Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Islamophobia Spreads – But Some Challenge It

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After the recent attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, which were both carried out by Islamic radicals, there has been an increase in Islamophobia. For example, in the U.S., we have seen support for terrible ideas like banning all Muslims from this country or rejecting Syrian refugees fleeing ISIS. This is despite that fact that around one billion other Muslims are perfectly peaceful and 70 thousand Muslim clerics have issued a fatwa denouncing terrorist organizations and attacks.

The rise is Islamophobia also plays out in public spaces. For example, NPR recently produced a story about an increase in backlash and harassment toward Muslim women who wear hijabs.

Other countries are seeing a rise in harassment, too. In the UK, the Independent reported “that there’s been a sharp increase in hate crimes towards British Muslims after the Paris attacks. In the week following the killings, there have been 115 incidents mostly towards girls and women aged between 14 and 45.”

Fortunately, various media outlets are speaking out against this behavior, like the Washington Post: “In communities across America, we are turning on each other, on the very neighbors who have been part of the fabric of our country for decades…The rhetoric dominating our nation right now is anything but civil. It’s time for all of us to put a stop to it.”

23-year-old Ruhi Rahman thanked passengers for the support in a Facebook post.
23-year-old Ruhi Rahman thanked passengers for the support in a Facebook post.

Two of my favorite stories of resistance come from the UK:

“23-year-old Ruhi Rahman said a woman sitting next to her jumped in to help after a man started to make racially threatening comments towards her. After the woman intervened, most of the other passengers on the Tyne and Wear Metro also stepped in forcing the man to leave the train…

Last week, a London commuter stepped in to defend a young Muslim woman after she was racially abused in a rant on the tube. 22-year-old Ashley Powys wrote in a Facebook post that he was travelling on a Victoria line train on Nov. 16 when he saw a man in his 30s shouting at the teenager and calling her a terrorist.”

I encourage everyone to stand up and speak out against Islamophobia! It is unwarranted and unacceptable.

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Covered from head to toe, groping continues

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Women in Cairo. Image via the Boston Globe

I’m sick of hearing people blame women for street harassment by saying things like, “if only women covered up it wouldn’t happen.”

In many countries where women ARE completely covered, harassment occurs. 90 percent of women surveyed in 2009 in Yemen had been street harassed and most women wear a veil. Egyptian woman Hadeel al Shalchi wrote a great opinion piece for The National about the insane amount of street harassment in Egypt, and the following section discusses the issue of being covered and still being harassed:

“The onus in our society has largely lain on women to prevent sexual harassment. If a girl doesn’t cover her hair or wear very conservative clothing, then she’s obviously asking for it and wants the harassment, the prevailing attitude seemed to be.

As a result, more women began to cover up. The hijab and niqab became common in Egypt, not purely for religious reasons but also because women wanted to avoid the unpleasantness of being glared at by the opposite sex.

But when the harassment continued, Egyptian women knew there was something seriously wrong.

Covered from head to toe in black, they were still being groped, propositioned and annoyed. What more could they do? …

Three years ago, an amateur video of women in hijabs being attacked in downtown Cairo during a holiday event was made public. Shocked Egyptians were brought face to face with the ugly nature of harassment. Some mobile-phone images showed men tugging at young girls’ clothes. Others showed the girls being physically attacked.

This was real evidence of a very real problem. Those who had ignored what every woman knew could deny it no longer.

Women’s groups were emboldened to launch anti-harassment campaigns, teaching women that the problem was not their fault and encouraging them to persist in bringing complaints – even small ones – to the police. They were also urged to take self-defence classes and to use what they were taught on men who abused them in the street. …

In Egypt, sexual harassment will, most probably, continue to exist for a long time to come. Attitudes that allow such behaviour appear culturally ingrained. But increasingly women are waking up to this reality and beginning to reject it.

Women here are saying it loudly: enough to being groped on the subway, to being undressed with a look, to being followed to work. This must stop!“

Amen. Enough!! Street harassment MUST END and it will not end by requiring women to be completely hidden from view. Instead, men must stop harassing women and there must be cultural respect for women. What can you do? Here are a few ideas, feel free to share more in the comments.

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Tunisian street harassment

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Being in Tunisia for the summer, street harassment is an incessant issue for me. I’m often told by other Americans that I just need to deal with it, because it’s just part of their culture and I shouldn’t insult a different culture. I’m told by Tunisians to just ignore it, which is hardly a satisfying response, but provoking them is often just as worse. I’m also told by people, like my mother, that i should stop complaining because it’s a compliment, and I’ll miss it when I’m old and don’t get cat called anymore. (I even wrote about this in my blog, http://independentlyowned.wordpress.com/2009/06/29/transnational-gender-stereotypes/)

The harassment is usually low-level, and comes in the form of “Hello, miss,” “Bonjour,” “Very nice,” kissing noises, or other such small yet obnoxious comments. They usually say it when they’re just about to pass me, when they’re closest to me for that one brief second. They obviously don’t expect me to respond, otherwise they wouldn’t wait until the last moment. It’s merely a way of asserting their power over women, because they feel that they have a right to comment to any woman that they wish but they’re not giving us the right to respond back. It’s like getting into an argument with someone where they go on a rant and then hang up the phone, or sign offline. They don’t respect you enough to allow you to respond, nor do they care.

Other times harassment comes in the form of intense stares. They might not say anything, but instead glare you down until you’re out of their line of vision. Nothing will come of it if you do or don’t respond, but it is the most unsettling feeling. It is especially bad when dozens of men are all sitting at a street cafe and all stare as you walk by. It is not flattering, and I feel like an animal on display at the zoo.

Most people say just to ignore it, but this is hardly satisfying, and often impossible. Even if I pretend like they don’t exist, they still did what they wanted to do and I feel used. They still leave the situation satisfied and thinking that what they did was totally okay.

No matter what I wear I will get harassed, even when I was here in the winter and was completely covered I still got harassed. Some Americans suggest that I wear hijab to avoid it, but especially seeing as it is not required of women, and in fact more than half the women do not wear it, I feel like I shouldn’t have to resort to such (in my opinion) oppressive measures just to be able to walk freely down the street. Also, I might still get harassed simply because I’m white and thus foreigner. The burden should not be on me to cover myself and look “less desirable,” especially when most women wear the highest fashions, but it should be the responsibility of the men to behave in public.

– Katie Franklin

Location: Tunisia

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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