Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Street Harassment Stops Here

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This article has been cross-posted from Kaligraphy Magazine for International Anti-Street Harassment Week. You can read more stories about street harassment in Spain at Levanta La Voz! Madrid.

I started this webzine because I believe in the power of story sharing; in raising awareness, in connecting people, in promoting empathy, story sharing is one of the most powerful tools at humanity’s disposal for effecting change.

This is understood by Hollaback, a global network founded in 2005 of activists committed to ending street harassment largely via story sharing and mapping on their app and website.

Last year, I helped found one of these networks in Madrid, Spain, after I met an expat like me who was appalled by the pervasiveness of street harassment worldwide. With myself and five other strong, committed women, we founded Levanta La Voz! Madrid to help women in Spain’s capital find the support they need through sharing their stories.

Here are our stories.

Elena

67% of girls experience harassment before age 10. I was one of them.

When it happens to you at such a young age, it becomes a part of you. You get used to it, in a way, but you never stop being vulnerable. You flinch every time a male stranger talks to you, conditioned to expect harassment. You put up walls in the way you walk and the way you look, which often only elicits more harassment: “sonríete!” (smile).

So when I first moved to Madrid, I wondered if it would be different. After living there no more than a few weeks, I attended an event hosted by a group that showed films which passed the Bechdel test. After the film, I asked the group’s founder, a woman from England, what her experience of street harassment was like in Spain compared to back home. She directed me to another woman at the event, Debbie, who she said was interested in starting an organization to target that sort of thing.

Bingo! I love activism. Debbie and I talked, and I was immediately on board.

My personal experience of street harassment in Spain differs in some ways from that of the co-founders. I’m a short, curly-haired brunette who fits perfectly well with the description of a “typical” Spanish woman. In other words, I fit in.

In my view, street harassment in Spain centers largely on targeting the ‘other’, reminding those who don’t fit in that they don’t belong – exoticizing them, which is never a good thing.

But even though I’ve rarely had more than the occasional, uncomfortable “oye, guapa!” thrown my way, I’m still conscious of the culture of power and domination which exists as profoundly here as it does in the United States. And as long as it exists, I’ll be fighting to ensure it doesn’t.

Kate

I had been living in Madrid for a while and looking to be more involved with the local community and feminist activism.

Street harassment had been something I struggled with here since the beginning.

Whilst my home city, Brisbane, also has street harassment, it was usually people yelling things at me from cars or on public transport; whereas, here more often than not my harasser would be literally centimetres away – or less when they reached out and touched me!

As with most places in the world men especially target people that look different to the “typical” Spanish person. Hence, being blonde acts as a beacon for street harassment, ¡ya, yo sé que soy rubia!

I’d tried a few strategies for dealing with the street harassment – venting online and to my friends, doing something “daring” when it felt safe to do so – like giving them the finger as I walked away, or with one man who was in his 80s, I practically pushed him over.

Most the time the street harassment I’ve experienced has been on the annoying side rather than scary but not always.

When I’d been in Spain for just two weeks, I was taking Spanish classes in Santander, Cantabria. One Sunday morning, I was walking down from my host family to meet my boyfriend in centre of the town. Now Santander has a lift that you can take to get from the top to the bottom of the town. To get to the lift I had to walk next to an empty construction site. As I walking along, a man behind me called out “Hola guapa!” Not wanting to engage with him, I walked a bit faster and ignored him. He was furious, he called out after me “Oye, puta” and started running towards me. There were several flights of stairs next to the lift so I ran down a flight and decided he would either take the lift and I could go back to the top or if he started coming down the stairs towards me I would have a head start. He took the lift down and was out of sight. I waited awhile then walked down to the bottom of the stairs. It turned out the man was still waiting there and ran back up to start yelling at me. There was an old man waiting for the lift, so I stood beside him, hoping the other man would just go away. After a while, he moved away and walked up to a seat that looked over the lift and kept muttering things at me. I ran down the hill and met my boyfriend there. It was terrifying as the man just had so much rage, all because I’d ignored his “hola guapa” remark.

santander
the lift where I was harassed

So earlier this year when I met a woman, who I now work with, who told me she was working with other women on a grassroots, community led response to street harassment, it couldn’t have been more perfect. I was being harassed daily and had had enough scary encounters to know it was a serious problem and one that left you feeling helpless and sometimes alone.

Jen

I moved to Madrid 2 years ago and I immediately began to notice that men would comment as I walked past. At first I wasn’t sure if I was imagining things. Then when it became more common I didn’t always understand what was being said and I certainly didn’t have the level of Spanish to retort. I felt frustrated and angry. I stopped making eye contact. I started listening to music all of the time when I was out and about so that my earphones would block out any harassment. I have since acquired a level of Spanish to tell my harassers off. Sometimes I just explain that I don’t like their behaviour and would like their respect. Sometimes I ask them if they think I am as insignificant to them as a dog. Thankfully I have never felt unsafe or threatened, but I panic if I leave my house without earphones, avoid certain streets and don’t make eye contact. I am also always mentally prepared with a comment. It affects how I feel at times depending on what I’m wearing. I am thankful the weather is cold again so that I don’t have any skin on display. The reason I got involved in Hollaback is because I don’t want to feel oppressed anymore and I envisage a future where no one feels like I do – regardless of sex, race, religion, sexual orientation, body type, ability, or age. We all have the power to try and make a change.

Debbie

Why did I get involved with fighting street harassment? Because I just couldn’t take it any more.

Harassment is something I think women notice and feel more when they live abroad. This leads me to believe that the prevalence and society’s normalisation of street harassment means women are more likely to think of their own country’s harassment as just part of being a woman, but it’s when we are abroad and experience another culture’s harassment that we really feel it.

So despite having experienced plenty of harassment in my native country of England the street harassment cultural shock I got from moving abroad to Spain was difficult to deal with. I hated it but as a young woman I knew that putting limits with complete strangers would get me called a ‘bitch’, ‘frigid’, ‘uptight’, ‘no fun’, ‘humourless’ and more. I tried to swallow it – it is of course, I thought, the price of being a woman. But years went by and as I got older I realised that, even though I’m a woman, I deserved a basic respect that was continuously being denied me in the street, and that’s when it got unbearable. That’s when I started noticing just how often it happened, started realising it had nothing to do with the clothes I wore, nothing to do with how I looked, realising that no matter how I reacted – angry, confused, polite, conversational, you name it – what I got back was aggression and all this led up to me one day running home, locking myself in and crying, wondering if my harasser might have followed me and now knew where I lived, and what he would do to me if he saw me again in the street. The power play became evident and I went online looking for support, support I desperately needed so I wouldn’t feel alone as if these things only happened to me.

What I found online is what has brought me to where I am now. I found that street harassment is a global problem, a cross-cultural problem, and that it happens to most women but that we simply don’t talk about it. I read up on it, worked through my own brainwashing and ideas of what it was and where it came from and I started talking about it with my friends only to find that almost all of them had silently been experiencing street harassment and felt just as I did. I wanted to do something about it and was so lucky to come across the section of Hollaback! which explains how they support anti-street harassment groups globally, and was so lucky again to end up forming a team with an amazing group of hardworking, dedicated women. Now we’re getting Madrid’s anti-street harassment movement off the ground and it’s the most exciting thing ever – the idea of a Madrid where women decide to stop and say ‘No. No more’ to street harassment.

Vicky

Within a few weeks of living in Madrid, I became aware that I was receiving a lot of attention from men on the street. The sounds of “oye rubia” seemed to follow me everywhere. I became tired of hearing it, although it didn’t really affect me. However, as my Spanish improved I started understanding more and more of the accompanying comments I would receive, and I started to become annoyed and angry with the situation. Not a week would go past where I didn’t have at least one particularly memorable experience, but I was frustrated by the responses I received from many of my Spanish friends when I told them my stories: “this is Spain, you have to get used to it”. “Why should I have to get used to this?” I asked my friends, and I asked myself.

I wanted to be able to change this attitude towards street harassment, so that people would realise it is a problem and not the way things have to be.

Being harassed became an expectation in my daily life. It affected how I now behave when I am out and about, causing me to always wear headphones so I’m more likely to be left alone as harassers don’t have the enjoyment of seeing their words register. I started mentally preparing myself if I was going out wearing more revealing clothing. It affected how I behaved with my partners in public, as even just holding hands with another girl can elicit stares and comments.

Having lived part of my life in a country where wearing “inappropriate clothing” in public would cause me to be arrested and my family to be deported, I really value the freedom to be in public spaces without fear of harassment, comments, judgement, or attack. By working with Levanta La Voz (Hollaback) Madrid, I hope to be able to bring this freedom to myself and to everybody, so that nobody fears being unsafe in a public space because of who they are or how they choose to present themselves.

Blanca

It was summer, I was on vacation at the beach with my family where we always went back then. It was 4 in the afternoon and my sister suggested going to the mall for the afternoon. It was a bit of a walk and although I was lazy I decided to accompany her. Five minutes after leaving the apartment we heard the honk of a car horn as the car passed by us. So my sister in turn proposed a new game: What if we count the times the cars honk at us or someone says something to us? It was more than ten cars which honked or said something to us, and two men who made some sort of comment. I was 13. My sister 16.

All my life I’ve experienced street harassment, and therefore all my life it was put into my head that it was something unique to men, and something inevitable for women. I had to be careful not to be harassed, assaulted, or potentially raped. All my life I’ve experienced the frustration of not being able to do anything against “what it means” to be a woman. “There are crazy men who you are going to know what they can do to you if you are careless. You have to take precautions and be careful.” That is what the world has taught me and all women since we were children.

All my life I assumed that these roles were established and I couldn’t do anything to change them, and that wasn’t the worst of all: It never occurred to me to think them over. But luckily they also made me see that a critical look and a thoughtful mind are the best form of liberty. And little by little that idea has kept me going until researching, self-analyzing, and seeing what is real and fair in everything around me. “Feminism ruined my life but also, and above all, it was my salvation and liberation.” For me, introducing myself to feminism and joining Hollaback was just that: liberty and empowerment. All my life I’ve experienced street harassment, and probably, and sadly, I will continue experiencing it, but never again will I let it silence me, shame me, and violate me. Now I can raise my voice, and make myself listen. And I can do it together with devoted, strong, and inspired women that work every day so that more than half of humanity can once again feel safe and free.

Photo by Levanta La Voz! Madrid. 

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The Netherlands: Demystifying Dutch Tolerance

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Eve Aronson, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, SSH Blog Correspondent

Have you heard of the Dutch Myth of Tolerance? It’s not a myth in the mythical sense, and it’s not a fairytale, though it does sound admittedly magical.

Since the 17th century, the Netherlands has been a smorgasbord of races, ethnicities and religions and has continuously championed itself on what are known as “pillars” of tolerance.

The Dutch Myth of Tolerance is reflective of the disintegration of these pillars towards what has become an increasingly harsh critique of the narrative of ‘acceptance and multiculturalism’ in the Netherlands (or the lack thereof).

At first, the presence of this myth throughout my research was subtle. People told me about their experiences of street harassment and may have thrown in some (racially) identifying characteristics of their harassers. But after several months, it became evident that a more solid smokescreen lurked, and that the notion of Dutch pluralism and tolerance was not always as strong as it presented itself to be.

When people talk about street harassment in Amsterdam, it is not uncommon to highlight the race or ethnicity of one’s harassers, particularly if they are of Moroccan or Turkish decent, two of the largest minority populations in the Netherlands. Often times, the harasser is also tied to a particular neighborhood. For example, one person I talked to said: “In my experience, harassment was worse in neighborhoods with a lot of immigrants from cultures…Moroccans for example.” Another echoed: “A lot of catcalling, primarily from members of black communities”.

A report released in March of this year by the city of Amsterdam also highlighted particular minority-populated neighborhoods and communities as being more affected by street harassment, which arguably worked to further emphasize the link between street harassment and race or ethnicity.

Many of you might also recall the October 2014 video of a woman walking through the streets of New York in the US. The video heavily criticized for selectively showing a disproportionate number of men of color harassing the (white) woman in the video. Emphasizing connections between street harassment, race and location is not only completely inaccurate; it also strips accountability from a significant proportion of harassers who fall outside of these stereotypes and who are harassing women in Amsterdam just as often.

Below is a map of locations tagged by 48 respondents of a recent street harassment survey that I conducted in Amsterdam. Take a good look at where the majority of incidents are reported:

Amsterdam-BatchGeo2015(Source: BatchGeo 2015)

The majority of the geotagged incidents were reported in the center of the city, mostly around touristy areas and not in areas of the city known to have large minority populations (Biljmer, Zuid-Oost and Oost, for example). What this data does then, is encourage a revisiting of stereotypes of street harassment in Amsterdam, albeit from a purely geographic perspective. And this is just a start. The more stereotypes are checked—particularly using visual tools and visualizations—the more people are realizing that street harassment extends beyond race, ethnicity and geographical area.

What kind of impact does this have on the ground? Understanding street harassment as part of broader power structures does not mean that everyone gets this memo, and in this vein, individuals’ lived experiences are critical to take into account. But without denying individual experiences with street harassment, it is important to underline the implications of making generalized statements about races or communities.

Starting up a Hollaback! in Amsterdam is one way to work towards exposing exactly what happens on the ground and where. Geotagging experiences of street harassment not only confronts the Dutch Myth of Tolerance but it also provides an important starting point for conversations about street harassment and race in the Netherlands. Coupled with other awareness-raising initiatives and campaigns, addressing racial stereotyping in conversations about street harassment through such visual tools also encourages a look at street harassment through a much broader lens—one that unfortunately does not make the fight against street harassment easier but who said this was going to be easy? Ultimately, what taking a more comprehensive approach to street harassment does, is it makes the work more strategic and more effective in the long run.

You can find the full analysis of the Amsterdam survey results here or by contacting Eve at evearonson@gmail.com. Follow Eve and Hollaback! Amsterdam on Twitter at @evearonson and @iHollaback_AMS and show your support by liking Hollaback! Amsterdam’s Facebook page here.

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Hollaback! York – The Challenges and Rewards of Starting a New Group

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Guest Blog Post for International Anti-Street Harassment Week 2015

We are launching a new branch of Hollaback in York, UK and getting set up and running has been a pretty positive experience for us so far. York is a fairly small city and isn’t really known for its activism, so we had been worried at the start that there wouldn’t be many people wanting to get involved. But the response has been really great – it just goes to show that street harassment really is something that affects almost everyone and once you start the conversation, people are always keen to join in. The two universities in York have recently launched anti-sexual harassment campaigns and zero tolerance policies, and seeing people in our community take sexual harassment seriously makes us really hopeful that things can change in York to become a much safer space for everyone.

Having said that, we have had a couple of challenges, including being denied permission from the council to do a chalk walk during International Anti-Street Harassment Week. We were really looking forward to that; chalk walks from other anti-street harassment groups are always really popular, as they are a great quick and fun way to spread awareness that prompt the public to ask questions and get involved. So we are having to get a little creative and find some alternatives instead!

Our favourite part so far has been the incredible network of support from other anti-street harassment sites and blogs all over the world, all sharing and learning from each other and working together to build our knowledge and understanding of such a complex issue. However, what we are really looking forward to is making a difference to people in York when our site is officially up and running. Street harassment can be a dangerous and humiliating experience and we are keen to get stuck in with anything we can do for our community to show some support, provide some comfort, or empower someone to speak out.

We have found out that there are plenty of ups and downs in this work, but we are definitely looking forward to more of it!

This piece was written by the Co-Director of Hollaback York

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Don’t Ignore the Harassment Stories of Young Girls

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Guest Blog Post for International Anti-Street Harassment Week 2015

When I was 12, I faced my first street harasser. This is never easy for anyone to go through, let alone a young girl. Women and even girls 10 and younger can, have, and likely will face street harassment. But harassment has always been dealt with as a “term of endearment,” or just a fact of life when it really isn’t. According to Stop Street Harassment, 99% of women have been or will be harassed, and harassment can be anything from leering to physical touching. Is this really something we want 12 year old girls to face regularly?

This is an epidemic that we blindly pass off. Some of these girls are so young, they haven’t even entered middle school. I know all of this personally through the hashtag I started on Instagram, #WhatMySHSaid, where people from all over the world tell my followers and me the horrible experiences they’ve had with street harassers. The average age is twelve and the average reaction is disbelief, but with the topic comes horrible responses as well. I have heard people defending these pedophiles who creep on these girls, or say that street harassment is because of what the girl was wearing.

We live in a culture of blaming the victims, and by saying a twelve-year-old is asking to be followed as she walks home from school is a testament to this. We as a society can and should change this culture that we promote and live in. It should not be up to the victims to change their lives and patterns to make harassers comfortable. This is not a problem that should be ignored. Women and girls should not have to be confined in their homes just so they avoid getting harassed because that is not fair, and that is what’s being promoted by blaming the victims of street harassment.

If you’re being harassed, please let someone you trust know about it. Report it on websites and apps such as Hollaback!, and please be careful. Know that there is no right or wrong way to deal with harassment. Some women yell at the person who harassed them, some ignore them entirely. It’s truly up to you and whatever makes you feel comfortable.

The epidemic of street harassment is moving quickly towards underage girls and we should not be ignoring their stories and what is happening to them. As someone who is now seventeen, I can tell you personally that I have been harassed ever since I was twelve, even if I was wearing a hoodie and jeans, and even when I was in my own driveway. Harassment is so very real, and more and more girls and women are dealing with it everyday. Now is not the time to ignore it, but now is the time to fight it.

Chloe Parker, from @rebel.grrrl

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Today’s Events – April 12

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It’s the first day of Meet Us On the Street: International Anti-Street Harassment Week, and we already have so much going on!

Virtual Events:

Please join Young Feminists and Allies, the National Organization for Women’s First Virtual Chapter, and Stop Street Harassment for a Google Hangout about Street Harassment from a multicultural perspective.

Holly Kearl, founder of International Anti-Street-Harassment Week, will moderate three brave women with diverse backgrounds as they discuss the similarities and differences in the ways they experience street harassment.

* Kasumi Hirokawa: TCK and trilingual feminist from Shanghai who currently lives in Japan

* MorningStar Angeline: Native American and Latina actress who lived in both the Southwest and West Coast of America

* Muneera Hassan: Bangladeshi-American, Muslim, college student from Boston currently living in Northern VA who wears hijab

There will be a Q&A section, so please send us your questions in advance or during the event at youngfeminists at gmail dot com or Tweet at at @nowyoungfems and please use the #EndSH hashtag.

International Events:

Cameroon: Young Women for a Change, Cameroon is holding a dialogue in Beau with youth and adolescents to address the different forms of Street harassment facing women and girls and how to intervene. [April 12]

Canada (Vancouver): Hollaback! Vancouver will be debuting their interactive campaign and art show “What’s Your Number?” It will enable people to record the frequency and emotions involved with street harassment for 24 hours. Clickers (or counters) will be distributed to initial participants along with a blank notebook. For 24 hours, they will click twice for direct street harassment, and once for an indirect impact. At the end of the 24 hours, the clickee is encouraged to creatively express the experience in the notebook provided through mediums like poetry, illustration or essaying before they’re passed on to the next one. At the end of the week, the notebooks will be collected by the Hollaback Vancouver team for compilation. In order to showcase the process behind What’s Your Number?, the art show will be a free event extended to the community at-large. Part education, part creative and part party, this night will get everyone together in a comfortable space to talk about the effects of street harassment and – most importantly – what can be done. [Campaign kicks of all over the city on April 12th, with the Artshow / wrap up party taking place April 30th 436 Columbia St Vancouver BC 7-11 pm]

Colombia: OCAC Colombia  is hosting SUNDAY, APRIL 12 – 9:00 a.m.: STOP THE STREET HARASSMENT: We will be in the Sunday’s Bikeway and we will will cross cycling the 7th Avenue from Plaza Bolivar to the National Park | DOMINGO 12 DE ABRIL – 9 AM. ALTO AL ACOSO. Estaremos en la Ciclovía y haremos un recorrido por la carrera séptima desde la Plaza de Bolívar hasta el Parque Nacional

Nepal: Hollaback! Kathmandu will be hosting a Stand Up Against Street Harassment event, displaying charts and boards that say street harassment is not okay. They will also be interacting with the local people about what the campaign is and what they can do to respond to street harassment and stop it. [April 12, 3-5pm at Basantapur]

USA Events:

Iowa: Hollaback! Des Moines is hosting their 3rd Annual Chalk Walk to End Street Harassment. [April 12, 1 pm at the Pappajohn Education Center]. Can’t be there in person? Sometime during the week of April 12-18, go back to a street where you experienced harassment. Reclaim that space by writing an empowering message; then take a picture and send it to them at dsm@ihollaback.org! They will post all the photos to their blog after the event.

Pennsylvania: FAAN Mail will be kicking off EndSHWeek with their 5th annual rally and community engagement event. [April 12, 2-5pm at Love Park, Philadelphia]

Virginia: Hollaback! RVA is hosting a Bystander Workshop discussing and presenting on how bystander intervention and street harassment intersect. They will provide “swag bags” and snacks to participants! [Richmond, April 12, time and place TBA]

Plus, some of our groups got an early start on things and hosted these fabulous events on Saturday, April 11th:

Bahamas: Hollaback! Bahamas hosted a meditation and stress relief workshop with the World Peace Initiative.

United Kingdom: Rape & Sexual Abuse Support Centre hosted street action focused on victim-blaming and rape culture (#ThisDoesn’tMeanYes) at Braithwait Tunnel, Braithwaite Street, London.

South Korea: Rok Gi Yeon Promotions hosted “Ladies Night Vol. 2,” a benefit concert to support the charity Disruptive Voices, in Seoul. Find the Facebook event here.

Pakistan: No to Harassment hosted a fabulous panel and discussion about how a woman is #notanobject.

New York: Hollaback! hosted the annual NYC Anti-Street Harassment Rally! The event featured local activists and speakers and include da series of workshops for folks to learn more and take action against street harassment. It also featured Hollaback!’s famous 12 foot inflatable #catagainstcatcalling cat.

Pennsylvania: University of Scranton is hosted a SHARE (Street Harassment Awareness Response and Education) Fair.

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