Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Harassed while gardening

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This afternoon I was prompted into thinking about how it’s pretty rare these days for construction crews to catcall (as opposed to the 70’s-80’s, when pretty much ALL construction crews harassed women/teens), but for some reason the roofers working on the new 4-plex out my back alley have no problem catcalling me, while I’m gardening in my own fucking yard, from their roof. This is not the first time this has happened to me either (in totally different parts of town). Now that it’s happened to me a couple times, I wonder how common this actually is? Are roofers the new “untouchables” when it comes to ‘street harassment’, just because they feel safe from criticism way up on their second-story perches??

– Lynnette B

Location: Edmonton, Alberta

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CGES Street Harassment Youth Summit was a Success!

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This is belatedly cross-posted from the Girls for Gender Equity newsletter, with permission.

The Coalition for Gender Equity in Schools (CGES) held a Youth Summit on Street Harassment on March 25, 2013 at the Urban Assembly Institute that exceeded our highest expectations!

We planned for 50 middle and high school students to attend this youth led event, but to our surprise 100 students showed up and convened in downtown Brooklyn for the CGES summit. These remarkable students and youth leaders chose to spend the first day of their spring break with us in a variety of workshops that examined street harassment.

In spite of the rain, students began arriving in droves at 10:00 am to register, eat breakfast and mingle. By the beginning of the program, the meeting room was filled beyond capacity and an overflow room had to be set up to accommodate participants.

Throughout the summit, youth leaders from Girls for Gender Equity, Center for Anti-Violence Education (CAE), Right Rides, Sadie Nash Leadership Project and Girls Inc. emceed, facilitated, and supported their peers in an action packed, thought-provoking day of activities, dialogues and workshops.

The day opened with an enthusiastic welcome by GGE’s Youth Organizer, Nathania Fields and CAE’s Peer Educator, Mercy Carpenter, the emcees for the event. Nathania and Mercy set the tone of the day, encouraging participants to share their thoughts and listen to one other. They then introduced the Host Committee and organizational staff, who discussed the goals and purpose of the event.

The first activity, ‘The Roots of Street Harassment Tree,’ set the stage for in-depth conversations about why street harassment occurs at every level. Participants were divided up into groups of ten and given a large drawn tree. They were asked to fill out the roots of the tree with the roots of Street Harassment and the trunks of the tree with what supports street harassment aka customs, beliefs, attitudes and institutions.

The Roots of Street Harassment Tree

Towards the day’s end, the young people at the youth summit chose to write love letters to the 16-year-old high school rape survivor in Steubenville, Ohio. Unfortunately after the trial against two teen boys that were found guilty in this case, she had been bullied and blamed for their actions. The youth had a deep empathy for what she has been through and wanted her to know how brave an courageous she is.

    
The last activity of the day invited the young people to sign up for different events presented at a row of ‘Action Booths’ that lined the hallway outside the meeting room. All of these events prepared us for April Sexual Assault Awareness Month and and the Anti-Street Harassment Rally on Saturday, April 13.

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“It’s time to focus on changing the mindset of people and understanding your rights”

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According to The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, 99.3% of Egyptian women have experienced some sort of harassment.

We have sadly become numbed to these statistics because the simplest of verbal harassment is experienced on a daily basis. Taking action is rarely an option in a highly patriarchal society where most men would blame the girl for getting herself into such a situation.

Yesterday I was at a local mall with a female friend of mine and the usual lurkers were standing by escalators staring at women. Young single men walking around staring down women are common sighting in malls in Egypt. I never feared my safety as I usually just ignore and keep walking.

As we took the escalator to leave the mall two guys hissed at us. We ignored and they did it again so I turned to look at him and he nodded as to reaffirm he was directing it at me. Something at that moment told me I didn’t want to ignore it and go home frustrated as usual so I ran back up the escalators to give them a piece of my mind.

The confrontation started and so did their denial. As if I was completely delusional, they asked me if something was wrong.

“Who bothered you?”

“Did I direct anything towards you? huh? What did I say, tell me exactly what I said?”

“Do you think you look like a person I’d want to flirt with?”

The frustrating part is that most men don’t consider hissing or staring a sort of violation and this is why he kept asking me to repeat what he said but he didn’t actually SAY anything.

I then asked a vendor to call security and they came right away asking me what happened. I explained that this was unacceptable to happen in a mall and he proceeded to explain their security policy; I could either file a report at the local police station or let the Mall security office handle the situation. Considering it was late at night and I didn’t exactly know my legal right or the process I would go through, I decided to do the latter knowing that kicking them out of the mall would be enough. The security was very cooperative and was willing to help me out with filing a report by providing me with surveillance camera evidence.

The guys finally decided to apologize to me and my friend and it turned out one of them was actually a police officer! I thanked him for serving our country the way he did and left.

I’m sharing this story not because of the gravity of the situation but because this matter is taken too lightly. When a society has a problem defining sexual harassment and young men pass their time throwing ugly words at girls thinking it’s normal then it’s time to take action. Instead of thinking twice about what I’ll wear or where I’ll walk, it’s time to focus of changing the mindset of people and understanding your rights. The more we focus on how girls could avoid sexual harassment, the more it will keep happening.

I am also sharing this to encourage other people to share their story. It seems ridiculous to take action action but empowering once you actually do it!

– Dina Hosny

Location: A mall in Egypt

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SSH is Hiring a Summer Intern!

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SSH began as a website in 2008 and last year became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. We are growing more and more each month and we are now ready to have our first ever intern!!! The intern will work closely with me on projects.

Here’s the info —

Internship Overview

This is a part-time (about 15 hours/week), paid ($10/hour) summer internship. The person can work remotely from anywhere in the U.S. as long as they have access to a web-camera for a weekly check in meeting via skype or Google+ hangout. The starting date would be around June 3 with an end date 10 to 12 weeks later.

The summer intern will work closely with SSH’s founder (me) on two main projects: 1) managing the social media accounts and blog and 2) doing research for a new project, a “Know Your Rights” toolkit.

Roles and Responsibilities

– Help manage the SSH social media accounts and work with the SSH social media volunteers.
– Write articles for the SSH blog.
– Conduct legal research for a “Know Your Rights” toolkit that will be a compilation of the laws and city ordinances in major U.S. cities that are relevant to street harassment.
– Assist SSH’s founder with other projects as they arise.

Desired Experiences and Qualifications

– At least two years of college.
– At least one legal course or other experience relating to researching/reading/understanding laws.
– Experiencing working on gender or women’s issues (such as college coursework, volunteer experience, or previous jobs/internships) and familiarity with gender violence issues.
– At least two years of experience using social media, including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, and YouTube.
– A self-starter who is reliable and comfort with working on projects with limited supervision.

How to Apply:

Applicants should send a cover letter, résumé (include a list of social media accounts you manage or have managed), and two writing samples (they could be a blog post or article or an 800 word excerpt from a school paper) to me, Holly Kearl, hkearl@stopstreetharassment.org.

Application materials are due by May 25, 2013.

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“I don’t like your kind”

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I was having the most awful commute in the world. It was 2 a.m. and I was waiting for the 4 train on the 59th Street and Lexington Avenue station and had just missed my train by a second. As I was waiting, I was already uncomfortable because there was almost no one on the platform and the few people that were waiting were all men.

I suddenly heard this guy say, “I like white women.” I ignored it as usual because there are always crazy people saying all kinds of thing in the subway. I wasn’t sure if it was directed towards me. Then I heard it again and noticed that a guy is looking straight at me and saying this and is coming closer. He finally says, “I don’t like your kind..” (FYI, I’m brown).

Being a temperamental New Yorker, I wanted to deck him in the face for being racist. However, I held back and before I could take out my cell phone to record this (a tip I learned from hollaback). He stopped and then started back again.

Fearing that it might escalate (although I stayed calm and just didn’t pay him any attention hoping he would go away) I decided to just cab it home. My safety is worth more than a $25 cab ride.

What was really scary has been the hate crime against brown people after 9/11. I was panicking what if this guy pushes me onto the tracks because I’m brown (which happened a few months ago and the victim died). This sort of behavior is unacceptable. And if the guy was mentally ill or had some issues, he needs to get treated before he causes chaos in public. I wish I took a picture, but I will be more prepared if this happens to me again. Just in case, he was an older Latino man wearing a denim cap and a plaid jacket. His skin was light brown and he had light brown eyes. Probably in his 50s.

– Queenie

Location: 59th Street & Lexington Avenue 4 train stop, New York City

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