Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

More Women-Only Cars in India

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from NYTimes
from NYTimes

The NYTimes reports that in India, gender-based street harassment (or eve teasing) is so bad that the government has instituted a pilot program for eight new commuter trains exclusively for female passengers in India’s four largest cities: New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Calcutta. They are called “Ladies Specials” and offer women relief from harassing men. (view a slideshow from NYTimes)

Gender-based harassment of women on public transportation is widespread. There are many countries that have instituted women-only subway or train cars, buses, or taxi cab services because so many girls and women are groped and harassed by men.

For example, some cities in Thailand, Mexico, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, and UAE have women-only buses.

Japan, Brazil, Egypt, Iran, Mexico, and South Korea are examples of countries with women-only subway cars in their major cities.

In some places in England, Russia, Australia, Lebanon, Iran, India, and the UAE, there are women-only taxi cabs with women drivers.

In the U.S., transit systems in NYC, Boston and Chicago are all struggling to deal with high rates of harassment. Both NYC and Boston have anti-harassment PSAs on some of their subway cars.

Women-only cars are only a band aid fix that does not fix the overall problem of men harassing women.  Men will still harass them on the platform, in mixed car trains, on streets, in parks, etc.  Separate cars can make women who can’t access women-only cars seem like fair game for harassing men.  In Tokyo, which has women-only subway cars, there were 2,000 groping cases reported last year, 30% were of teenage girls. The crime is underreported, so imagine how much higher the figure may be.  Again, Tokyo HAS women-only cars.  This is not a solution.

Men must be taught to respect women and not see them as available for comment, touching, following, and assault when they are in public simply because they are female. Check out what Blank Noise is doing to address eve teasing in India (they aren’t advocating for separate train cars for women and men).

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Public Debate Needed in India Re: Eve Teasing

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Today I read more about the idiotic ban of certain clothing for women in colleges in Uttar Pradesh, India, as an effort to combat “eve teasing” by men there. Via the Telegraph:

“The ban has now been extended to colleges throughout the state and has caused outrage among student groups and women’s rights campaigners who say girls are being blamed for encouraging sexual harassment. The list of ‘vulgar’ clothes which the colleges claim can provoke sexual assaults include sleeveless blouses, tight tops, miniskirts and high-heeled shoes, as well as jeans. Instead, girls should wear traditional saris or kurta pyjamas – long baggy shirts and trousers to conceal their curves…’A dress code would check eve-teasing to some extent and also ensure that girls don’t waste their time selecting what clothes to wear. If girls wore salwar-kurta or Indian clothes, cases of sexual harassment near college campuses would decrease,'” (said Meeta Jamal, Principal Dayanand College, a woman).

Many women are not standing for this:

“The comments were fiercely rejected by the campaign group Blank Noise, which organises street protests against ‘eve-teasers.’

Jasmeen Patheja, a spokeswoman for the group, said the principals had reinforced the old fashioned view that ‘women are asking for it’ by wearing provocative clothes…

She said her group’s extensive research, including a campaign to persuade women to send them the clothes they were wearing when they were sexually harassed, had shown that ‘eve-teasers’ picked on conservatively-dressed women in traditional Indian outfits just as much as those in Western clothes.

The All-India Democratic Women’s Association said it was planning a series of demonstrations against the ban, which it described as ‘dictatorial’ and ‘unconstitutional.’

College and university officials say there has been an increase in ‘eve-teasing’ – which covers a range of behaviour from unwanted flirting to serious sexual assault.

Campaigners say the increase reflects rapid social change in India, where young, educated middle-class women are enjoying greater personal freedom – choosing careers, drinking in bars, and dating without family chaperones…

Ms Patheja said the college principals were wrong to shift the responsibility for eve-teasing from the male perpetrators to the female victims. She said India needs a public debate on the difference between sexual harassment and ‘acceptable ways of wooing.’

Yay Blank Noise & the All-India Democratic Women’s Association for standing up to the idiocy!

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Ban Jeans to Curb Eve Teasers?

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Okay, this is just stupid (via Fox News):

“More and more colleges in the Uttar Pradesh state are prohibiting jeans, miniskirts and tight blouses to combat ‘Eve-teasing,’ a term for sexual harassment in India. Violators face expulsion.

‘Girls who choose to wear jeans will be expelled from the college,’ Meeta Jamal, principal of the Dayanand girls’ college in Kanpur city told AFP. ‘This is the only way to stop crime against women.’

But women said that they are being wrongfully targeted by the new rules, which should really go after the men who are sexually harassing them.

‘Banning any clothing will certainly never solve the issue of sexual harassment,’ a Lucknow University grad student, who didn’t want to be identified, told AFP.

Other colleges in India have tried to prohibit jeans on women, according to the AFP, but rescinded the ban after protests from students.”

Hopefully this ban will also be rescinded. Kudos to the students who are standing up to this idiocy.

Geez, I can’t get over the guy who said the only way to stop harassers is to make women stop wearing certain clothes. They should talk to the women in Eygpt and Yemen who said that they got harassed by men on the streets even when they were veiled!

If harassment is a problem, the focus should be on getting the men who are engaged in the harassing to stop.

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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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Blank Noise Spectator Survey

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The wonderful anti-street harassment activists in India over at the Blank Noise are holding a special survey/discussion on their site through August 15th about being a spectator of street harassment. Of their website visitors who take their poll, 13% reported being a spectator of street harassment.

This is what they ask: “Blank Noise Spectators Special asks members of the public, both men and women, to share what they witnessed. What was your first reaction? Was it to intervene? Was it to ignore? What did you do? What would you rather have done? Can you share your thoughts about being a spectator. If you have been a ‘special spectator’ , that is, intervened in the situation, please tell us how! Was it with wit and humor? Or did you physically assault the ‘perpetrator’? Did you walk away? Or call the cops? Or gather a crowd? Or see another spectator take charge of the situation and participate in any way?”

I admit I’m not much of a confrontational person and it’s something I’m working on but there was one time I almost did say something. I was on the Washington, DC metro (I live in the DC area and take it to/from work etc) on a weekend and it was crowded and there were two young women standing near me dressed to impress and on my other side were a bunch of young men pointing and whispering crude things about the women. The women had their backs to the men and seemed oblivious of what was happening and that is what kept me from intervening. I think if the women had noticed I might have intervened. However, I wish I had anyway because they were being extremely crude and just talking about the women like they only consisted of body parts etc.

Anyway, check out Blank Noise and also feel free to leave your comments on this blog if you’re so inclined 🙂

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