Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Weekly Round Up: August 29. 2010

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Story Submissions Recap:

I accept street harassment submissions from anywhere in the world. Share your story!

In the News, On the Blogs:

Events:

Announcements:

10 Tweets from the Week:

  • missandrealuise Want to influence mayoral policy on street harassment? See London Anti Street Harassment (LASH) Campaign’s survey: www.lashcampaign.org
  • Eliza “street harassment is on the same spectrum of violence against women” SO TRUE.
  • StreetHarassmnt Man riding bike sneering at Laura & I falls over curb because he was too focused on us hot ladies! There is a god!
  • CatCall “Hey pretty!” on Ave C. I’m starting to think C stands for CatCall.
  • ThatWasLaura Seriously man? “Helloooo nurse?” what the fuck kind of catcall is that? I’m not a cartoon.
  • motheroflight What is it, Catcall Thurs? I guess the men of downtown arent ready 4 the return of skinny jeans&books. #StopCallingMeHoney
  • stephenlacour It’s 2010 and I can’t believe that old gross dudes still catcall random girls so hard.
  • kitchentop fuck u asshole who specifically stuck yr hand out 2 grope me as i passed u on the sidewalk. #streetharassment
  • TheOpEdProject Over 80% of women are harassed, just for walking on the street. Check out new book by @hkearl Stop Street Harassment http://bit.ly/a4E8Mw
  • SakuraChica I will be reading “Stop Street Harassment: Making Public Places Safe and Welcoming for Women” by @hkearl. “catcalling” is NOT a compliment.
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Harassers fall flat on their noses

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There’s a cremation ground here in New Delhi which I pass by often. Outside it there’s a huge sign that says, “Do one good act a day.” I just did mine like 30 minutes ago and I thought I should write it here.

I was driving my car, and right now is has been raining cats and dogs for the past hour in the city. I nudged two guys on a bike and made them fall flat on their nose and injure themselves nicely.

This is my good act for today.

There was this girl sitting on the back of a bike with some guy in the front. She was dressed in something like linen pants maybe, and the torrential rain made the pants see through. These other two guys on a bike were constantly ogling at her and I could make out she was very uncomfortable. There was a lot of traffic and no one could do anything about it at that time.

I was sort of pissed off at the whole situation, and when I saw a little break in the traffic, I nudged my car forward and nosed it at an angle that it was right behind the two guys on the bike. I sped forward, banged the back of their bike hard, made sure they fell nicely, and then I raced away. I could see the girl and the boy race away too, and as they passed me I could see the smile on the girl’s face!

So now I have a huge scratch in the right side of my bumper, and it’s a new car, but what the hell, it was worth it seeing the ecstatic look on the poor girl’s face.

Tonight, I’ll sleep alright. I’ve done my good deed for the day!

– Tbg

Location: South Delhi, New Delhi, India

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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Blocking the view of oglers

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This happened in Delhi. Yesterday evening, I was at a take away place and I had ordered something and was waiting for my order to come through. This young girl about 13 or so walks in and orders some take away food at the counter and stands back waiting for her order to be ready. There’s this group of men in their early thirties were waiting there too. This kid is hardly 13 and has no breasts to speak of and she’s wearing jeans and a long shirt below her hips with an open collar. This dirty group of young men stared openly at the kid’s chest. Made me feel creepy. Think about it, she’s just a kid! It made me very angry, but I couldn’t do much, so I moved myself and positioned myself in front of the kid so the other guys couldn’t ogle at her, as in I came in their line of vision. I cannot go all around town slapping people. That was the best I could do at that moment. What is the world coming to? Everybody has kids who are 12 or 13 at one point of time in life! Sickening!

– Tbg

Location: Delhi, India

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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45-year-old man leers at 14-year-old girl

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This happened yesterday. I’m a guy in my mid thirties from Delhi. I was standing in a store, waiting for the counter boys to be free from the earlier customers awaiting my turn. This young girl aged about 14 was standing in front of me. She was dressed in dark shorts, which weren’t too short and a red tee which covered everything.

This middle aged man walks in, and while he’s standing in the store he looks the little girl up and down again and again. I felt like giving that old man a tight slap across his face, but did not want to create a scene in the store. After a while they left, but the incident left a very bad taste in my mouth.

That man was about 45 plus and the girl not a day over 14. Now I wish I had slapped that old man!

– Tbg

Location: Delhi, India

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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UNICEF addresses “eve teasing” in Bangladesh

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Via UNICEF

I’m so pleased to hear that UNICEF is tackling the huge problem of eve teasing/street harassment in Bangladesh!

Recently they helped organize more than 600 people for a rally in the Narsingdi district of Bangladesh to speak out against eve teasing. With local groups they helped organize parents, community members and adolescents in Narsingdi for a motivational workshop aimed at protecting adolescent girls. UNICEF and its partners also are working to create awareness by establishing and supporting local adolescent groups called ‘Kishori Clubs’. The clubs allow girls and boys to learn to socialize in positive ways and they participate in activities that empower them to become agents of change.

(Watch the YouTube video of the march and Kishori Club)

Via UNICEF’s website:

“At the workshop in Narsingdi, adolescents from a local Kishori group presented a play that explored the negative impact of Eve teasing and suggested ways to prevent it. The powerful performance reflected the strong opinions of the young people involved.

”I have a friend. A boy used to tease her,” explained performer and Kishori Club member Marzahan, 13. “But after we staged this play at our school, the boy began to understand. Our teachers also taught him about the damage that Eve teasing can cause. Now he is friendly to everybody and he doesn’t tease any girls anymore.”

Shohagh, 13, another club member, is among the boys who believe the time has come to take action on Eve teasing. “Girls need to have access to education and be able to live healthy lives,” he said. “They should be able to enjoy their rights.”

Fantastic. I love how they are taking a preventative angle rather than just telling girls to not go out at night or to ignore harassers. That doesn’t work, but education, dialogue, and prevention do.

12.14.10: Here’s another news story about this problem that looks at it across the past year.

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