Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Get Ready for a Good Night Out

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By Kendra Corbin, SSH Intern

Sexual harassment in bars is a terrible obstacle for many women just looking for a night out with the girls. At least, that’s what I’ve been told. To be honest, I can’t speak from personal experience about the sexual harassment that occurs specifically in bars. My personality falls more along the lines of, “Let’s binge-watch Netflix together this weekend” rather than, “Let’s go out to a bar this weekend.” While I might lack first-hand experience with sexual harassment in bars, I understand that it regularly happens to countless women and LGBQT individuals. Whether walking down a street or having some drinks in a local bar, all people deserve to feel safe in any public space.

Hollaback London‘s new campaign intends to make that happen. The fellow anti-street harassment organization recently launched the Good Night Out campaign. This campaign’s goal is to keep nights safe and fun by eliminating sexual harassment in bars and clubs. Hollaback London will be providing training for staff members, resources, and posters to participating venues. The strategically-placed posters will emphasize that sexual harassment will NOT be tolerated. The posters declare:

We want you to have a good night out. If something or someone makes you feel uncomfortable, no matter how minor it seems, you can report it to any member of our staff and they will work with you to make sure it doesn’t have to ruin your night.

Participating establishments will sign a pledge vowing to make their environments safe and welcoming for all. Hollaback London encourages patrons to tweet to @hollabackLDN about their experiences using the hashtag #goodnightout. This campaign is a wonderful step to making London’s nightlife harassment-free.

A similar project, Safe Bars, exists in Washington D.C. Safe Bars is supported by Collection Action for Safe Spaces and the self-defense organization Defend Yourself. This project works directly with local nightlight venues to provide safety training for the staff, increase awareness of sexual harassment, and promote safety for all customers.

It is common knowledge that sexually aggressive behavior is prevalent in bars, hence the necessity for the aforementioned projects. However, a new study found that alcohol is not the sole factor to blame for sexually aggressive behavior in bars. Rather, it found that male aggressors intentionally target inebriated women. If you need an example of what constitutes sexually aggressive behavior, Jezebel featured an article on ABC’s new series Mixology. A short trailer shows the male characters hunting for drunk women at a bar. The normalcy of their behavior (and the fact that it’s meant to be funny) is repulsive. While the show is fictional, their behavior is not. This is why campaigns such as Good Night Out and Safe Bars exist.

Overall, every person has the basic right to safety in all public spaces. Alcohol has the ability to coexist with a fun, healthy environment as long as patrons and staff members respect one another. These great organizations and campaigns will continue to ensure that nights out are fun and safe for everyone.

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

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International Women’s Day 2014: 5 Ways to Make Streets Safer

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Equality for women “remains the great unfinished business of the 21st century,” Hillary Clinton said at the UN yesterday, in her International Women’s Day speech. “No country in the world, including my own, has achieved full participation.”

This is true and street harassment is a symptom of that inequality. Women feel less safe than men in public spaces in every country and sexual harassment in public spaces (as well as in schools, workplaces, places of worship, and homes) is the main reason. The lack of safety keeps many women out of public spaces. That is not equality.

We deserve a world where everyone has equal access to public spaces and the resources and opportunities there. We must speak out and demand it and work toward it.

Here are five ways you can help make the streets safer:

1. Share your story – bring attention to this problem. If you’re not impacted by this issue directly, read the stories of those who are to better understand why this matters.

2. Plan to participate in International Anti-Street Harassment Week, March 30 – April 5. Bring attention to this issue in your community and work toward solutions.

3. Find ideas for dealing with the issue, including the toolkit Know Your Rights: Street Harassment and the Law and the new book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers

4. Become a male ally, speak out when you see a guy harassing women. Mentor young men.

5. Donate $10+ to help fund the first-ever national study on street harassment in the USA — we can better address the problem once we know more about what is happening, where, to whom and by whom.

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“I make a disgusted face and look away”

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There are too many incidents to recount. Whistling and ogling are the most common by far.

I have developed I great non-verbal response to harassment. If someone says anything and/or stares at me and my body, I stare at their body, avoiding eye contact (which only encourages them), and focus on their gut (which, nine times out of ten, is an expansive target). I stare long and hard so that I know they see me looking at their body. Then I make a disgusted face and look away as I pass by.

It’s a non-confrontational technique, but I find most men look away from me after getting a small dose of the flip side of their own behavior.

– Anonymous

Share your street harassment story for the blog.
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USA: Silent Allies

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Joe Samalin, New York City, NY, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

(Content Notice for sexist language used in street harassment)

I have worked in their neighborhood for almost two years now and still don’t understand them. Their culture, dress, and mannerisms are so different from my own I’m uncomfortable around them. When I leave work to grab lunch they are often outside, too.

Young, white men in power suits, hair slicked back, smoking cigars. I don’t know if they are traders, bankers, or hedge fund managers, but the first time I noticed them it was like scene out of ‘Wall Street’ (which makes sense since I work around the corner from the New York Stock Exchange).

I first really noticed them about a year ago. A young woman left their side of the street and walked towards me as I crossed past her to go buy some peanut M&M’s. As she crossed the street their loud, sexually graphic comments about what they would like to do to her followed her as she walked on. The comments weren’t necessarily for the woman’s benefit – they were for each other and any other men around.

This is one truth of street harassment – it’s often done to “prove” our masculinity publicly – to ourselves and to other men (and women).

I don’t harass women in public or anywhere else. Most of the men that I know don’t either. As a straight, white, cisgender male I also have the privilege of not being harassed regularly in public. No brutality of a stop-and-frisk, no homophobic or transphobic bullying and violence. None of the pervasive and daily harassment of women and girls in public spaces touches me. In fact, I have never been harassed in public as far as I can remember. And I know writing that sentence is a slap in the face to the many women, folks of color, and LGBTQI friends and family I am blessed to have in my life.

However while I choose not to commit street harassment and am not harassed myself, I have been involved in street harassment a lot. Men harassing women in public seek me out in the moment to join in with them as they ogle, motion to, or catcall women. Or to defend them and have their back the (rare) times when they get called out by the women they target.

It’s (almost) unbelievable. Strangers (men) assume I will have their backs and support their violent (yes, violent) behavior towards women and girls in public. They expect me at least to turn a blind eye, and at best to stand right by their side.

Why?

Because most men ignore it. We excuse it, minimize it, and defend it. With a miniscule amount of effort we could acknowledge the reality of street harassment around us. From Wall Street to any street, street harassment is everywhere. And every one of us who chooses to ignore it or stays silent is complicit in it.

If I don’t speak up and out against street harassment my silence gives men who do it tacit approval to keep on keeping on. I give them my voice and allow them to speak for me.

I recently asked a few guy friends of mine if they knew any ‘hotspots’ of street harassment, areas where it happens not once, but was unrelenting.

Albery Abreu, a friend from the Bronx who has been addressing men’s violence against women since he was in high school told me about neighborhood parks. “Throughout the years I’ve witnessed an absurd amount of street harassment occurring when women/girls walk down the block where the basketball courts are. Boys stand behind the gate and whistle/holler/bark/shout/etc. at girls walking past. Some even leave the courts to run up to women to get their attention. I recall my sister telling me that she dreaded (and avoided as much as possible) walking on the same blocks as the baseball fields and basketball courts, even if there are only a few men and boys playing there.”

Dan Wald, a former board member of Students Active For Ending Rape is finishing up a degree in public health at an Ivy League school and told me “Our school has a break between the main campus and the medical campus, where there are some stores and people hang out. I remember last fall [a female friend] texting me that they wished I was with them” as they walked between campuses.

Gene A. Johnson, Jr. a professional mediator and facilitator of educational classes on masculinity blew my mind with this 4Square screen capture. Gene did not even need to leave his house to find street harassment.

These guys and others helped me better see how much energy we as men put into the lies of ‘it doesn’t happen (that often)’, ‘it doesn’t happen in this neighborhood’, ‘it’s not that serious’, etc.

Street harassment of women and girls happens everywhere men are present. Not because we all do it, but because we aren’t doing enough to challenge it.

Back to Wall Street. That day those men harassed the young woman, I turned around and hollered at them to cut it out. Their reaction? Straight confusion. They did not seem to understand the situation, couldn’t grasp the concept that I – one of them – was calling them out. They assumed I was an ally. And when we as men stay silent in the face of street harassment, that silence sends the message that we are allies of those who commit it.

Copyright: Joseph Samalin. All rights reserved. Reprints or reposts with the permission of the author and Stop Street Harassment.

Joe Samalin has been addressing gender-based violence for over 15 years, including as the Training and Technical Assistance Coordinator for Men Can Stop Rape. He is currently the Outreach and Training Manager for the Disaster Distress Helpline and is examining among other things gender-based violence in the aftermath of disasters. Follow him on Twitter, @joesamalin.

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Massachusetts Court Rules Upskirt Photos are Legal!

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You’d think if you are walking down the street, riding the bus, or in a store, it’d be illegal for someone to take a photo up your skirt or down your shirt without your permission, right?

Well, when Stop Street Harassment produced a state-by-state Know Your Rights toolkit about street harassment and the law, we found that wasn’t always the case. One of the laws that varied across states were voyeurism-type laws. Typically, these laws protect you from being photographed or recorded against your will at your home and in places like dressing rooms, tanning salons, and public restrooms. Many states have updated these laws to outlaw “upskirt” and “down blouse” photos, such as if a woman is standing in a public space and a man takes a photo down her shirt, or if she is walking up stairs and a man takes a photo up her skirt. But not all states have.

Massachusetts was a state where the law seemed a bit open to interpretation. When SSH intern and lead author Talia Hagerty wrote that state’s page, their law was in fact making its way through the court system to bring forward clarification.

Unfortunately, today, the highest court in Massachusetts ruled that upskirt photos are…. LEGAL!!!

Via Boston’s WCVB:

“The ruling came in the case of Michael Robertson, who was arrested in August 2010 by transit police who set up a sting after getting reports that he was using his cellphone to take photos and video up female riders’ skirts and dresses.

The high court ruled that the law that prohibits “Peeping Tom” voyeurism did not apply to pictures taken of people who are fully clothed.

“A female passenger on a MBTA trolley who is wearing a skirt, dress, or the like covering these parts of her body is not a person who is ‘partially nude,’ no matter what is or is not underneath the skirt by way of underwear or other clothing,” the court said in its ruling.

The SJC says while such actions should be illegal, the way state law is written they are not….

“The ruling of the Supreme Judicial Court is contrary to the spirit of the current law,” said Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo. “The House will begin work on updating our statutes to conform with today’s technology immediately.”

Senate President Therese Murray said she was “stunned and disappointed” with the court ruling. She said the Senate will respond quickly.

“We have fought too hard and too long for women’s rights to take the step backward,” Murray said in a statement. “I am in disbelief that the courts would come to this kind of decision and outraged at what it means for women’s privacy and public safety.”

Gina Scaramella, executive director of the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, said such photos are a serious invasion of privacy. She said the law needs to catch up to technology.”

Yes, it does!

The good news is, many people recognize the need for a better law.

Via Boston Magazine:

“Sen. Katherine Clark submitted legislation on Beacon Hill to refine the language of the “Peeping Tom” laws to make them less ambiguous. In her proposal, Clark recommended adjusting the wording in the current state law so that it reflects technological changes such as the use of cameras on phones, and increases fines for those convicted of violating the law. Clark also wanted to include the words “intimate area” to the state’s law, so that even body parts covered by clothing—like underwear—would be protected. That definition would cover “human genitals, buttocks, pubic area, or female breast below a point immediately above the tip of the areola, whether naked or covered by undergarments.”

If you agree that people in Massachusetts should have the right not to have their private parts photographed without their consent, here’s a petition you can sign.

For more on this story, visit Hollaback! Boston’s blog and for more on the topic read an article on Time Magazine from a few months ago.

 

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