Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming
Some guys asked me how I was doing and after I walked by asked if I wanted to hang out. It made me feel kinda good when they said how are you, but when they talked to my back, I felt like they didn’t actually care how I was, just that I was a girl.
– Anonymous
Need support? Call the toll-free National Street Harassment hotline: 855-897-5910
Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for ideas.
I was targeted by a group of people because a crime of sexual violence that was committed against me and they attempted to slut shame me for being a survivor.
– Anonymous
Location: New Jersey
Optional: What’s one way you think we can make public places safer for everyone?
I think we need to educate the public about shaming women for the violence committed against them as not being okay/cool or acceptable under any given circumstance.
Need support? Call the toll-free National Street Harassment hotline: 855-897-5910
Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for ideas.
In France, police are literally policing women’s bodies.
“Photographs have emerged of armed French police confronting a woman on a beach and making her remove some of her clothing as part of a controversial ban on the burkini.
Authorities in several French towns have implemented bans on the Burkini, which covers the body and head, citing concerns about religious clothing in the wake of recent terrorist killings in the country.
The images of police confronting the woman in Nice on Tuesday show at least four police officers standing over a woman who was resting on the shore at the town’s Promenade des Anglais, the scene of last month’s Bastille Day lorry attack.
After they arrive, she appears to remove a blue long-sleeved tunic, although one of the officers appears to take notes or issue an on-the-spot fine.
The photographs emerged as a mother of two also told on Tuesday how she had been fined on the beach in nearby Cannes wearing leggings, a tunic and a headscarf.
Her ticket, seen by French news agency AFP, read that she was not wearing “an outfit respecting good morals and secularism”.
Here’s a street harassment survey being conducted by our friends Hollaback România – ia atitudine împotriva hărțuirii. It will be the first national study in the country.
The survey closes Aug. 31! You must be Romanian to take it.
Here are two stories that make me cheer!
“They say New Yorkers are tough. But even by big city standards, nobody is as fierce as Deanna Carter, a woman who recently busted out her phone and confronted a man who tried to masturbate in front of her on the subway.
‘Rubbing your dick? What the fuck are you doing?’ Carter shouts in the mobile video. ‘Do it again and I’m gettin’ up out this chair and I’mma bust your fuckin’ ass on this train … you rub your dick when you get off the motherfucking train. Do we fucking understand each other?’
The man nods slightly, but Carter isn’t satisfied. So she tells him to get off the train at the next stop.”
“French brand Vodka Mariette has taken a stand against street harassment with a new campaign that will see its delivery drivers sign an oath to never engage in catcalling….
In a bid to raise awareness of the issue and “set an example of proper conduct”, the brand – a French girls’ name that translates as ‘little rebel’ – has launched its ‘Yes to Vodka, No to Catcalling’ initiative that will require all truck drivers transporting Vodka Mariette to sign the ‘Drivers of Change Oath’.
The oath, which reads as follows, has been made public in the hope that other brands will follow suit: “I, the undersigned, agree to never be engaged in behaviour considered ‘street harassment’ or ‘catcalling’ towards any individual at any time. Such actions are defined as, ‘unwanted comments, gestures, and actions forced on a stranger in a public place without their consent and is directed at them because of their actual or perceived sex, gender, gender expression, or sexual orientation’. I understand that signing below is purely a good gesture moving forward and is in no way an admission of prior poor conduct.”