Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Groping: The Sex Crime No One Talks About

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If you pick up the March 2012 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, which just hit newsstands today, and turn to page 180, you can find a four-page article about the problem of men groping women in public places. (And I know some men have been groped too, but the article focused on men groping women.)

I’m glad to see Cosmo take on this under-reported and under-acknowledged, but widespread problem. When I conducted a survey of 816 women for my book Stop Street Harassment, over half of the women, including me, had been groped by a stranger on the street at least once. Cosmo said that 77 percent of respondents in a survey they did reported being the target of this behavior.

I did an interview for the article author, Stephanie Booth, and shared my advice for how to respond if that happens to you. Given the article length and how long my responses were, only some of my advice made the cut. I’m including my longer responses below in case they’re useful to readers. Feel free to share your own advice in the comments.

1. Stephanie Booth (SB): What is the best way for a woman to respond to a groping incident?

Holly Kearl (HK): Every situation is different so there is no one perfect response that will work in all scenarios. A primary piece of advice is to assess the situation quickly and decide how safe you are before choosing a response. If you feel safe (e.g. there are people around, it’s daylight, you’re in a familiar area, and you’re with friends or family), telling the harasser to stop or to back off, shouting out to bystanders about what just happened, demanding some kind of apology or accountability from the harasser are all good options. If you are quick on your feet, using humor can also be effective. This is one of my favorite stories, included in my book, about how a woman handled her harasser after the slapped her backside:

Living in France, I often felt harassed and didn’t know how to deal with the harasser/language and culture barrier. One night while walking home, a group of young men who often whistled at me or called at me began their usual routine. I usually ignored them, but this time the ringleader slapped my butt as I walked by. I turned around and in French said to him, “Congratulations. Is that the first time you’ve touched a woman?” I turned around and walked away while his friends laughed at him. I felt that I had really turned their game against them, and they never bothered me again.

If you feel unsafe, leave the situation as quickly as possible and get someplace where you do feel safe.

Regardless of how you respond in the moment, if someone has groped, grabbed, or slapped you, that is assault and it can be reported to the police, and/to transportation authorities, and/or to business owners/managers (depending on where the harassment happened and what outcome you hope to see). A lot of harassers are repeat harassers so reporting them to ensure they face some kind of penalty for their behavior can hopefully help deter them from harassing someone else.

2. SB: Of course, police should take such a complaint seriously, but is it there a chance it will get blown off? Are there certain “buzz words” a woman should use when she calls police to get them to pay attention?

HK: Yes, based on feedback from women who have reported harassers, there is a chance that police will not take the report seriously. But many police officers do, so it’s worth trying (if people have the time/energy to do so).

I haven’t heard of any buzz words women should use, but looking up their city’s laws and then citing the specific law that was violated may help. For example, in Washington, DC, “misdemeanor sexual abuse” is defined as engaging “in a sexual act or sexual contact with another person . . .  without that other person’s permission,” where “sexual contact” is “the touching with any clothed or unclothed body part or any object, either directly or through the clothing, of the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of any person.”

So a person who is groped in Washington, DC, can call the police to report a case of “misdemeanor sexual abuse.” There’s no guarantee that describing it in those terms will make the police pay more attention than if the person called it “groping,” but it’s worth a try.

3. SB: Is it ever smart to verbally confront a man who is groping you? (Like a woman recently did in the NY subway?) What do you say?

HK: Yes, if you feel safe, it can be very impactful to verbally confront a groper or any type of harasser. People grope and harass because they think they can get away with it and if you’re silent after being groped or harassed (which is sometimes necessary for safety reasons) that often lets them continue to get away with it. Calling them out lets them know you won’t stand by and let them abuse you and calling them out can inspire others around you to help stop the harasser or groper and to stand up to their own harassers or gropers.

If gropers/harassers can no longer grope and harass and then carry on their merry way because suddenly they are being confronted by their target, they will hopefully be less inclined to harass or grope again.

Additionally, as the former Executive Director of the Washington, D.C. Rape Crisis Center, Martha Langelan, teaches in her sexual harassment seminars, there are a few men out there who use street harassment, including groping, as a rape test. They may attempt rape depending on how a woman responds to street harassment. If she is assertive and forceful, they will leave her alone, but if she cowers, freezes, or humors them, they may escalate the harassment to rape.

4.  SB: Should you ever snap his photo with your cell phone and post to a hollaback website?

HK: Yes, you can snap a photo, but if you do, it’s usually more productive to submit it with a police report than to post it on a website. Since harassers are strangers, snapping a photo can help police identify the harasser. Very few police check the Hollaback sites (although last year Holla Back DC! did have a case where a photo of an upskirter posted on their site led to his arrest because a police officer visited their site and saw the photo). Since probably no harassers go on the site either, it’s not a very effective way to deter them from harassing again. A better deterrent may be to print his photo on a flier and post it all around the place where the harassment occurred. He may often pass by that area and see it or someone he knows may walk by and see it.

But sharing one’s story on the Hollaback sites or my site Stop Street Harassment with or without a photo is important because it helps document the problem and it often makes women feel empowered to share what happened with a supportive audience.

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60 men harass, grope two teenage girls in South Africa

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2008 Mini-Skirt March in protest of groping - via Siasa Duni's blog

1/5/12 Update: “The two teenagers who were harassed and groped by a group of men near the Noord Street taxi rank last week laid charges of harassment and intimidation at the Johannesburg central police station yesterday.

“The girls said they could remember some of the men who attacked them, so we are hopeful of their prosecution. We don’t need to arrest all the men, we only need a few to make an example,” Matshidiso Mfikoe, a member of the mayoral committee for public safety, said.”

Via IOL News:

“Two teenagers were harassed and groped in public on Friday because one of them wore a miniskirt. The Sowetan newspaper reported on Tuesday that a 17-minute long clip of CCTV footage shows one girl, wearing a black miniskirt, emerging from a shop where a crowd of between 50 and 60 men had gathered. They follow her, groped her and took photos with their cellphones, the Sowetan reported.

She screamed at her tormentors and occasionally tried to punch them as they groped her. When her friend tried to help her she was also abused.

Johannesburg metro police intervened and accompanied the girl in the miniskirt home. A nearby businessman pulled the other into his shop. Metro police arrived a few minutes later and escorted her away.

Gauteng premier Nomvula Mokonyane also condemned the incident.

“We learned with a deep sense of sadness and anger about the abuse of two young women on December 30 last year, because of their clothing,” she said in a statement.

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the animal-like behaviour of those men involved – some old enough to be the young women’s fathers – where some males went as far as groping the young women.”

Look at this similar story, via a 2008 BBC article:

“Hundreds of South African women have marched to a Johannesburg taxi rank, where a woman was sexually assaulted for wearing a miniskirt. Nwabisa Ngcukana, 25, returned to where she was allegedly attacked by a group of taxi-drivers and street hawkers, who said she was indecently dressed.

“I came here to show the guys that I’m not scared of them – to face my demons,” she told the BBC.

The taxi drivers shouted insults at the women, some of whom wore miniskirts. Some shouted that South African women were being given too many rights….

The authorities have appealed to the taxi-drivers’ association to help find those who allegedly assaulted Ms Ngcukana and other women in recent weeks.

While some South Africans have said it is against local culture for women to wear miniskirts, the National House of Traditional Leaders last week said that women often wore short skirts in traditional ceremonies.”

What chilling behavior and what scary experiences for the young women. The silver lining is the police actually reacted and intervened in the most recent incident, as did a bystander businessman. But what will happen to the harassers and gropers? Do they just get to go on their merry way, ready to harass and grope another young woman the next day? Until there are more prevention efforts and punishments in place, what will change?

And is it time for another miniskirt march?

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Police officer to groped woman: “These things happen”

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Via New York Times:

“Jill Korber walked into a drab police station in Queens in July to report that a passing bicyclist had groped her two days in a row. She left in tears, frustrated, she said, by the response of the first officer she encountered.

“He told me it would be a waste of time, because I didn’t know who the guy was or where he worked or anything,” said Ms. Korber, 34, a schoolteacher. “His words to me were, ‘These things happen.’ He said those words.”

Crime victims in New York sometimes struggle to persuade the police to write down what happened on an official report. The reasons are varied. Police officers are often busy, and few relish paperwork. But in interviews, more than half a dozen police officers, detectives and commanders also cited departmental pressure to keep crime statistics low.

While it is difficult to say how often crime complaints are not officially recorded, the Police Department is conscious of the potential problem, trying to ferret out unreported crimes through audits of emergency calls and of any resulting paperwork.

….

In the case of Ms. Korber, the police did eventually take a report of her being groped, but only after her city councilman, Peter F. Vallone Jr., intervened, she and Mr. Vallone said. In fact, Mr. Vallone said that he had grown so alarmed over how many women were being groped in his district that he contacted the 114th Precinct; his staff then asked Ms. Korber to go there again.”

Of all of the forms of street harassment that women face, groping is one form that is illegal everywhere – it’s assault! So this news that NYPD is regularly not doing anything about it when women report it is very, very frustrating. Especially because during 2011 there were multiple serial gropers in New York City, and many other New Yorkers shared stories about men who groped them in the streets.

Because so many police officers respond this way, plus the fact that some police officers are harassers, makes many people take matters into their own hands, they choose to fight back or create a community response to street harassment.

But street harassment, including groping, is a serious problem. Groping is a crime. The police need to respond appropriately, otherwise, what’s the point of having a police force? Come on, NYPD, you can do better.

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Consequences for street harassers

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One reason why street harassment is so pervasive is because street harassers rarely face consequences for their actions. But lately, more and more harassers ARE facing consequences, sometimes from the women they target and sometimes from the police.

1 – In Kuwait, after nine men sexually harassed young women at a shopping mall, the police shaved their heads and made them sign a pledge of good conduct in public.

2 – After a soldier groped her, a store clerk in India threw rocks at him on the street, cheered on by passers-by.

Boston groper, via the Boston Herald

3 – When a man groped her on the subway in Boston, a woman took his photo and reported him to the police. He was charged with indecent assault and battery on a person over the age of 14.

4 – A street harasser in Bellingham, Washington, approached two women on a street, making offensive slurs. After one of them said they didn’t want to talk to him, he caused $600 worth of damage to their car. One of the women tackled the man and held him down until a bouncer from a nearby bar came to help. The harasser was was arrested and taken to jail for investigation of malicious harassment, which is a hate crime.

5 – After groping a woman on the street in Romania, a street harasser was chased away by the woman.

YES!

Read 16 other memorable responses to street harassment from this year.

Hopefully each of these harassers will be deterred from harassing again because of the consequences they faced. There’s less incentive for them if they know they could have their head shaved or be chased or hit or jailed.

What kinds of consequences do you want to see street harassers face?

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“I drew this comic in order to cope with street harassment”

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“I drew this comic in order to cope with the street harassment I face nearly every day. This Thanksgiving was surprisingly bad. Unfortunately, one of my male coworkers told me, ‘Either you have really bad luck or your perception about what’s really happening is confused.’

I hope that sharing my experience will prevent other women from doubting what we already know to be true: it’s not our luck that causes harassment and we’re not confused.”

Liz Rush identifies as a radical feminist, an immigrant, and a pedestrian. She is currently working on a collection of comic short stories and keeps a graphic diary about her experiences in Spain called Sin Hemingway.

“How was the walk?”

“Don’t touch me. Leave me alone.”

“Whore.”

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