Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Snickers: Men are not naturally harassers & women don’t owe men their attention

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UPDATE: Please sign the Care2 & Stop Street Harassment Petition!

Have you seen any of Snickers’ “You’re not you when you’re hungry” campaign? They show someone doing something out of character — until they eat a Snickers and then return to their normal self.

They have a new commercial in this campaign that was filmed in Australia that caught my attention.

In it, construction workers who are hungry and thus “not themselves” yell “empowering” things to women on the streets.

“I’d like to show you the respect you deserve!”

“A woman’s place is where she chooses!”

“You know what I’d like to see? A society in which the objectification of women makes way for gender-neutral interaction free from assumptions and expectations.”

Since Snickers is saying they are saying these things while they are not themselves, it suggests that when they are their normal selves they, what, yell crude and harassing things to women? Ummm, why would we ever feed them, then?

Also, holy crap — this is the answer to our problem — we can solve street harassment by starving men!

HA.

In all seriousness, there are two main reasons why this commercial is problematic:

1 – The trope that street harassment is only perpetrated by construction workers is OLD. Yet, companies and media continue to love to use it, with recent examples being SNL and Lego. In reality, men of all social classes, races, and professions street harass and there are many construction workers who do NOT street harass. Let’s try to at least be accurate in the representation of street harassers.

2 – Even though the construction workers are saying positive, non-harassing things, they are actually still engaging in behavior we do not support. They are singling women out and demanding their time and attention as they yell at them. Men are able to walk by the site and go about their business and keep thinking their thoughts, but the same is not true for women. They are interrupted, their attention is demanded. That is not equality. If you wouldn’t yell it at a man, you probably shouldn’t yell it at a woman. Remember: women do not owe you their time or attention!

You can contact Snickers to let them know why you’re #NotBuyingIt!

Also, a few suggested tweets:

@SNICKERS the way to stop #streetharassment isn’t to starve men. it’s to leave women alone on the streets!

@SNICKERS not all construction workers are street harassers when they “are themselves.” stop promoting that tired trope

@SNICKERS women do not own anyone their attention, whether it’s for “positive” or harassing attention

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Harassment in the Headlines

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By Kendra Corbin, SSH Intern

March has proven to be an exciting month in the fight against street harassment! This global issue has recently made the headlines in several countries:

Jordan:

In recent years, traditional gender values in Jordan have been struggling to merge with modern lifestyle choices. Many women now work outside of the home and reject having male escorts while out in public. However, street harassment has steadily risen alongside this new-found independence. Jordanian women often find themselves choosing to either endure harassment or risking their family’s fragile reputation if they choose to report their crimes.

Social media is now becoming an imperative tool in the fight against street harassment. Organizations such as HarassMap in Egypt and Uprising of Women in the Arab World use social media outlets to raise awareness and encourage societal change. While women are grateful for the effort, many activists admit that in order to eliminate street harassment, real change needs to take place within the government and its laws.

Nepal:

On March 18, activists in Kathmandu, Nepal, organized the Safe City Campaign. Their main goal is to raise awareness about street harassment and ultimately make Nepal streets safer for women. Along with providing possible solutions to the issue, activists and volunteers dispensed 2,000 flyers around public spaces. These flyers highlighted that street harassment is intolerable behavior. Campaign members acknowledge that encouraging people to talk about the issue is an important step in eliminating street harassment.

Belgium:

Expected to begin in April, sexual harassment in Belgium will be punishable by either hefty fines or up to one year in prison. The new law will extend to sexual harassment that takes place on the streets, in the workplace, or on social media sites. Deputy Prime Minister Joelle Milquet claims that while the law’s main objective is to protect women from violence and sexism, it will also protect men from demeaning sexist comments.

Street harassment in Belgium began gaining attention following Sofie Peeter’s documentary Femme de la Rue. The documentary consisted of footage from a hidden camera depicting the overt sexual harassment that women endure in public and interviews with women about their own experiences.

As of 2011, countries such as Italy, Germany, United Kingdom, Denmark, and Belgium signed a pledge vowing to take legal action in order to eliminate violence against women. Belgium has clearly stayed true to its promise.

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

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Men: Speak out against street harassment, March 30 – April 5 (and always)

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International Anti-Street Harassment Week starts in just 5 days!!

While women are the main targets of street harassment, entire families and communities are impacted by it — when women aren’t as safe in public spaces, everyone suffers. And so it’s in men’s best interest to get involved in challenging street harassment, and, as the main perpetrators of street harassment, they are in the best position to stop it.

Many men get this and will be involved in International Anti-Street Harassment Week this year, including male-led initiatives like:

* Hey Baby Art Against Sexual Violence (they’re hosting an event/rally at a high school in Tucson, AZ)

* London Tae Kwon Do School (they’re talking about street harassment during all of their classes that week)

* Masculinity U (they’ll be posting information on social media about street harassment)

* Men Stopping Violence (they’re hosting the April 4 Tweet Chat at 2 p.m. EDT, #EndSH).

Individual men will be involved too, like Mark Webster in Virginia who will donate his photography skills to photograph a sidewalk chalking event in Washington, D.C. on Sunday; Joe Samalin, a SSH blog correspondent who will speak at the NYC rally against street harassment on April 5; and Alan Kearl, my dad and HUGE SSH supporter who will join my mom in putting up flyers in South Beach, FL, this weekend.

Men: the best way you can get involved is to talk to other men about this issue. Tell them why it’s not cool to harass. Speak up when you see harassment happening. Join us in any way you can. We need you!

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Anti-Street Harassment Week 2014 Press Release

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
03/24/14

Contact:
Holly Kearl, hkearl@stopstreetharassment.org

International Anti-Street Harassment Week Draws Attention to the Problem of Street Harassment
23 Countries to Participate in Week of Awareness

WASHINGTON — In its fourth year, International Anti-Street Harassment Week will be observed by at least 150 groups in 23 countries from March 30 – April 5. Tens of thousands of people will participate in the awareness-raising week to tackle the prevalent social problem of gender-based street harassment.

“What could be more basic than the right to walk down one’s street safely, without facing harassment? For too many people – especially women and all members of the LGBQT community – this is a right they are routinely denied because of street harassment, or the threat of it,” said Holly Kearl, author two books on street harassment and the founder of the nonprofit organization Stop Street Harassment. “More and more people are recognizing street harassment as a human rights violation and each year we join forces, amplify each other’s efforts, and draw global attention to the problem.”

Groups in Egypt, India, Germany, Peru, Nepal, Colombia, and the United Kingdom will host activities, ranging from sidewalk chalking parties to informational workshops. Safe City Nepal members will distribute leaflets about harassment in Kathmandu. HarassMap in Cairo, Egypt, will run a campaign called Mesh Sakta (“Don’t be silent”) to encourage everyone to take an active role in speaking out when street harassment happens.  Stop Harcelement de la Rue will hold a “Safe Bar” event at a famous Paris, France, venue, followed by sidewalk chalking.

Stop Telling Women to Smile is a primary co-sponsor of the week and any interested people and groups can download PDFs of their famous “Stop telling women to smile” posters and paste them on walls in their community. Founder Tatyana Fazlalizadeh encourages everyone to paste the posters in the evening of April, 4 so that on April 5, “The walls around the world will bear the faces and words of women protesting street harassment.”

Events hosted in the United States include campus workshops on street harassment from Arizona to Pennsylvania, a film screening in Massachusetts, a Unity March in Texas, a rally in New York City, and distributing flyers at a Metro station in Virginia.

There will be many virtual events as well, including a Google+ Hangout panel on March 30 and six Tweet Chats on topics like the impact of street harassment on people’s lives and street harassment and teenagers (use hashtag #EndSH).

Participants in the week who are smartphone users are encouraged to use the new, free phone app called Safetipin that allows them to quickly conduct a safety audit wherever they are and see what other reports have been made in their area. “Our hope is that more people upload and use the information to advocate for safer streets and safer cities,” says Safetipin founder Kalpana Viswanath an advisor to the Jagori Safe Delhi Initiative. All pins for a city are clustered showing a color to indicate the level of safety (Green for Safe, Amber for Less Safe, and Red for Unsafe). A special report will be issued for all individual reports made that week.

Street harassment is a pervasive human rights violation. Around the world, studies suggest that most women and LGBTQ individuals face street harassment, ranging from verbal to physical forms, and it limits their access to public spaces.

Any individual can help speak out against street harassment during the week simply by sharing stories on and offline. Visit www.MeetUsontheStreet.org for more information about the week and how to be involved

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Stop Street Harassment is a nonprofit organization dedicated to documenting and ending gender-based street harassment worldwide through public education and community mobilization. SSH organizes International Anti-Street Harassment Week annually and helps activists with local campaigns through the Safe Public Spaces Mentoring Program. SSH just completed the first-ever national study on street harassment in the USA which will be released May 20, 2014.

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“He tries to ‘punish’ me”

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Sitting in a pretty empty stopped subway car with the doors still open, a man is walking by staring and I try to avoid him. He isn’t even getting on the subway but this doesn’t stop him from standing on the platform yelling into the car at me “Ma’am you’re beautiful!” I feel uncomfortable and don’t want to encourage him so I don’t respond, yet he still goes on: “Ma’am, you’re beautiful! You could at least say thank you!”

I still avoid him, and that is still not enough for him to just drop it, he goes on one more time and now he is annoyed that I am not appreciative of his obnoxious shouts, and he says, “Ma’am, YOU’RE UGLY”.

I couldn’t care less about whether a stranger thinks I am beautiful or ugly, its just the fact that he tries to ‘punish’ me or make me feel bad about myself because I don’t appreciate being hollered at is what gets to me.

– Anonymous

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