MarketFair Mall Archives | Stop Street Harassment

Don’t underestimate the effectiveness of online petitions and social media!

Thanks to YOU, in just over 24 hours, around 1500 people asked that an offensive pro-harassment sign be removed from a construction area at MarketFair Mall in New Jersey.

I contacted the mall and was given the email address for Robyn Marano, the VP of Marketing for the mall and sent her information about the petition. She called me a few minutes ago and let me know that the mall would remove the sign tonight, after all of the customers were gone from the mall.

Victory!!

When I launched the petition yesterday (my first) on Change.org with the support of the amazing activist Shelby Knox who works there, I had the lofty goal of 250 signatures. Because so many people shared the link, tweeted it, posted it on Facebook, and wrote about it (like on Feminist Philosophers & Jezebel), it surpassed that goal very quickly.

Thank you for your help and congratulations on helping make MarketFair Mall a more welcoming environment for shoppers by pressuring them to take down the offensive pro-harassment sign.

This is what online activism looks like.

(And, as stated a few other places, I apologize for wrongly associating E A Reeves construction with this sign. They were not responsible for it.)

Change.org|How to Start a Petition

Please sign this petition asking for the removal of a sign at a New Jersey Mall that reads, “We apologize for the whistling construction workers, but man you look good!”

Sexual harassment is illegal, not a joke or a compliment, and public sexual harassment impacts more than 80 percent of women worldwide, especially when they’re young.

Construction companies should view sexual harassment as something to penalize their workers for doing, not as something to encourage their workers to do, especially at a mall where there are so many teenage girls who could be the target of the harassment.

Help me reach 250 signatures!

This petition was made possible because of these individuals: Katie Broendel who alerted me to the sign yesterday morning, Feminist Philosophers for posting the sign on their blog (which Katie saw and sent to me), Elizabeth Harman for taking the photo of the sign and then telling me where it was located, Alan Kearl for researching the name of the construction company, and Shelby Knox for suggesting the Change.org petition strategy.
Update 6/18 — My apologies to the E. A. Reeves construction company who is not responsible for the sign as I first thought.