bigger $2,000 penalty for violations.

Under the new definition, hacks would have to steer clear of “any conversation related to sexual acts and sexual contact” and remarks about appearance, gender, sexual conduct or “desire to enter into any type of relationship with another person.”

But commissioners agreed to withdraw the proposed rule in order to fine tune it for next month’s meeting.

Opponents in the taxi industry argued there were too few sexual harassment or assault complaints to justify specific rules telling cabbies to keep creepy conversation to themselves.

They also feared that drivers would fall victim to false allegations.”

The Huffington Post, “14 Perfect Responses To People Who Want Harriet Tubman To Smile“

“It was announced that Harriet Tubman, an iconic “conductor” on the Underground Railroad who helped lead hundreds of other slaves to freedom, would replace former President Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill. Though it’s been reported that the change may not go into effect until 2030, the idea of having a woman, especially a woman of color, on the bill sparked celebration for many people. But others weren’t so happy with — wait for it — the way Tubman’s face looked.

A quick scan on Facebook or Twitter turns up several posts from people who want Tubman to look more cheerful on the $20 bill and to smile (you know, because women should smile all the time).”

The Guardian, “Right to the city: can this growing social movement win over city officials?“

“‘We need a multitude of perspectives in participation to ensure we are building inclusive, resilient cities with social cohesion,’ says Kathryn Travers, director of Women in Cities International, who have partnered with Plan International and UN-Habitat on the programme. Enabling these girls to have a say in shaping better public spaces is critical in a context where women around the world continue to face harassment and violence in the urban realm: of the girls that the programme have worked with, 24% of them said that they never feel safe in public places. ‘It’s crucial that women and girls are consulted,’ Travers adds. ‘Gender gaps in cities lead to exclusion in public spaces. In some cities, upwards of 90% of women experience daily sexual harassment in public space.'”

The Fiji Times, “Street Harassment“

“She said constant sexist remarks such as uro, chrabi, sexy, chalega, and gandu was increasing day by day.

“The callings out from a passing vehicle, the slight passing of men’s hands on your body or the grabbing of the buttocks or breasts were forms of street harassment,” Ms Naidu said.

She said masturbating to women in public spaces, whistling and singing was also common.

“These unsolicited comments, unwanted grabbing, leering and gestures of sexual nature is something that women and girls experience daily.

“These are experienced by some as young as 14 years and boys as young as 12 years carry out such acts of street harassment.”

She said through the One Billion Rising Fiji and Take Back the Streets Fiji, advocacy and awareness campaigns had been carried out targeting this everyday form of violation of women.”

Daily Life, “Where is the line between normal behaviour and harassment?”

“Street harassment begins to look a lot more like a part of the routine objectification, oppression and social exclusion of women, LGBTIQ people, people of colour and people living with disabilities. It’s not a compliment. It is a form of violence and abuse with serious consequences. It has to stop.”

Mashable, “Comedian Jen Kirkman takes on street harassment with powerful retweets“

“Comedian Jen Kirkman turned her Twitter account into a platform for women to share their harrowing stories about street harassment on Tuesday.

Kirkman, who has 175,000 followers, has been performing in Melbourne, Australia, and said she encountered a group of men at 11 p.m. who called her a “bitch” for not answering when they said she was wearing a nice coat.

Her tweet about the incident garnered sexist responses from some men, but many women shared their sympathy and snippets of past similar experiences. It wasn’t long before Kirkman began retweeting those stories, which collectively demonstrate how street and sexual harassment are pervasive and insidious.

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