Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

How to Be a Good Guy on the Sidewalk

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“A number of men have asked us the same question recently: if you’re walking on a dark street near a lady, how can you let her know you’re not a threat? So this week, we offer some tips for dudes who’d like to help women feel more comfortable in public spaces,” writes Anna North on Jezebel.

In her article, you can find suggestions for how men can be non-threatening to women. The advice is given by Neal Irvin, executive director of Men Can Stop Rape, Joanne Smith, executive director of Girls for Gender Equity, Emily May, executive director of Hollaback!, and me, founder of Stop Street Harassment.

Here’s one example of the advice:

“Make a call.

Irvin described a time when he was walking behind a woman who was becoming visibly agitated by his presence. One trick he tried to set her at ease was calling his fiancee on his cell phone. Obviously just making a phone call doesn’t mean you’re not a threat — but it could be a way of showing a woman that you’re not focused on her. Depending on the situation, this could be enough to make her feel better.”

Read the rest at Jezebel and share the article widely with all the good guys out there!

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College men share tips for stopping street harassers

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I love the work that Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR) does to challenge harmful definitions of masculinity and to empower men to be allies with women in ending gender violence. Their latest project is a new campus bystander campaign called Where Do You Stand? aimed at men.

This comprehensive campaign uses billboards, posters, T-shirts, bystander intervention trainings, and peer-education sessions to equip young men with the necessary skills and tools to intervene when they see a situation that doesn’t look right, including street harassment.

On January 31, they officially launched the campaign during an MCSR bystander training for about 30 young men at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. I attended and spoke at the beginning for a few minutes.

The main portion of the workshop was role playing and brainstorming responses to scenarios.

They also talked about barriers that prevent bystanders from intervening and brainstormed a list of methods for intervening, such as providing a distraction or addressing the harasser head on (see a photo of the list they created).

The first few scenarios they discussed focused on intervening in questionable situations at college parties. The last example on street harassment kept me furiously scribbling notes.

One of the facilitators described a group of men standing on a corner near a building, street harassing women going by. He asked the young men how many of them had seen that happen before and more than half of them raised their hand. Then he asked the for their ideas for dealing with this scenario. Here are some of them:

1. Say, “Yo, chill son,” to slightly call them out on the behavior.

2. Directly point out what they’re doing and say, “This is unacceptable.”

3. Use public ridicule to call them out or silence them…though a few young men pointed out that is okay if you know the harassers, but if you don’t and you call them out like that, you may “get whooped.”

4. If it’s your group of friends, tell them, “That’s not cool,” and if they keep it up, say you’re out and walk away. Chances are they’ll back down then. Another guy similarly suggested saying, “If this is how you’re going to spend your night, I’m leaving. This is not okay.”

5. Reverse catcalling the men can be effective. They don’t know how to respond or what to do.

6. If it’s a friend doing it, tell him that it’s not the right approach to take but to be the respectful gentlemen he is if he wants to meet someone.

Some other interesting things the young men said:

* Guys who catcall wouldn’t be my friends because that’s the rudest thing they can do and I’m not okay with that.

* Men catcall because there are other men around. It’s a way to demonstrate their masculinity while riding with your crew or walking down the street. So figure out why your friends feel they have to prove their masculinity to you and address that.

* If you establish yourself as a person who doesn’t laugh at catcalls, then it won’t happen around you because they won’t use that as a way to try to impress you.

* Intervening is hard, but once you do it, it will pay off. People will know you’re the guy who doesn’t like that behavior and others will call them out on it if they do it around you. Maybe they will still catcall when you aren’t around, but it’s a start. The benefits of intervening far outweigh the consequences.

I left the workshop pumped. I know there are plenty of men out there who want to help stop gender violence and harassment, but I’d never been in a room full of them before. It gives me hope! I hope you will share their bystander tips (and others from the Stop Street Harassment website) with friends and family. And if you’re on a college campus, consider bringing the Where Do You Stand? campaign to your school!

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Domestic Violence and Street Harassment: Five Connections

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Today the building where I work is flooded with purple: purple sweaters, shirts, skirts, shoes, scarfs, necklaces, umbrellas, and even wallets. It’s also over-run by cupcakes…yum.

It’s Purple Thursday in Washington, DC, an awareness day organized by the DC Coalition Against Domestic Violence (DCCADV) during national Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Many of my co-workers at AAUW and I are wearing purple to show support.

The cupcakes are here because, as part of the Pixel Project’s “Paint it Purple Campaign,” I’m holding a fundraiser cupcake bake sale. All of the proceeds of my home-made cupcakes will go to DCCADV and Pixel Project. As the day comes to a close, I’ve sold 47 cupcakes (and counting) to the generous folks who work in my building.

I’m participating in Purple Thursday and hosting a bake sale because I believe no one should be unsafe at home or in trusted relationships, and certainly not one in four women. I’m participating in Purple Thursday because I have a personal connection to the issue of domestic violence through family members and friends who’ve survived such relationships. I’m participating because I spent four years volunteering at domestic violence shelters in high school and college.

I’m also participating, and blogging here, because of the very real connections that domestic violence has to street harassment*.  Here are five of them

1. Combined, they ensure that everywhere unsafe:

Too often people who do not “get” street harassment say, “Well if you don’t want to deal with street harassers, then stay home.” Most famously this year, a 71-year-old male mayor in a province in Turkey said, “Do not walk around, sit in your homes,” when women talked to him about the problem of street harassment.

Sadly, given how few alternatives there are for dealing with street harassers, many women occasionally do “choose” to stay home to avoid harassers and to feel safe. In a 1993 Harvard Law Review article, Cynthia Grant Bowman wrote that street harassment creates an “informal ghettoization of women…to the private sphere of hearth and home.”

Nearly 20 years later, that term rings true. “Choosing” to stay home in order to avoid harassment or worse on the streets is a human rights issue. Having to make this “choice” also begs the question, “What do you do when your home isn’t safe either?”

Getting back to the Turkish mayor, not only was his “advice” to stay home impractical and it put the onus on women to be safe instead of on men to stop harassing them, but it was also ironic. His town has a 70 percent rate of domestic violence and the women he advised to stay home were employees at a domestic violence shelter! They of all people know that a woman’s home is not always safe and they know that in their town, it’s not safe for 70 percent of women.

While other places have lower rates of domestic violence, telling someone to stay home to avoid street harassment is not a realistic or desirable solution and it can put them in more danger. For some women, the combination of street harassment and domestic violence means that nowhere is safe.

2. The same individuals may perpetrate both:

Just last week, police arrested Jesse Perez Torres in connection with the murder of a 17-year-old who was attacked in broad daylight when she was walking home from high school. He has an alleged history of domestic violence. Five months before the murder, Torres allegedly assaulted his wife and threatened to kill her.

If someone has no qualms about harassing, groping, stalking or assaulting (or, in the case of Torres, murdering) a stranger on the streets, they may not be very respectful at home either. And vice versa. If you hurt your loved ones, it may not be a stretch to think you’d hurt a stranger on the street, especially if you think you can get away with it, just as most street harassers and rapists do. As a result, working to prevent domestic violence can help prevent street harassment and vice versa.

3. Neither are viewed as serious problems:

For far too long, domestic violence was an issue people did not talk about. It was a private matter that you ignored if you knew it was happening to someone else and you didn’t talk about it to others if it was happening to you. The rise of the “battered women’s movement” changed that a lot, but today, the issue is still not given the gravity it deserves.

Did you know that funding to domestic violence shelters is often one of the first things cut or reduced in city or state budgets? When domestic violence isn’t viewed as a serious problem, shelters can seem unnecessary or “extra” instead of lifelines and beacons of hope. Earlier this month, the mayor of Topeka, Kansas, repealed the city’s domestic abuse law to cut costs so the city wouldn’t have to pay for prosecuting domestic violence cases.

From CBS: “Topeka has had at least 35 reported incidents of domestic battery or assault since early September. Those cases are not being pursued, and as of last Friday, 18 people jailed have been released without facing charges, according to Topeka police.”

Unbelievable and unacceptable.

Related, street harassment is rarely treated as a serious problem. Sexual comments, stalking and even groping are construed as a compliment, no big deal, and something to get a “tough skin” about. When street harassment escalates to sexual assault or murder, it usually is acknowledged, but only as an isolated incident instead of as something that’s part of a larger problem.  In the US, there have been no large-scale studies on the topic, no major public service announcement campaigns, and almost no acknowledgment from leaders and stakeholders that it’s a problem. This needs to change.

4. People who share their stories of domestic violence or street harassment are often blamed:

“Why didn’t she leave?” and “What must she have done to make him treat her that way?” are common questions people ask when they hear about domestic violence. Many people asked them in 2009 when it surfaced that singer Chris Brown beat his then girlfriend Rihanna.

“Why did you go to that part of town alone?” or “Why did you wear that outfit?” are common questions people ask when someone shares a street harassment story.

These questions put the blame on the survivor of domestic violence and street harassment, not on the perpetrator. Such questions allow the violence and harassment to continue and they create an environment where people who speak out aren’t taken seriously because it’s assumed they must be partly to blame for what happened. The blame game must end before more survivors feel like they can come forward and before all perpetrators are held accountable for their actions.

5. Bystanders can make a difference:

Let’s end on a good note. Bystanders can make a big difference in ending the social acceptability of domestic violence and street harassment by speaking out and they can make a difference in ending specific incidents of each behavior by creating an interruption.

A bystander campaign I really like in India focused on domestic violence is called Bell Bajao (Ring the Bell), which is a campaign that asks people to interrupt violence when they hear it by ringing the doorbell of the house. They recommend saying something like, “can I borrow a cup of sugar” or simply ringing the bell and leaving and then calling the police if the abuse continues. To advertise the campaign, they have video PSAs and a video van that has reached 5.5 million people thus far. Innovative and interactive, the van builds audience-participation through games, street theater, audio-visual tools and quizzes. The campaign just won the World Summit Youth Award in September.

In the USA, the University of New Hampshire and Men Can Stop Rape each have bystander campaigns aimed at college students that center on how bystanders can prevent and stop sexual assault and rape, and each campaign also addresses street harassment. They provide interested people with all of the components necessary to create a campus-wide campaign. If you’re on a college campus, I encourage you to check them out.

As Purple Thursday draws to a close, remember, you can make a difference in ending domestic violence and in ending street harassment by being an active bystander. You can believe, support, and not blame people who talk to you about domestic violence and street harassment. You can speak out against perpetrators of those behaviors. You can think of creative ways to interrupt and intervene when you know domestic violence or street harassment is happening, such as asking for a cup of sugar, asking for the time, or simply asking the abused or harassed person if they’re okay.  You can make a difference.

*Men face domestic violence and street harassment too, but the connections between domestic violence and street harassment are most clear when women are the survivors and men the perpetrators and that is the focus of this post.

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Men Can Stop Rape…Men Can Stop Street Harassment

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Joe Vess speaks at the Stop Street Harassment book event at GWU in 2010

In a way, I owe street harassment a lot. It’s never done anything personally for me, and I’d eliminate it in a second if I could, but I really should acknowledge my debt to it, in full disclosure. Here’s the story.

Seven years ago I was living in Chicago, as oblivious to harassment and other forms of violence against women as I always had been. Sure, I knew it happened, and it was bad, so I didn’t harass anyone or rape anyone. So that made me a pretty good guy.

Around that time I was dating someone, and as things got more serious and we shared more and more about our lives with each other. She started telling me about how when she would go out running in the morning, or the afternoon, or on the weekends, she would get shouted at or whistled at or guys would say something to her. And she didn’t like it; in fact it made her really angry.

I was a little puzzled when I started hearing these stories, and my confusion stemmed from a few things. One, I’d never been harassed so I didn’t have a frame of reference. I’d never experienced it and never worried about it happening to me, so it ranked somewhere around lion attacks (not a huge problem in Chicago) on my worry list. Two, it seemed isolated to me. I didn’t connect it to other forms of violence against women, so even though it happened to her regularly I didn’t think about the threat of it as yet ANOTHER thing she had to deal with on a daily basis, along with the threat of physical violence, harassment, discrimination and more.

What my 2004 self could have used was a primer on understanding harassment and why it’s a problem; I didn’t have one, but I hope these points below will help us as men understand the issue a bit more, help us better challenge harassment when they see it, and better support women in our lives who are harassed.

It’s not about you, #1: One of the most common things I hear from men when we talk about harassment is that “it wouldn’t bother me.” That’s not the point, because it’s not directed at you, it’s directed at women. Whether or not it bothers you, or even bothers all women (because the other thing I hear is “some women like it”), is irrelevant. It definitely bothers many, many women and, if it bothers a woman you care about and who matters to you, isn’t that enough? Because we don’t get to choose who it happens to; the next person could be our friend or mother, sister or girlfriend, daughter or niece.

It’s part of a bigger problem: Even if you don’t think sexual harassment is a big issue, maybe you think rape is a big issue, or stalking, or domestic violence. It’s important to remember that they’re all related. Men who degrade women and treat them like objects in one context, such as walking down the street, often degrade women and treat them like objects in other settings.

The other part of it is that for women, harassment is merely one of the most visible parts of an iceberg of violence and the threat of violence they have to deal with daily, so don’t minimize it. Sexual harassment seemed weird and isolated to me, but because I always thought about it in isolation. I didn’t think, “what if that happened to me a couple of times a day, every day, my whole life,” which is the proper context for it.

It’s not about you, #2: Another thing I hear from men is this plea: “what if we just want to talk with a woman, to ask her out, to strike up a conversation with her?” My response is to ask, “Why do we as men assume that we have the right to just go around complimenting random women or talking with them?” Maybe she doesn’t want to talk with us for any number of a million reasons, all of which are perfectly valid and none of our business.

If you want to compliment random women, sign up for speed dating. Harassment is never about complimenting women, and it never has been. You may respond, “But I’m not trying to bother her, just be complimentary.” In that case, see above; it doesn’t matter what your intent is, it matters how what you do is received by her. This can be hard for us as men to hear, but intent doesn’t matter in this case.

There are things you can and should do: Since sexual harassment is often visible and public, it’s really easy for men to challenge it and take action to end it. Some basic things you can do are:

  • Don’t do it. Simple and easy. Most guys already don’t though, so luckily there’s more we CAN do if you’ve already got this one down.
  • Don’t laugh or go along with harassment when your friends or others do it. Harassment is often just as much a demonstration for other men. If someone harasses a woman and looks to you for validation, don’t laugh or smile in support. Instead…
  • Call out and challenge others who do harass women. If it’s your friends, tell them that you’re not ok with harassing women and that it bothers you. Tell them they can’t do it if you’re around. If it’s a stranger, tell him it’s not ok and he should stop. Or call the police or report it to the proper authorities; harassment is a crime.
  • Talk with the women in your life. Ask them about their experiences with harassment and how it affects them. And ask how you can be supportive as they deal with it. Don’t joke, minimize, or tell them to ignore or get over it, but be empathetic. It can make all the difference.

Think about it this way; you’ve been handed a great opportunity to not only improve the lives of women you care about (and others you don’t even know), but you’ve also got a chance to help some other men unlearn bad habits. Take advantage of it, and see what a difference it makes.

[En español, escrito por MariaLujan Tubio]

By Joe Vess
Director of Training and Technical Assistance, Men Can Stop Rape

Men Can Stop Rape is an international organization that mobilizes men to use their strength for creating cultures free from violence, especially men’s violence against women. Since its inception in 1997, MCSR has led the call to redefine masculinity and male strength as part of preventing men’s violence against women. For more information, please see www.mencanstoprape.org

This post is part of the weekly blog series by male allies. We need men involved in the work to end the social acceptability of street harassment and to stop the practice, period. If you’d like to contribute to this weekly series, please contact me.

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Support anti-street harassment efforts this holiday season

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Lately, I’ve been inundated with e-mails and letters from every organization I donated to during their year + their best friend organizations, asking me to donate again. As much as I obviously care about most of those organizations if I’ve already donated to them, my end of year giving is going to two organizations that do anti-street harassment-related work, RightRides and RAINN. You may be interested in donating to them, too.

  • Right Rides for Women’s Safety: For more than six years RightRides has been giving free rides home to women and male members of the LGBQT community on Friday and Saturday nights in New York City. This free service is particularly helpful to people who cannot afford a cab and are reliant on buses and subways and feel unsafe waiting for or taking these late at night. RightRides has a page about the many ways you can become involved. A new feature is recurring gifts. $10/month can cover rides home for 12 people that year and $25/month covers about 30 people’s rides home. Any amount helps.
  • RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network): Individuals across the United States can seek immediate assistance and advice if they or someone they know are survivors of rape and sexual violence via RAINN’s national phone hotline and online chat feature. While most people know their attacker, about 25 percent do not, and many of those cases are strangers in public places who harass and attack them. When too often survivors of sexual violence are blamed for it and thus are silenced and don’t know what to do, RAINN’s services are very important. RAINN also works on prevention legislation and programming. If you donate by Dec. 31, your donation will be matched dollar for dollar, so you can make double the impact.

Here are additional suggestions for organizations whose work makes public places – and the world in general – safer for women and girls. Not only could you do end-of-year giving to them, but you could make a gift out of donating in honor of family members and friends who care about ending and/or are impacted by street harassment.

  • Blank Noise – Support work in India to raise awareness about and end eve teasing/street harassment through performance art and online activism
  • Defend Yourself – Support the work of a Washington, DC organization that holds community workshops and classes that teach skills to stop harassment, abuse and assault. They particularly focus on girls, women, and LGBQT folks.
  • Girls for Gender Equity – Support a NYC organization that empowers teenage girls and has tackled street harassment through surveys, documentaries, conferences, and books
  • Helping Our Teen Girls – Help fund the programs of an Atlanta, GA, organization that empowers teenage girls and has tackled street harassment through workshops and music.
  • Hollaback – Support the NYC-based organization so they can  fund new Hollaback websites around the world
  • The Line – Help fund programs to raise awareness of healthy sexual boundaries, important work that can help prevent street harassment and sexual assault.
  • Men Can Stop Rape – Support rape prevention programming in middle and high schools and colleges that focuses on providing boys with a safe place to talk about masculinity issues and learn healthy definitions of manhood.
  • The White Ribbon Campaign – Support an international organization that works to educate young men and boys about gender equity, respect and healthy relationships.
  • Women for Women International – Help fund programming that helps women in war-torn areas gain skills and resources necessary to rebuild their lives and increase their safety in their community. You can also sponsor an individual woman as a sister.

And are you looking for other last-minute gift ideas? I can suggest a few:

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