Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

USA: “It’s hard to fight an enemy that has outposts in your head”

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Jessie Koerner, Denver, Colorado, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

Bakken oil field via Billings Gazette

Some days the patriarchy slaps me in the face: the recent Hobby Lobby decision in the Supreme Court, the fact that Hollywood refuses to acknowledge the results of years of Bechdel Test results, the *minor* issue that rape offenders are so often excused and so rarely prosecuted. Some days the fact that society wants me to be a living, breathing mannequin creeps up on me.

In June, I wrote about how the city of Denver must have agreed to take a time out from harassing women on the street. I’ve been travelling between Colorado, North Dakota and Montana for work ever since, and to be honest, haven’t spent much time outside the office, a car, airport, or rural oil pads. It wasn’t until I was playing blackjack in a Dickinson, North Dakota, hotel that I had a thought so out of left field, I blamed it on the SoCo and 7s I’d been drinking at the table. Why is no one hitting on me?

There’s some context here that I should probably fill you in on that has nothing to do with my inflated ego. The Bakken oil field, which spans eastern Montana, to southern Alberta, and western North Dakota is the place to be if you’re in oil and gas. The addition of its one million barrels (42 gallons in a barrel) a day is what’s catapulting the United States to the top of the oil producing nations list. The Bakken boom is also responsible for a huge influx of people to western North Dakota, and at least initially, most of that population consisted of men.

If you’re reading this blog, I’m assuming you have some idea of what happens when you combine a male population influx, and money – think Super Bowl, World Cup, etc. Prostitution. And if the FBI, and human rights organizations are to be believed (obviously), around 75-80% – conservative estimates – of those prostitutes are trafficked. So this is a problem in the Bakken. A huge problem. In addition, I’ve talked with multiple people, including a police investigator in Dickinson, who say that girls who live in the western North Dakota area refuse to go to bars any more because they’re sick of being hit on and harassed.

So this detour in information has brought us back around to that night at the blackjack table, where I lost five whole dollars to Dickinson charities (I’m a conservative and blasé gambler… what can I say). Why are none of these douchecanoes hitting on me? Nevermind the fact that I was with my (dude) boss, another (guy) coworker, and kept yelling at every guy who sat down to “stop telling me how to bet, dear God, I will do what I want!” because, shocker, all these strange men wanted to impart their knowledge of a game of randomness.

In and of itself, this can be chalked up to a bruised ego and a bad hair day. However, I’ve been back to running around Denver for a couple of weeks now after that night, and I find that same thought creeping into my head: Why isn’t anyone harassing me? I signed up for this blogging position because I was harassed in the worst ways prior to this. Am I not pretty any more? OMG is this why I’m still single?

These ridiculous (and they are absolutely, utterly ridiculous) thoughts crept into my head, uninvited and completely automatically. Why is my subconscious whining about NOT being harassed on my daily walk from my parked car to Starbucks to the office? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?!

Sneaky, sneaky patriarchy, I have internalized you, despite all the feminist bones in my body, and my empowering upbringing, and my long-time mantra of “leave me alone, I will do what I want!” When and if this happens to you, I’ll be here in my own little support group, and while I hope not to have other members, the door is always open.

This is, to me, the most insidious part of street harassment. The fear, the anxiety, the utter frustration with the situation, the split second inner debate of “should I/shouldn’t I confront this douchecanoe?” can, in most cases, be left on the street – until the next time. The unexpected self-objectification that results from the constant barrage of catcalls and objectification by men when going about our every day lives reminds me of a Sally Kempton quote that has long been accurate for me: “It’s hard to fight an enemy that has outposts in your head.”

Women alter every day behavior to avoid the experience of being harassed. Changing routes; planning ahead for the experience – “I will walk past my final destination so this harasser doesn’t know where I’m going”; avoiding working out in public, and joining a gym; changing outfits to avoid the catcalls, these are just a few examples. The constant imposition of a flight-or-fight response for walking down the street is stressful enough. Then, after so much of this, the normalization of being harassed, and the societal expectation that victims should just deal with it quietly as a part of the social compact, we get to take it home. We get to deal with the internalization of yet another message that we are an object in the world rather than a person.  AND we get told to take it as a compliment.

Even after the immediate threat has passed, the reverberations lay in wait, and reveal themselves to all of us who’ve experienced street harassment when we least expect it. They show up when we think we’ve finally gotten a reprieve from the exhausting spectacle that is being a woman in public.

Jessie is a longtime human rights activist with a feminist focus. She founded the Amnesty International chapter in college, is an active participant in JustWorld International, and manages the social media accounts for the Global Women’s Network and winnovating.com, where she also blogs.  Find her on Twitter and Instagram, @pearlsandspurs.

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“The first time I experienced street harassment, I was 12 years old”

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The first time I experienced street harassment, I was 12 years old. I was sitting alone in my mom’ scar outside of a landscaping/flower shop, reading a book, while she went inside to buy flowers.

From the corner of my eye, I saw an older man who worked there, probably in his 20s or 30s, staring at me and nodding his head up and down. He motioned for about five and then five more of his friends to come over. From 20 feet away from the car they kept nodding their heads at me and making inappropriate smirks and kissing faces. I was scared and so I ran inside the shop to stand next to my mom. My hands were shaky and my cheeks were red..she asked what was wrong but I said I was fine because I thought it was my fault.

I’m 18 now and I know it wasn’t my fault, and neither were my other experiences with street harassment.

– Anonymous

Location: Elmhurst, Il

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

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IN FEAR OF THE BLACK BOOGEYMAN: Confronting Racist Stereotypes about Street Harassment

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By Lavender Kitchen Sink Collective

On August 7th there was a link via Upworthy on the Stop Street Harassment Facebook page to a YouTube video titled the “Smile Bitch Training Camp.” This one minute video was a satirical take on the misogynist expectation that women in public spaces should present themselves as smiling and cheerful at all times. Created by Black comic actress and blogger Janelle James, the satire featured a cast of mostly white young women and girls (about three of the female actors were visibly people of color) who enrolled themselves into boot camp to train on how to smile on demand for strangers at all times. Despite the presence of Black and Asian faces, the overrepresentation of middle class-presenting white women presents street harassment as a threat to white female bodies. I also noticed a problematic aspect about the actors playing the street harasser roles. First, all the harassers were portrayed as either low-income and/or homeless. Secondly, all but two of the men were visibly Black. While the central message of the video was critically important, the racialized subtext that equates “poor Black man = street harasser” undermined the video’s message.

In response to criticism about the racial characterizations from viewers on the video’s YouTube page, James replied, “It was something I really struggled with during editing. I’d never want that to be the message. These [the actors] are all my friends, they worked (hard) for free and I had to work with what I had. And if it wasn’t funny, it had to go.”

While it is understandable that limited budgets and time constraints affected James’ casting decisions, it is much harder to justify why the male actors embody common classist and racist tropes about harassers: thuggish, unwashed, uneducated, and homeless. If the same set of actors had portrayed these characters as middle-class, college-educated, the video still would have had the same powerful message—minus the racist/classist subtext. In fact, the video would have included a crucial and long-ignored fact about gender violence: so-called “respectable” men regularly harass and assault women.

The idea that all street harassment involves a Black perpetrator and a white victim is not only incorrect, but dangerous. First, studies on street harassment reveal that intersecting forms of marginalization often make women more vulnerable to harassment. Stop Street Harassment’s own 2014 national study “Unsafe and Harassed in Public Spaces” revealed that Black and Latina women and girls are more likely to experience street harassment than their white counterparts. Black women and girls also experience harassment in ways that specifically entrench misogynoirist and cissexist violence against Black women’s bodies, as womanist blogger Feminista Jones noted during the #YouOkSis hashtag campaign on Twitter. Second, the idea that Black men are inherently dangerous to white women has been used historically to criminalize Black men and justify racial disparities in criminal profiling, arrests, and incarceration. Third, having an image in our heads of the street harasser as a poor Black man keeps us from recognizing genuinely abusive and dangerous people in public spaces, all because they don’t fit our racial preconception of what a sexual harasser-predator is.

In the last couple of years, there has been a growing public awareness about street harassment, and the many social, economic, and political costs that sexualized harassment in public spaces can exact on women and other marginalized communities. While street harassment is generally understood as a form of misogynist verbal assault that (cisgender) men use to exert external control over women, street harassment is often employed as a way to reinforce all forms of social domination in public space. People of color, trans/gender-nonconforming people, disabled people, children, immigrants, and homeless people all regularly face street harassment and attendant violence that reinforces the systemic oppression that they face. What needs to be understood about street harassment is not only how this violence threatens women’s personal autonomy and access to space, but how the right to public space for all marginalized people is still contested in a hegemonic society.

Lavender Kitchen Sink Collective is a project that centers queer/trans people of color perspectives on economic, gender, and political justice. Check LKSC out at www.lavenderkitchensink.com or follow on Twitter at @lkscollective.

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Aug. 11 Street Harassment News in the USA

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“The Psychology Behind Street Harassment—And How You Can Stop It,” Shape.com

“Coping with catcalls: How some women brush off street harassment,” TODAY Show

“Buzzfeed’s video about street harassment is a must-see,” Washington Post

“Viewpoint: Street harassment is a female college student’s reality,” USA Today

“#ThatsWhatHeSaid Takes on Street Harassment Because Seriously, It Needs To Stop,” Bustle

“Man Knocked Unconscious After Defending Group of Women From Catcallers: Police,” NBC

“Women could learn to cope better with unwanted sexual advances — or men could stop making them,” Salon.com

“These Are The Things Men Say To Women On The Street,” Huffington Post

“#YouOkSis: Online movement launches to combat street harassment,” the Grio

“This Street Harassment Satire Teaches Women To Always Smile Like Lunatics,” Fast Co Create

“This is why you should stop telling us all to smile,” Metro UK

Construction worker Dylan Craine gives his advice for dealing with harassment by construction workers.

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Aug. 2014: International News Round-Up

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Peru:

“Peru’s Council of Ministers on Wednesday approved a bill amending Criminal Code to punish street harassment with the aim to protect children and women. The announcement was made by the newly-appointed Prime Minister, Ana María Jara, who expressed confidence that Congress will approve this initiative soon, as it is a “citizen outcry” intended to correct legislative omission. Meanwhile, the Minister of Women and Vulnerable Populations of Peru, María del Carmen Omonte, explained the bill amends sections 176 and 176-A of the Criminal Code to make street harassment a crime.”

Colombia:

“Over 60 percent of women are sexually harassed or assaulted while riding the Transmilenio. ‘Ya uno no se puede venir en falda ni nada porque los hombres nunca han visto unas piernas,’ or You can’t get on wearing a skirt or anything because these men have never seen [a woman’s] legs, one victim of inappropriate touching sarcastically told Noticias RCN. Luckily, the city of Bogotá is taking action. Its law enforcement branch created a team of 11 operatives who will be armed with Tasers and specially trained in recognizing and stopping sexual assault. Seven of the agents are female. Bogotá has a population of over 7,600,000, so that’s about 690,909 people per agent, but it’s a start. The very presence of the team could serve as a deterrent to repeat offenders.”

Turkey:

One of the most senior members of the Turkish government sparked an outcry on Tuesday, after declaring that women should not laugh loudly in public. The deputy prime minister, Bülent Arinc, one of the co-founders of the ruling Islamic-rooted Justice and Development party (AKP), made the comment while lamenting the moral decline of modern society. His comments provoked a storm on social media [and women posted photos of themselves laughing in public spaces].”

Mexico:

“The city government has implemented measures to try to make travelling safer or at least less horrific for women. The first three carriages on the metro are reserved exclusively for women and children, though this is not always policed. Since 2008, there have also been women only buses during rush hour, or anti-groping buses as they’re sometimes called. These are laudable and measures warranted in a country where violence against women is egregious, but clearly segregating women is not a long-term solution. Neither is sweltering in jeans and long sleeved tops on summer days in an attempt to protect yourself from harassment. Boys must be educated from a very young age to respect women rather than to want to own and violate them when they are older.

Being harried on the streets is at one end of the violence against women spectrum. More than 36,000 women have been murdered in Mexico between 1985 and 2010, according to UNIFEM and local NGOs. This includes hundreds of young women dismembered and murdered in Ciudad Juárez near the US border in the past few years. One women is raped in Mexico every four minutes, according to JASS (Just Associates), an international feminist organisation, that’s 120,000 a year. New laws to tackle the violence have not been implemented, which Amnesty International says has enabled impunity to persist. ‘The state of women’s rights in Mexico is alarming,” said Rupert Knox, from Amnesty International. “In recent years we have witnessed not only an increase in killings of women but a continuing routine lack of effective investigations and justice.'”

Brazil:

“Police in Brazil say the shooting deaths of 12 young women so far this year in the city of Goiania may be the work of a serial killer. The latest victim was a 14-year-old girl who was shot three times by a motorcyclist who drove up to her as she waited for a bus Sunday. Police inspector Murilo Polati told reporters Tuesday that all the victims were aged 13 to 29, had long hair and were in public places when killed. He says that in all the cases the gunman approached on a motorcycle, drew his gun, fired and fled without taking anything.”

Saudi Arabia:

“A Saudi survey has revealed that around 80 percent of people blame the rising incidents of sexual harassment in the country on the “deliberate flirtatious behaviour” of women.”

India:

“A community panchayat has banned girls from wearing jeans and keeping mobile phones claiming that they were having a “bad” effect on them and were responsible for eve-teasing [street harassment] incidents.”

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