Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Snapshot of street harassment stories, news, announcements & tweets: January 29, 2012

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Read stories, news articles, blog posts, and tweets about street harassment from the past week.

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Street Harassment Stories:

Share your story! You can read street harassment stories on the Web at:

Stop Street Harassment Blog

HarassMap Egypt

Resist Harassment Lebanon

Many of the Hollaback sites

In the News, on the Blogs:

Manu Chopra invented a device to help keep women safe in Delhi. Image via BBC

* The Daily News Egypt, “Reports of sexual harassment mar Jan. 25 anniversary“

* CNN, “Malawian women protest after attacks for wearing pants, miniskirts“

* Jezebel, “Why I Punched a Stranger” and the follow up, Sparkle All Day, “The Punch Heard Round The World“

* XO Jane, “Dear Randos, No You Cannot Walk My Dog“

* BBC, “India: Delhi boy invents device to deter attackers“

* IBN Live, “20 held for eve teasing“

* Jezebel, “Guys Explain the Common Catcall“

* Boston Curbed, “Which Neighborhood Is the Worst for Street Harassment?“

Activism Announcements:

New:

* Women and men in Malawi marched to protest a recent spat of street harassment and assaults

* what were you wearing when you got stared at or street harassed? Submit your photo

* Start planning for International Anti-Street Harassment Week, March 18-24

Reminders:

* Sign the Petition: “Demand Justice for Two Men Killed Trying to Stop Street Harassment“

* Read a Baltimore, Maryland, college student’s thesis on street harassment

* The Adventures of Salwa campaign has a hotline for sexual harassment cases in Lebanon: 76-676862.

* In Bangalore, India, there is a helpline for street harassment 080 – 22943225 / 22864023

10 Tweets from the Week:

1. YaraMSaleh Today, some men were trying to make sure that women in #tahrir and in marches are safe, but pigs were still there. #EndSH

2. sokarhanem “@sotsoy: Egyptian men need serious education on how to treat women. Touching someone without permission is a violation of privacy #endsh“

3. RanyaKhalifa Talking & writing about sexual harassment isn’t enough anymore..concrete measures r desperately needed..we need to discuss this NOW..#EndSH

4. MyCrippledEagle Street harassment is about power, is about assuming ownership of someone else’s body.

5.  cairowire the streets of cairo belong to us all. and we all have the right to be free, safe and unmolested — regardless of gender. #humanrights #EndSH

6. nouvellechic: Street harassment is vigilante punishment of a woman for daring to occupy public space. #whosestreets” gender terrorism

7. Psypherize Ladies, get permenant ink with you and use it to mark the harraser. That way they would be easily spotted and dealt with. #Egypt #EndSH

8. kintoall @namivuyo I broke down crying in the middle of the street thinking about all the #harassment and workplace bullying I have been through ME,2

9. HimawariChibi The issue of #streetharassment is like a video game. Women must try different paths/outfits/tactics in order to not lose

10. RanyaKhalifa#Jan25 wasn’t meant 2 liberate men only from indignity..it is meant 4 ALL Egyptians..women in #Egypt need dignity, respect & safety.. #EndSH

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Hey, Fair Wage Trucking Inc, it IS sexual harassment!

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The Fair Wage Trucking Inc ((917) 682-7353; 229 Mott Street) in New York City was delivering a package to a building on Washington Square North.

One of the three delivery men decided that it was perfectly acceptable to cat-call me, and called out, ‘Mmm, delicious.”

I refuse to accept street harassment from anyone, and the moment the words left his lips I turned around, cried out, “that’s it” and marched to the side of the truck to find out the man’s employer so that I could contact him later in the day.

The apparent team leader of the delivery guys asked what the problem was. So I let him know that his colleague had cat-called me, said inappropriate things and had sexually harassed me by cat-calling and yelling out inappropriate comments based on my gender and appearance.

The man told me “that’s not sexual harassment,” to which I became incensed and said, “yes it is.”

The man agreed that it was wrong, that he would talk with the harasser, and let his boss know.

When I called the Fair Wage Trucking later that day, the owner said that he had heard about the incident, and that the no one could understand why I was upset, since the man only said, “hello sweet-heart” (again, an unwanted & unwelcome advance by a stranger towards me based on my appearance and gender), I told the owner that he had said a bit more than that, that the man’s behaviour was inappropriate, and cat-calling women was sexual harrassment. I recommended that since the man in charge at the time didn’t recognize this behaviour as a form of harassment, they should educate their employees about what constitutes sexual harassment.

The owner said, “Sweetheart, I don’t see it that way. That isn’t sexual harassment. Sometimes people have bad days, so I don’t know,” implying that perhaps I was the one at fault for having a ‘bad day’ and being in a bad mood and wrongly accusing his workers of harassment. Might as well just asked if I had a bad case of PMS. To which I call bull-shit. Apparently the owner’s a bit of a sexist, misogynist as well.

He then said that he had just called me ‘sweetheart,’ and asked if that was harassment, to which I replied it was, and if I was his employee, I could sue him for sexual harassment.

Obviously, even the owner of Fair Wage Trucking still doesn’t believe that cat-calling women is harassment, and until these ignorant men get schooled, nothing will ever change, since they don’t even know what the problem with their behaviour is. Needless to say, if one of those Fair Wage Trucking employees ever does it again to me, I’ve got a lawyer on speed-dial.

– EB

Location: Washington Square North, New York City, USA

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem.
Find suggestions for what YOU can do about this human rights issue.

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“The line between acceptable behaviour and harassment is blurred” on London Tube

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This week I noticed a series of ads whilst travelling on the London Underground for Lovestruck, a London dating website. Some are huge and quite generic, on the platform, but I was most bothered by the small ads that are placed inside the carriages above the seats. These have a headline to the effect of “The woman/man of your dreams could be sitting under this ad.”

Almost every woman I know has a story about harassment on public transport – the Stop Street Harassment and Hollaback sites are full of stories from women who’ve encountered men who seem to think that a woman travelling in public is ‘fair game’. I know that anti-harassment notices on public transport are more common in the US than the UK, though for a short time last year there were a few tube posters in certain London boroughs about not harassing women on public transport.

This is why I really don’t get Lovestruck’s tactics – are they really so painfully naive as to what goes on on the tube? Pretty much every time I take a tube in London, there’s at least one creep who either follows you down the platform or spends the entire journey staring at you in a way that means nothing other than ‘I’m undressing you with my eyes’.

The tube is such a key site for this kind of behaviour that any efforts to educate people about street harassment have to focus on it, but how successful will we ever be when it’s simultaneously being billed as a place akin to a singles night? I’m on the tube to get to work/school/whatever, and I object to the fact that I may be sitting under an ad that bills me as an available object. The London Evening Standard has also recently added a little column for people to post those ads like ‘I was on the 8.15 to Watford, blond. You were….’ etc., etc.

Slowly but surely, the tube is being turned into some kind of pick-up joint, and the line between acceptable behaviour and harassment is blurred as a consequence. No, I don’t want you to talk to me, stare at me, or touch me. I want to get where I’m going and live my life. Apparently none of the Lovestruck staff have ever had the same feelings.

I did email Lovestruck pointing all this out to them, but haven’t yet received a reply…[You can contact them too!]

This  guest blog post is by Jen, a student who’s lived in London for five years.

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“I rush to get from place to place at night just to avoid these encounters but they keep happening.”

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Over the past two weeks:

I went to the gym today and on my way there some guy said, “Nice hat,” as I’m accustomed to hearing, but then he scares me a little when he leans into the door and opens it as I attempt to get to the gym, then says next to my ear, “Take care of yourself baby.”

Going to the wine store last week, “You have a great night beautiful. I hope you have a nice time. Okay? Okay?” I’m hiding in the back of the store basically.

Waiting to cross the street: “Come over and say hi to me baby. Oh, you white girls never want to talk to me.”

Driving slowly: “Hey sexy, what’s your name?”

On a different note, a guy who I asked to walk me back to the station refused to because I wouldn’t have sex with him.

I always want to say something to these men, especially after reading this blog but I get scared. I rush to get from place to place at night just to avoid these encounters but they keep happening. I could tell you that I was just wearing jeans and a winter coat but I’m sure everyone on here knows it doesn’t matter.

– Anonymous

Location: Harlem, New York

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem.
Find suggestions for what YOU can do about this human rights issue.

 

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Malawian women march to protest attacks

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Last week groups of street vendors in the African country of Malawi harassed and attacked women, groping and stripping them naked if they were wearing pants or short skirts instead of a traditional dress.

There used to be a 30-year ban against women wearing pants or mini-skirts in Malawi, but it ended in 1994. Some men apparently think there should still be a ban and last week’s attack is just one example of their treatment of women in the capital Lilongwe and other towns like Mzuzu and Blantyre.

Via CNN:

“They beat them up and stripped them naked, claiming they did not follow the tradition,” said Seodi White, a rights activist and protest organizer. “Attacking women in trousers is an outrage. We are a democracy, they’re taking us back to the dark ages.”…

“Women have a right to wear what they want,” White said… “This is an embarrassment to our nation and an outright contempt for women.”

On Friday, hundreds of women and some men gathered to protest the attacks, wearing pants, miniskirts and leggings in a show of solidarity. Some women wore white T-shirts that said, “Real men don’t harass women,” and “Today we buy your merchandize, tomorrow you strip us naked!” since the most recent attacks were by store vendors. They chanted, “we are strong, we are strong,” and demanded an end to the attacks.

“Some of us have spent our entire life fighting for the freedom of women,” Malawian Vice President Joyce Banda told the protesters. “It is shocking some men want to take us back to bondage.”

Their protest drew the attention of President Bingu wa Mutharika and he warned the perpetrators to stop the attacks, saying women have a right to wear what they want: “I will not allow anyone to wake up and go on the streets and start undressing women and girls wearing trousers because that is criminal.”

He also ordered police to arrest anyone attacking women over their clothing and 15 men have already been arrested.

Street harassment and violence is often a mechanism for social control and that motive is clear in these attacks: men want to control how women dress. But sorry men, the women aren’t going to stand for it and neither is the president!

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