killed Archives | Stop Street Harassment

You Can’t Keep Women Runners Safe By Only Talking to Women

August 12, 2016 By HKearl

Three young women were killed while running alone in Michigan, Massachusetts and New York across the past two weeks. Each case is under investigation with no clear motives or suspects. Police believe they are unconnected cases.

But there are connections. In each tragedy, the victim was female and she was alone in a country that is unsafe for women. It’s quite likely that another connection is that their killers were male. Women are most often killed by men; just as men are most often killed by men.

In the regions where the attacks happened, some women feel nervous about going running alone, so more of them are joining running groups and changing their running routes. There’s been an increased interest in safety phone apps and a spike in sales for “booby trap bras,” a product that was developed by a female runner after she was attacked.

I empathize with these women runners’ concern.

I am 33 years old and I have been a long distance runner for 20 years. I ran my first marathon when I was 14. When I was 13, I attended a week-long cross country camp. The camp was for both girls and boys, ages 13 to 18, and we were together for all of our runs, clinics and social activities. But one morning, the boys went outside to for a fun activity while the girls stayed inside and listened to the male coach’s wife talk to us about safety.

She told us how she used to run the same route at the same time of day and a man she sometimes passed began to take notice. One day, he physically attacked her. She was able to escape. She told us we could be at risk if we ran alone, if we wore headphones, and if we ran at the same times along the same routes. Her story scared me. What I took to heart the most from her talk was to never become predictable. I have never run the same route at the same time two days in a row if I am running alone.

Aside from when I ran on school teams in high school and college, I have largely chosen to run alone. I am often the only woman I see running alone, especially on bike trails and wood paths. I actually feel the safest in the woods or on a mountain path compared with running by roads.

Across the more than 30,000 miles that I have run, hundreds of men I do not know have verbally harassed me from their moving vehicles and from sidewalks as I pass by. Men have harassed me in many other situations too, but as I am alone the most while running, that is when I have faced the most harassment.

My experience is not unusual. A 2014 national study found that 65% of American women had experienced verbal or physical harassment by men they do not know. This included a national statistic of 1 in 4 women having been sexually touched and 1 in 5 having been followed.

The first time a man followed me in his car, I was 14 years old and on a mid-morning summer run near my house in California. I was able to dart down side streets and lose him. When I was 22 years old, a man chased me through a park in Virginia one evening during my run after work. I have never been more terrified. I’m grateful I could will my legs to move fast and I outran him.

All women runners have been warned about the potential dangers of men harming us when we run alone. We read stories like these recent ones and we know there are risks. But for most of us, it’s a risk we continue to take because the benefits of running, including alone, outweigh those risks. And that’s how I hope it can be; that we keep on running, that we claim these public spaces as our own, because that’s how it should be. We belong and we should have that right.

Looking back at the running summer camp I attended, I am frustrated that the discussion was only for the girls. While both women and men are at risk of being hurt and even killed by careless drivers, predatory attackers primarily target girls and women. And those predatory attackers are primarily boys and men, yet the premise of the discussion — and of so many discussions and articles since — was to teach us girls that it was our responsibility to stay safe, rather than the boys’ responsibility to work with us to create a world where we could be safe. To their credit, I have yet to be harassed by a male runner, but I still think they should be part of this conversation.

Overall, I want to see more accountability placed on boys and men. Yes, #NotAllMen attack and kill women, in fact a very, very small portion do. But quite a lot of men verbally harass women, demean them, and make sexist slurs and jokes. Those behaviors create a world in which women are valued less and they provide a context for attacks to happen. Women cannot truly be safe on the trails or in any other public space until those behaviors end.

15-Year-Old Girl Killed by Street Harasser

February 24, 2016 By HKearl

Trigger Warning — Murder

Via Indian Express:

“A 15-year-old girl was shot dead allegedly by a man who had been harassing her for sometime, police said. Accused Kuldeep and his aide Pujari have been arrested…

Prinki, who worked as a domestic help, was yesterday returning home with her sister when Kuldeep along with his aides stopped them, they said. According to the victim’s sister, Kuldeep soon took out a gun and shot at Prinki, police said.”

Another senseless death because of sexism, gender-based violence, street harassment — the third I’ve read about so far in 2016. My heart goes out to her friends and family.

May justice be served in her memory.

USA: When Women Refuse

January 30, 2016 By Correspondent

Kayla Parker, Washington, D.C., USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

The debate goes on and on about what a woman should do should a stranger in a public space approach her. Some people say that a simple, “No thank you,” or an “I’m not interested” will do the trick. Other people argue that it’s entirely too dangerous to decline and a woman should just give a fake number in an attempt to get the man to leave her alone. Both are compelling arguments and there are very plausible reasons for why a woman would be afraid to decline.

A week ago, a woman in Pittsburg, Janese Talton-Jackson was fatally shot after rejecting advances from a man in a bar. Janese was the mother of twin girls and a 1 year-old baby boy. When discussing street harassment, we often talk about what “could” happen and brainstorm ways to prevent an outcome like this. Many people scoff at the idea of street harassment being dangerous but what happened to Janese could easily happen to anyone.

I initially read the story of what happened to Janese on Facebook and upon further research, I was absolutely disgusted by the viewpoints left via comments.

“What was she doing at a bar at night when she has young kids at home anyway?” one comment read. Another user insisted that she probably “led him on” or “was being a tease.”

We have been conditioned to a culture of victim blaming. We live in a world where a mother of three is murdered for declining an offer, yet people assassinate her character and defend the culprit. I challenge you to test this theory for yourself.

In your free time go to Google and enter the search terms, “woman killed after rejecting man” and see for yourself how many cases exist. Next scroll down to the “comments” section of the article and I can almost guarantee you will find a victim blamer who chooses to ignore the brutality the victim was forced to endure. Pittsburg, Detroit, and New York City are only few of the places this has happened.

Women of all different ages and racial backgrounds have had to suffer for simply declining an offer. Meanwhile in the comments sections of these articles, Facebook stories, blog posts and otherwise, there is always one (if not many) heckler who insist upon blaming the victim. There is a blog that collects stories of things that have happened to women who reject men’s advances called, “When Women Refuse.”

As for Charles McKinney, the 41-year-old man who took Janese Talton-Jackson’s life, he has been arrested and stands to face charges for homicide as well as “two counts of aggravated assault, firearms without a license, fleeing or attempting to elude police, two counts of possession with intent to deliver, two counts of recklessly endangering another person and reckless driving.”

Kayla Parker is a sophomore acting major at Howard University and is a native of Birmingham, Alabama. In addition to focusing on school, she spends her time working on her web-series, “Black Girls R Us” that aims to uplift black women of all different shapes, sizes, and shades. For updates on episode releases, you can follow her on twitter at @TheTimidLioness.

Woman Killed in U.S., Women Migrants Targeted Abroad

January 7, 2016 By HKearl

Trigger Warning

Here are two upsetting stories for the new year so far (in addition to the attacks on women in Germany). We have so much more work to do.

First, I am sorry to share the news of another senseless death that started as a benign conversation, escalated to street harassment and then to gunshots!! Our thoughts are with Sara’s friends & family.

Via CNN:

“Sara Mutschlechner was driving through the Dallas suburb with three passengers around 2 a.m. (3 a.m. ET) Friday when a gray Honda Pilot with five to six males inside pulled up next to them, Kizer said at a Tuesday afternoon press conference.

“It was an amicable conversation to begin with, but quickly went downhill and some derogatory statements were made toward the female occupants of that vehicle,” the Denton Police spokesman told reporters.

Kizer described those “very derogatory” remarks as being of a “sexual nature,” adding that a male inside Mutschlechner’s vehicle responded by calling them out as offensive.

“Some comments were made back towards him, even a couple of threats were thrown,” the police spokesman said. “About that time, they were driving through the intersection … when several shots were fired.”

One of those shots struck Mutschlechner in the head, according to Denton Police.

She quickly lost control of her car, which first hit another vehicle leaving a nearby parking lot before veering into an electrical pole.

The Honda Pilot, meanwhile, fled.

Mutschlechner, a University of North Texas student and member of the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority, died after being transported to an area hospital. She was a designated driver that night and had not been drinking, witnesses said.”

The second story comes from the New York Times and is about men targeting migrant women from countries like Syria for sexual abuse.

“Interviews with dozens of migrants, social workers and psychologists caring for traumatized new arrivals across Germany suggest that the current mass migration has been accompanied by a surge of violence against women. From forced marriages and sex trafficking to domestic abuse, women report violence from fellow refugees, smugglers, male family members and even European police officers. There are no reliable statistics for sexual and other abuse of female refugees….

As some women painted their hands with henna and others traded frustrations about the time it was taking to get refugee status, Samar, a 35-year-old former employee of the Syrian Finance Ministry, opened up about the particular stress of being a woman on the move. Bombed out of her home in Darayya, a suburb of Damascus that early in the civil war became known for antigovernment protests, Samar spent 14 months on the road alone with her three daughters, ages 2, 8 and 13.

“I did not leave them out of my sight for one minute,” she said in Arabic, speaking through an interpreter. She and other single mothers slept in shifts along the way, watching over their daughters and one another.

But in Izmir, Turkey, about to board a boat to Greece, Samar was robbed and left with no money to pay the smuggler. A stocky man who called himself Omar, he offered to take her for free, but only if she had sex with him. Samar had heard him before, at night, in the hostel where she and other refugee women were staying, “going to this room and that.”

“Everybody knows there are two ways of paying the smugglers,” she said. “With money or with your body.”

But she refused, and Omar became angry. That night he burst into Samar’s room, threatening her and her daughters before her screaming chased him away. Samar stayed in Turkey for almost a year to work and save up the 4,000 euros needed for the remainder of the journey.

Sitting with her youngest daughter curled on her lap, Samar concluded: “Almost all men in the world are bad.”

Across town, in west Berlin, Ms. Höhne sympathized, but had a more nuanced view. There are no easy solutions, she said. Female-only shelters are not an option because most families want to stay together. Some women rely on men for protection. And, she added, “We mustn’t forget many of the men are traumatized, too.”

“There is no black and white, good and evil,” she said. “If we want to help the women, we need to help the men, too.”