Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Self-Defense Workshops in DC

By

Knowing self-defense can not only potentially help you get out of a bad situation, but it can also help you feel more confident and prepared as you go about your daily life.

If you’re in the Washington, DC, area, there are several introductory self defense classes coming up through Defend Yourself:

  • Sun., Feb. 8, 11:30-2:30, Takoma Park, MD: Intro to self defense: Women and teen girls 16+
  • Sat., Feb. 28, 2-5, Bethesda, MD: Intro to self defense: High school girls (+ moms)
  • Sat., March 14, time and place TBA: Intro to self defense: Middle school girls (+ moms)
  • Sat., April 18, 1-4 pm, NW DC (near Howard U): Get ready for Spring: Dealing with street harassment (16+)

For more info or to register, contact the director at laurenATdefendyourself.org. Limited scholarships for low-income people are available.

I admit I’ve never attended a self defense class, though one of my uncles has taught them and he showed me moves a few years ago. I am in the DC area and I’m definitely going to try to make the class in April about dealing with street harassers!!

If you’ve taken self defense before, what were your experiences? Are there any classes or moves you recommend?

Share

Telling Off Construction Workers

By

I told a group of construction workers that I used to walk by every day on my way to school that I’m not their dog to whistle at, and I angrily stared at one of them in the eyes to let them know I was serious. When I did that, they were shocked; I guess they had never gotten that kind of response before.

– anonymous

Share

Group Groping on the Street – Video

By

A friend just alerted me to the following video of guys group groping women walking by.  I’m not sure where the location is, but it’s somewhere warm and it seems like it must be in an area with clubs or the beach from the way people are dressed. The guys are on the sidewalk and they are groping and otherwise harassing all the women that walk by and videotaping themselves doing it etc. They are clearly getting a big kick out of it at the expense of the ladies.  As with a lot of street harassment, most of the women walk on by — it’s a large group of men — but a few fight back.

I wish I knew more about what was going on and if anyone ever reported these guys because what you can see in the video is really disturbing. The guys weren’t just grabbing body parts either (horrible enough) but they were also pulling down women’s pants to see their underwear and really violating the space and privacy and surely the level of comfort of the women.

It was especially chilling near the end when they had completely surrounded one of the women and it made me worry for her safety. Group herd mentality at its worst.  I hope she got away. . .

What would you have done if you’d seen this happening?

Share

Got a Harasser Kicked Off the Bus

By

I’ve had some pretty horrible experiences even in my (relatively) nice neighborhood. This one isn’t too bad, but it ended especially well. Once I was wearing a strapless dress on the bus. The guy behind me was obviously drooling over me and he kept saying, “boy is it ever HOT in here, WOW!” while blowing on the back of my neck. After the 3rd time (3 times too many) I turned around, smacked him across the face and told him to keep his distance. The bus driver noticed the commotion, and stopped the bus to ask us what was going on. I told him, and he took down the guy’s information, kicked him off the bus, and told me he’d report him. Yay!

Share

Virtual Street Harassment?

By

Virtual Street Harassment?
Virtual Street Harassment?

Number five on Gizmodo.com’s “10 Things You Need to Know About PlayStation Home” says “There are lots of dudes. Lots of them.” And it includes this screenshot of a male avatar saying “nice rack” to the only female avatar in the shot, who says, “thanks.”

This post would be an essay if I started analyzing that screen shot alone, so I’ll just say I think it really odd that a random guy is going to comment on a woman’s virtual breasts (that are not real – they are virtual!) and by doing so reduces even an avatar to (fake) body parts.

Also on Gizmodo, I watched two youtube video clips filmed by males playing  the recently released Sony “Home.” The site says, “In it, we see two female avatars being surrounded by male avatars doing little dances. Apparently this is happening all over the service. A lot.”

And indeed, in the video clips there are two or three female avatars surrounded by about five to seven male avatars. Some of the time the women in the first clip (i’m only going to talk about the first one for brevity’s sake) are dancing too and presumably they could leave if they were uncomfortable (I’ve never played this game) so I don’t want to say they are being victimized, especially given that this is a virtual world, but the whole situation is quite odd, as is the commentary from the videotaper. And it’s all the more disturbing/odd if it’s happening a lot.

What I think is especially striking about the dancing is how it is groups of men versus one or two women. Just like a lot of real world street harassment, the online dancing seems to be a form of male bonding or a way to prove one’s masculinity to one’s male peers. In fact, in one of the videos showing the male avatars dancing around the women, the male who was videotaping the incident at first voiced reservations about what he was seeing and passed by, but then he said, “I’m not gay,” and went back and joined the other male avatars in dancing around the female avatars.

If this is a common occurrence, how likely is it that people with female avatars will get tired of being surrounded by males and danced with and so either change into a male avatar or stop playing?

If you’re a gamer, have you ever witnessed this, done this, or been the target of it? If you answered yes to any of those questions, what happened, how did you feel, etc?  What have been the experiences of people who use female avatars?

(thanks, mark for sharing these links with me:))
Share