This is written by SSH Community Member Michelle Paggi and cross-posted with permission from Jezebel’s GroupThink.
Source: We Will Ride Bicycles FB Event Page
“Riding a bicycle and feeling the breeze of the air is one of our simplest dreams,” said the campaign’s event page, adding that all women should be allowed to freely ride bicycles without being harassed or judged.
The activists behind the campaign said they chose the theme of riding bicycles to promote women and girl’s rights to run errands through cycling without being afraid of attracting negative reaction in the streets.
As a woman who lives in the United States, I acknowledge that whatever oppression I face pales in comparison to that which many women face elsewhere in the world. I can ride my bike around NYC without facing the level of harassment women in Egypt face. However, in reading about this campaign, I couldn’t help being reminded of the countless times that I have indeed been sexually harassed while cycling around here.
I’ll start with the most recent instance that I remember (my brain dumps most of the street harassment I experience). I was going downhill on Fordham Road, which, if you’ve ever biked on it, you know how treacherous it is for cyclists because of all the traffic and the potholes. As I was coasting along, some joker decided it would be funny to step onto the road and hold his hand out in my direction.
Did I mention I was coasting downhill on one of the most treacherous roads in NYC? I highly doubt this guy would have dared to distract a male cyclist in this manner…Not only would the implied threat of male violence probably be enough to deter him from doing so, but as a lady cyclist, I don’t get the sense that men take me seriously while I’m on my bike. In other words, men don’t seem to get that, like male cyclists, I have somewhere to be! This isn’t a leisurely cruise just for funzies…This is my commute! Like male cyclists, I want to get to my destination as quickly and safely as possible…and yes…I’m pretty fucking fast…you best not distract someone who’s going nearly the same speed as a car!
A couple of years ago, I was cycling on the Hudson River Greenway and some guy comes up from behind me and said something to the effect of “I was riding behind you – I liked to watch you ride.” He then got off at his exit, leaving me feeling sick…This guy, who was all decked out in spandex riding an expensive road bike and could thus have easily passed me, had just told me that he was instead staring at my ass while chasing me on his bike. In other words, I was being stalked at about 20 miles per hour. This was a whole new level of dangerous…
Another time on the Hudson River Greenway, some other spandex-clad, expensive bike guy decided it would be fun to start racing me. We were already cycling really fast…it’s not like we had previously agreed to a race. He just pulled up next to me and started saying “GO GO GO,” because that’s not distracting or rude or dangerous or anything…Again, would he have challenged another man to a race in this manner? I somehow doubt it…
Most of the time I’m harassed while I’m on my bike, it’s in the same form women experience while they’re walking: Catcalls. As someone who’s both a pedestrian and a cyclist in NYC, I can say with confidence that being catcalled while cycling is a bigger threat to my sense of safety because it distracts me from a task that requires my full attention.
As is demonstrated by studies of rates of sexual harassment, namely the one above on Egyptian women, we face sexual harassment no matter what we’re wearing, no matter the time of day. Many of the times I’ve been harassed while on my bike, I was indeed wearing a dress, which seems to excite men as though they have never seen a woman’s crotch. However, most of the time I’m cycling, and most of the time I’ve experienced street harassment while cycling, I was wearing pants, leggings, or my cycling gear. As long as it’s obvious I occupy a woman’s body, there’s no escaping the additional danger I face for committing the crime of cycling while female. In addition to avoiding collisions with cars, pedestrians, traffic cones, and debris, I have to stay focused despite the discomfort and, at times, the direct threats to my safety I experience when I’m harassed while riding my bike.
Major hats off to the organizers of the We Will Ride Bicycles campaign in Egypt! You all are not only fighting street harassment in your own country, but you may be alerting people around the world to the fact that cycling is indeed more dangerous for women because of the street harassment we are practically guaranteed to experience.
[Editor’s Note: If you’re in Washington, D.C., there will be a similar event next Saturday, Oct. 19, benefiting our friends Collective Action for Safe Spaces! Info/RSVP.]
After three boys followed me home for about 20 minutes, it wasn’t until I was waiting for my front gate to open that it escalated.
They approached me and asked if they could come in, POLITELY I declined, at which point one of them suggested, “I look like the easy sort.”
One of the boys, no older than 20, was asking me for my number, and I politely declined again, at which point, one of the other boys spat on me, and shouted ‘slut’ in my face, and all three walked away back up the street laughing, leaving me humiliated and covered in saliva.
Thankfully, I have never seen any of these boys again. I hope this is not their usual method of ‘chatting up’ girls…I cant see it having a high success rate.
Cross-posted with permission from SSH’s Intern Talia Hagerty’s personal blog
Once again, I inadvertently took the summer off of Theory of Change. That isn’t because I took any time off of social change – I just had to get outside. Summer in New York City has been beautiful, and Fall is looking the same. (It’s 80 and sunny today!) But with the warm weather has come something else that’s gotten a lot a play around the web the past few months – street harassment. Since June, I’ve been working for the organization Stop Street Harassment (SSH) on one of the human rights and peacebuilding issue that plagues my community.
What is street harassment? You know it when you see it: it’s gender-based harassment in public spaces and it looks and sounds like, “Hey, baby!”, “Nice ass!”, “MMmmhhmmm…”, and “Give me a smile!” (Newsflash: I’m not here to give you anything, mister.) Unfortunately, these not-compliments are only the beginning – street harassment is most often verbal (like, every time I walk outside in Brooklyn) but can also include groping or indecent exposure, and can quickly escalate to sexual assault.
And why is it a human rights issue? Because women and the LGBTQ individuals targeted by street harassment never know when a seemingly innocuous comment will escalate into something much more serious. It’s a subtle form of violence that impacts women psychologically, limits our mobility, and leads us to live in fear. And sadly, what we’re afraid of – being followed, attacked, or raped – happens all the time.
For me, street harassment started when I was young teenager. There’s a lot of landscaping work that goes on in the Floridian paradise where I grew up, and those guys were the worst – always yelling and whistling from yards or the back of their trucks. People said to ignore it, but I was just a kid and it made me feel gross. Earlier this summer I wrote for the SSH blog about the first time street harassment made me really afraid – and made me think of using violence in my own defense – in my neighborhood in Brooklyn.
I immediately made a plan. I was carrying my cell phone and wallet in one hand and my dinner and an umbrella in the other. If anyone – a sexual harasser or otherwise – wanted to take my wallet, it would have been easy. I’ve heard so many stories, and had so many men overreact when I told them to stop harassing me, that I knew, if he was following me, how this would play out. If this man wanted to intimidate me, the easiest thing for him to do would be to grab my wallet and phone and push me to the ground. He would walk away with some cash, an iPhone, and a renewed sense of his violent power.
So what are we doing about it? SSH founder Holly Kearl brought me on in June to build Know Your Rights Guide for dealing with street harassment in the 50 U.S. States. As far as I know, most people don’t report street harassment to the police, even when the harasser is doing something clearly illegal. Of course, yelling “Hey, baby!” isn’t illegal – and it shouldn’t be. But you can always call 911 if you think you’re being followed, and every state we’ve surveyed so far has laws that protect you from indecent exposure, groping, and other forms of assault. We’re collecting the relevant laws for each state and major city, and we aim to have the Guide online later this fall so that you can know your rights.
If this sounds familiar, because street harassment is part of your life, or if you’re a guy and didn’t know what your friends/sister/partner/mother/daughter might be going through, get involved and help out our effort. If you see street harassment, especially you men, intervene to stop it. There are plenty of creative, nonviolent and deescalating ways to do so. Share your stories – of street harassment and street respect – on the SSH blog. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with our work and find the Guide when it goes live. And if you really want to make an impact, donate. It’s tax deductible, and it keeps activists like me housed, fed, and working for safer streets.
Three generations of people speaking out against sexual harassment! Gerald Weinheimer, Beckie Weinheimer, Holly Kearl
[Note: I forgot to post this two weeks ago when I wrote it!]
My 84-year-old grandpa is visiting me and he gave me permission to share this on the blog.
One night when he was in college in Utah, he was invited to the girls’ dorm. He went into the dorm cafeteria with a friend and there were about 300 girls there and he was the only guy. He had asked ahead of time if any other guys would be there and his friend said usually there were 4 or 5 men, but it turned out that there were none there that night.
He felt uncomfortable as the only man there and then he can still remember one woman from Wyoming whistling at him and saying things like, “Hey good looking.”
He felt really uncomfortable and even though he knew they wouldn’t hurt him, he hated it.
That experience helped him better understand how girls and women feel when they’re harassed and it’s stuck with him for more than 60 years.
I was at the back of the bus today and a very large man was sitting directly to the right of me. As a defense mechanism, I endlessly stared at my phone, attempting not to make eye contact as he spat on the floor of the bus and loudly yelled out obscenities (to apparently no one in particular).
At one point he seems disoriented (–intoxicated) and started loudly screaming ,”Where the fuck are we going?” repeatedly. He pulled out a 40 of Olde English and begins to chug it – which distracted him for a while – but then he persisted in his loud questioning about the bus destination. He finally got a few muffled answers from nervous passengers but no one really spoke up. I finally said something and explained what buses he should take home, despite his condescending tone.
When I attempted to ignore him afterwards he began “complimenting me” – calling me a “good girl” and finally he said, “You should smile.” It really stung and I let out an audible sigh (which he later mocked). He claimed that he was a good guy and that he had been nothing but pleasant since the moment he got on the bus.
I felt trapped on that bus and quite afraid for my safety. I have been thinking about it for hours now.
