Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Meet Our New Blog Correspondents!

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After a successful first year in 2013, I’m excited to announce the first Blog Correspondents cohort of 2014!

They will write monthly articles about street harassment in their community & activism efforts through April.

Andrea Ayres-Deets, San Francisco, CA, USA

Andrea is interested in four things: intersectional feminism, checking privilege, cats, and space. Okay, so there are a lot more things she’s interested in, but there’s only time for so many. Originally from Chicago, she recently moved to San Francisco with her husband and cat. Before writing for SSH, she worked as a politics intern at PolicyMic and field organizer. She currently consults with startups in the SF area on content and how to better engage users. You can follow her on twitter: @missafayres or check out her website ayres-deets.com.

Rocío Andrés, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

Rocío holds a Bachelor´s degree in Audiovisual Communication, History of Art (both Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain) and a Master´s in Education (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain, 2010). She has six years experience as a TV and advertising producer. Most recently, she has been working as an English, Spanish and Secondary teacher in different countries. Today, she is based in Edinburgh as a nursery teacher and collaborates with an online magazine. Her interest in sexual harassment started through personal research on the Egyptian Arab Spring and then through profound and careful readings of gang rapes in Tahrir Square and its media coverage. She will soon write a thesis on it. She has a great passion for Egyptian women´s fight against sexual harassment and, extensively, for all women around the world against sexual violence. Since then, she also wants to fight. Follow her on Twitter, @ioandres.

Heather Frederick, Austin, TX, USA

Heather has been dedicated to working for the human rights of all people since she was in high school. While earning her BA in Women’s Studies, Spanish and Linguistics at San Diego State University she was active with the National Organization for Women and VOX: Voices for Planned Parenthood. At the UN-Mandated University for Peace in Costa Rica, where she earned her MA in Gender & Peacebuilding, Heather participated in the Vagina Monologues and organized the university’s first Clothesline Project to raise awareness of gender-based violence. She currently works to end IPV as a Supervisor for The National Dating Abuse Helpline, www.loveisrespect.org. Her passions include intersectional feminism, reproductive justice, languages, travel, blogging at www.FeministActivism.com (@FeministSNVA) and bringing an end to human rights abuses.

Pallavi Kamat, Mumbai, India

Pallavi is a qualified Chartered Accountant and a Commerce Graduate from the University of Mumbai, India, with around 12 years of experience working in the corporate sector. Currently, she is working in the Credit Department of a new generation private sector bank. She is passionate about life, books, movies, music and friends. She is proud to declare that she has been a feminist as far as she can remember. She can be found blogging about various issues, specifically books and movies, at www.pallosworld.blogspot.in. She openly rants about issues on Twitter, @pallavisms.

Kriti Khatri, Bhaktapur, Nepal

Kriti is student of MSc chemistry. She is engaged in different social organization in Nepal and has undertaken different responsibilities for conducting projects like awareness campaign on menstrual health, women literacy and entrepreneurship etc. Currently she is working on anti-street harassment issues in Nepal with the Astitwa Foundation. She enjoys expressive writings and works as a web content writer as a profession. She writes and researches stories for astiwa.com where she emphasizes women’s voices which are suppresses by social prejudice. She loves the idea of volunteerism and she envisions a society where every human being, despite their gender, social and racial identity, can be able to live a prosperous, equal and respectful life as a global citizen. Find more of her writing on her blog.

Katie Monroe, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Katie is passionate about the intersection between gender equality and active transportation (biking and walking). A graduate of Haverford College with a BA in Anthropology / Concentration in Gender and Sexuality Studies, she works to create inclusive spaces within the bicycling movement. She founded the Women Bike PHL campaign at the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia in 2013 to make riding a bicycle more fun and feasible for Philadelphia women of all ages and backgrounds. She also works at the Philly nonprofit Gearing Up, which gives some of Philadelphia’s most marginalized women – those in transition from incarceration, addiction, and/or abuse – the opportunity to ride bicycles for exercise, transportation, and personal growth. She loves biking and walking in Philadelphia and hopes for a day when street harassment isn’t such a daily part of the experience. Follow her on Twitter, @cmon_roe.

Brittany Oliver, Baltimore, MD, USA

Brittany is a recent graduate of Towson University and holds a B.S in Mass Communications with a focus in Public Relations. She is an advocate and thought leader for civic and societal issues related to feminism, social justice and civil rights. Brittany works in the non-profit communications sector and supports local anti-street harassment advocacy through Hollaback! Baltimore. She is also an organizer for One Billion Rising 2014 and is an avid volunteer within in community. Her goal in writing for SSH is to educate people about the harassment that takes place on the streets of Baltimore, which she’s experienced her whole life. Her offline activities include salsa dancing, arts & crafts, reading and attending local community events. She blogs at brittuniverse.wordpress.com and publicly rants on Twitter, @btiara3

Jeanette R, Irvine, CA, USA

Jeanette is a recent university graduate with a lifelong passion for social justice and change. She is particularly interested in issues of gender, human rights, race, equality, and immigration. She has had a lifelong love affair with writing as not only a creative medium, but also as a powerful tool for socially transformative change and advocacy. She is very excited about helping advance the mission of SSH in creating safe, harassment-free spaces for all people.

Joe Samalin, New York City, NY, USA

Joe Samalin has been addressing gender-based violence for over 15 years, starting as a student activist. Based in NYC, he was the Training and Technical Assistance Coordinator for Men Can Stop Rape, a trainer for the Anti-Stalking Program at Safe Horizon, co-facilitated a program for abusive teen partners, and lived in Japan for four years and examined gender-based violence and rape culture there. Additionally he has been an assistant chef, professional archaeologist, and made origami window displays for local shops at Christmas-time in high school. In March 2012 he co-created and directed ‘Sh*t Men Say To Men Who Say Sh*t To Women On The Street’, a YouTube video modeling men interrupting street harassment of women and girls which subsequently won a CDC award for Injury and Violence Prevention. He is currently the Outreach and Training Manager for the Disaster Distress Helpline and is examining among other things gender-based violence in the aftermath of disasters. Follow him on Twitter, @joesamalin.

Sandria M. Washington, Chicago, IL, USA

Sandria is a writer, health/wellness ambassador and community activist. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign graduate (B.S. Advertising, ’02) has a passion for empowering girls and women, philanthropy and her personal development (i.e., constantly doing or learning something to help live her best life EVER!). She is a longtime volunteer with several local and national organizations and has facilitated programs/workshops for The Metropolitan Board of the Chicago Urban League, Young Women’s Leadership Charter School and Illinois Caucus of Adolescent Health. During 2012-2013, she served as a GirlTrek Harriet Tubman Trailblazer Fellow and continues to advocate for the health of Black women and girls as a Chicago City Rep. Sandria is a concert junkie, award-winning natural hair model, loving mommy to two kittens she rescued in the park – Dharma and Cozy – and certified yoga teacher. Read her ChicagoNow blog and follow her on Twitter @SandriaWrites.

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“[Feel] hurt that nobody would help me”

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I recovered from Ovarian cancer a year and a half ago and wear a wig due to my hair just growing back. I was walking today in Seattle going to work, and I crossed the street and a jittery man tapped me uncomfortably and I told him to please leave me alone.

I then heard him say he should remove my headgear, ran up behind me and snatched my hat and wig off my head. I was humiliated. He was about an inch from my face and I grabbed my wig and hat from him, and pushed him off me and ran to my building and luckily it is a key entry. I was so scared and angry.

There were about 50 people around and nobody helped me. I was so distraught, I had to leave work in a taxi a few hours later.

I am so mad at Seattle, and so hurt that nobody would help me, and all I was trying to do was go to work.

– Anonymous

Location: On the corner of 4th Ave S and Jackson St, right by the bus stops. Seattle, WA

Share your street harassment story for the blog.
Check out the new book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers!

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Stories about harassment of LGBQTIA people in public spaces

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Our new board member Patrick suggested creating a web section of the SSH site specific to the experiences of members of the LGBQTIA community. Great idea!

As a first step, we’re inviting anyone who identifies as an individual within the LGBQTIA community to share their street harassment story or stories. So if this is you, please take a few minutes to share a story and invite friends to do the same.

Let’s make these stories, which are too often invisible, visible!

 

 

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“Calling a stranger slim is not an appropriate comment”

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Someone just tried to pick me up in the grocery store by smiling and saying, “Excuse me, you’ll probably laugh at me, but you’re slim and attractive and I was wondering if it would be possible to get a date with you,” and when I smiled back and said, “No thank you,” he said, “Sorry I don’t have white skin” and walked away quickly. Too quickly for me to have responded, and even so, I’m not sure what I would have said.

Do I just chalk this up to a wounded society that contains wounded people and carry on? Was he on some sort of misguided consciousness-raising mission? Should I have said, “Calling a stranger slim is not an appropriate comment, and also no, thank you”?

Honestly, before he finished his sentence I thought he was mentioning slim as a strange lead-in to asking me for help with vegetables, as we were in the produce aisle.

– Anonymous

Location: Whole Foods on Prospect Street in Cambridge, MA

Share your street harassment story for the blog.
Check out the new book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers!

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2013: 16 Memorable Stories about Stopping Street Harassers

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I wrote this for the Pixel Project in early December and am cross-posting it here.

Image by Amy & Julie Mastrine

Empowering Response #1:  When a man began openly staring at EM’s friend’s breasts, she said really loudly to him as they passed him on the New Jersey street, “You should look where you’re going or you might fall.” He looked at her and she repeated, “Look where you’re walking.” Her friend laughed and he looked embarrassed.

Empowering Response #2: Photographer and Yale School of Art MFA student Hannah Price made international news this year with her series of stunning photos of the men who harassed her on the streets of Philadelphia, turning the lens and attention on them instead of her.

Empowering Response #3: Phillip in San Francisco, California, observed a man harassing every woman in the area. A few construction workers suggested the man stop, but he didn’t. So Philip got in his space and began making remarks about that man’s body and returned his misogyny. He said the harasser took off, almost running, while the construction workers high-fived Philip!

Empowering Response #4: Penelope lives in Sydney, Australia, and when construction for a new apartment building began next to where she lived, the constant harassment by the workers made her feel ill. She tried lots of tactics to avoid harassment but finally, she wrote a letter to the development company. It worked. She said, “I was stopped by the foreman and he politely let me know that he spoke to the men and have them stop the harassment and that if it happens again to seek him out or contact the company again.”

Empowering Response #5: Nayana was walking down a very busy road in Delhi, India. Suddenly, she felt a man “feeling up her front” with his hand. She said she was shocked! When she saw him smirking because he felt he was going to get away it, she grabbed hold of his collar and screamed at the top of her voice, “Police! Police! Help!” People gathered around her to help. The police arrived and she reported him. He ended up spending the night in jail.

Empowering Response #6: A woman was at the Metro in Virginia when she saw two guards harassing another woman. That woman cringed and walked quickly away. One of the guards then told the woman who observed it, “Let me see a SMILE on that pretty face.” She made eye contact and told him firmly, “Mind your business.” He giggled nervously and shut up.

Empowering Response #7: One day Irem was riding a city bus with her sister in Izmir, Turkey. A man would not stop staring at them. She stared back to try to make him feel uncomfortable and stop, but he just kept staring. So then Irem stood up and said to him, “Do you know us from somewhere else because you’ve been looking at us for ten minutes.” She said he was very embarrassed and that the other passengers, especially the women, laughed at him. He looked down at the floor for the rest of the ride.

Empowering Response #8: Emily pulled up beside a pickup truck at a traffic light in Sarasota, Florida. Her windows were rolled down and the two men in the truck whistled at her, laughing. She turned off her radio, turned to them and said, “You know, it’s really offensive when men whistle at a woman like she’s an animal. I don’t appreciate that. What you’re doing is called street harassment and it is unacceptable.” The driver apologized saying, “I’m sorry, ma’am. I’ll stop tonight.”

Empowering Response #9: A woman was harassed by a man in an SUV while she wanted to cross the street in Minnesota, and then he drove away before she could respond, she wrote an open letter to him in the “Missed Connections” section of Craigstlist.com. Her amazing letter was shared all over the Internet and it ended with this good advice: “If you really find a woman beautiful, don’t choose the juvenile selfish route that makes her feel weird and you look like an asshole. Just take a deep breath, commit the image to memory, and get on with your life. Or, if it’s really that great of an ass that you can’t possibly survive without commenting on it, post about it on CL missed connections after the fact and let her decide what to do about it.”

Empowering Response #10: Sarah was visiting a friend in Buffalo, New York. As she walked through a parking garage to meet her friend, two men sitting in a truck rolled down their windows and shouted inappropriate sexual remarks at her. She turned around and walked up to the window, looked them both in the eye and calmly said, “I just wanted to let you know it is really rude to shout at someone like that, and most women do not appreciate it.” They apologized to her and said they were just trying to be nice and say hi. She told them how that behavior can be perceived as threatening. She says she “walked away feeling so positive and empowered, and I hope what I said had some impact on those men and their future behavior.”

Empowering Response #11: Robyn lives in Portland, Oregon. She was walking home from the grocery store with her seven-year-old stepson and her infant daughter when a man slowed down in his car to talk to her through his window. She felt hesitant to confront him with her kids there.  Instead of driving away, the man followed and then paced his car alongside her and her kids. “How are you doing?” he asked. She stopped and said, “I’d be a whole lot better if you weren’t doing this.” He said, “I understand,” and drove away.

Empowering Response #12: A woman in Harrogate, UK, was harassed in the morning by a fundraiser. It bothered her all day that he’d done this and when she went home that evening, she confronted him. She wrote, “He turned out to be a very nice guy who was very apologetic- he hadn’t realised how intimidating his behaviour was and was glad that I had gone back to speak to him. Being the older brother of 4 sisters he was keen to express his abhorrence of men that harass women. I was pleasantly surprised at his attitude- he was happy to listen and learn. It gave me hope!

Empowering Response #13: Each time Maria’s sister walked from the bus stop to her home in Colombia, a man across the street yelled sexual comments at her. His harassment upset her a lot. Maria was worried that since the man knew where she and her sister lived, it could be unsafe for her to talk to him, so she talked to her sister’s boyfriend and he said we would talk to him. The boyfriend asked the man to please show respect for the women walking on the streets and to consider their safety. His admonition worked and the man never harassed Maria’s sister again.

Empowering Response #14:  Christine was at a nightclub with a friend in Maynooth, Ireland, when a man groped her friend’s breast, then smiled as he walked away. Her friend froze in shock, but Christine “saw red.” She ran after him, matched his pace, and then reached around and grabbed his balls. She said, “He doubled over and I held on as I leaned in and spoke directly into his ear: ‘It’s not so nice when someone touches you without your permission, is it?’” She said she walked away and when she turned back, he looked very confused and uncomfortable.

Empowering Response #15: When D was street harassed by two different men in a short distance, she said, “No!” loudly to them each. A woman nearby saw both interactions and said, “Thank god for you!” and said something about how more people need to speak up against this. “I have to,” I said. “It [street harassment] is ridiculous.” D wrote, “I didn’t get a chance to thank her for supporting me in standing up against harassment. Usually when people see me standing up to harassers they either ignore it, think it’s funny, or tell me that I bring this stuff upon myself for taking harassment too seriously. So when I do encounter people who support standing up against street harassment, it feels great to know that there are people who think that this is a problem.”

Empowering Response #16: Fern was dressed up for an interview when two men on the street commented about her looks. She ignored them and one of them yelled, “What, you can say thank you?” She felt angry that a man expected her to thank him for his unsolicited and unwanted comments and asked him, “Why do I need to thank you? Did you do me a favor? Did you help me?” He was surprised and told her not to be uptight. She said, “I didn’t ask you to look at me. In fact, I wish you wouldn’t.” She then left.

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