Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Documentary: Black Girls R Us

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Kayla Parker is a sophomore acting major attending Howard University in Washington, D.C. She created a “documentary style video detailing five black girls’ experiences with street harassment.”

She shared with me what motivated her to undertake this project:

Being from the South I had heard stories about street harassment, but I was never able to connect with the women telling these stories. It was only after I graduated high school and moved to Washington, D.C. for college that I began to understand just how severe this issue is.

I was shocked each time I witnessed women being harassed for simply walking down the street. The first time I experienced street harassment for myself, I encountered many emotions: fear, anger, guilt, sadness. This cycle of emotions became more and more familiar to me as I traveled the city to see theatre shows, meet up with friends, or even to get groceries.

I started losing count of the many times I thought my life could be in danger as I went through my routine of city living. I could not allow myself to sit idly as many women are injured, sometimes even killed as a result of street harassment.

To the women who have been forced to deal with this know that you are strong and it is never, ever your fault.

So true!! Thank you, Kayla, for channeling your feelings into this important project! #BlackGirlsRUs

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Sexual Abuse by American Police Officers

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Sadly, there are street harassers and sexual abusers among the members of the (mostly male) law enforcement in the U.S. and internationally (and of course, in the U.S. we also have racists and murderers among them too). This is a topic I touch on in my new book Stop Global Street Harassment: Growing Activism Around the World.

But I also want to highlight two recent news stories in the U.S. that exemplify this problem… and show why so many people hesitate to or refuse to go to law enforcement officers for help when they do face street harassment or other forms of sexual violence. We need a law enforcement #revolution before many of us will ever feel safe turning to them.

From the Washington Post:

“In a yearlong investigation of sexual misconduct by U.S. law enforcement, The Associated Press uncovered about 1,000 officers who lost their badges in a six-year period for rape, sodomy and other sexual assault; sex crimes that included possession of child pornography; or sexual misconduct such as propositioning citizens or having consensual but prohibited on-duty intercourse.

The number is unquestionably an undercount because it represents only those officers whose licenses to work in law enforcement were revoked, and not all states take such action. California and New York — with several of the nation’s largest law enforcement agencies — offered no records because they have no statewide system to decertify officers for misconduct. And even among states that provided records, some reported no officers removed for sexual misdeeds even though cases were identified via news stories or court records.

‘It’s happening probably in every law enforcement agency across the country,” said Chief Bernadette DiPino of the Sarasota Police Department in Florida, who helped study the problem for the International Association of Chiefs of Police. “It’s so underreported and people are scared that if they call and complain about a police officer, they think every other police officer is going to be then out to get them.’….

Even as cases around the country have sparked a national conversation about excessive force by police, sexual misconduct by officers has largely escaped widespread notice due to a patchwork of laws, piecemeal reporting and victims frequently reluctant to come forward because of their vulnerabilities — they often are young, poor, struggling with addiction or plagued by their own checkered pasts.

In interviews, lawyers and even police chiefs told the AP that some departments also stay quiet about improprieties to limit liability, allowing bad officers to quietly resign, keep their certification and sometimes jump to other jobs.

The officers involved in such wrongdoing represent a tiny fraction of the hundreds of thousands whose jobs are to serve and protect. But their actions have an outsized impact — miring departments in litigation that leads to costly settlements, crippling relationships with an already wary public and scarring victims with a special brand of fear.”

Via CNN.com:

“For about six months, [Oklahoma City police officer Daniel] Holtzclaw preyed on women — all African-American — in one of Oklahoma’s poorest neighborhoods, exploiting his police badge to intimidate them into keeping quiet.

Prosecutors say the Oklahoma City officer selected his victims based on their criminal histories, figuring their drug or prostitution records would undermine any claims they might make against him.

Then, he would subject them to assaults that escalated from groping to oral sodomy and rape.

On Thursday, his 29th birthday, Holtzclaw rocked back and forth in his chair, sobbing, as the judge read the verdict [convicting him on 18 of 36 counts of rape and other sexual offenses against women he encountered on patrol. Jurors recommended a total of 263 years of prison time. He will be sentenced in January.]”

Read about the brave women who reported him, eventually leading to his conviction.

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Asian American Women Share their Stories

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Note: Last year, SSH released a national study on street harassment that includes the results of a 2,000 person nationally representative survey and 10 focus groups with under-represented voices. As I have the opportunity and resources to do so, I will continue holding focus groups. Focus group #11 was with Asian American women in Boston, Massachusetts earlier this month. Below is a two-page summary from it, which is also now included in the research report (see pages 59-60). Thank you to the women who participated and to Sarah Chang for inspiring it and hosting it.

11.4.15 Asian American women SSH focus group in Boston, MAAsian American women in the SSH focus group in Boston, MA.

Asian American women’s harassment experiences are often overlooked. Thus, in November 2015, nine women with nations of origin from varying East Asian and Southeast Asian countries came together in Boston, Massachusetts, to document and talk about their experiences.

Participant Pam said, “I appreciate talking about identity and race. I think a lot of times in data and research, the Asian American voice is not included, which unintentionally leaves us silenced and reinforces the stereotype that we are silent.”

In sharing their stories, men following them, blocking their path, or engaging in repeated harassment emerged as common themes.

A man followed Catherine for approximately 45 minutes until she was able to lose him in a grocery store that had a back exit. She talked about her feeling of paranoia and fear. “All you want to do is shut down but you have to somehow keep going or something bad may happen.”

Eight white men harassed Jenn as she entered a subway station, then followed her and sat all around her as she waited for the subway. Then they surrounded her on the subway. “At this point I’m terrified,” she said. “I’m like what if they follow me to the stop? What if they get off at the stop with me?” Finally, before her stop, they got off.

Angela was in her car in an empty grocery store parking lot and as she was getting ready to leave, a man in a black SUV pulled up behind her, blocking her in. He came over and tapped on her window. Thinking he needed directions, she rolled down her window only for him to then tell her she was beautiful and hit on her. She rolled up her window and yelled that she needed to go. Fortunately, he drove away and let her.

A man engaged Cassie and the woman she was dating in conversation outside a club. Then he escalated to harassment, following them inside. He only left them alone once a bouncer ejected him from the club.

A man followed D. from the post office nearly all the way to her office. Finally he got the hint that she was uncomfortable

A man harassed Sarah three different times near her home, including telling her to “suck my dick.” She filed a police report.

Like women in other racial groups, many of their experiences with street harassment are racialized. They all agreed it is common for men to yell “Nǐ hǎo” or “Konichiwa” (“hello” in Chinese and Japanese, respectively) at them. Notably, this happens no matter the woman’s nation of origin.

When Catherine was reading on a park bench, a man repeatedly said “Nǐ hǎo” and “Konichiwa” to her, but then he quickly escalated to sexualized epithets. “Things like, ‘Oh your pussy must be sideways,’ and ‘has anyone ever fucked you?’” she said.

Various men have asked the women what they are. Katie said, “Instead of hello, they say what are you? Are you Chinese?”

Every woman said most, if not all, of her harassers have been non-Asian men, some of whom seem to be fetishizing them. Pam mused this may be because “There is this special race power element of ooh you’re this little Geisha who won’t talk about it.”

Several of them noted that the harassment tends to be worse when they are with another Asian American woman who is either a romantic partner or a friend.

Pam said, “It’s like some sick white man’s fantasy that there are two Asian American women together. It excites them even more.” As an example, she shared this story: “I was on the train with another Asian American female late at night and there were a bunch of white frat dude types and one was like, ‘Oooh who wants to eat Chinese food?’ and they just started getting nasty. You could tell they were so excited to see two Asian American women together.”

Cassie shared that “If I’m out with a woman [I’m dating], especially an Asian American woman, it’s usually like it’s really hard just to be out [because of harassers]…It feels really complicated in terms of race. I want to date people who look like me. But I feel safer with white people because they’re usually the ones I feel the most scared to be around. So if I’m with a white man, I feel like I have this pass… But it feels shitty.”

Many noted that the harassment began around puberty, usually by older men. N., for instance, said, “I have memories of my childhood and being in my teen years when people would harass me.”

Jenn began walking home from the bus stop around age 10 and she was often harassed, including by older Asian men. “That’s when I learned that my body was a sexual object,” she said. “I was a child learning that I would never be safe in my own body.”

When Diana was in middle school, she had to take the subway to the library alone in the afternoon. One day on the platform, a man repeatedly touched her lower back. She’s always tucked in her shirts ever since.

Several women noted that they try to drive or bicycle everywhere as a way to avoid harassment. Most women agreed they are never or rarely harassed when they are with another man, either a romantic partner or friend. N. observed from her experience, “If you don’t use public transportation, if you bike around, if you don’t interact with people, you don’t really get those catcalls.”

A few women shared how they feel they must be rude or stern in public because as soon as they are smiling, pleasant or engage in small talk with men, it escalates into harassment. Katie said, “I feel like any time I’ve just been pleasant out in the public space, I’ve been approached.”

Numerous women shared how their family and friends normalize the experiences or see it as a compliment. Angela said in her family it was seen as “boys being boys.” Now, she shares how she feels scrutinized and unsafe to explain why it’s not okay.

These were their ideas for change:

  1. Changing the normalcy of street harassment and ending the perception that it’s a compliment.
  2. Having boys and men listen to women’s stories so they can understand the effects of street harassment.
  3. Teachers talking to their students. Katie has had success asking her male students if that’s how they’d like their sister or mother treated.
  4. Men who get why it’s not okay talking to young men and boys.

 

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The Netherlands: Demystifying Dutch Tolerance

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Eve Aronson, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, SSH Blog Correspondent

Have you heard of the Dutch Myth of Tolerance? It’s not a myth in the mythical sense, and it’s not a fairytale, though it does sound admittedly magical.

Since the 17th century, the Netherlands has been a smorgasbord of races, ethnicities and religions and has continuously championed itself on what are known as “pillars” of tolerance.

The Dutch Myth of Tolerance is reflective of the disintegration of these pillars towards what has become an increasingly harsh critique of the narrative of ‘acceptance and multiculturalism’ in the Netherlands (or the lack thereof).

At first, the presence of this myth throughout my research was subtle. People told me about their experiences of street harassment and may have thrown in some (racially) identifying characteristics of their harassers. But after several months, it became evident that a more solid smokescreen lurked, and that the notion of Dutch pluralism and tolerance was not always as strong as it presented itself to be.

When people talk about street harassment in Amsterdam, it is not uncommon to highlight the race or ethnicity of one’s harassers, particularly if they are of Moroccan or Turkish decent, two of the largest minority populations in the Netherlands. Often times, the harasser is also tied to a particular neighborhood. For example, one person I talked to said: “In my experience, harassment was worse in neighborhoods with a lot of immigrants from cultures…Moroccans for example.” Another echoed: “A lot of catcalling, primarily from members of black communities”.

A report released in March of this year by the city of Amsterdam also highlighted particular minority-populated neighborhoods and communities as being more affected by street harassment, which arguably worked to further emphasize the link between street harassment and race or ethnicity.

Many of you might also recall the October 2014 video of a woman walking through the streets of New York in the US. The video heavily criticized for selectively showing a disproportionate number of men of color harassing the (white) woman in the video. Emphasizing connections between street harassment, race and location is not only completely inaccurate; it also strips accountability from a significant proportion of harassers who fall outside of these stereotypes and who are harassing women in Amsterdam just as often.

Below is a map of locations tagged by 48 respondents of a recent street harassment survey that I conducted in Amsterdam. Take a good look at where the majority of incidents are reported:

Amsterdam-BatchGeo2015(Source: BatchGeo 2015)

The majority of the geotagged incidents were reported in the center of the city, mostly around touristy areas and not in areas of the city known to have large minority populations (Biljmer, Zuid-Oost and Oost, for example). What this data does then, is encourage a revisiting of stereotypes of street harassment in Amsterdam, albeit from a purely geographic perspective. And this is just a start. The more stereotypes are checked—particularly using visual tools and visualizations—the more people are realizing that street harassment extends beyond race, ethnicity and geographical area.

What kind of impact does this have on the ground? Understanding street harassment as part of broader power structures does not mean that everyone gets this memo, and in this vein, individuals’ lived experiences are critical to take into account. But without denying individual experiences with street harassment, it is important to underline the implications of making generalized statements about races or communities.

Starting up a Hollaback! in Amsterdam is one way to work towards exposing exactly what happens on the ground and where. Geotagging experiences of street harassment not only confronts the Dutch Myth of Tolerance but it also provides an important starting point for conversations about street harassment and race in the Netherlands. Coupled with other awareness-raising initiatives and campaigns, addressing racial stereotyping in conversations about street harassment through such visual tools also encourages a look at street harassment through a much broader lens—one that unfortunately does not make the fight against street harassment easier but who said this was going to be easy? Ultimately, what taking a more comprehensive approach to street harassment does, is it makes the work more strategic and more effective in the long run.

You can find the full analysis of the Amsterdam survey results here or by contacting Eve at evearonson@gmail.com. Follow Eve and Hollaback! Amsterdam on Twitter at @evearonson and @iHollaback_AMS and show your support by liking Hollaback! Amsterdam’s Facebook page here.

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USA: Police Violence is a Form of Street Harassment

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Hannah Rose Johnson, Arizona, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

This month I talked with Pat Farr, a member of Hey Baby! Collective, in Tucson, AZ, about the intersections of sexual violence that are embedded in societal institutions; the sort of intersections that are more complex to organize around—specifically how profiling by police and police brutality constitute street harassment.

Farr presented an analysis of the nuances, scopes and the limits of perfect-victim narratives. When we think of street harassment solely as a cat-calling, where is power moving, what identity is created and who is being left out?

Farr says, “…rape culture is really a complex system that creates a framework for identifying who is a victim and who is a perpetrator. And if someone doesn’t fit into these tropes of victim/perp then it they fall outside of the discourse and are not victims and not perpetrators. So I like the term perfect and imperfect victim…[…] With street harassment it’s even more difficult. There’s very few protections against street harassment to begin with. So this notion of a perfect victim becomes subjectively very difficult to define.”

The first is the Office on Violence Against Women’s definition of sexual assault, which is defined as: any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs by force or without consent of the recipient of the unwanted sexual activity. Farr says that “The definition of sexual assault by the OVW includes street harassment.”

The second is the Center for Disease and Control’s uniform surveillance on sexual violence, which extends to noncontact unwanted sexual experiences. “This,” says Farr, “is very similar to non-consensual behavior of a sexual nature as described by the OVW.”

The third is the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s definition of sexual harassment which includes offensive remarks about a person’s sex. The EEOC goes on to define sex-based discrimination as: discrimination against an individual because of gender identity, including transgender status, or because of sexual orientation. “As such,” Farr argues that “because sexual harassment is a form of sexual discrimination, according to the EEOC, harassment based on a person’s gender identity or sexual orientation is a form of sex discrimination.”

“This gives us the opportunity to extend the definition of street harassment,” Farr says, “according to these definitions, it is street harassment when a transgender woman walking down the street is attacked because of her gender identity, and hence this would count as sexual violence.”

Farr brought up the case of Monica Jones—a black transwoman, sex worker rights activist and MSW student in Phoenix, AZ. She was arrested after a demonstration for sex workers when she took a ride from an undercover, and refused the driver’s proposition. Farr told me that “even though she refused the driver’s propositions, she was still arrested on the prostitution related crime against morality, manifestation of prostitution.” This kind of law, within the city municipal code crimes against morality, is known as “manifestation of prostitution.” It’s a kind of profiling law when a police officer thinks someone looks like a sex worker and is doing something in an area where sex workers would be.

“…it’s essential to recognize that people of color, lower class people, LGBQ people, transgender people, and HIV positive people all are at greater risk of police violence that’s based largely on culturally defined stereotypes of sexuality,” Farr states, “Compulsive heterosexuality, heteronormativity, white supremacy, neoliberal economics, and the prison industrial complex are all bound up with street harassment as a form of institutional violence against particular identities.”

Identities in the margins present different relationships to power which are reinforced through all of our state-sanctioned systems. These identities—these people and their lives—are vulnerable in the face of systems that reproduce heterosexuality, white supremacy, patriarchy and transphobia. These systems rely on exclusion and violence to function, and create our cultural understanding of who is a victim and what terms make a victim.

What Farr is saying here gives us a wider framework to think about who is a victim of street harassment. It is no longer only the person walking down the street being cat-called, it’s also person being profiled by police and arrested because of their gender identity and race.

This allows us to see police violence as a form of street harassment that is inevitably tied to the state.

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