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There will be no equality as long as women are harassed in public places

August 26, 2010 By HKearl

On Women’s Equality Day, Americans celebrate the rights women have gained. Since the passage of the 19th amendment 90 years ago, women can vote, attend any institution of higher education, enter every job field, participate in all sports, own property, control when and if to have children, and run for president. I am grateful for these rights. I also feel a responsibility to help women gain additional basic rights as we strive for full equality.

Earlier this month I received a disturbing story for my blog Stop Street Harassment. A female employee said that male customers regularly sexually harass her at a retail store in Vicksburg, Mississippi. When men began following her to her car, she felt so unsafe she bought a taser. Her manager refused to act so she plans to quit her job to move near her family.

In another recent story submitted to my blog, a woman from Chicago, Illinois, shared how a group of young men on the sidewalk surrounded her as she walked to the subway. They made sexually explicit comments, hissed in her ear, and one groped her buttock. She says these kinds of encounters impact her clothing choices, commuting routes, and the time of day she leaves her home.  She wrote, “I feel as though the right to walk freely in public spaces is one I’ve been denied.”

Until women don’t have to move, change jobs, or plan their travel routes, as the Vicksburg and Chicago women and countless others have had to do, because of male harassment and the threat of male assault, women will never achieve full equality. Public places will never be safe and welcoming for women as long as men make sexual and sexist comments, whistle, leer, stalk, masturbate at, and grope them there.

Formal and informal studies show that no matter their age, sexual orientation, race, class, dis/ability, or body type, most women experience this kind of harassment, termed street harassment. This includes 100 percent of women in a 1995 Indianapolis study, 100 percent of women in a 2000 California Bay Area study, and 99 percent of women in an informal online survey I conducted in 2008.

In lieu of laws or societal concern about their plight, women practice scores of strategies at different times to avoid harassment and assault. From my informal survey of 811 women I found that on at least a monthly basis, 37 percent consciously try to wear clothes they think will attract less attention, 46 percent avoid being out at night, and 49 percent change routes on at least a monthly basis. Almost all women practiced these and other strategies at least a few times. Most alarming, just like the woman in Vicksburg, 19 percent have moved neighborhoods because of harassers, and nine percent have changed jobs because of harassers near their workplace or along their commute.

Disappointingly, aside from a few local governments, activist groups, and feminists, American leaders and citizens are doing nothing about this widespread problem. Unlike public harassment motivated by racism or homophobia, harassment motivated by sexism is treated as a joke, a compliment, or a trivial annoyance and women may be blamed for “causing” it. Songs like Katy Perry’s “Starstrukk,” Allstate insurance’s woman jogger mayhem commercial, and Facebook groups like “Grab An Ass Day” reflect these attitudes. This must change if we want gender equality.

I suggest American government leaders and activists learn from other countries’ recent efforts to end street harassment and take their own action. In Cairo, Egypt, Parliament is considering an anti-sexual harassment law that would include public spaces. In Delhi, India, the government and NGOs are conducting studies of different areas of the city to find out what makes women feel unsafe so they can address those issues. This summer local activists and the government of Wales sponsored “One Step Too Far,” a television ad about sexual harassment in public and at work aimed at men that aired during the World Cup.

Can you imagine the positive impact of these or similar initiatives if they were implemented in the United States? The very act of national leaders acknowledging street harassment to be a problem would lead to crucial change.

The responsibility for ending street harassment also lies with each of us. At an individual level, we can all talk and learn about street harassment because problems that are ignored stay problems. We can stand up for women being harassed and report harassers, teach boys to respect women, and empower girls to know how to deal with harassers. And crucially, men who harass women need to stop.

I hope that before another 90 years pass all women can safely enter, use, and enjoy public spaces. Only then can we hope to achieve gender equality. On Women’s Equality Day, let’s all commit to do our part.

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Filed Under: street harassment Tagged With: 90th anniversary 19th amendment, equal rights, gender inequality, one step too far, street harassment, women's equality day

“I believe in equal rights & respect”

August 26, 2010 By Contributor

I got on the bus this morning to go to work, i had missed the last bus as i had to change from my dress to a pair of jeans and a top because it started to rain. so as i stepped onto the bus, i fumbled in my bag for my purse and i notice the bus driver leering at me.

“i like your top,” he said, ogling at my chest area. (the top was a bit low but not so my boobs were spilling out!) i didn’t know what to say so just gave a fake smile and sat down. but i was fuming. then to top it off, when i arrived at work and told my manager, she just told me “not to wear low tops then”! so i guess it’s my fault i got perved at. charming.

– Clarice

Location: Bridgend, south wales, no 63 bus

[Then two days later she sent this one]

Hi, i have put up a couple of stories on here already. I’m new to this site and i have to say, through reading some of the stories about experiences with street harassers, it has inspired me to speak out and stand up against street harassment.

I am 19 years of age and i can tell you that some of the experiences i’ve had are shocking. From leering, crude remarks and insults to groping and threats, i’ve suffered from them all. It started when i was around 13, just starting puberty. I don’t get as much bother now as i did when i was a few years younger, but i still get the odd perv ogling me or silly teenage boys making rude gestures.

It saddens me that women have got to put up with this kind of treatment. And i realise that the only reason why men do it is because we are female. It’s to do with power and control. Men believe that women are below them and therefore, they have a right to ‘keep us in our place’. Not me. I believe in equal rights and respect for both genders.

– Clarice

Location: Bridgend, South Wales, UK

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Include your location and it will be added to the Street Harassment Map.

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Filed Under: Stories, street harassment Tagged With: equal rights, sexual harassment, south wales, street harassment

Unpleasant Reminder

May 28, 2009 By Contributor

A few evenings ago, I was walking down the street with my girlfriend in downtown Louisville. We were walking home from a poetry reading. As we were walking, I noticed a man walking along side of us. He passed us, and then spat twice directly in our pathway. It didn’t hit us, fortunately.

I was baffled. I said aloud, “Gross! Did that guy just spit at us?”

Another man, who had been walking just behind us, also passed us up. He overheard my question and said, “He was cursing you.”

I was even more puzzled. “What?”

“He was cursing you. It was a curse,” he said, and continued down the street.

My girlfriend and I were disgusted and confused. Why in the world would some random strange man want to curse us? And then it hit me.

It was because my girlfriend and I were holding hands. In public. For all the world to see. Including homophobic jerkwads.

As an openly gay woman, I’ve had to train myself to not notice people on the street. I’ve taught myself to not pay attention to other people’s reactions when they see my girlfriend and me holding hands or acting affectionate in public. You know, the same way straight couples act in public, only they don’t get spit at or cursed. This kind of deliberate tuning out of the world is the only way I’m able to enjoy being out and visible with my girlfriend. So sometimes I forget that people hate me without knowing me. Sometimes I forget that people think I’m evil, a sinner, going to hell, disgusting, perverted, or somehow less than human.

It’s not very pleasant to be reminded.

-Maria

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Filed Under: Administrator Tagged With: bigotry, equal rights, LGBQT, same-sex couples, sexual harassment, street harassment

A Wish on Women's Equality Day

August 26, 2008 By HKearl

Today is Women’s Equality Day. In my past life I was a history major and I worked for a women’s history organization, which instill in me a fervent appreciation for the determined women and men whose activism made it possible for women to vote. I find this day an appropriate time to reflect on all the rights we’ve gained – hey I got to run on my school’s cross country team and take AP calculus and attend college and now I don’t have to marry my partner and I can work and have control over my reproductive abilities and have my own checking account and own property and vote – and think about the rights I hope we can have in the future.

My wish today is for equality to extend to the public sphere. Women should have as much right as a man to be in public without the fear of being harassed or assaulted. Yet, ask any woman and any man how safe they each feel in different public sphere scenarios and I think it will be clear that there is not equality. This can impact other areas of a woman’s life – like prevent her from going to night classes or taking a night shift or make her take a long route to work or keep her from enjoying exercising in the fresh air or make her dread just going to the corner grocery store for milk. How can women have equality if they can’t enjoy these basic rights?!

What are your women’s equality day wishes and/or what are you grateful for?

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Filed Under: Administrator Tagged With: 19th Amendment, activism, equal rights, right to vote, street harassment, women's equality day, women's history

A Wish on Women’s Equality Day

August 26, 2008 By HKearl

Today is Women’s Equality Day. In my past life I was a history major and I worked for a women’s history organization, which instill in me a fervent appreciation for the determined women and men whose activism made it possible for women to vote. I find this day an appropriate time to reflect on all the rights we’ve gained – hey I got to run on my school’s cross country team and take AP calculus and attend college and now I don’t have to marry my partner and I can work and have control over my reproductive abilities and have my own checking account and own property and vote – and think about the rights I hope we can have in the future.

My wish today is for equality to extend to the public sphere. Women should have as much right as a man to be in public without the fear of being harassed or assaulted. Yet, ask any woman and any man how safe they each feel in different public sphere scenarios and I think it will be clear that there is not equality. This can impact other areas of a woman’s life – like prevent her from going to night classes or taking a night shift or make her take a long route to work or keep her from enjoying exercising in the fresh air or make her dread just going to the corner grocery store for milk. How can women have equality if they can’t enjoy these basic rights?!

What are your women’s equality day wishes and/or what are you grateful for?

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Filed Under: Administrator Tagged With: 19th Amendment, activism, equal rights, right to vote, street harassment, women's equality day, women's history

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