Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

“Men. Tell other men this is unacceptable”

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I am a woman. I’m on my way out for the night. I am tall, thin, white, and wearing a skirt with heels. These are all simple facts.

I am young. I live in New York City. I type this on my smart phone. My phone tried to auto-correct live to love. That is also true.

I get onto the train. Two men enter. I have on headphones because I saw this coming while I was getting ready an hour earlier. One sits – the other stops and leers. He sits – gets his friends attention and motions to me – obviously. They leer together. They talk while looking directly at me. If not for my noise canceling headphones – I could hear them. I am choosing not to – yet I am still becoming angry.

Eventually – I choose to walk to another section of the car to sit. The man across from me is looking at me every time I look up.

Let me stop you right there. This is not flattery or flattering. I am not conceited nor do I think they are looking at me because I am a wonderful, beautiful woman worthy of love and respect. I chose the word leer for a reason.

I am a woman. I love to dress up. I live in New York City. And sometimes I walk around un-chaperoned. This becomes a problem.

This becomes a constant of headphones in my ears. This becomes me clutching my keys in my pocket everywhere I go. This becomes I’m a bitch because I don’t say thank you to their catcalls. This becomes I was asking for it because I’m wearing a skirt and I am a woman alone.

This is a problem. A legitimate one. This is conditioning. This is my worry every time I leave the house. This is what Margaret Atwood meant when she said “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them; women are afraid that men will kill them.” This is reality. This runs through every woman’s head. This is not just a lack of being “raised right.” This is a lack of respect. This is harassment.

Men. Tell other men this is unacceptable. Women. Be yourself – dress however you please – stay safe – speak out. When someone harasses you – tell someone else.

Keep talking. Keep spreading awareness.

Stop street harassment.

– Mallorie Carrington

Location: New York City, R Train

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What I Taught My Mom

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By Kendra Corbin, SSH Intern

After what seems like an eternity of winter, spring is finally here! This means that my college graduation is just around the corner and that my time spent as an intern with Stop Street Harassment is coming to an end. This internship has been an amazing opportunity for me to learn more about the issues of women around the world. It’s also given me the opportunity to educate my family and friends about harassment in public spaces.

I’m mostly grateful to have had the chance to educate my mom about street harassment. My mom is an incredible woman. She’s empowered, supportive, and beautiful inside and out. She comes from a generation when street harassment was not given the attention that it deserved. It seems that street harassment was once considered something that women just had to deal with. However, over the last few months, she has listened to me talk about my internship, my personal encounters with harassment, and has read every article that I’ve written (hi mom!). She shares my articles on her Facebook page so that her friends can read about street harassment, as well. I cannot express how wonderful it’s been to watch her transition from not having much of an opinion on street harassment to now actively engaging with me in conversations about it.

For International Anti-Street Harassment Week, I planned a small chalking event on my college campus. My wonderful boyfriend joined me along with other students at Shenandoah University to chalk empowering, pro-respect messages around our campus. When I spoke to my mom after the event, she said to me, “I had thought about asking you if I could come and help you, but I didn’t want to embarrass you by having your mom there.” That moment both broke my heart and made me smile at the same time.

* First, I would never be embarrassed of the woman who gave me life.

* Second, I would have been proud to have had my mom join me in taking a stand against street harassment. The fact that she even wanted to help still means the world to me.

I would just like to thank my mom for being so supportive of me. She listens to me talk endlessly about street harassment, rape culture, and feminism. She takes an interest in what I care about. I couldn’t ask for a better mom. Finally, I would like to say how grateful I am that this internship has allowed me to connect with her on new level. Hopefully neither one of us will ever forget what we’ve learned together.

Kendra Corbin is senior at Shenandoah University. She is majoring in Mass Communications and minoring in Women’s Studies.

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“I cannot be expected to be escorted to and from the train station like a child”

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It doesn’t matter what time it is or what you’re wearing…there is no excuse for being harassed.

Its it 7:20 a.m. on April 16th, it is unusually cold and I am dressed warmly. As I walk the two blocks to the train station at Flatbush-Brooklyn College…I hear a man shouting at me from the driver side of a car. “Damn baby, I would love to drive that ass to work, mmm…damn you pretty” he said while slowing down to follow my pace. I have to be honest, I am a born and bred New Yorker and for the most part I ignore most commentary.

Not today I thought, as I replied back, “That’s rude and unwanted…drive your car asshole.”

He ignored me and kept on. “I would love to drive that fine ass to work, come on baby…let me drop you at work.”

I ignored him and walked briskly, only turning slightly to see him trailing me. This is where my speedy walk turned into a hop skip. Quite often my boyfriend of five years with whom I live will good-naturedly lecture me about the importance of being aware of your surroundings and not traveling alone late at night. This one of those moments where there is no “what you could have done better/differently.” I cannot be expected to be escorted to and from the train station like a child.

I have lived in my neighborhood for two years and with this incident occurring directly outside of my co-op…How can I be anymore aware?

There is no cop out, there is excuse, and there is no fault of mine.

Do you have any suggestions for dealing with harassers and/or ending street harassment in general?

Do not allow yourself to become a part of the “there is nothing I can do party.” Yes you can, step 1 is telling friends, family, Facebook your blog etc, that this kind of behavior should not and will not be tolerated. Step 2 is to realize that is not your job as a woman to act as entertainment for men and that they can/should control themselves and you are not at fault.

– PR

Location: Brooklyn
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“I was trapped and felt cornered”

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I was sitting at a cafe, minding my own business, when a man started talking to me. At first the conversation was simple, pleasant. But then he started asking invasive questions about my marital status and where I live. He then asked for my number- I declined. He asked me out- I said no. But he kept asking and wouldn’t leave me alone until he had to go. I didn’t know what to do; I was trapped and felt cornered. I didn’t want to leave because I had work to do and had just gotten to the place, but I felt like running away.

– Anonymous

Location: Azerbaijan

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Sexual harassment and abuse is not normal, but many people believe it is

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Whenever I give a talk about street harassment to a group of people that hasn’t identified as feminist, I am likely to hear comments like “It’s men’s nature,” “It’s a compliment,” “Sure we don’t like it, but what can we do about it?” Recently, had conversations with two different young women who said their mothers have told them it’s a compliment and just part of life as a woman. That is similar to what my mom once told me when I was a teenager.

The belief that this behavior is “normal” and “natural” and there’s nothing we can do about it is sadly widespread. Take this latest research, via Think Progress:

“Most young women assume that being harassed, assaulted, and abused is simply something that everyone experiences, according to the results from a forthcoming study that will be published in the next issue of the journal Gender & Society. The perception that gender-based violence is normal dissuades most victims from reporting those crimes.

In order to arrive at those conclusions, sociologist Heather Hlavka analyzed interviews conducted with 100 young women between the ages of three and seventeen years old. The interview subjects had been identified as potential sexual assault victims through an advocacy group that works to combat child abuse. Hlavka discovered that most of those girls rationalized their everyday experiences of abuse and harassment, simply believing there was nothing unusual about being victimized.

“Objectification, sexual harassment, and abuse appear to be part of the fabric of young women’s lives. They had few available safe spaces; girls were harassed and assaulted at parties, in school, on the playground, on buses, and in cars,” Hlavka writes. “Overwhelmingly described as ‘normal stuff’ that ‘guys do’ or tolerating what ‘just happens,’ young women’s sexual desire and consent are largely absent. Sex was understood as something done to them.”

In other words, these young women tend to believe that men can’t help it. They’ve been taught that men can’t control their aggressive sex drives, so it makes sense to them that girls will inevitably become the subject of that aggression. That’s a central aspect of rape culture, and Hlavka argues it’s been deeply socialized into young women. Most of the study participants didn’t understand that there was any other way for men and women to interact.”

When I worked at AAUW and co-authored a national study on sexual harassment in grades 7-12, this attitude was common among the harassers — “it’s no big deal/it’s just part of school life” was commonly given as the reason why they harassed another student.

As much as I’d like us (the anti-harassment movement) to be doing more prevention work, sadly, a lot of what is necessary right now is simply raising more awareness that sexual harassment and sexual violence are NOT normal and NOT okay.

I strongly believe that story-sharing can play a central role.

Take for example, a recent talk I gave to 100 students and faculty at a college in Maryland. During the Q&A a few men had no problem announcing to the room that it’s human nature for men to harass, women are to blame because of the tight clothing they wear, and (my favorite), that men are natural predators to women who are natural prey.

The talk was followed-up by a workshop with about 40 people, including the young man who made that last remark. At the start of the workshop, invited people to share their stories and several women did. And do you know what, that young man listened to their stories and shut up and did not say any more ridiculous things. I could see understanding and even empathy dawning in his eyes.

When people we care about — be they classmates, family members or friends — are negatively impacted by something, we are more apt to listen and to care, regardless of now “normal” or “okay” society says those issues are.

So, please, when you can, share your street harassment stories with people you trust – -raise their awareness that this a problem and why. Together we can help change social attitudes and go from seeing sexual harassment and assault as normal to deplorable.

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