Domestic Violence and Street Harassment: Five Connections

Today the building where I work is flooded with purple: purple sweaters, shirts, skirts, shoes, scarfs, necklaces, umbrellas, and even wallets. It’s also over-run by cupcakes…yum.

It’s Purple Thursday in Washington, DC, an awareness day organized by the DC Coalition Against Domestic Violence (DCCADV) during national Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Many of my co-workers at AAUW and I are wearing purple to show support.

The cupcakes are here because, as part of the Pixel Project’s “Paint it Purple Campaign,” I’m holding a fundraiser cupcake bake sale. All of the proceeds of my home-made cupcakes will go to DCCADV and Pixel Project. As the day comes to a close, I’ve sold 47 cupcakes (and counting) to the generous folks who work in my building.

I’m participating in Purple Thursday and hosting a bake sale because I believe no one should be unsafe at home or in trusted relationships, and certainly not one in four women. I’m participating in Purple Thursday because I have a personal connection to the issue of domestic violence through family members and friends who’ve survived such relationships. I’m participating because I spent four years volunteering at domestic violence shelters in high school and college.

I’m also participating, and blogging here, because of the very real connections that domestic violence has to street harassment*.  Here are five of them

1. Combined, they ensure that everywhere unsafe:

Too often people who do not “get” street harassment say, “Well if you don’t want to deal with street harassers, then stay home.” Most famously this year, a 71-year-old male mayor in a province in Turkey said, “Do not walk around, sit in your homes,” when women talked to him about the problem of street harassment.

Sadly, given how few alternatives there are for dealing with street harassers, many women occasionally do “choose” to stay home to avoid harassers and to feel safe. In a 1993 Harvard Law Review article, Cynthia Grant Bowman wrote that street harassment creates an “informal ghettoization of women…to the private sphere of hearth and home.”

Nearly 20 years later, that term rings true. “Choosing” to stay home in order to avoid harassment or worse on the streets is a human rights issue. Having to make this “choice” also begs the question, “What do you do when your home isn’t safe either?”

Getting back to the Turkish mayor, not only was his “advice” to stay home impractical and it put the onus on women to be safe instead of on men to stop harassing them, but it was also ironic. His town has a 70 percent rate of domestic violence and the women he advised to stay home were employees at a domestic violence shelter! They of all people know that a woman’s home is not always safe and they know that in their town, it’s not safe for 70 percent of women.

While other places have lower rates of domestic violence, telling someone to stay home to avoid street harassment is not a realistic or desirable solution and it can put them in more danger. For some women, the combination of street harassment and domestic violence means that nowhere is safe.

2. The same individuals may perpetrate both:

Just last week, police arrested Jesse Perez Torres in connection with the murder of a 17-year-old who was attacked in broad daylight when she was walking home from high school. He has an alleged history of domestic violence. Five months before the murder, Torres allegedly assaulted his wife and threatened to kill her.

If someone has no qualms about harassing, groping, stalking or assaulting (or, in the case of Torres, murdering) a stranger on the streets, they may not be very respectful at home either. And vice versa. If you hurt your loved ones, it may not be a stretch to think you’d hurt a stranger on the street, especially if you think you can get away with it, just as most street harassers and rapists do. As a result, working to prevent domestic violence can help prevent street harassment and vice versa.

3. Neither are viewed as serious problems:

For far too long, domestic violence was an issue people did not talk about. It was a private matter that you ignored if you knew it was happening to someone else and you didn’t talk about it to others if it was happening to you. The rise of the “battered women’s movement” changed that a lot, but today, the issue is still not given the gravity it deserves.

Did you know that funding to domestic violence shelters is often one of the first things cut or reduced in city or state budgets? When domestic violence isn’t viewed as a serious problem, shelters can seem unnecessary or “extra” instead of lifelines and beacons of hope. Earlier this month, the mayor of Topeka, Kansas, repealed the city’s domestic abuse law to cut costs so the city wouldn’t have to pay for prosecuting domestic violence cases.

From CBS: “Topeka has had at least 35 reported incidents of domestic battery or assault since early September. Those cases are not being pursued, and as of last Friday, 18 people jailed have been released without facing charges, according to Topeka police.”

Unbelievable and unacceptable.

Related, street harassment is rarely treated as a serious problem. Sexual comments, stalking and even groping are construed as a compliment, no big deal, and something to get a “tough skin” about. When street harassment escalates to sexual assault or murder, it usually is acknowledged, but only as an isolated incident instead of as something that’s part of a larger problem.  In the US, there have been no large-scale studies on the topic, no major public service announcement campaigns, and almost no acknowledgment from leaders and stakeholders that it’s a problem. This needs to change.

4. People who share their stories of domestic violence or street harassment are often blamed:

“Why didn’t she leave?” and “What must she have done to make him treat her that way?” are common questions people ask when they hear about domestic violence. Many people asked them in 2009 when it surfaced that singer Chris Brown beat his then girlfriend Rihanna.

“Why did you go to that part of town alone?” or “Why did you wear that outfit?” are common questions people ask when someone shares a street harassment story.

These questions put the blame on the survivor of domestic violence and street harassment, not on the perpetrator. Such questions allow the violence and harassment to continue and they create an environment where people who speak out aren’t taken seriously because it’s assumed they must be partly to blame for what happened. The blame game must end before more survivors feel like they can come forward and before all perpetrators are held accountable for their actions.

5. Bystanders can make a difference:

Let’s end on a good note. Bystanders can make a big difference in ending the social acceptability of domestic violence and street harassment by speaking out and they can make a difference in ending specific incidents of each behavior by creating an interruption.

A bystander campaign I really like in India focused on domestic violence is called Bell Bajao (Ring the Bell), which is a campaign that asks people to interrupt violence when they hear it by ringing the doorbell of the house. They recommend saying something like, “can I borrow a cup of sugar” or simply ringing the bell and leaving and then calling the police if the abuse continues. To advertise the campaign, they have video PSAs and a video van that has reached 5.5 million people thus far. Innovative and interactive, the van builds audience-participation through games, street theater, audio-visual tools and quizzes. The campaign just won the World Summit Youth Award in September.

In the USA, the University of New Hampshire and Men Can Stop Rape each have bystander campaigns aimed at college students that center on how bystanders can prevent and stop sexual assault and rape, and each campaign also addresses street harassment. They provide interested people with all of the components necessary to create a campus-wide campaign. If you’re on a college campus, I encourage you to check them out.

As Purple Thursday draws to a close, remember, you can make a difference in ending domestic violence and in ending street harassment by being an active bystander. You can believe, support, and not blame people who talk to you about domestic violence and street harassment. You can speak out against perpetrators of those behaviors. You can think of creative ways to interrupt and intervene when you know domestic violence or street harassment is happening, such as asking for a cup of sugar, asking for the time, or simply asking the abused or harassed person if they’re okay.  You can make a difference.

*Men face domestic violence and street harassment too, but the connections between domestic violence and street harassment are most clear when women are the survivors and men the perpetrators and that is the focus of this post.