Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

“Make anti-street harassment lessons compulsory “

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I walked into school and a group of boys started making tit jokes and whistling at me. They were so bad at whistling one of them brought an actual whistle. It made me feel uncomfortable. Fortunately, at that moment the bell rang.

Late that day a boy in my form class, while he was walking past me and touched the side of my breast. I reported it to my teacher but she said it must have been an accident. I wasn’t surprised. My school never takes this stuff seriously.

Optional: What’s one way you think we can make public places safer for everyone?

Make anti-street harassment lessons compulsory as part of PSHE/Sex ed.

– E

Location: Schoolyard

Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more idea

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ʺRun home to daddy b****”

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My high school is located in the upper downtown area of Indianapolis, Indiana. When I was a sophomore I was walking down the city street from my school to a coffee shop about five blocks away to wait for my father to come pick me up. It was the middle of July and hot outside, so the streets weren’t too busy. As I waited at a stop light to cross the street, a man started to approach me walking fast. As he got up next to me he shoved a tube filled with liquid to my face asking ʺHey beautiful, do you know a man that smells like this?ʺ Terrified that it was laced with drugs or something I held my breath and stepped away. I told him as politely as I could muster, ʺNo, I’m sorry I do not.ʺ

He said, ʺYou didn’t even smell it.ʺ And shoved it to my face again.

This time I began to walk quickly across the street as my light changed, where he then began to follow me, and started to become angry. I asked him to leave me alone, and then I was confronted with angry yells like, ʺSpoiled mother f****** racist princessʺ ʺRun home to daddy b****.ʺ

I spotted police cars parked by a CVS and quickly made my way in there, where he finally walked away. I waited in there for about 30 minutes, then ran the rest of my way to the coffee shop. Later when I told a trusted older cousin about the incident, she told me things like that wouldn’t happen to me if I didn’t wear the clothes I wear. I was 15, In a baggy t-shirt and cut off shorts, in 90 degree weather. I’m 18 now, and this event still haunts me, along with others.

#StopStreetHarassment

Optional: What’s one way you think we can make public places safer for everyone?

If you see it, say something. If the actual attack isn’t horrifying enough, its being surrounded by people who didn’t say a thing.

– Melissa

Location: Indianapolis, Indiana

Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more idea

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New Resource for Runners in Philadelphia

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Credit: Samantha Varnum

Alon Abrahamson is the creator of the Philadelphia-based running website Run Philly and created an “Incident Report” page that allows runners to log in incidents of harassment, physical assault, muggings and more that happen while they are running.

Via Runner’s World:

““These incidents must happen every single day, multiple times per day,” Abramson told Runner’s World Newswire. “I want to provide a mechanism to capture that. In doing so, we would actually have material to give to decision-makers and people with actual power to makes some changes like fixing bad intersections or putting out more patrols. It’s a bit of a civic experiment.”

After crowdsourcing data through this fall, Abramson will create a heatmap, which will ideally reveal hotspots of trouble for runners in Philadelphia.”

H/T Michelle Hamilton

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Update on Detained Chinese Activists

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As I’ve shared here before, on March 6 and 7, public security officials detained five feminist activists in China who planned to distribute stickers and leaflets on March 8, International Women’s Day, to raise awareness about the problem of sexual harassment on public transportation (something SSH does and advocates others do in their communities). Nearly 3 weeks later, they are still being detained.

The New York Times reported yesterday that “Lawyers for the detainees, who were held on suspicion of ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble,’ say their clients are being maltreated in jail. The police took away the eyeglasses of Ms. Wei and Ms. Zheng. Ms. Wang was hospitalized with heart problems after interrogations continuing far into the night. Ms. Wu has been denied medication for her hepatitis.” (More on their health conditions.) The article also talks about how people speaking out against their detention within China are facing backlash.

On Monday I joined Allie of SlutWalk DC held a protest at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC. Here are stories about it by Voice of America and RFA Cantonese

Protests have also been held outside the UN in New York and in New Delhi, Hong Kong, and Seoul, Korea. UN Ambassadors and EU representatives have called for their release. Unfortunately, yesterday the BBC reported that “China has rejected calls from several foreign governments to free five women’s rights activists who have spent nearly three weeks in detention.”

For the latest updates on the five women, follow the Free Chinese Feminists Facebook page.

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Peru Passes a law, one is introduced in Panama

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The Peruvian government officially passed the law against street harassment that the Congress approved earlier this month.

Meanwhile in Panama, Ana Matilde Gómez, an independent member of Panama’s National Assembly introduced a bill that would criminalize street harassment. It would also outlaw bullying, stalking, racism and all forms of sexual harassment. It also calls for developing public policies aimed at preventing these problems.

 

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