Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

New method for reporting street harassers

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In Egypt, individuals are developing a HarassMap to allow women to report harassers via SMS messaging. It will map the location of the occurrence and help track where harassment is occurring and its frequency.

My good friends at HollaBackNYC and RightRides (who also are the lead coordinators for New Yorkers for Safe Transit) are taking this idea new places. This is their plan:

“We want to create an online map where women can ‘Hollaback!’ directly from their cell phones. Quick, 140 character stories can be submitted through three easy portals: a) text it, b) tweet it, and c) submit it through a ‘Hollaback’ mobile phone app. Once submitted, harassment and assault data will be mapped and later analyzed in an annual ‘State of Our Streets’ report which will be sent to the police, public officials, and the media. Automatic email alerts noting real-time harassment will also be available. Local citizens and policy makers can sign up for alerts on incidences in their own communities, or review our HARASSmap to see harassment hot-spots. Once we launch in New York City, we want to take it worldwide.”

As you may imagine, implementing this project takes money. They’ve applied for funding and they now need YOUR HELP to vote for their project!

For almost a year now I’ve been advocating (mostly silently though – lol) for a system that allows women to easily report the harassment and its location so I am thrilled to see them working to make it a reality. There are a lot of deterrents to reporting harassers now (including the fact that in most places you can only report people who are threatening or touching you) and it’s making the pervasiveness of the problem of gender-based street harassment largely invisible to mainstream society and to policy and lawmakers. This tool could change everything and make it easier to report harassers and it also could  show us where there are the most harassers so we can target those areas to end it.

Please go vote for the mapping/reporting tool – it’s really cool and has the potential to be a gamechanger in the fight against street harassment!!

Please also spread the word to your networks. Cut and paste this to your facebook, twitter, Myspace, and LinkedIn pages:
Vote for Hollaback 2.0 http://bit.ly/14Egc2 then repost to end street harassment!

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Morning drive by

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Chicago, IL – I was walking from my boyfriend’s northwest side apt one morning (around 6 am), on the way to the bus back to my place. A tan van slowed down and kept pace with me while I walked for about half a block. I gave it an annoyed look; it sped up and drove off.

I’d walked that 1.5 blocks before with no problem but the van just made me realize that the mornings were darker, I was alone and no one would be around if something happened to me.

Nothing was said – but then, nothing needed to be said. A van slowing down to follow a woman alone on a dark street, at sunrise? Not a compliment. Menacing.

– anonymous

Location: Chicago, IL

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.

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He “only” wanted to follow her

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I was walking back home one night, in my lovely neighborhood in central Paris, it was around 8 or 9 PM. I felt a guy walking towards me and got tense. What effort would I have to produce to make him leave me alone in an efficient way?

The guy began talking to me, the regular bullshit. He was not aggressive but very insistent. I remained calm, didn’t make eye contact but still told him in a polite way I didn’t want anything from him and wanted to be left alone.

The guy literally walked me home – I was almost there when he first approached me. He was just a few meters away from me so I figured I would have time to open the door of my building and quickly get in. I rushed and panicked because I realized he had put his foot in the door. I lived in what used to be the superintendant’s apartment so I had no other locked door to cross, only mine.

The guy came right after me and as I was opening my own door, he kind of rushed and we both fell on the ground of my little apartment. He fell over me, to tell the truth. It was all dark and I was so scared I began peeing on myself – all kinds of visions went through my mind: “So it’s happening to me, now, the door is going to close back on us, the guy is going to rape me and nobody will hear me or even try to come to help.”

It all went very fast. The guy stood up and kind of backed off, I didn’t exactly pushed him or fought or anything like this. He looked a little puzzled and as he was standing there, already out the door, I told him he was crazy and he had to go. He said he was sorry, that he had thought I had entered a staircase and not my own home and that he “only” wanted to follow me (like it’s more honorable, or something.) He finally left in a very neutral manner, like nothing had happened. I was in shock.

I think, at a certain point, he got scared by the whole situation. Maybe he didn’t want to go that far and scare me that much. I don’t think he really knew what he was doing but still, all I really know is that, as is true of many men, he couldn’t take “no” for an answer.

– E. B.

Location: Paris, France

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.

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He "only" wanted to follow her

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I was walking back home one night, in my lovely neighborhood in central Paris, it was around 8 or 9 PM. I felt a guy walking towards me and got tense. What effort would I have to produce to make him leave me alone in an efficient way?

The guy began talking to me, the regular bullshit. He was not aggressive but very insistent. I remained calm, didn’t make eye contact but still told him in a polite way I didn’t want anything from him and wanted to be left alone.

The guy literally walked me home – I was almost there when he first approached me. He was just a few meters away from me so I figured I would have time to open the door of my building and quickly get in. I rushed and panicked because I realized he had put his foot in the door. I lived in what used to be the superintendant’s apartment so I had no other locked door to cross, only mine.

The guy came right after me and as I was opening my own door, he kind of rushed and we both fell on the ground of my little apartment. He fell over me, to tell the truth. It was all dark and I was so scared I began peeing on myself – all kinds of visions went through my mind: “So it’s happening to me, now, the door is going to close back on us, the guy is going to rape me and nobody will hear me or even try to come to help.”

It all went very fast. The guy stood up and kind of backed off, I didn’t exactly pushed him or fought or anything like this. He looked a little puzzled and as he was standing there, already out the door, I told him he was crazy and he had to go. He said he was sorry, that he had thought I had entered a staircase and not my own home and that he “only” wanted to follow me (like it’s more honorable, or something.) He finally left in a very neutral manner, like nothing had happened. I was in shock.

I think, at a certain point, he got scared by the whole situation. Maybe he didn’t want to go that far and scare me that much. I don’t think he really knew what he was doing but still, all I really know is that, as is true of many men, he couldn’t take “no” for an answer.

– E. B.

Location: Paris, France

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.

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“I’ll bet next time he buys marshmallows”

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Today I’ve been writing my street harassment book chapter on ways women can respond to harassers in the moment – if they feel safe enough to and wish to – and success stories illustrating those ways.  The stories come from my informal survey and from stories submitted to this blog and other anti-street harassment blogs. The Street Harassment Project has a whole depository of great stories and I got a nice laugh from the stories from one contributor in particular. (I don’t condone violence or insulting harassers and I’m not including either of these stories in my book, but it’s hard not to feel some vindication at the outcomes of the stories when too often men get away with this kind of crap)

“Construction sites are full of men who hoot & holler, make rude gestures, etc. They feel safe in doing so, because they’re behind fences, on scaffolds, and with thier buddies. Cowards!

I had to walk past one such site at least twice a day. I’d heard comments, but none of these men had ever actually addressed me. Until a specific afternoon, when one of these guys hollered, “Hey lady, come up here and suck my dick!”

I’d had enough. I have a smart mouth anyway, and before I even thought about it I yelled back “Well maybe I would if I could FIND it under that fat gut of yours!” Jeez. Even I was embarrassed, but his buddies on the scaffolding nearly fell off laughing, and the women near me cheered.

From then on, when I walked past that site, all these guys would dare holler at me was “Hi lady! How ya doin’? Nice day huh?” with big grins on thier faces. And I never heard another lewd commect from ANY of them to ANYONE the whole rest of that remodel. I felt like Wonder Woman!

….

A friend of mine worked nights at 7-Eleven and a creepy little guy browsed around the store until he was the only customer, then brought a can of creamed corn to the counter. She turned aside a bit to ring it up, and when she turned back, he’d taken his willie out and laid it on the counter. She panicked, and did the first thing that came to mind…she smashed it as hard as she could with that can of creamed corn. Split it down the middle. She called 911, totally freaked, and one of the policemen said to her, as they hauled this pervert away in the ambulance, ‘You did a good thing here. Don’t feel badly, he had it coming. I’ll bet next time, he buys marshmallows!'”

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