Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Making New Delhi Safer

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Women in New Delhi were surveyed about their experiences traveling in a specific area of the city. Over 1/3rd faced sexual harassment and over 1/3 faced theft and nearly 1/2 felt threatened when in the area.

“Women reported it to be one of the unsafe areas (in the city) especially after dark. They faced various forms of sexual harassment like catcalling, groping or lewd gestures. Open drug usage was another issue,” the survey pointed out.

The recommendations to make the area safer include traffic monitoring, better pavements, and monitoring of drug usage on the roads. The government has plans to implement many of them.

This survey is part of a larger study of four cities (Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, Delhi in India, Rosario in Argentina, and Petrozavodsk in Russia) focused on making cities safer for women called the Gender Inclusive Cities Project. It is sponsored by Women in Cities International and the UN Trust Fund.

I’m glad these organizations are addressing this important issue – there will not be gender equality unless women and men can safely access public spaces – and I plan to learn more about their initiatives. I hope the Gender Inclusive Cities project can eventually address other major cities around the world too.

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Hate Crimes at Georgetown

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Via Washington Blade

 

Students at Georgetown University held a candlelight vigil earlier this week after men attacked a female and a male student, in two separate incidents, while spewing anti-gay/lesbian comments. On Monday, someone posted a derogatory slur on the door of the campus LGBTQ Resource Center. Both campus officials and local police are investigating the assaults and the slur.

It is an outrage that people cannot walk down the street without other people harassing and/or attacking them for their sexual orientation, gender, race, etc!

The fact that so many of these hate crimes, including the two on the Georgetown students, are perpetrated by boys and men says a lot about masculinity in this country: how it is framed, how boys/men are socialized into it, and how often men are rewarded instead of punished for taking masculinity to the extreme in the form of hate crimes (including sexual assaults). It’s gonna take a lot of work before everyone is safe from hate on the streets.

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