Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

“There must be a law that helps women deal with this.”

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Everyday when I walk to my apartment after work, there is always at least five to ten guys hanging out on the sidewalk on the way to my apartment. No matter how many times I have done this, it never becomes easy walking through a group of disgusting men who get pleasure from making females uncomfortable. I have tried different routes, rushing home before a certain time, but no matter what they are always there. It is only on this block because the bodega located on the corner serves as a hangout for these drunken bullies who seemed to be unemployed, uneducated, and down right disgusting.

Now, I have given up and delved into a mini depression. There must be a law that helps women deal with this. Living in NYC, no matter what kind of neighborhood you are walking through, a woman will always some kind of sexual harassment. Ignoring is getting harder and harder since all these men want is a reaction.

Once I stuck up for for a woman that was getting horrible harassment and a young man told me I was stupid and that was not a smart thing to do. There is so much rage for such a trivial situation.

– Chiquita

Location: 672 Academy St., New York City, New York

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“I started carrying safety pins for that”

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I experienced many times as a young girl in Greece. I was harassed many times walking alone to go swimming, by construction workers who hollered all sorts of disgusting wording to me. All I could do is walk faster.

Another time walking through a crowded area and I was pinched by a young man. I turned around and hit him in the back.

Another time I was at a bridge, just 11-years-old, and I looked down and I saw a man masturbating looking at me. When I rode the crowded buses, men would turn their hand to touch my behind. I started carrying safety pins for that.

Once I was at a movie theatre with my father, and the man next to me proceeded to masturbate. I told my dad nothing and that we had to go.

– Anonymous

Location: Greece

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“I know how it feels to have my safety and my rights compromised”

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I have been harassed on the street several times and step in when I see it happening to other people, as I know how it feels to have my safety and my rights compromised.

When a construction worker (I really do feel for the great labourers out there who may be getting tarnished with the ‘harasser’ brush due to their miscreant peers) looked me up and down and told me I looked hot, I replied loudly “I don’t know who you are. We’re not friends.” all without breaking stride. I put my headphones in my ears but did not put music on, so if I was being pursued I could hear it.

I have also been known several times, to intervene when it becomes obvious people are trying to ‘covertly’ ogle using their camera phones on public transport. I will move from wherever I am and position myself very obviously between the perpetrator and the victim. It helps if I carry a big handbag or a broadsheet newspaper – anything big and clunky can be advantageous in this case!!

– HD

Location: Melbourne, Australia

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“A community that does not value women will never thrive”

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I live in Albuquerque,NM and I am a Mexican-American woman. This information is important in that when you are harassed in Albuquerque it is considered to be a “cultural thing.” I am of the culture and the men in my life do not harass women, so why is this okay?

Today, I was waiting for the bus in front of a grocery store in a very nice part of town. I was going home from work dressed in jeans and a button-down blouse, conservative. A car drives by and a young man sticks his head out of the window and yells, “You’re a slut!” I just stare back, and he keeps leering out at me. Then the car is gone.

Pretty common story right? Consider this one: a year ago, as I am waiting in front of a restaurant for my friend to pick me up, a SUV pulls up. The man asks me if I want a ride. I glare at him and shake my head. He hesitates, drives away and then circles back and slows down to stare at me. Is this common too, to be intimidated and objectified? Clearly this man thought that I was a prostitute. Which is even more uncomfortable for me because if a woman sells her body, she is often at a place in her life where she has few options, does that mean that by virtue of her role in society she is an object and men can do what they will?

Albuquerque is a good city, but a community that does not value women will never thrive. I do not feel safe.

– SBP

Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico

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New campaign to make Tahrir Square safe for women

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Stomach sinking. Outrage growing. Another recorded sexual assault committed by a group of men against one woman at Tahrir Square in Egypt.

Associated Press journalist Sarah El Deeb writes:

“Her screams were not drowned out by the clamor of the crazed mob of nearly 200 men around her. An endless number of hands reached toward the woman in the red shirt in an assault scene that lasted less than 15 minutes but felt more like an hour.

She was pushed by the sea of men for about a block into a side street from Tahrir Square. Many of the men were trying to break up the frenzy, but it was impossible to tell who was helping and who was assaulting. Pushed against the wall, the unknown woman’s head finally disappeared. Her screams grew fainter, then stopped. Her slender tall frame had clearly given way. She apparently had passed out.

The helping hands finally splashed the attackers with bottles of water to chase them away.

The assault late Tuesday was witnessed by an Associated Press reporter who was almost overwhelmed by the crowd herself and had to be pulled to safety by men who ferried her out of the melee in an open Jeep.

Reports of assaults on women in Tahrir, the epicenter of the uprising that forced Hosni Mubarak to step down last year, have been on the rise with a new round of mass protests to denounce a mixed verdict against the ousted leader and his sons in a trial last week.

The late Tuesday assault was the last straw for many. Protesters and activists met Wednesday to organize a campaign to prevent sexual harassment in the square. They recognize it is part of a bigger social problem that has largely gone unpunished in Egypt. But the phenomenon is trampling on their dream of creating in Tahrir a micro-model of a state that respects civil liberties and civic responsibility, which they had hoped would emerge after Mubarak’s ouster.

“Enough is enough,” said Abdel-Fatah Mahmoud, a 22-year-old engineering student, who met Wednesday with friends to organize patrols of the square in an effort to deter attacks against women. “It has gone overboard. No matter what is behind this, it is unacceptable. It shouldn’t be happening on our streets let alone Tahrir.”

Journalists Lara Logan, Mona Eltahawy, and Caroline Sinz; Egyptian actress Sherihan; the woman in the blue bra, and countless other women have lived through mass gropings and sexual assaults simply for being women protesting or reporting on the protests at Tahrir Square. Hundreds (thousands?) of women have lived through verbal sexual harassment in a place that is supposed to symbolize freedom, revolution, and safety.

Women have not been silent. They’ve gone public with their stories of assault, they’ve organized marches, and they’ve shared stories online. They’ve experienced backlash and harassment for speaking out and marching.

But still, the assaults and harassment continues.

Maybe with more men and women speaking out together to create a campaign to stop harassment specifically in the Square, complete with a patrol, things will be different…?

HarassMap, the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights, and other activist groups have been active on this issue for years (including by recently organizing nearly 100 people in a Human Chain), but clearly a targeted campaign is necessary. This is happening too often at Tahrir Square when one incident would be outrageous enough.

When will men allow women in Egypt be safe to protest, to participate in the political process, to be in public places? What will it take?

Update #1, via Mona Eltahawy: Tomorrow in Cairo there is a protest planned against sexual assault

Update #2: Follow @HarassMap to see their brainstorm for dealing with the harassers/assaulter, including by encouraging women to use spray cans to mark the perpetrators.

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