Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

2016: 10 of Our Achievements

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THANK YOU to everyone who made our work possible this year! Here are 10 highlights from this year.

** You can read more and see photos in our Annual Report. **

1. Oversaw the 6th annual International Anti-Street Harassment Week. Groups in 36 countries and 18 U.S. states and D.C. participated through organizing street demonstrations, flyering, wheatpasting, sidewalk chalking, tweet chats, and workshops.

2. Partnered with the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) and Defend Yourself, to launch the first-ever national street harassment hotline in the USA! More than 110 people have used it so far.

3. Recruited and worked with three cohorts of 24 total blog correspondents from 10 countries. They each wrote monthly articles about street harassment and/or activism in their communities across their four month cohort.

4. Received more than 200 street harassment story submissions to the SSH blog.

5. Nearly 300,000 people visited the website and there were more than 532,000 page views.

6. Worked for a fourth year on an anti-harassment transit campaign with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) and Collective Action for Safe Spaces. One of our big successes was designing and launching our third wave of anti-harassment ads. We also worked with WMATA on the first-ever transit-wide survey on sexual harassment (results) and an outreach day at five Metro stations during International Anti-Street Harassment Week. At our encouragement, WMATA also began holding sexual harassment training for their bus operators.

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7. Advised Runner’s World on their women’s safety survey that 4,670 runners took. SSH supporter Michelle Hamilton wrote an article about the survey and street harassment + running that is in the magazine’s December issue. SSH is mentioned. SSH also joined the Runner’s World Podcast #28 on the subject.

8. Received more than 100 media mentions, including in the New York Times, BBC World News TV, Washington Post, USA Today, UpWorthy, Runner’s World, HLN TV, NPR, and Teen Vogue.

9. Spoke at 12 events, including campus and community talks in DC, MD, MN, NE, NY, and OH. This includes speaking at the National Conference for College Women Student Leaders, International Summit to End Sexual Violence, and the Global Girl Media National #GirlsGovern Town Hall.

10. Received $1,500 in funding from the PinPoint Foundation and $12,500 in donations from individuals.

The SSH board also issued a statement following the U.S. presidential election. We will continue doing our work, no matter what.

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2015: 20 of Our Achievements

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THANK YOU to everyone who made our work possible this year! Here are 20 highlights from this year.

You can read more and see photos to go along with each one via our Annual Report.

Programs:

  1. Organized the largest International Anti-Street Harassment Week to date from April 12-18! Groups in 41 countries participated through marches, rallies, workshops, sidewalk chalking, putting up street signs, launching anti-harassment campaigns, flyering, tweet chats, and more. Thanks to our campaign manager Britnae Purdy for her work.
  2. Worked with three cohorts of blog correspondents (more than 35 people from around the world) across the year who wrote articles about street harassment and activism to stop it in their communities.
  3. Funded four Safe Public Spaces Mentoring teams in France, India, Romania, and USA. This fall and winter they’ve held art exhibits, high school workshops, sidewalk chalking, and street demonstrations. Our 2014 teams from Nicaragua and Kenya also completed their projects this past spring.
  4. Published around 150 contributor street harassment stories on our blog.
  5. As part of our “Campaigns Against Companies,” we teamed up with Care2 and CASS to create a petition asking the American restaurant chain TGI Friday’s to pull a disgusting ad that trivializes street harassment. More than 25,000 people signed it.
  6. Redesigned our website, thanks to donations and the work of web designer Sarah Marie Lacy.

Advised, Gave Input, and Cited By:

  1. Advised Lyft on anti-harassment issues for their drivers, in collaboration with Collective Action for Safe Spaces (CASS).
  2. Worked with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) and CASS on the 2nd wave of anti-harassment ads on the Metro system, did an outreach day at five metro stops, presented on the campaign to WMATA staff, and crafted a survey instrument that will be used to survey riders about sexual harassment in 2016. The findings will help inform our 3rd wave of ads.
  3. Met with and advised the DC police gay and lesbian liaison unit division chief and Las Vegas Rape Crisis Center staff.
  4. Entities including the following used or cited our work: the DC City Council, DC Mayor’s office, Jeremy Corbyn (a Labour leadership candidate in the UK), Fiona Patten (a member of Parliament in Victoria, Australia), NYU, and Safe Routes to School National Partnership.
  5. Received more than 85 media mentions, including coverage in the Washington Post, Guardian, Real Simple magazine, Cosmo magazine, Voice of America, The Economist, WNYC public radio, Latina.com, and the Irish Times.

Events, Rallies, Conferences and Marches:

  1. Board members spoke at 19 events, including campus and community talks in AZ, DC, IA, MD, MN, NE, NY, PA, and VA. Also including my international talks: a campus presentation in Canada and two UN conference presentations, one in India in June and a second in Turkey in December.
  2. Two board members testified at the first-ever DC city council hearing on street harassment.
  3. Board members took action as part of the protests and rallies around racism and over-policing of Black bodies in the U.S. For example, Maureen Evans Arthurs lives near Baltimore and helped distribute food and toiletries to residents in need and also participated in #BlackLivesMatter rallies in the city; Maliyka Muhammad joined the “NYC Rise Up & Shut It Down With Baltimore” rally; and I attended a “Vigil for Rekia Boyd, Black Women, Trans Women, and Girls” in Washington, DC.
  4. Joined the UN’s march on International Women’s Day in New York City. We marched with the Brazil anti-street harassment group Chega de Fiu Fiu and the American group Voices of Men to send the clear message that street harassment is an issue we must address globally if we want to see equality for women!
  5. Rallied with SlutWalk DC in front of the Chinese Embassy in protest of the jailing of Chinese feminist activists simply for distributing information about sexual harassment at transit stops (they were later released).
  6. Tabled at Awesome Con (a comics convention in Washington, DC) with Feminist Public Works/Geeks for Consent and CASS, and presented at the National Conference for College Women Student Leaders in Maryland with CASS.
  7. Facilitated a focus group with Asian-American women in Boston, MA, and added the summary to the 2014 national street harassment report.
  8. For the release of my third book, Stop Global Street Harassment: Growing Activism Around the World, dozens of activists featured in it participated in a Global Tweetchat, and various activists from the book joined me in speaking at two of my book release events in Washington, DC and New York City.

Financials:

  1. Received funding from Lyft ($3,000) and the Peiffer Foundation ($1,500). SSH also received $6,255.89 in donations from individuals. SSH’s work is largely done on a volunteer-basis. This year, $2,000 was used for part-time help for work relating to International Anti-Street Harassment Week. Approximately $3,500 more was spent on programs, the website redesign, and fees.
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