chicago Archives | Stop Street Harassment

USA: CTA Ad Campaign is a Step in the Right Direction

June 10, 2016 By Correspondent

Hope Herten, IL, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

Frequently, like the rest of society, I have to leave my bedroom, stop browsing through social media and watching old episodes of Sex in the City, and go outside, whether or not I am going to class, work, or anywhere else. Going places is a general requirement for being a person and when you live in a city without a car, any mode of transportation you choose is a part of the public sphere. Whether I am riding my bike, taking a cab or ride share, or on public transportation (the “L”), I enter an environment where I am surrounded by other people and in doing so, I unwillingly become the target of stares and comments by strangers.

Normally, it is a relatively uneventful experience, aside from near-death experiences on my bike, erratic cab drivers, and less than pleasant smells on the train or bus. All in all, the majority of my commute is devoid of unwanted encounters. Despite not being the majority of my experience, harassment as I am “making my way downtown” occurs frequently enough for it to stick in the back of my mind no matter where I go. As one of my friends said, “I’m a human that needs to get places and I won’t let a male stop me. (Assuming the street harasser is a male). That doesn’t mean I’m not cautious. I’m especially cautious at night or when I see a group of males around, even if it’s in the middle of the day”.

I am not one to let fear keep me from doing what I want, I am not about to let an experience or stories from friends keep me from venturing to different parts of the city, but that doesn’t mean I am not aware.

I have had more than my share of harassment experiences while on my way to work, which for me is one of the most troubling types of harassment. Not that I welcome harassment on my days off, but there is something about being yelled at or cornered on my way to work that makes the rest of the day horrible. On my bike men have yelled at me from the street and, to my horror, from their cars, pulling up beside me to say something. Less so cab drivers, but there are a handful of times that while I am using ride shares like Uber and Lyft that my driver has repeatedly hit on me and refused to give up when I denied to give them my number.

By far though, my experiences of harassment on the “L” are the most frequent and frustrating. On the train, I have been approached by men who are alone and by groups of men, telling me what they think of how I look or asking for my number. These situations are often frightening and never feel good. On one occasion when I was traveling to work a group of men, the only other people in the train car, were yelling at me, as I continued to ignore them they approached me, threatening me by asking, “Who do you think you are to ignore me?” Luckily, my stop came and they did not follow me, but it was difficult to go through an eight hour workday doing customer service after I was so shaken. It was actually this experience in particular that motivated me to seek out organizations like Stop Street Harassment and Hollaback! to see what people were doing to stop street harassment.

When asking my friends about their experiences on the “L”, they shared similar experiences: men coming up to them, sitting next to them, relentlessly pursuing them until they are forced to leave the car. My group of friends and I must not have been the only women who have experienced serious harassment while on public transportation, because recently the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) began an ad campaign to bring awareness to the issue.

Ads on the trains and buses encourage passengers to not just sit by and watch fellow riders be harassed or threatened during their commute. A CTA official told the Chicago Tribune in an interview that they are aware that the vast majority of harassment cases are not reported, “One of the main reasons for this campaign is that we want customers to report incidents they experience or witness.”

As the campaign is relatively new, many of the people with whom I spoke had not noticed the advertisements, but upon viewing images of them, they agreed that they would be helpful. Many people agreed that bringing any sort of attention to the issue is good and could encourage bystanders to intervene and victims to report cases, but a few people whom I interviewed expressed concern that since they hadn’t noticed the ads, the efforts should be expanded and that the ads should be more eye catching. I carry the same sentiment as many of my peers, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.

Maybe one day I won’t have to practice my resting bitch face in the mirror before heading to work.

Hope is a full-time undergraduate student studying public health and Spanish in Chicago, IL. During her time in Chicago, Hope has participated in many protests and events trying to call awareness to women’s issues on campus and in the broader Chicago community. Follow her on Twitter @hope_lucille or check out her public health blog.

USA: Welcome to Campus: Peer-to-peer sexual harassment

May 16, 2016 By Correspondent

Hope Herten, IL, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

According to an informal study conducted by the organization Hollaback! in 2015, nearly 67% of female students experienced some sort of sexual harassment on campus. This figure may seem shocking, but what I find the most disturbing is that despite research and meek attempts to curb catcalling and other forms of sexual harassment, this number has remained stagnant for years. In 1996, a study was published that looked at two different colleges, reporting the 68% of the women in their study had experienced sexual harassment on campus, not only walking between classes, but many of them experiencing some sort of harassment by male peers while in class (Ivy & Hamlet). Similarly, an extensive report published in 2005 by AAUW found that that two-thirds of their participants had experienced sexual harassment while at their university (Hill & Silva). The 2005 study reported that the top three reasons student gave for harassing their peers were (1) “I thought it was funny”, (2) “I thought the person liked it”, and (3) “it is just a part of school life/ a lot of people do it/ it is no big deal”.

As a female college student in Chicago, I expected that I would experience harassment, but I never imagined that my peers would be the ones harassing me or my friends. During her freshman year, a friend of mine experienced frequent harassment from a random guy in our university’s commons. To avoid that constant harassment, she had to go out of her way to avoid him in ways that made her own life much harder. Now that she’s in her third year, she is still occasionally approached by him on campus, whether he is following her to the bathroom or asking her out. To be faced with this issue not once, not twice, but multiple times from the same person is unacceptable. She says that she rarely feels threatened by him, but the frequent harassment is an additional unnecessary nuisance to her day. She is not the only one of my friends who faces harassment on campus, whether it is the hallways, the quad, the student union, or even the classroom; many female students at my university face this frequent hurdle in their pursuit of academic success.

The deep-rooted integration of technology has been a blessing and a curse. Though more people have a voice on the internet and information is more readily available, it has opened a new door for sexual harassment on campus. Social media accounts meant for anonymous submissions of confessions and crushes at my university have allowed for a new avenue of harassment. Many women on campus have been publicly shamed and objectified using these platforms, with no repercussions for the men submitting them. One student complained about appearing on these Twitter accounts multiple times; one of the posts was even commenting on the clothes she wore to the gym and calling her a “sexy babe”. Students should be able to go to public places on campus and feel comfortable walking around or working out without the fear of being talked about publicly, and anonymously, online.

Women have been experiencing harassment on campuses for decades across the country, both at public and private, big and small, and religiously-affiliated or secular institutions. It seems that no matter how committed an institution is to providing the best education possible, this one issue is constantly put on the back burner.

All students, regardless of gender, sexuality, race, or ability, deserve their right to pursue their education in a place where they are valued and respected parts of the community. From personal experience, I know that it is difficult to focus on school when you are nervous about going to specific places at certain times, if you don’t want to go to class because of that one man who won’t leave you alone, or, now because of technology, fear being called out online for participating in a wide array of activities from going to the gym or drinking at a party. College is a place to grow as a person intellectually, spiritually, and socially; everyone deserves to feel safe pursuing that education.

What can we do to draw attention to this issue and push administrators to action? Once we have the critical mass to create change, what concrete strategies do we have to stop harassment?

Mid-January 2016 News Roundup

January 18, 2016 By HKearl

Here are some recent stories I thought were interesting and good:

“When Taking a Nap Is a Political Act,” Broadly

“What is it like to sleep under a blue sky? To stretch out on the grass and feel the earth under you? To close your eyes and hear the quiet hum of traffic or the chirp of a sparrow?

I have no idea.

The freedom to rest or sleep in a public space is one that women in India don’t enjoy—being idle in public is not something we do. Not because it is illegal, but because we are vulnerable wherever we go. This is increasingly true in recent years,when the country has seen a spate of violent rapes and street harassment.

This weekend, small groups of women across the country (and in neighboring Pakistan) will fight their fear and vulnerability and head to a local park to do nothing but take a siesta. They will carry a mat, a bottle of water, perhaps a snack or a book to read. Then, they will then take a nap. Or try to.

Hosted by the Blank Noise Project, an all-volunteer collective that campaigns against street harassment, this seemingly subtle protest event is called “Meet to Sleep,” and it asks citizens to come together to reclaim public spaces and make cities safer. Started in 2003 by Jasmeen Patheja as part of her graduation project, Blank Noise mobilizes citizen “action heroes” through its projects, events, and campaigns, and it has played a major role in the snowballing discussion surrounding street harassment in India. The organization has been hosting Meet to Sleep events in cities across India since November 2014.”

“The Politics of Being “Ugly”: Between Being Catcalled and Erased,” For Harriet

“….There is a hierarchy of deservingness put on women, girls, femmes, and non-masculine bodies that delegate a culture of misogyny on a violent spectrum. Women who are categorized as beautiful should expect to be sexually harassed, while those who are categorized as ugly should be grateful for the attention and consideration. In addressing this spectrum of violence, we need to complicate our understandings of street harassment and catcalling. Erasure is an equally violent form of misogynistic brutality against our bodies.

We are affected everyday when our safety is based upon someone else’s sexualization or beauty positioning of our bodies in order to determine our worthiness and humanity. Let’s challenge spaces to include narratives and experiences that speak to being ignored, marginalized, or violated for not being “pretty enough” to be humanized. We must demand that our value as human beings—whether we identify as woman, girl, or femme—exist outside of the dominant scope and gaze of rape culture. Our humanity is not currency for survival. We deserve to exist free from fear, free from expectation, and free from misogynistic violence. “

“Uber Says It’s Fighting Sexual Harassment In Egypt But The Causes Aren’t Going Away,” BuzzFeed News

“This October, Uber Egypt partnered with Harassmap, one of the country’s pioneering anti-harassment organizations, to train drivers to fight against sexual harassment — a rarity in Egypt, where sexual harassment of women in Cairo’s chaotic and neglected public transportation is rampant.

“We know that there are big problems here,” Anthony Khoury, general manager of Uber Egypt, which provides only privately-owned cars, a service known as UberX, told BuzzFeed News. “We want to be the safest drivers around.”

Uber Egypt, based in Cairo, committed itself to a zero-tolerance policy against sexual harassment — a phenomenon criminalized under Egyptian law only in 2014, the same year Uber opened here. The move was also savvy branding for the popular car-hailing app, a more than $62 billion franchise, which worldwide has faced waves of legal cases and protests over drivers preying on female passengers and the company’s worker practices.

For Uber users in this megacity — where traffic is notoriously bad and taxis often a hassle — the app is a much-welcomed upgrade to safely navigate daily life. Since October, Khoury said his team has implemented the short anti-harassment training and even suspended and deactivated a few drivers for incidents of verbal harassment, follow-through unheard of with regular taxis, and had no reported cases of physical harassment.

In Egypt’s struggle against sexual harassment, it’s also still a drop in the bucket.

Uber is largely a luxury of the elite — most people in Cairo can’t afford private taxis — and the barriers preventing women from reporting and prosecuting sexual harassment remain terrifyingly tall.”

“‘Make a Grown Man Cry’ Pepper Spray CTA Ads Upset Women Commuters,” DNA Info

“While riding the CTA Blue Line on Tuesday, Jessica White, a Logan Square resident, spotted the ad for Sabre pepper spray.

White said she was “struck by the casual way the ad seemed to make light of violence against women, by not only cracking a joke about making ‘grown men’ cry, but also implying I would be interested in a powder blue keychain attachment as a form of necessary self defense.

“Considering how many assaults occur on and around CTA property, I would think the CTA wouldn’t post ads reminding women not only how dangerous it is to use their services, but also that they’re on their own when it comes to personal safety,” White said…

Kara Crutcher, an Uptown resident whose Courage Campaign tried to raise money to pay for ads to discourage harassment on public transit, said she is “very disappointed” to hear about an ad that makes light of having to use pepper spray.

“Nothing about a person, male or female, carrying mace as a form of protection in public spaces is comical,” Crutcher added. “I’d much rather see an ad that aims to move us past the existence of violence in public spaces, not an ad joking about mace sales, which is counterproductive to the goals of the ‘Courage Campaign: CTA’ and functions solely as a Band-Aid for the greater issue at hand.”

Good work Courage Campaign: CTA for speaking out.

“NYC police boss urges ‘buddy system’ for women in cabs,” AutoBlog

“14 of the city’s reported rapes last year, and two already this year, were committed by for-hire cabbies. And Police Commissioner William Bratton raised eyebrows with comments on the phenomenon that some felt blamed the victims.

‘One of the areas of concern that we have is particularly young women coming out of clubs and bars,’ Commissioner William Bratton said during a radio interview on WNYC. ‘They’re by themselves and intoxicated getting into a cab … and we’ve seen an increase in assaults in those instances. So we’re encouraging women to adopt the buddy system.’

Some women who spoke to The Associated Press about taxi safety said Bratton’s suggestion smacked of sexism.

“It’s the idea that somehow we have a hand in this,” said Jamie Lopez, 20, who works in retail and often takes cabs late at night because she finds them safer than the subway. “It’s not the victim’s fault.”

“Amsterdam men to don miniskirts in support of Cologne women,” NL Times

“Male members of the PvdA, D66, SP and GroenLinks’ youth movements will be protesting in mini-skirts on the Spui in the heart of Amsterdam on Saturday afternoon. They want to show support for women’s rights and their displeasure with Cologne mayor Henriette Reker’s statements following the large number of sexual assaults in the German city over New Year’s…

On Facebook the youth movements invite men, and women, to join their protest on Saturday, wearing miniskirts. “Not women, but men must keep away at arms length. Too often sexual violence against women is put down as a woman-problem: don’t wear short skirts. That is never the solution. Short skirts are not at fault.” they write.

“Therefore we are reversing the rolls and we celebrate the skirt and the freedom that goes with it. We deploy our hairy knees for a free society in which women can walk the streets undisturbed, day and night, on short-skirt day or in the middle of the winter.”

“One in three people in south east bullied in street over looks and weight,” Chichester Observer

“A third of adults living in the south east have received negative comments about their weight or appearance in the street, reveals a survey released this week.

The shocking results come from the survey “Fat Shaming Britain 2016”, for diet company LighterLife – which reveals the scale of the epidemic faced by those with weight issues, and the damaging impact this is having on their live.

The poll, which looked at 1,000 adults, revealed that more than a third of people (39 per cent) lack confidence due to their weight or appearance, which is made worse by the negative comments they have endured from strangers – face to face, via social media, by text and in the street.

And the accusers are closer to home than you might think. An alarming 78 per cent of people abused by strangers had also received derogatory comments, face-to-face, from someone they knew.

Weight was overwhelmingly the main subject of comments – good or bad – confirmed by two thirds (67 per cent). And almost one in three (31 per cent) felt the comments they had received were “maybe” or “definitely” street harassment.”

“This Is What A Feminist Cat Call Sounds Like,” Bustle

“Ubiquitous and nasty, street harassment is an experience most women are intimately acquainted with. Now, thanks to the incisive folks on Twitter, feminist cat calls are a thing, revealing the true absurdity of this misogynistic practice as only humor can. Although it’s unlikely real men out there will start yelling informed and intelligent twists on the usual sexist garbage talk, with enough support, maybe, just maybe, these tweets will start a revolution.”

Afghanistan, Cameroon, Chicago: Meet SSH’s New Mentoring Sites!

July 15, 2013 By HKearl

SSH just launched a brand new Safe Public Spaces Mentoring Program to advice/guide and provide a small amount of money to groups or individuals who want help with an anti-street harassment initiative in their community.

I’m excited to announce our three pilot sites for the program!!

Over the next three months we’ll work with activists in Afghanistan, Cameroon, and Chicago, USA, as they undertake projects they’ve designed to address street harassment in their communities.

Here’s an overview of each of their projects and you can look for periodic updates on the blog about their work!

1. “Training of Trainers: Raising Awareness Campaign about Street Harassment in High Schools in Kabul,” Kabul, Afghanistan

This project is based on a separately funded three-part workshop on street harassment. The SSH Mentoring Program funds and direction will go toward helping them develop an additional component to “train the trainers” who will conduct similar workshops. The interested, prospective trainees will attend pilot sessions of the three workshops and will help to develop printed materials, identify weaknesses and provide feedback.

Workshop #1 includes reading women’s narratives about street harassment so they can perceive sexual harassment from the perspective of the victims.

Workshop #2 includes short documentaries about street harassment and students will work in groups to discuss the documentaries and brainstorm some practical solutions to stop street harassment.

Workshop #3 will be activity-based with students making posters, singing a song, or performing a play with the topic of campaign against street harassment in their school. Then, students will be asked to tell their ideas and feedback about the whole campaign.

2. “Understanding the Responding to Street Harassment Safely,” Buea, Southwest Region, Cameroon

This project will have two phases. First, there will be two to three informal focus group discussion with young people around the city. Out of the focus groups, the project leaders will create educational posters and stickers containing messages condemning sexual harassment and will paste them on walls and strategic sites in the city to raise public awareness.

The second phase will be a five hours training seminar with 40 young women, girls and men from diverse sociocultural backgrounds. Participants will be asked to share personal stories of harassment and solutions they sought. Participants will learn about literary works on harassment, how to differentiate street harassment from compliments,and they will engage in role playing to explore the issue and its solutions.

3. “End Street Harassment Campaign,” Chicago, IL, USA

Community members in Chicago will create street harassment scenarios for three, light-hearted, satirical films.

* One film reverses the usual roles and portrays females as the catcallers and a male as the one being harassed.

* The second film features a women asking the catcaller questions from the catcaller questionnaire.

* The last film has a street harasser getting escalating warnings. For the first offense of street harassment one is sprayed with a spray bottle (similar to spraying your cat with a spray bottle when they try to steal your food), the second offense is to be sprayed with a small squirt gun, and the third offense is to be squirted with a super soaker.

The goal of the films is to start conversations about street harassment and show it is not a compliment. The films will be available online and there will be a screening in Chicago in September.

International Women’s Day: Young Women’s Action Team Inspires

March 8, 2012 By HKearl

The Rogers Park Young Women’s Action Team in Chicago stands out to me as being a great organization for inspiring a positive future for girls in their community. Through the organization, girls were able to come together and collectively address issues impacting their daily life, including street harassment. They learned their power as a group and they learned the effectiveness of surveys, lobbying, rallying, and speaking out to create concrete changes. These are tools they can use their whole life to advocate for positive change and to stand up for their rights and the rights of others.

Here’s a synopsis of what they did to address street harassment in Chicago – their work continues to be very inspirational to me and I consider them role models.

From 2003 until 2011, members of the Rogers Park Young Women’s Action Team (YWAT) led an anti-street harassment campaign in Chicago, Illinois. To start, the eight founding YWAT members surveyed 168 neighborhood girls, ages 13 to 19, about street harassment and interviewed 34 more in focus groups. They published their findings in a report titled “Hey Cutie, Can I Get Your Digits?” The results were astounding: 86 percent had been catcalled on the street and 60 percent said they felt unsafe walking in their neighborhoods.

With their report in hand, the young women began a successful and well-organized anti-street harassment campaign. For example, they worked with local business owners to let them know men standing outside their stores harassed them and made them feel unsafe. Over 120 business owners agreed to post signs in their windows that said, “R-E-S-P-E-C-T let me tell YOU what it means to ME! Respect my body. Respect my mind. Respect ME. STOP STREET HARASSMENT.” The efforts of YWAT led to fewer men loitering outside businesses, harassing girls and women.

YWAT also held public forums on street harassment and worked with local leaders, including police and elected officials, to address public safety. One of the YWAT’s major victories was the installation of more street lights along Howard Street and Morse Avenue. City officials also installed a camera on Morse Avenue to better monitor street activities.

In May 2006 and May 2007, YWAT organized a Citywide Day of Action against Street Harassment Campaign to convey the message “the streets belong to ALL OF US.” People participated in 140 forms of activism that day. (This in part inspired me to launch International Anti-Street Harassment Week.)

The young women also hold anti-street harassment workshops at high schools, conferences, and community events. Their latest initiative is working to make public transportation safer in Chicago.

During the spring of 2009, the group of teenage and college-age women surveyed 639 Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) riders, mostly young women. They found that sexual harassment is common on CTA buses and trains. Over half of the survey respondents said they had been sexually harassed and 13 percent said they had been sexually assaulted. Forty-four percent of those surveyed said they had witnessed harassment or assault.

Armed with their survey results, YWAT met with the CTA Board and other key decision makers and asked that CTA employees receive training on how to deal with harassment and that CTA post more information about how people can report harassers. In a major victory for YWAT, only one month later in July 2009, the CTA announced it would expand its policies on how bus and rail operators deal with harassers. The CTA said it would update its public safety tips brochures to include information about harassment and how to report it.

In November 2009, the CTA began to made good on their word and launched PSAs about harassment. Their new print PSA states, “If it’s unwanted, it’s harassment. Touching. Rude comments. Leering. Speak up. If you see something, say something.” At the bottom of the poster there is information for whom to contact if a rider is the target of sexual harassment.

Their work inspired me and others in Washington, DC, to testify before our city council and metro leaders last month to advocate for a PSA campaign too.

Teenage girls face the most frequent street harassment of any age group and I believe it is so important for them to have a big voice in speaking out about this issue and demanding changes that are realistic and will impact the specific problems they face.