Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Street Harassment Phone Hotline Launches Today

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3.5 years after the idea for a street harassment hotline was hatched and six months after a plan was formed, I am thrilled to share that as of TODAY, anyone in the USA can call toll-free for support, help and advice about street harassment. The service is available 24/7, in English or Spanish.

855-897-5910

Help Spread the Word:

  1. Download shareable social media images and post them on your accounts. There are also images that can be posted on websites and designs that can be printed as postcards or stickers.
  2. Join our Thunderclap. We need at least 100 people signed up for the message to be sent out.
  3. If you are willing to post physical copies of the hotline information (postcards, stickers) in your community (e.g. on community message boards, in public bathrooms, on lamp posts) and/or distribute them at events or conferences, please list your mailing address and I will send you some.

More about the Hotline:

Stop Street Harassment has partnered with the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) and Defend Yourself to launch the first-ever national street harassment hotline.

The phone service starts TODAY, July 19 (call: 855-897-5910), and an online (through secure IM) option will be available starting on August 10 via www.StopStreetHarassment.org.

The services both will be offered 24/7, in Spanish and English. People will be able to find emotional support, get advice for how to deal with harassers, learn what their legal rights are, and more.

Everything is in place – now we just need to spread the word so people know about it!

Many thanks to the 50+ people who donated to make it possible, to our Spanish language translation volunteers, to our graphics design volunteer, and to Defend Yourself and RAINN for partnering on this. It would not exist otherwise!!

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Announcement: Street Harassment Hotline Coming in July!

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Stop Street Harassment (SSH) and Defend Yourself are partnering with the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) to launch a gender-based street harassment national hotline in July 2016.

National Street Harassment HotlineRAINN operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline, which provides confidential support those impacted by sexual violence in both Spanish and English. The hotline is available via online chat and by phone 24/7. SSH and Defend Yourself will train RAINN staff who will be answering the National Street Harassment Hotline, to be equipped to help those calling about street harassment.

“We are thrilled about this new partnership and the ability to provide a safe space for those impacted by street harassment to receive help and appropriate resources,” said RAINN’s vice president for victim services, Jennifer Marsh.

Gender-based street harassment affects at least 65% of women and 25% of men in the USA, and it starts at a young age. It can range from catcalls and unwanted sexualized and homophobic comments to illegal acts like following, flashing, groping and sexual assault.

A growing body of research shows that street harassment negatively impacts women emotionally. It can be traumatic for them, especially for survivors of sexual abuse. “Mild” street harassment can escalate into physical harassment without warning and many women and some men have an underlying fear that verbal harassment will become physical. In January 2016, there were two cases – in Texas and Pennsylvania – of street harassment escalating into murder. In late March 2016, a mother in California was shot in the stomach by street harassers whom she confronted for harassing her teenage daughter.

“Street harassment is probably the No. 1 problem that brings women and teen girls to our classes,” says Lauren R. Taylor, director of Defend Yourself. “They desperately need alternatives to ignoring it. With this hotline, we can empower people by sharing skills – and increasing options – for dealing with harassment in public spaces.”

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We have the funds to set up the hotline, but the more money we raise, the more callers we can fund per month to sustain the hotline ($11 = 15 minutes of call time, $22 = 30 minutes).

– $275/month funds 5 hours of call time

– $1,100/month funds 25 hours of call time

Help us reach our $6,600 goal so we can fund at the $1,100 rate for the first six months.

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Meet some of the people who will be answering the hotline!

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Support anti-street harassment efforts this holiday season

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Lately, I’ve been inundated with e-mails and letters from every organization I donated to during their year + their best friend organizations, asking me to donate again. As much as I obviously care about most of those organizations if I’ve already donated to them, my end of year giving is going to two organizations that do anti-street harassment-related work, RightRides and RAINN. You may be interested in donating to them, too.

  • Right Rides for Women’s Safety: For more than six years RightRides has been giving free rides home to women and male members of the LGBQT community on Friday and Saturday nights in New York City. This free service is particularly helpful to people who cannot afford a cab and are reliant on buses and subways and feel unsafe waiting for or taking these late at night. RightRides has a page about the many ways you can become involved. A new feature is recurring gifts. $10/month can cover rides home for 12 people that year and $25/month covers about 30 people’s rides home. Any amount helps.
  • RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network): Individuals across the United States can seek immediate assistance and advice if they or someone they know are survivors of rape and sexual violence via RAINN’s national phone hotline and online chat feature. While most people know their attacker, about 25 percent do not, and many of those cases are strangers in public places who harass and attack them. When too often survivors of sexual violence are blamed for it and thus are silenced and don’t know what to do, RAINN’s services are very important. RAINN also works on prevention legislation and programming. If you donate by Dec. 31, your donation will be matched dollar for dollar, so you can make double the impact.

Here are additional suggestions for organizations whose work makes public places – and the world in general – safer for women and girls. Not only could you do end-of-year giving to them, but you could make a gift out of donating in honor of family members and friends who care about ending and/or are impacted by street harassment.

  • Blank Noise – Support work in India to raise awareness about and end eve teasing/street harassment through performance art and online activism
  • Defend Yourself – Support the work of a Washington, DC organization that holds community workshops and classes that teach skills to stop harassment, abuse and assault. They particularly focus on girls, women, and LGBQT folks.
  • Girls for Gender Equity – Support a NYC organization that empowers teenage girls and has tackled street harassment through surveys, documentaries, conferences, and books
  • Helping Our Teen Girls – Help fund the programs of an Atlanta, GA, organization that empowers teenage girls and has tackled street harassment through workshops and music.
  • Hollaback – Support the NYC-based organization so they can  fund new Hollaback websites around the world
  • The Line – Help fund programs to raise awareness of healthy sexual boundaries, important work that can help prevent street harassment and sexual assault.
  • Men Can Stop Rape – Support rape prevention programming in middle and high schools and colleges that focuses on providing boys with a safe place to talk about masculinity issues and learn healthy definitions of manhood.
  • The White Ribbon Campaign – Support an international organization that works to educate young men and boys about gender equity, respect and healthy relationships.
  • Women for Women International – Help fund programming that helps women in war-torn areas gain skills and resources necessary to rebuild their lives and increase their safety in their community. You can also sponsor an individual woman as a sister.

And are you looking for other last-minute gift ideas? I can suggest a few:

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Online radio show TONIGHT about street harassment

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Need ideas for dealing with street harassers? Listen to a Crime Prevention 101 online radio show tonight at 8 p.m. EDT focused on the topic.

Hosted by Susan Bartelstone, Crime Prevention Specialist

To Listen: http://www.voiceamerica.com/voiceamerica/vshow.aspx?sid=1306

Missed the live show? Available as a podcast and on iTunes: http://tinyurl.com/CP101itunes

It doesn’t just occur when women pass by a construction site or a group of men hanging out in front of a store.  Simply by being in ANY public place, women can be subjected to behavior that ranges from the merely annoying (catcalls, whistles, references to body parts) to the downright terrifying (public exposure, public masturbation, threats of rape).  It’s called street harassment and it happens pretty much all over the world.

This week, I’m interviewing national street harassment expert Holly Kearl, author of the upcoming book Stop Street Harassment:  Making Public Places Safe and Welcoming for Women for a definitive look at this problem.  She runs the website Stop Street Harassment and the companion blog where people from around the world submit their street harassment stories and where she discusses street harassment incidents that make the news.

Then I speak with Chai Shenoy and Shannon Lynberg, co-founders of Holla Back DC which is part of a worldwide grassroots organization that aims to empower people to build a community free from public sexual harassment and assault.  Trust me; they offer a very unique way to effectively “holla back” at your harassers.

You’ll also learn some awareness and prevention skills and simple verbal responses to street harassment that’ll increase your chances of staying safe in these situations, when I speak with self defense instructor Lauren Taylor, from Defend Yourself, who’s also based in Washington, DC.

IT’D BE A CRIME NOT TO LISTEN!

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Street Harassment Round Up – June 14

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New Feature:

  • Visit the Stop Street Harassment Website’s “Map It” page to see where various street harassment incidents have occurred – click on the pushpins to read their stories. (Note: if the pushpins don’t show up at first, try refreshing your browser once or twice. Not sure why this is happening but refreshing eventually makes them show up). Submit your story.

Stories:

  • On this blog, a young woman in London, Ontario, Canada, tells how a boy slapped her on the backside from his bike while she was running. Her anger at the harassment led her to write an article about street harassment for her college.
  • On Holla Back NYC, a contributor tells how a man groped her under her dress while she was buying a Metrocard at the subway!
  • Holla Back DC! has a contributor post from a woman who used to be catcalled every day in her neighborhood and one day a man followed her and threatened her by saying her address and saying he’d come find her, so she better not go to sleep!

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem!

In the News:

  • Emily May of Hollaback NYC wrote an op-ed for New York’s Metro newspaper about how harassment and other misdemeanors must be included in the MTA’s crime count because without subway transparency, the crimes will continue unabated.
  • In Salt Lake City, UT, a man was arrested for groping two women (two different incidents) in public. The police fear there may be other victims and encourage any to come forward.
  • In San Francisco, CA, a man was reported to police for sexually assaulting women on the Muni transit system. Anyone with tips about the man can call (415) 553-1651.

Upcoming Events:

Street Harassment Resource of the Week:

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