Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

“Men who report more gender-equitable attitudes are more likely to be happy”

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The International Center for Research on Women does important work to understanding the reasons behind men’s violence against women.

Most recently, on Wednesday, they released the report International Men and Gender Equality Survey. The report covers their three-year study of nearly 12,000 men and women ages 18 to 59 in Brazil, Chile, Croatia, India, Mexico and Rwanda. These 12,000 individuals participated in interviews about their health practices, parenting, relationship dynamics, sexual behavior and use of violence.

Here is one quick snippet of their findings:

“IMAGES results across all countries showed that men who generally view themselves as superior to women are more likely to report physical and sexual violence against an intimate partner. The same was true for men who abused alcohol, witnessed violence in their childhood home and, except for Mexicans surveyed, those who felt stressed about work or income. Rwandan men were not asked about work stress.”

No surprises there, huh? Changing social attitudes and norms regarding gender equality is very important! So is addressing and breaking the cycle of violence between generations.

Here are overall findings in the conclusion of the report that I know may surprise some people — that gender equity doesn’t hurt men! It makes them happier:

“Overall, IMAGES results affirm that gender equality should be promoted as a gain for women and men. Change seems to be happening as younger men and men with higher levels of education show more gender-equitable attitudes and practices. Men who report more gender-equitable attitudes are more likely to be happy, to talk to their partners and to have better sex lives. Women who report that their partners participate in daily care work report higher levels of relationship and sexual satisfaction. Findings suggest that most men in most of the survey sites accept gender equality in the abstract even if they are not yet living it in their daily practices.”

It’s very promising that change in gender attitudes is visible among younger men. Other studies show that younger generations have fewer issues with race and sexual orientation than our parents and grandparents, too. So it’s not unrealistic to think that in a few more decades, our societies may be more equitable all around.

I plan on reading the full report because I think it can provide good guidance around the work we need to do to prevent street harassment. If you want to read the full report too, you can download it for free from the ICRW website.

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Men speaking out

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With the exciting launch of the weekly series of blog posts by male allies yesterday, I thought I’d continue to show how good men can – and are – stepping up to address this issue. Here are two important, recent videos of men speaking out against street harassment and gender violence.

The first is Tony Porter, co-founder of A Call to Men, speaking at TED. The link takes you to a CNN page with text as well as the video.

 

The second is SpokenSoul215, performing a spoken word piece about street harassment at The Harvest in Dec. (Sorry, I haven’t seen a transcript for this yet).

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Sex segregated in line, assaulted on the bus

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Bus in indiaLast month the government in Central Jakarta, India, segregated people by sex in the bus stop lines to curb crime, including sexual harassment. Today I read a news article about a case of sexual assault on the bus because, unsurprisingly, segregating people without addressing the real issue will not solve the problem!

Via Berita Jakarta:

“The criminal sat beside the victim. At a time, the criminal touched the victim’s breast. The victim screamed and slapped the criminal on his face.

“The incident took place in Tosari. Both of them were stopped in Dukuhatas and then taken to South Jakarta Police Precinct,” said Dano, Tuesday (7/6). In fact, besides separating passengers based on gender, the bus attendant always reminded the passengers to place themselves on empty spaces. To make the passengers comfortable, Transjakarta BLU will set stickers about safety way in the bus.”

I’m sure a reminder to sit in empty spaces is really useful…not. The harasser won’t listen and the harassee probably already did that. I think women instinctively know we’re in for trouble when it’s a largely empty bus or subway car and a man plops himself down right next to us. And sometime when we move, they do, too. Harassing behavior like that is scary and predatory.

What seems to be hard for these men to understand is that they do not have a right to our space and to our bodies just because we’re women living in patriarchal societies. That kind of assumption needs to change! Incidentally, the International Center for Research on Women has an initiative in India focused on changing those assumptions in boys and so far it’s been very successful. Hopefully in time it can spread across all of India!

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North London

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The road close to my street in London is a constant location for harassment. Men hang out in the cafes on the road and leer at passing women in a sometimes threatening, always horrible way. My housemate understandably refuses to walk down the road, I refuse not to.

On Friday night I was walking home at 1 a.m and I was pursued by a man who kept calling out to me. He then started shouting abusively when I became nervous and sped off home, somehow he was offended that a woman walking home late alone would become nervous when pursued by a random stranger. On Sunday, returning from the shops a couple of guys harassed me and turned verbally abusive when I told them where to get off. Action really needs to be taken about this, I’ve considered complaining to my local council. Otherwise I might end up flykicking a stranger in the street!

-anonymous

Location: North London, England

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