Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Academic Study on Street Harassment

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Dr. Kimberly Fairchild is one of the few academics studying street harassment. Check out her article from 2008, written with Laurie A. Rudman: “Everyday stranger harassment and women’s self-objectification” in Social Justice Research, 21(3), 338-357. Her article is based on research she conducted at Rutgers University about street harassment and its relationship to women’s self-objectification. In a one-sentence summary, she examined the question: if men objectify women in public, are the women likely to internalize that view of themselves and objectify themselves?

Currently, she’s examining whether or not changes in context alter women’s responses to street harassment and she’s also studying women’s emotional responses. She’s conducting an online survey as part of her research and is working to gather more responses, especially from men (for contrast). Please take it and share the link. Thanks!

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Harassed on the way to & at work

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I live in a rural suburb outside a very small WV town and that definitely doesn’t stop me being harassed on the street or even at work. I’ve had men yell out their cars at me, even had someone throw beer bottles at me two separate times.

However what happened today was at my work. I work at a fast food place and today took the cake for harassment of half the girls working that day. After one of my coworkers explained that we were out of chicken breasts for about 10 minutes to a customer, he looked her up and down and said, “Sure you have some, right there on your chest” he laughed and then left without buying anything.

Later two older men came in and asked the cashier (who is 17) why her name and number wasn’t on his reciept. The manager asked me to take something to their table later so the other girl wouldn’t have to and they asked me why they couldn’t have my name and number.

If I was the manager at a restaurant and someone treated my workers like that I would kick them out immediately but the manager just told us to ignore them because they were paying customers.

– anonymous

Location: West Virginia

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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Harassed on the way to & at work

By

I live in a rural suburb outside a very small WV town and that definitely doesn’t stop me being harassed on the street or even at work. I’ve had men yell out their cars at me, even had someone throw beer bottles at me two separate times.

However what happened today was at my work. I work at a fast food place and today took the cake for harassment of half the girls working that day. After one of my coworkers explained that we were out of chicken breasts for about 10 minutes to a customer, he looked her up and down and said, “Sure you have some, right there on your chest” he laughed and then left without buying anything.

Later two older men came in and asked the cashier (who is 17) why her name and number wasn’t on his reciept. The manager asked me to take something to their table later so the other girl wouldn’t have to and they asked me why they couldn’t have my name and number.

If I was the manager at a restaurant and someone treated my workers like that I would kick them out immediately but the manager just told us to ignore them because they were paying customers.

– anonymous

Location: West Virginia

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.

Share

More Women-Only Cars in India

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from NYTimes
from NYTimes

The NYTimes reports that in India, gender-based street harassment (or eve teasing) is so bad that the government has instituted a pilot program for eight new commuter trains exclusively for female passengers in India’s four largest cities: New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Calcutta. They are called “Ladies Specials” and offer women relief from harassing men. (view a slideshow from NYTimes)

Gender-based harassment of women on public transportation is widespread. There are many countries that have instituted women-only subway or train cars, buses, or taxi cab services because so many girls and women are groped and harassed by men.

For example, some cities in Thailand, Mexico, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, and UAE have women-only buses.

Japan, Brazil, Egypt, Iran, Mexico, and South Korea are examples of countries with women-only subway cars in their major cities.

In some places in England, Russia, Australia, Lebanon, Iran, India, and the UAE, there are women-only taxi cabs with women drivers.

In the U.S., transit systems in NYC, Boston and Chicago are all struggling to deal with high rates of harassment. Both NYC and Boston have anti-harassment PSAs on some of their subway cars.

Women-only cars are only a band aid fix that does not fix the overall problem of men harassing women.  Men will still harass them on the platform, in mixed car trains, on streets, in parks, etc.  Separate cars can make women who can’t access women-only cars seem like fair game for harassing men.  In Tokyo, which has women-only subway cars, there were 2,000 groping cases reported last year, 30% were of teenage girls. The crime is underreported, so imagine how much higher the figure may be.  Again, Tokyo HAS women-only cars.  This is not a solution.

Men must be taught to respect women and not see them as available for comment, touching, following, and assault when they are in public simply because they are female. Check out what Blank Noise is doing to address eve teasing in India (they aren’t advocating for separate train cars for women and men).

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