Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

What if Catcalls were Cheeseburgers?

By

Street harassment is a heavy topic, so it’s always a nice to find a video that is critical of it, but also gives you a chance to laugh at how ridiculous it is. Thank you Tess Paras for creating this video “What If Catcalls were Cheeseburgers?” (NSFW…. here is a version that is safe for work)

She said, “This comedy short explores how women experience catcalls. It challenges the notion that catcalls are compliments that all women should enjoy, and explores how they can be disruptions that diminish the value of a woman’s place in the world.

It was a pleasure to team up with my director, Rebekka Johnson, as well as have a cast of hilarious comedians and actors on board. We had a great time making the sketch, I hope you enjoy it and share it with others!”

H/T to my OpEd Project colleague Chelsea for sharing it with me!

Share

New HarassMap Campaign: ‘Harasser = Criminal’

By

From our friend HarassMap in Egypt:

“Our campaign ‘Harasser = Criminal’ (El Mota7aresh Mogrim) is live!

It is a campaign to motivate people to take action and stand up to sexual harassment when they see it happen, so that we can start building a society where sexual harassment is not tolerated and harassers do not get away with their crime.

We launched with a press conference on Thursday May 21 at the Goethe Institute in downtown Cairo. The launch was covered by MBCMasr, Mada Masr, Youm 7, and others. Check out our video from the press conference here. 

The campaign is now running online on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Over the next week it will roll out on the streets in Cairo and other governorates around Egypt.

TV and radio ads will be aired on MBC Masr, CBC, El Nahar, Dream 2, and Radio Masr. Find the directors cut versions of the campaign ads here:

You can find more written information about the campaign on our website.”

 

Share

#SayHerName

By

Yesterday was the National Day of Action for Black Women and Girls. The African American Policy Forum (AAPF) release the report: “‪#‎SayHerName‬: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women” to help shed light on the extent of the issue.

From the AAPF website:

“Although Black women are routinely killed, raped and beaten by the police, their experiences are rarely foregrounded in popular understandings of police brutality,” said Kimberle Williams Crenshaw, Director of the African American Policy Forum and co-author of the brief. “Yet, inclusion of Black women’s experiences in social movements, media narratives and policy demands around policing and police brutality is critical to effectively combating racialized state violence for Black communities and other communities of color.”

#SayHerName gathers stories of Black women who have been killed by police and who have experienced gender-specific forms of police violence, provides some analytical frames for understanding their experiences, and broadens dominant conceptions of who experiences state violence and what it looks like…

In 2015 alone, several Black women’s lives have already been lost to police violence. For instance, just before Freddie Gray’s case grabbed national attention, police killed Mya Hall–a Black trans woman, on the outskirts of Baltimore. No action has been taken to date with respect to the officers responsible for her death. Most recently, police fatally shot Alexia Christian in the back of a police cruiser while she was handcuffed. And in Ventura, CA, Police officers fatally shot Meagan Hockaday–a young mother of three–within 20 seconds of entering her home in response to a domestic disturbance.

#SayHerName responds to increasing calls for attention to police violence against Black women by offering a resource to help ensure that Black women’s stories are integrated into demands for justice, policy responses to police violence, and media representations of victims and survivors of police brutality.”

There was a rally in New York City. Here is footage:

Share

#SafeCitiesBecause Campaign

By

Join ActionAid​‘s call for ‪#‎SafeCitiesBecause‬ EVERYONE deserves to go to work or university, use the bus, walk down the street – simply live their lives – without the threat of sexual attack.

Find out more, join the movement, sign the pledge, and Tweet #SafeCitiesBecause today to share why you believe we need safe cities. Read how women all over the world are reclaiming what is rightly theirs: the right to be in public spaces safely.

Share

New Report about Harassment on Twitter

By

From our friends at Women, Action, & the Media!

“The vicious targeting of women, women of color, queer women, trans women, disabled women, and other oppressed groups who speak up on online has reached crisis levels. Hate speech and violent threats are being used to silence the voices of women and gender non-conforming people in the public discourse everyday. Examples of the impact these attacks are having on women’s lives are everywhere.

A recent Pew research study found that fully 25 percent of young women online have been sexually harassed online and 26 percent have experienced stalking. Moreover, Pew found that women overall are disproportionately targeted by the most severe forms of online abuse including doxxing and violent threats.

This is why WAM! launched a pilot project to support Twitter users experiencing gendered harassment and abuse on the platform, including abuse that intersects with racial, LGBT, and other kinds of oppression….

Reporting, Reviewing, And Responding To Harassment on Twitter was produced by researchers from the fields of computational social science, anthropology, sociology, network science and computer science. It was reviewed by five academic researchers in a double-blind, revise-and-resubmit peer review process. WAM’s report provides a baseline for Twitter and other technology company decision makers to make structural and policy changes. View the report.”

Share