Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

#16Days of Activism: Creative Youth Projects (Day 14)

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Nov. 25 – Dec. 10 are the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence. To commemorate the week, we are featuring 1 activism idea per day. This information is excerpted from my new book Stop Global Street Harassment: Growing Activism Around the World (Praeger 2015).

Whether it’s by making art or a video or organizing a march, youth from Azerbaijan to the United States are undertaking creative ways to address street harassment.

beagentleman“What do you get when you annoy girls? They just think you are a bad person,” “You shouldn’t do it, bro,” and “Be a good man,” six teenage boys tell their peers in a mixture of Azerbaijani and English in a 2012 YouTube video. Jake Winn, an American youth development Peace Corps volunteer was in Azerbaijan, from 2010 to 2012 and had daily interaction with many young boys and men. He told me he noticed that “street harassment was a learned behavior and most were sincerely ignorant to the dangers and problems with street harassment.”

When he brought it up with them, there was little resistance to the idea that it needed to stop. It was just something they had never thought about. And for the boys and men who did think there was something wrong, he said, “they didn’t know how to bring it up, how to resist, how to convey a message to their peers that it wasn’t OK.”

After Winn showed the youth an American video of men telling other men to stop harassing women, the boys decided to make their own. “They wrote it, filmed it, edited it. … They loved making the video and were proud to show it,” Winn said. “Few had ever taken the time to think and reflect. It was great to see how inspired girls were to realize how many allies they had among the young men.”

To date, it has been viewed more than 6,000 times, and it received a standing ovation when it was shown at a youth film festival in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku. Winn also developed a lesson plan and discussion questions for other Peace Corps volunteers to use with their own students, and more than a dozen volunteers did so. The materials are available on the SSH website in both Azerbaijani and English.

2014 Hey Baby art in Tucson
2014 Hey Baby art in Tucson (Abril is two in from the left)

Hey Baby | Art Against Sexual Violence launched in Tucson, Arizona, through the Southern Arizona Center Against Sexual Assault in 2009. Inspired by an art-centric Hey Baby project in North Carolina, up to 50 students and 30 adults participate in the Tucson initiative each spring. Their artwork addresses themes of prevention and support for survivors of homophobia, street harassment, relationship abuse, rape, and child sexual abuse.

While the program is currently evolving, in the past, the art has been displayed in public libraries across Tucson during Sexual Assault Awareness Month and online. “I think it is important for youth to engage with troubling social issues in a context where they have control over the processes used to solve that problem,” the program’s manager (and SSH board member) Manuel Abril told me. “This means that instead of making youth [feel they] have to identify with social issues (social systems dispense blame for social problems affecting them onto marginalized communities) they are able to investigate it, to unravel it aesthetically, and to give it back to society.”

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Italy: Street Harassment and Gender Stereotypes

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Sara Rigon, Italy, SSH Blog Correspondent

You are walking down the street and a man screams at you “hey, you are beautiful, babe”. You ignore him and keep walking. A million thoughts cross your mind: “Oh no, not again”, “Should I thank him so he doesn’t get mad”, “Does he look hostile?”, “Should I cross or walk faster?” etc.

The bottom line is you just want it to be over and with no consequences, so you rarely ask yourself why. It has happened so many times and it will happen again: it feels so pointless to wonder why.

Nonetheless, if we want to put an end to this we should learn from the best and follow Sun Tzu’s art of war rule: know your enemy. So, where does street harassment and violence against women come from? Where does it all start?

Vintage Sexist Ad
Vintage Sexist Ad

Social norms often view violence against women as a private matter and street harassment as women’s responsibility. Basically it is your fault: the way you walk, the clothes you wear, the way you look or don’t look, you are causing the problem: it is you. But it is not, it is a matter of gender and power. As the United Nation Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, adopted by the General Assembly on 20 December 1993, states “[violence against women] is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women, which have led to domination over and discrimination against women by men and to the prevention of the full advancement of women, and that violence against women is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position compared with men”.

In other words gender violence is a matter of gender equality and street harassment is the daily proof that despite of what some people think in 2015 men and women are not equal, not even in the civil and democratic western world. This is when I get the feeling life is like monopoly: we got the “go back 3 spaces” card. Back to gender equality and the question remains: how do you fight historically unequal power? I say we start from stereotypes and prehistoric clichés.

They say stereotypes are not a bad thing, on the contrary they can save your life as they help you categorize the world and quickly make sense of the mass of data that compose your day which will take forever to interpret if taken individually. However I’m not so sure this is always the case as nothing is entirely good (or bad, of course). Clichés and stereotypes about women, for example, are not necessary true and they definitely don’t simplify your life, especially if you belong to that group of people who is believed to be superficial but caring and maternal, good listener and compassionate but also gossipy and bitchy, ornamental and absolutely not good at STEM.

You may have heard of the term STEM, it seems like everyone is talking about it, creating hashtag and launching campaign to increase the number of students in such an innovating field. For those who are not familiar with it, STEM (previously SMET) is an acronym that refers to the academic disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Women in STEM
Women in STEM

I have never really thought about it, but with all this talking about STEM and the lack of women in STEM education I started reflecting on my relationship with math and science. Did an old and narrow-minded stereotype put me off STEM? That’s not possible, I love science, I am a doctor, after all, and I have plenty of women colleagues. As a recent bmj career article reports that back in 2009 the Royal College of Physicians predicted that by 2017 most doctors would be women. I thought we were doing well, however I was forgetting that medicine is not strictly considered science, but more of an art and doctors artist armed with basic scientific knowledge in medicine.

STEM is more about hard science and so my studying to become a physician doesn’t really count. To be totally honest, I’ve always thought I wasn’t good at math and I’ve never contemplated the idea of pursuing a career in engineering. Now that I think about it, even with good grades in math I’m not so sure I would have enrolled in a STEM program at Uni knowing what the boys in my class thought and said about girls who majored in engineering and mathematics.

Reading the recent L’Oréal Foundation international report on the perception of women in science I can say it is not just me, conscious and unconscious bias and cliché on women in STEM are real and they discourage girls from undertaking a scientific education and ultimately a STEM job and career, the same and old cliché that undermine women and sustain gender inequality. Now more than ever, we know the limiting factor is not women’s brain but culture. Science needs diversity, we need a cultural shift.

Unfortunately, cultural changes are known to be slow and painful, especially when they are lead by grown-ups, in such cases it gets a lot easier if you start from posterity. It is not simple to separate nature from nurture and all different aspect of creating gender role in kids, however studies shows that drawing clear distinction in gender roles plays a role in pushing kids toward a specific career and gender stereotype.

So it’s up to us, to you, to be the change you want to see in the world: enroll your daughters to math camp and football teams, ask Santa to bring your son cooking and baking toys and dancing shoes: this could be the first step to stop street harassment for good.

Sara is a registered General Practitioner in Italy and New Zealand. She is the founder and current lead of the newly established Equally Different group within the European Junior General Practitioners Organization, the Vasco da Gama Movement, branch of the World Organization of Family Doctors. Follow her on Twitter @rgn_sr.

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Street Harassment Testimony Before DC Council – Moughari

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On Thursday, the DC council held an historic hearing on street harassment. This was the testimony of our board member Layla Moughari.

Our board member Layla before she gave her testimony
Layla right before she gave her testimony.

Good morning, Committee members. My name is Layla Moughari. I am a resident of Ward One and a member .of the Stop Street Harassment Board of Directors. Thank you for the opportunity to speak at this roundtable.

I’m here to request that you take action against street harassment.

Many people see street harassment as harmless, and a fact of life. But street harassment can be terrifying and inhibit mobility, and there’s always a possibility that street harassment can escalate into violence or sexual assault.

In the 10 years I’ve lived in DC, street harassment has been a regular feature in my life.  There have been times I’ve experienced it daily.

In Columbia Heights, I’ve experienced several aggressive and upsetting interactions. On one occasion, two men shouted obscenities at me because I didn’t respond to their advances. Another time, someone grabbed me as he rode past me on his bike.

And in another situation I was alone, walking to the gym at 6 o’clock in the morning. It was pitch black out and no one was around. I heard someone hissing at me. I looked around and couldn’t see anyone. The hissing continued but closer this time. I realized that someone was following me, getting closer to me, but hiding from me.  I was alone in the dark.  When the hissing continued, I felt that I was in imminent danger and completely helpless. I started to run and scream down the street. A concerned neighbor asked if I was OK. I was still scared, but I felt better instantly.

I skipped the gym that morning, and never felt safe walking home again. In fact, the harassment I experienced in Columbia Heights contributed to my decision to move from the neighborhood in 2012 after living there five years.

Unfortunately, this experience is not unique to me as is evident by the others here today and the many people who submit their stories to the CASS and Stop Street Harassment blogs. A national study commissioned by SSH found that two-thirds of women and one-quarter of men had experienced gender-based harassment in public spaces.

While some research exists on street harassment, we lack concrete data for DC and are limited in what we know about the rates, causes and consequence of street harassment here in the District, as well as the best practices for combating it.

I request that the city council assist in collecting data so we can better understand the scope of the problem and where specifically it happens. Then, once we understand the issue more, I hope the city council can work with local organizations on non-criminalizing, community-based solutions such as public awareness campaigns.

I hope that one day street harassment will be viewed the same way workplace sexual harassment is largely seen now, recognized by our culture as disrespectful,  inappropriate, and harmful.  Workplace sexual harassment was also accepted as normal not long ago.  But with research, policies, laws, enforcement of the rule of law, and culture change, workplace harassment is much less pervasive today.

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Street Harassment Testimony Before DC Council – Kearl

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Yesterday the DC council held an historic hearing on street harassment. This was my testimony.

12.3.15 DC council hearing holly kearl testifyingGood morning, members of the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Housing & Community Development. My name is Holly Kearl. I am the founder of Stop Street Harassment, a consultant for UN Women’s Safe Cities Global Initiative and the author of several books about sexual harassment in public spaces, or street harassment.

I’ve lived in the area for more than 10 years and across 8 of them, I was in DC daily for graduate school and then work. Like probably everyone in the room, I’ve personally experienced numerous instances of harassment here.

I am thrilled this roundtable is taking place. Only three other city councils in the country have held sessions specifically on this topic: NYC in 2010, Philadelphia in 2013, and Kansas City in 2014.

Yet, street harassment is a pervasive problem across the nation. My organization commissioned the largest nationally representative survey to date last year and it found that 2/3rds of women and 1/4th of men had faced street harassment. Women mostly faced sexualized comments and nearly 1 in 4 reported being touched sexually in a public space.

For men, homophobic or transphobic slurs were most common. As part of the research, I also conducted focus groups nationwide, including one with gay and bisexual men in Washington, DC, many of whom shared numerous harassment stories.

For most people who took the survey, street harassment began before age 17. This is not okay.

Addressing street harassment matters because it makes people feel unsafe, objectified, and uncomfortable in public spaces. It can limit people’s lives in significant ways, including where they go, when, with whom and what they do.

For this reason, a growing number of governments as well as the United Nations view street harassment as a human rights violation and something that prevents full equality.

I am grateful that Washington, DC leaders are acknowledging this too, most notably, on the transit system. Nearly four years ago, I testified about harassment before the city council during WMATA’s performance oversight hearing. I am glad that WMATA quickly agreed to begin tracking incidents, train their staff, and create PSAs. I can’t help but smile each time I see a poster on the system.

We join other capital cities who have recently launched transit campaigns in London, Paris, Tokyo, Delhi, Cairo and Bogota and in American cities like Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, and NYC.

WMATA has committed to another PSA campaign next year, for which I’m grateful. We’ve discussed having its message focus on encouraging bystanders to speak up. For a first recommendation today, I want to emphasize the importance of bystanders being the focus.

Bystander intervention is important for many reasons and one is that it can help a harassed person get through a terrible situation more easily. I have heard over and over from women who say that an experience was so much worse because there were people all around when the harassment happened but no one said or did anything. If they are taught what to do, bystanders may be able to interrupt or stop the harassment, or at the very least, check in with the harassed person to see if they are okay and thus help them recover more quickly from what happened.

Harassment of course, is not limited to the transit system. It also happens on the streets, in parks, in bars and clubs, and in stores and restaurants. For that reason, my second recommendation is that the city council work with local groups like CASS and SSH on collecting data so we can better understand the problem and work to end it, using community-based, non-criminal solutions.

And last, because many people feel alcohol or the relaxed atmosphere of a bar or club makes inappropriate behavior okay, I would also suggest a special focus on addressing harassment there. A few cities have campaigns to train bar and club staff about harassment, including Boston and Iowa City and the whole state of Arizona. In the UK, the Good Night Out campaign works nationally with more than 100 night life venues.

Locally, CASS and Defend Yourself have a Safe Bars program and I hope the city council can help give local establishments incentives to work with them.

I am proud to live in an area where street harassment is taken seriously and I look forward to collaborating and working with the city council in the future. Thank you.

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