campuses Archives | Stop Street Harassment

Connie DiSanto, USA SSH Blog Correspondent

Stop Street Harassment’s, recent national report found that 81% of women reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment and/or assault in their lifetime. While this statistic is unfortunately not surprising, the study also found that 43% of men reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment and/or assault in their lifetime. We know that numbers are overwhelming higher for women and girls who have experienced sexual harassment and assault, but the numbers for men and boys are in themselves, alarming too. And the #MeToo movement is continuing to reveal the enormity of this epidemic.

It’s been said that colleges could have predicted the #MeToo movement. Working at a college based crisis center, my colleagues and I already know that sexual assault and harassment occur at high rates on campuses across the nation. The #MeToo movement has sparked new energy into the work that continues to be done on campuses every day to protect survivors of sexual violence.

Working with one of our student peer advocates, we decided to give our community (students, faculty and staff) a chance to be in the #MeToo movement by offering them participation in a photo essay exhibit to be displayed during International Anti-Street Awareness Week. I asked a student assistant of ours if he wanted to participate in our #MeToo exhibit. He has been working with our program for over three years now, first as a trained peer advocate and then as our student direct services assistant. In the latter role, he is responsible for managing our fleet of trained students who work our 24/7 crisis hotline. We are fortunate to have both female and male students working with us to help end violence on our campus.

He told me that he wanted to help support the exhibit but he didn’t realize that I was asking if he wanted to participate in the exhibit. I could see from the look on his face that he was confused and wondering why I thought he could participate. I explained that the movement was for anyone who has been impacted by sexual assault or harassment. He understood but was still not seeing himself actually in it, rather as someone looking in from the outside. We talked a bit more and he was able to recall an incident that happened to him, however, he felt it probably ‘didn’t count’ and that it wasn’t a big deal. I asked him to play out the incident with the genders reversed. He immediately thought it would be wrong if a male student had said the same thing that was said to him, to a female student. I pointed out to him that it was wrong for a female student to say those things to him too. Sexual harassment is wrong, regardless of gender.

Rape culture, particularly on a college campus, emphasizes the myth that “guys can’t get raped” and boys learn at an early age that they are supposed to want to have sex with girls (and women in some cases), even when they don’t. Some boys and men don’t even realize when they have been sexually harassed or assaulted. Boys are taught the concept of masculinity which feed into ideas of what it means to be a man; that they should not show emotions, should not be sensitive and they should be dominant, especially over girls. And as boys grow into men, male gender norms can cement these toxic ideas of what a man should be.

Traditional gender norms are a social construct and are damaging to everyone, but we as a society can change them.

Connie is the Marketing Communications Specialist for the Sexual Harassment & Rape Prevention Program (SHARPP) at the University of New Hampshire.

Nov. 25 – Dec. 10 are the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence. To commemorate the week, we are featuring 1 activism idea per day. This information is excerpted from my new book Stop Global Street Harassment: Growing Activism Around the World (Praeger 2015).

A growing number of colleges and universities from Egypt to the United States have been addressing street harassment, often during Sexual Assault Awareness Month or in conjunction with International Women’s Day or International Anti-Street Harassment Week. They host workshops and street demonstrations, write sidewalk chalk messages, distribute materials, screen documentaries like the 1998 film War Zone, and create their own videos.

In 2012, members of Pennsylvania State University’s Triota, the women’s studies honor society, held an anti-street harassment demonstration on a busy Friday afternoon in October in downtown State College, Pennsylvania. They held signs proclaiming their anti-harassment message and even included specific remarks that had been yelled at them during their time at Penn State like “Hey girl, you want my big dick?” and “I’ve always wanted to cross a fat girl off my list.” They also held up anti-street harassment messages like “It’s not a compliment; it’s harassment.” Julie Mastrine, one of the organizers, wrote about it for the SSH blog:

Don’t be mistaken: these types of incidents aren’t rare in this town. Street harassment is a widespread problem in State College, where nearly every woman I know has experienced some form of it: catcalls, taunting, lewd remarks, leering, sexually objectifying remarks, you name it. And this type of harassment functions as part of a larger issue in this town: rape culture. We saw a lot of stares and furrowed brows from passersby. Only a few people approached us to express their support, but it doesn’t matter—getting this issue in the eyes and ears of the State College community is important if we want to combat harmful behavior and attitudes toward women.

In Egypt, college student Holly Dagres created the Fight Harassment 101 (FH101) workshop in 2012 to educate female students about harassment and the use of self-defense. For 10 weeks at the American University of Cairo, 15 students took part in FH101 for two hours a week. Dagres wrote for the SSH blog about how the workshop entailed sharing information and stories about street harassment and then practicing self-defense for 90 minutes. She wrote: “It gave them a sense of empowerment to defend themselves in the worst-case scenarios. At first they were shy about sharing their experiences, but once they found it was a common occurrence and learned that it was not their fault, they felt the need to fight against it

Help fund our work in 2016, donate to our end-of-year giving campaign!

USA: How the #MeToo Movement Can Help End Gender Norms

#16Days of Activism: Raising Awareness on Campuses (Day 12)