Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Anti-Harassment Day in Egypt

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egyptian-women-protestVia GlobalVoices: April 18 has been marked as an anti-harassment day in Egypt with a call for Egyptian women to be able to move around safely in their own country.

What’s sparked this protest is the acquittal of blogger Asser Yasser‘s street harassers. I hadn’t heard about her case before and I have had a hard time finding anything about it or her in English (and google translate really hasn’t been useful). I finally found a blog post from February which told how the female residents of Asser’s household were street harassed by their new home in the Mokattam area and when Asser was too, she filed a formal report.

“On her way home, some teenagers in parked cars that reeked of hash used cuss words, followed her, tried to grab her, encircled her with their vehicles, and the poor woman and her niece felt trapped. People looked from their balconies and no one lifted a finger to help her. She called the police from her mobile phone as she stood there in utter terror and shortly after officer Mohab came to her rescue. He was almost run down by the fleeing cars.”

I can’t find any other info until the GlobalVoices entry that says the harassers were recently acquitted.

Please post in the comments if you know more about this case and/or what all will be happening on April 18 in protest.

There’s also a Facebook campaign about it, though it’s all in Arabic.

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Street Harassment Round Up – April 12

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I’m trying something new now that the volume of street harassment stories and activism is increasing: a periodic round up of recent street harassment stories and activism initiatives from my online allies.

Stories:

The new Holla Back DC is in full swing and posted several stories this week, including “The Gauntlet of Sexual Harassment.” A woman shares how, now that the weather is warmer, she’s been getting harassed daily on her walking commute.

Via Gothamist
Via Gothamist

Holla Back NYC reports about a horrifying story where two young women who refused the advances of a Brooklyn man in a pizza shop one late night were savagely beaten by him. He fractured the jaw of one woman as she tried to call the police and he hit the other woman so much that her eyes were swollen shut and she’ll have to have reconstructive surgery. The police were able to track down the perp via his restaurant credit-card receipts and he turned himself in last Wednesday. He’s been charged with two counts of felony assault but he’s since been released on $5,000 bail – what?! That’s it? And now he’s out and about, able to beat up other women…or the same women again… great.

Activism:

Holla Back Asheville (NC) launched so if you live in that area, send them your street harassment stories. They held an event called Hey Baby this past Friday. A write-up about the event is forthcoming. Welcome HB Asheville!

Blank Noise in India is engaging in a new project “Make a Sign” and encourages everyone to make a street sign about street harassment. The deadline is May 17, 2009, and all images will be included in their flickr account and three will be tested out in public. What a great idea! Check out their blog to learn more and participate.

Holla Back Toronto was featured in McClungs magazine last week. Read the article “Ain’t no hollaback girl.” Congrats HB Tononto!

And if you’re in the DC area, don’t forget that next Saturday, April 18, is Defend Yourself’s street harassment-focused self defense class.

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Harassment on New Delhi Metro

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Is public transportation in any country safe for women who don’t want to be harassed (99%)? I don’t know, but given how many stories I’ve read where it’s not safe, I’m wondering… From Thaindian in New Delhi, India…

“Molestation is rampant on the Metro, insists Anuradha Jha, a mass communications student and resident of Vikaspuri. ‘It is for this reason that I avoid taking the Metro during peak hours.’

Delhi Metro Rail Corp (DMRC) that runs the service says it is faced with acute shortage of security personnel. ‘We do not have that much manpower to deploy guards all the time and so we do that during peak office hours only,’ DMRC spokesman Anuj Dayal told IANS.

On an average, more than 850,000 people travel daily in the Delhi Metro, the bulk of them commuting between 8.30 and 11.30 in the morning and from 5.30 to 8 in the evening.

Dayal said DMRC was looking at the possibility of engaging security personnel in plain clothes to check sexual harassment. ‘People should know there are CCTV (closed circuit) cameras both inside the trains and on platforms.'”

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Catcalling Employees are Called Out

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This morning on my walk to the train station in NE DC to get to work, a large black utility van turns a corner, and its passengers yell “Howya doin’, Darlin’?” at me. I don’t respond, and the men cackle like the hyenas from “The Lion King.” Ugh!

I got the company’s name — Hill’s Chimney Service. The van drives so fast that I’m worried I’m not going to be able to snag its license plate number.

The van gets stuck at a light, and I’m praying in my head that I catch up to it before the light changes. The light changed and I was worried I’d lose them. Someone must’ve been looking out for me, because they don’t make it this cycle and get stuck again. I pull out my Post-It pad, fumble for a pen, and write down the license plate number: MD plates 51N 005.

I continue on, and these fools have the audacity to still try to catcall at me. The one in the passenger seat (always the one on the passenger side, damn scrub) has this shit-eating grin and is giggling, but when I said “You sexually harassed me, so I took down your license plate number and will report you,” that grin turned into a frown and he immediately rolled up his window. I could still hear some giggling, but I repeated, “You will be reported.”

When I arrived at work, one of the first things I did was call Hill’s Chimney Service to report their catcalling employees. A kindly receptionist answered the phone, and when I told her what the call was about, she replied with “Oh my goodness!” She left a message for Mike, the supervisor.

About 40-something minutes later, Mike calls back. I relay the story to him and he was upset.

“My company does not condone this!” he said. “I am a family man, I love my wife, I would never do that to a woman, and I truly apologize for this behavior. That behavior does not represent Hill’s Chimney Service as a whole.”

When I gave the license plate number, he gave me the names of the culprits: “Richard and Tyrone.”

He told me that he will reprimand them as soon as he sees them, and hopes that I never see them again.

“If you do see them again and they do that again, please call me,” Mike said.
“Will do,” I said.

So a small victory against street harassment is mine, but it doesn’t tackle the bigger war against it.

-anonymous

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Street Harassment Event in Asheville, NC

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heybabyartexhibitashevillencAre you in North Carolina? If so, on April 10, you can check out this free street harassment event in Asheville called “Hey Baby!: Resisting Sexual Harassment in Public Spaces, One Bloque at a Time.”

“A bunch of people I know were talking about sexual harassment in our neighborhood, especially downtown and in West Asheville,” Erin Johnson, one of the organizers  said. “We were frustrated by how we felt unsafe, even in groups of people. So we thought, ‘What are some ways that we can take the frustration and anger and make something productive?’”

But the art included in the event that will take place at Asheville BookWorks on April 10 isn’t meant to be hung on a gallery wall; it’s designed to be taken to the streets and be used as tools to prevent, resist or educate.

She views this exhibit as “the first step, raising awareness, and doing it through art,” she said.

For the event, Johnson is making magnetic bumper stickers that respond to particular instances of sexual harassment that she’s experienced riding her bike around downtown Asheville, she said. The magnets display such phrases as “You sexually harassed me,” which can be placed on a vehicle but can be removed by the offending occupant.

That way, “they have to interact with (the magnet) and have to think about it,” she said.

The organizers will be accepting submissions until Wednesday.

Other pieces already accepted include posters with radical cheerleading chants, bike flags and business cards with instructions for appropriate interaction, Johnson said.

The event will also include a viewing of a documentary as well as workshops about what to do if you are sexually harassed and ways to start a conversation about the issue, she said.”

I wish I could attend, it sounds like it will be a great event.

Where: Asheville BookWorks, 428 1/2 Haywood Road. When: 7-10 p.m. April 10. For more: To submit works, contact Erin Johnson at ejohnson00@gmail.com or drop work off at BookWorks 1-4 p.m. by April 8. For more information, call 255-8444 or visit www.AshevilleBookWorks.com.

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