Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming
On the way to a shopping mall a group of young men (maybe five) whistled and screamed, “Give me your number, sexy. I wanna see you again etc.”
When I turned around and said, “No,” they came nearer and one of them told me that I’d be “too ugly and fat anyway” for “a good fuck.” His friends applauded him.
– Anonymous
Location: Berlin, Germany
By Sean Crosbie, SSH Correspondent
Street harassment often decreases a person’s willingness to go out or be seen in public spaces. I interviewed two friends about their experiences with catcalls, and their subsequent willingness to go out in public. The two friends had very different attitudes towards going out alone versus going out with others. In order to protect the identities of the women, I have labeled each “Interviewee 1” and “Interviewee 2,” respectively.
Interviewee 1 was walking in a local nightlife area in Washington, D.C., waiting for her boyfriend when she was accosted by two men looking for their car. When she said she didn’t know where their car was, they kept engaging her, and one member of the pack attempted to hug her. Immediately following that incident, another man came up to her and asked her how she was doing. She didn’t say anything and he responded by yelling, “Don’t ignore me!” Interviewee 1 told me: “…I was shaking and terrified…every man walking by had become a threat, and I felt trapped and alone since no passerby or police were available to protect me.”
This frightening encounter left her wary of going out in the neighborhood alone:
… After that experience, I have been leery of going out in Adams Morgan, especially alone. Previously, I had felt comfortable going to salsa there by myself (I’m friends with some regulars there), but since this incident, I’ve avoided heading to Adams Morgan by myself. Even when I’m walking with my boyfriend… I still feel like a target.
Interviewee 2 was sunbathing topless on a beach in Melbourne, Australia. While topless bathing is legal in Australia, its practice is not widespread. She decided to wade in the water topless, but then put on a swimsuit top to lie on the beach. A man walked past and then went back to sit next to her. He began asking her questions like, “Do you have a boyfriend?” and, “Can I take you out for a drink tonight?” After ten minutes of inappropriate questions and Interviewee 2’s non-engaging responses, she got up and started walking away. She was not hindered by this uncomfortable experience:
… I refuse to let obnoxious people affect me in that way…I may be even more assertive. I may also start explaining to people that what they are doing is harassing me, so that they can be more educated.
Women should be able to be alone in public without being harassed or made to feel afraid or uncomfortable. Too many men interact with women inappropriately. In fact, Interviewee 2 described this guy on the beach as a creep who kept telling her she had a nice body. It’s unfortunate that some men see women in public as an invitation to make sexual comments or gestures, or to invade women’s personal space. Street harassment seems to be a common, yet unnerving, expression of masculinity and “ownership” of space.
And I will deal with that concept in a future post. The women I interviewed shared their thoughts with me about what should be done to combat and prevent street harassment. The culture needs to change, and it needs to change now. Women shouldn’t be made to feel like targets.
Sean has written for Stop Street Harassment since April 2011. He is a library/research assistant at a labor union in Washington, D.C. and holds a Bachelor’s degree in economics from American University.
Last night, I came back from a party with two girl friends into a frequented street in Bordeaux, France. A group of 8 drunk young men crossed our path and followed us, offended us, spat at us, and pushed us. We did nothing for it, but that was enough for starting this demonstration of violence. (I shared my story on my blog epicureanyouth.com)
– Saëlle
Location: Rue Sainte-Catherine, Bordeaux, France
Editor’s Note: HarassMap, an anti-harassment group in Egypt, posted the following on their Facebook account over the weekend. They, and the author, gave me permission to share it here. Please share it widely and follow their work: Website | Facebook | Twitter. Also, here is a Guardian article about the attacks on women on Jan. 25.
THIS IS A HARASSMAP STAFF MEMBER’S PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF MOB SEXUAL ATTACKS IN #TAHRIR ON #JAN25 DURING OUR EFFORTS TO COUNTER THEM AS PART OF Op Anti-Sexual Harassment/Assault قوة ضد التحرش/الإعتداء الجنسي الجماعي
By Hussein ElShafie
When I joined the second round of OpAntiSH, as a core team member and a Midan team participant, I wasn’t anticipating the nightmare we all went through! I expected our mere presence in the heart of the protests to be an important warning sign for the mobs not to approach the protesters. I walked through the square distributing flyers and I was met with cooperation and gratitude from the side of the people. However, in certain instances I would get completely encircled by groups who would grab my shirt, poke me and snatch flyers from my hands. I didn’t give their attitude much attention and I attributed it to the Adrenalin rush they must be experiencing.
While I walked I saw two girls from our Safety team running towards me asking for help dealing with a report from the Omar Makram side. We all three ran across the square bumping into everyone until we arrived to Omar Makram and we found nothing going on! Later we were informed that while we mobilized our efforts to that area a girl was being mob-attacked by the Mohamed Mahmoud side.
I went back to our headquarters in Talaat Harb and shortly afterwards our rescue team arrived to the building. The girl was among them semi-comatose. A huge crowd appeared to accompany them to the door and then they tried to break in. We half-closed the door and pulled in our volunteers. They were all being squeezed, grabbed and unable to breathe. While I was pulling in one of them I felt as if I was pulling out a tissue from a tight tissue box. We got them all inside, shut the door and locked it. Harassers tried to break the door and they started a small fire. The numbers were insane. The armed mob was infuriated by the sight of the girls indoor and by the fact that they (harassers) could not reach them. I asked one of them from behind the door what is it that they wanted and he answered “What are all those women doing inside?!”. We turned off the lights and sent the girls upstairs trying to minimize our visibility. The nightmare kept going on for 2 hours until their energy faded and we managed to gather some help from outside to disperse the mob. Police was non-existent.
When it was a little safer to get out I went with another volunteer from the Intervention team to survey the square, and by the time we could make out the Mohamed Mahmoud area a tear gas canister was thrown at us. We ran back to the building suffocating, falling off every few seconds and unable to open our eyes. That very canister could have saved us a lot of terror and harassment if it had been thrown at the mobs that had attacked us perseveringly for two hours earlier.
We were specifically targeted by the mobs while the police kept a deaf ear to our situation. However, our brave men and women managed to survive it. We were getting fake reports to waste our efforts and yet we managed to interfere in more than a dozen mob harassment cases. Seeing the relentless efforts of our volunteers was but an affirmation of the nobility of our cause, and an inspiration for every human being who wants to voice out their right to be free, safe and respected.
بلغوا عن حوادث التحرش الجنسي | Report sexual harassment: SMS 6069 | http://harassmap.org/reports/submit
تطوعوا | Volunteer: bit.ly/ZsFKcL
Just a few months ago, maybe in November, I recall planning to cook a hearty dinner for my daughter and her father. I had to go to the store to get a can of vegetables. My daughter’s father suggested that I go to the supermarket, which is like, a good five minute walk from our apartment. It was rather nippy that day, so I was in no mood to walk there. I decided to go to the discount store, which is just around the corner from us. When I got to the discount store, I walked to the aisle that has the paper and plastic products and grabbed a box of aluminum foil. Afterwards, I walked down the canned goods aisle. Halfway down, a man in maybe his early to mid-forties said to me, “How you doing” very suggestively.
Now, usually when this happens, I speak back but only if the person is sincere with his greeting. I am not the kind of female that never speaks, but if a guy is just merely being a creep, then I just ignore him. That is exactly how this gentleman, no this ass hole was behaving, so therefore I didn’t speak back. He didn’t deserve a nice hello, in my opinion. I just simply didn’t say anything back. I didn’t roll my eyes, suck my teeth or anything. But this guy had then replied, “Oh well, right back to you too!”
I then turned around and said, “Excuse me, sir, but I didn’t say anything ignorant to you.”
That’s when he answered, “Well, you the one thinking you too good to speak to somebody!” I was at this point very offended and replied, “I don’t think I’m too good for anything, but you’re a pervert and don’t deserve a hello from me, so you need to leave me alone.”
I then turned to walk away, but the guy pushed me down from behind. I started to get up, but he then pushed me back down and said, “Well, fuck you then, bitch!!!” I leaped up angrily, stormed out of the store after him, but once outside, he threatened me for coming out of the store. Another guy tried to hold him back from hurting me, all while cursing him out for his conduct, as well as everyone else that was looking on. Oh, and I forgot to mention that he had a little girl with him at the time. A terrible way to act in front of a child.
Anyway, that experience just showed me that while it’s okay to be polite and speak to someone once in a while, I don’t owe any guy out in the street anything, especially if I don’t know him. Period.
– Betty Miller
Location: Philadelphia, PA