street harassment Archives | Page 660 of 694

Yuck! Harassers in a Truck!

March 9, 2010 By Contributor

I was walking back to work, enjoying the weather, enjoying the freebies I got from Georgetown Cupcake and from a girl on the street handing out free Ghirardelli chocolates, and these fools had to ruin it!

Out of nowhere, I hear “Yo, gorgeous!” and I turn in the direction where it came from. I see these two losers in a red and yellow truck smirking at me. Gross.

The truck pulls up further in traffic, and I catch up to it and snap a photo with my phone. I wish it’d came out clearer so you could see their faces, but at least the company name is somewhat visible.

When I told them that they needed to do their jobs and not hit on women, they didn’t care. They continued to smirk and giggle. Passers-by made a comment about me and giggled, and I don’t know if they were laughing at me getting harassed or laughing at me giving the harassers an earful, but I just didn’t care. I felt like these harassers just ruined what was a good afternoon.

The license plate on this truck was a Maryland plate, 11K 394. I saw that it said “Joy” on the side of the truck and got part of the truck’s phone number, 800-992-, but I couldn’t catch the last four digits. Google searches yielded nothing close.

I hope the employer sees this photo of this truck online, and reprimands these punks for hitting on women while they’re on the clock. It’s so disgusting.

– Anonymous

Location: M St & Wisconsin Ave, Washington, DC

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Include your location and it will be added to the Street Harassment Map.

I’m Not Your Tasty Doughnut!

March 9, 2010 By Contributor

So my number finally came up. I phoned in last night and had to report for jury duty this morning. The court house is a mile and a half away from where I live. Spring has come to NYC so I decided last night I would walk rather than pay for a cab. I dressed in a skirt and blazer and dress shoes and knee length black leggings. I am eternally late. I was this morning. But I still didn’t want to take a cab, so with backpack full of laptop and reading materials I headed out onto the street in the warm morning sunshine and ran the mile and a half to the court house.

I got honked at twice. A man walking toward me, paused and looked me up and down like I was a tasty doughnut. On one busy corner the talk and hum and conversations of a group of day workers halted as I ran past them, all of them staring at me like I was a moving parade.

Yes, I was unusual–a woman dressed in a suit, carrying a large backpack and running down a city street. But I tried to think of a man, perhaps my husband dressed in his business suit, carrying a briefcase, running down the same streets. Would women driving by honk at him? Would women on the street that he ran past look him up and down like he was breakfast? Would women gathered at a corner stop their talk and stare at him simply because he was running by?

I am sorry to say that when the second person honked at me when I was only steps away from the court house, I did something I have only done once before in my 51 years of life. I lifted my third finger at the car.

I am so tired of men thinking that this behavior is okay. But was I shocked or surprised. No. Sadly its what I expect.

– Beckie

Location: Queens, New York

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Include your location and it will be added to the Street Harassment Map.

Watching Egypt

March 8, 2010 By HKearl

I’ve never been to Egypt, but I have been fascinated by it ever since the sixth grade when we spent a substantial part of social studies learning about ancient Egypt. Today it’s more than the pyramids and the Nile which capture my interest. Each day I scan the news to see if there are any new developments regarding street harassment activism and legislation there.

The Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights (ECWR) has made street harassment, or public sexual harassment, as they refer to it, one of their central activism issues. As we talk about equal rights on an international level for International Women’s Day, I can think of no group I’d rather highlight than them.

Women never will achieve equal rights until they can access public places free of harassment and assault. Because of the tireless work of the ECWR, the Egyptian Parliament is considering new legislation that would ban sexual harassment at work, in public, online, and through mobile devices. This is groundbreaking legislation that will help change the cultural acceptance of harassment, deter the behavior, and give women recourse. I am eagerly waiting to see if it will pass. If/when it does, I hope it can serve as a model for the U.S. and other countries to follow.

How did the ECWR get to this point?

Because of the sharp increase in the number of women sharing their experiences with public harassment and a lack of societal awareness of the problem, in 2005 the ECWR launched an anti-sexual harassment campaign called “Making Our Street Safer for Everyone.” Volunteers are the driving force of ECWR’s campaign. They meet monthly to discuss ideas and plan initiatives.

Initially, ECWR conducted informal, voluntary surveys of over 2,000 people. An overwhelming number of female respondents said sexual harassment was part of their daily life. Eighty-three percent of women said men had sexually harassed them and 62 percent of men admitted to perpetrating sexual harassment. Fewer than two percent of women reported going to the police for help. ECWR published their results in a 2008 report “Clouds in Egypt’s Sky, Sexual Harassment: from Verbal Harassment to Rape.” The report garnered lots of attention in Egypt and around the world. Next, ECWR organized several forms of public awareness, including:

Distributing flyers with information like definitions of harassment, existing laws, how to file a police report, and how to campaign on the issue.
Creating public service radio announcements about sexual harassment.
Staging an anti-sexual harassment demonstration with 250 women and men on the steps of the Press Syndicate.
Holding press conferences and public awareness days at cultural centers, institutions, and hotels. Events have featured presentations and discussions on Egypt’s sexual harassment laws, women’s image in the media, the sociological and psychological impacts of harassment, group discussions on how to address the problem, self defense workshops, and live music and relevant films.

ECWR has been reaching out to youth, too, by training teachers and social workers to sensitize them to the issues of public sexual harassment and helping them know how to discuss the issues with their students. They recently released an animated five minute educational film and workbook for teachers to further help facilitate school discussions, including through painting and coloring. The resources teach children to trust others but to be careful and aware of inappropriate behavior and to learn the difference between appropriate and inappropriate language.

In addition to their (hopefully) pending success of working with Parliament to pass new legislation against sexual harassment, the efforts of ECWR has led to other types of activism and initiatives:

Since 2008, the number of girls and young women taking self defense classes has shot up.
Women began using an audio blogging station, Banat wa Bas, to share their harassment stories and vent their frustrations.
Kelmetna, a magazine for youth, launched a campaign called “Respect yourself: Egypt still has real men” with weekly seminars, self defense classes, and street concerts to raise awareness. There are over 53,000 members of their Facebook group.
In late 2008, the Egyptian government issued public service announcements warning that public harassment is bad for tourism.
Over the summer of 2009, the Egyptian government distributed a book on sexual harassment to mosques nationwide.
In December 2009, leaders from 17 countries near Egypt met in Cairo for a conference to discuss public sexual harassment.

Anyone who is working to fight street harassment can learn a lot from the ECWR and their efforts. I will continue to watch their initiatives and outcomes. I hope that because of activists like them, one day women will have equality in public places in every country, and consequently, equality with men in general.

Weekly Round Up March 7, 2010

March 7, 2010 By HKearl

Stories:

I accept street harassment submissions from anywhere in the world. Share your story!

A woman in Edmonton, Canada, remembers being groped on the street by a man walking by, another was followed by a man in Brugge, Belgium, and another woman in Virginia, sees the men who harassed her a few weeks earlier.
On HollaBack NYC a woman snaps a picture of a man who groped her and reports him to the subway manager
On HollaBack DC! a woman retorts to a harasser at an Eastern Market metro station, another one is harassed at a bus stop, and a third woman is harassed by a man in a car as she walks to the metro.

In the News:

Politics Daily ran an article called, “‘Eve Teasing’ in India: Fighting for Change as Sexual Violence Grows”

Announcements:

Be the first to test out the HollaBack! phone application when it comes out!
Blank Noise in India is looking for new logo submissions
RightRides/New Yorkers for Safe Transit is hiring
HollaBack DC! dubbed March as Public Transit Awareness Month

Resource of the Week:

The documentary “Hey…Shorty” by Girls for Gender Equity: Watch a 2 minute overview and purchase the 20 minute documentary.
“This youth-produced documentary focuses on women of color’s experiences with street harassment and men of color’s ideas about and intentions behind the behavior. It exposes the frequency with which street harassment occurs, dispels myths about who it happens to and why, and examines the root causes of why men feel it is their right to approach women, in ways both friendly and violent, in public spaces. Young women share stories of bottles being thrown at them, older men grabbing their hand, and other examples of how street harassment creates a hostile environment for women that perpetuates a culture of violence and the fear of men. Men show off their ‘holla’ skills, give advice to women on how to respond to their advances, and are challenged to think about street harassment in a new light, one that resonates with them in a profound way.”

Groped at Midday

March 7, 2010 By Contributor

I shared my story a few weeks back about the bus stop in Edmonton. I thought I’d come by and share another experience. Of course, I always have to pick the worst of the bunch, because if I wrote in with every experience I’ve ever had with street harassment, I’d do little else.

Anyway, I was walking down the street in downtown Edmonton in the middle of the day. It was the middle of summer, and, since the summers are so hot there, I was wearing a sundress. I didn’t hear the man walking behind me until I felt his breath on the back of my neck. He lifted my skirt and grabbed my butt with both hands.
I spun around and started to yell at him “Hey!” He ran off so fast that I didn’t get a good look at him. I just knew that he had black hair and a smaller build. I didn’t feel like chasing him, so I just screamed “Fuck off!” at his back.

Sadly, it was eight years before I shared that experience with anyone else. I knew I’d most likely be blamed for it for wearing a sundress that flattered my body. I was so used to being blamed for my own harassment at this point that I’d stopped talking about it. It wasn’t until I discovered this website that I started talking about it again.

– MH

Location: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Include your location and it will be added to the Street Harassment Map.

« Previous Page