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Survey about African American Women’s Experiences in Public Spaces

April 24, 2016 By HKearl

4/29/16 UPDATED: Women ages 18-40 may take the survey.

Attention African American women ages 18-35 years old, female African American researchers at Yale University are studying YOUR experiences in public spaces and would love to hear from you.  The survey will take 22-25 minutes of your time. The researchers believe that everyone has a unique story to tell, and they would like to help tell your story. Get updates via the Sidewalk Culture Facebook page.

sidewalkposter

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Filed Under: race, Resources, Stories Tagged With: african american women, research, yale

The Black Girl Movement: A National Conference

April 4, 2016 By HKearl

BlackGirlMovementVia Girls for Gender Equity:

“In 2014 Girls for Gender Equity joined a planning committee of activists, scholars, and artists to plan “Black Girl Movement: A National Conference” a free, three-day public gathering at Columbia University in New York City that will focus on Black girls, cis, queer, and trans girls in the United States. Bringing together artists, activists, educators, policymakers, and black girls who are leaders themselves, this first national conference on Black girls seeks to address the disadvantages that Black girls in the United States face, while creating the political will to publicly acknowledge their achievements, contributions, and leadership.

‘The Black Girl Movement is more than a conference,’ says Girls for Gender Equity founder Joanne N. Smith. ‘It is an uprising, a declaration, a demand, and an affirmation. Black girls and women have been leading racial and gender justice movements for centuries, so our conference is a space for us to connect our multiple movement building goals and strategies as we continue to lead the way.'”

Joanne will moderate two panels on Friday, April 8th, Best Practices, Policy and Philanthropy and Sisters in Strength youth organizers will lead a School Pushout workshop and curate strategies for a Black Girls Bill of Rights. Registration is full so if you haven’t registered, you can watch April 8th via Livestream  https://livestream.com/accounts/557662   

Join GGE for the opening reception on April 7th! It begins with PICTURING BLACK GIRLHOOD EXHIBIT –At 5:00pm – The EXHIBIT is FREE, open to ALL and will display until Saturday.  Check out the event page.“

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Filed Under: News stories, race, Resources Tagged With: Black Girl Movement, conference, girls for gender equity, race

The UK’s First National Street Harassment Study

March 8, 2016 By HKearl

EVAWstudy3.8.16End Violence Against Women Coalition, our allies in the UK, commissioned YouGov to conduct the first national poll on street harassment. The results were released today, for International Women’s Day.

Prevalence:

64% of women of all ages have experienced unwanted sexual harassment in public places. (This is almost the same as the USA, our 2014 study found that 65% of women had been harassed.) Additionally, 35% of women had experienced unwanted sexual touching.

Age:

When they looked at just young women ages 18-24, however, the percentages increased significantly: 85% had faced sexual harassment in public spaces and 45% had experienced unwanted sexual touching.

Related, across all ages of women, most said it began at a young age. More than 1 in 4 said it happened before age 16, and more than 3 in 4 said it happened by age 21.

Bystanders/Upstanders:

Sadly, only 11% of women said anyone had intervened when they were harassed though 81% said they wished someone had.

Changing Their Life:

When it comes to feeling safe, 63% of women (versus 45% of men) said they generally feel unsafe in public spaces and almost half do conscious “safety planning” when they go out in the evenings.

What Can We Do:

When asked what should be done, many said “they supported more police (53%), better street lighting (38%), more transport staff (38%) and public awareness campaigns encouraging others to intervene (35%). No women we asked believed this problem should be ignored and no measures taken.”

Racialized Sexual Harassment:

Because women of color may also face racialized sexual harassment, EVAW partnered with Imkaan to produce a five minute film featuring young women of color talking about their experiences.

In discussing what it feels like to experience racist sexual harassment one woman in the film says:

“My experiences are different as a Black woman than they are for my white friends. I should be ‘up for it’ or I am ‘fair game’, or I shouldn’t care if my body is touched in a specific way.

And another woman says:

“After me ignoring them, that’s when it turns racial, so that’s when it might be ‘you black this’ or ‘you black that…how dare you ignore me’.”

In a press release for the film and survey, Lia Latchford, Policy and Campaigns Coordinator at Imkaan said:

“Our film tells a powerful story of young black women’s everyday experience of racialised sexual harassment. For us, we cannot ‘leave race out of it’ because the way we are treated is based on how our whole identities are perceived as black women. This harassment and abuse often uses racist stereotypes and insults as an attempt to put black women in our place. Everyone, adults and young people alike, need to talk about it and it needs to stop.”

Sarah Green, Acting Director at the End Violence Against Women Coalition said:

“Sexual harassment is an everyday experience which women and girls learn to deal with, but it’s time to hold a mirror up to it and challenge it. We did this survey to find out about the scale of sexual harassment and the impact it has on the way women live. If women are planning their lives around not being harassed or assaulted, they are not free. Women should be free to live their lives without the threat of harassment and violence, not having to plan and limit their choices to make sure they’re safe.”

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Filed Under: News stories, race, Resources, street harassment Tagged With: International Women's Day, national, race, statistics, study, UK, young age

#OKC13 Find Justice

January 21, 2016 By HKearl

Trigger Warning – Sexual Assault

Image Via @BlkcWomensRevolt

Justice (thankfully) has been served for the women sexually assaulted by 29-year-old police officer Daniel Holtzclaw who targeted black women while he was on patrol.

Jurors last month convicted him on “four first-degree rape counts and 14 other charges, and recommended he spend 263 years in prison. The judge agreed.”

An article on NBC.com reports that:

“Black women from across the nation are traveling to Oklahoma City this week to stand in solidarity with the 13 black women who former police officer Daniel Holtzclaw was charged with sexually assaulting…

Activists representing the Brooklyn-based Black Women’s Blueprint, the African American Policy Forum and Black Lives Matter New York City will be in Oklahoma City to bring national attention to this case and to the police violence that black women face across the country…

In an era of national focus on police brutality committed against black men, they want the police violence that women face to gain attention and justice…

Those traveling to Oklahoma City also said law enforcement, civil rights and women’s rights organizations must also take a role in combating the victimization of black women by police.”

YES. This is so important. Thank you to all of the activists bringing these women’s stories and this issue forward. And my thoughts go out to the women Holtzclaw assaulted; may they one day find peace and healing.

‪#‎SayHerName‬, ‪#‎BlackWomenMatter‬, ‪#‎Visible4Justice‬, ‪#‎StandWithHer‬, ‪#‎OKC13‬.

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Filed Under: News stories, police harassment, race Tagged With: black women, Daniel Holtzclaw, Sayhername, sexual assault

Germany: In Cologne, Women’s Bodies Should Not Be Used to Promote Racism

January 12, 2016 By Correspondent

Editor’s Note: Our new Blog Correspondents ProChange in Germany wrote a piece for both Ms. Magazine’s blog and SSH… so this is cross-posted from Ms, with permission.

Following planned attacks on women on New Year’s Eve in Cologne, Germany, more than 500 reports have been made, 40 percent involving sexual assault. In other German cities such as Hamburg, Stuttgart and Düsseldorf, similar cases were also filed.

In Cologne, the police have arrested 21 suspects so far, most of whom have been identified as men from northern African or Arab regions.

Shockingly, in the beginning, there seemed to be no public outcry over the attacks. It was only on January 2, after the local media started covering the incidents and quoted eyewitnesses stating that the perpetrators looked northern Africa or Arab, that suddenly there was outrage.

But instead of turning the incident into an opportunity to stand up for women’s right to be safe in public spaces, many who are against the influx of refugees used the assaults to spread racist hate speech targeting asylum seekers, migrants and foreigners.

While there may have been asylum seekers among the perpetrators, as the newspaper die Welt reported, this racist response is unacceptable. The rhetoric is unjust to both the persons affected and to the many asylum seekers coming to Germany searching for a better life.

Certainly the perpetrators should be punished, no matter where they are from. The German state must use the rule of law to send a strong message that violence against women will not be tolerated. But it is disturbing to see that the body of the “German woman” is being used to promote racist hate speech, and it’s something that has been prevalent throughout the German debate on refugees.

For example, the philology association from Saxony achieved questionable fame for warning young girls against sexual adventures with Muslim men. Under the guise of protecting the young girls, racist stereotypes were promoted and combined with sexist ideas. While Muslim men were portrayed as a potential danger, young girls’ abilities to decide their own sexuality were denied. 

The wildest stories have circulated on social media. For instance, it was claimed that refugees were urinating on vegetables in supermarkets, and stealing goods worth several thousand Euros without punishment. When investigated, it turned out that those wild stories were lies. 

You might assume from scrolling through Facebook that crime has increased with the influx of refugees. But the image of the “criminal refugee” is not backed by crime statistics. In fact, refugees commit crimes at the same rate as the native German population, and the number of sex crimes committed by refugees is actually below 1 percent.

Right-wing political parties, such as the AfD (Alternative for Germany), warn against refugees as potential rapists of German women. Politician Björn Höecke, for instance, spoke about the special risk for blonde (!) German women.

It seems like the right-wing movements have finally discovered an interest in women’s rights. But while the potential rape of “our women” has stirred up hate for the “uncivilized other,” the fact that sexual violence is already prevalent within German society, or that it can affect non-German women as well, seems not to be of interest to them. 

In addition to racist backlash, there has also been a great deal of victim-blaming in the wake of these attacks. This was blatantly clear in the recommendation made by Cologne’s mayor, Henriette Reker, during a press conference following the New Year’s Eve attacks where she spoke about preventive measures for the upcoming carnival celebrations. When asked how women could protect themselves, she answered that it is always possible to maintain a certain distance of more than an arm length from men. Women turned to social media to mock her advice, using the hashtag #einearmlaenge (one arm length). She has since apologized, but the damage has already been done.

Following the attacks, this should be—and still can be—an opportunity to name street harassment and other forms of sexual violence as everyday sexism. It is also the right time to call for a revision of the German penal code to better address these types of offenses.

Every woman should have the right to safely be in public spaces, among men of all races, and in as close proximity as a crowded place dictates. The priority should be to ensure that that is the reality, not to punish the refugees, migrants and asylum seekers who are just as likely to be peaceful, law-abiding residents of Germany as those who are native-born, nor should it be the time to engage in needless victim-blaming.  

ProChange is a group of people between 20 and 64 years of age who have been active for several years or decades now. ProChange consists of a small group of core members (pictured left) in a network of other activists. Our main focus is on street harassment, sexism and sexualized violence. We are opposed to all forms of exploitation as we believe that they are all connected.

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Filed Under: correspondents, race, street harassment Tagged With: germany, mob attacks, racism, rape, sexual violence

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