Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Croatia: It’s Never Too Soon to Talk to Children

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Marinella Matejcic, Croatia, SSH Blog Correspondent

As I was finishing my chores for the day, my daughter began sharing a story from her class with me. She goes to elementary school, is very calm, mature, and has a strong sense of justice. “So, do can you even imagine what did this boy did..”

“Which one?” I asked gently, trying to hide my ignorance. “This X kid or the Y kid?”

“Neither of them, it was the XY, he pushed a girl to the ground and tried to kiss her. We didn’t tell anyone, and he decided to let her go. But can you imagine?”

The unexpected sorrow got to me because the sad part is – I could imagine. That boy is the theoretical boy who later on continues to hassle other people. That boy represents the one who never hears no from his peers because they’re afraid of him. Boys like that get to be local mini-bully that grow up to a typical bully and possibly later on develop a file with the police. That kind of behaviour is the starter pack for harassment that includes catcalling and other forms of street harassment.

What bugs me is this – when and why and where did that boy decide it would be okay to harass someone? I don’t feel that kind of behaviour is congenital. Are the patriarchal patterns so deeply incorporated into our culture that we are successfully implementing them from that early age? I’m not thinking about general gender-roles expectations, but – is the violence that comes from hatred and the urge to dominate so easily being ignored, just for the sake of letting “boys be boys?”

I firmly believe that it’s never too soon to talk to our children about these serious topics — consent, personal boundaries, acceptance, freedom, and discrimination – even though they keep our throats dry and heart rates high. Those are the topics we should discuss at home since children carry their respect to others from home.

What is the exact moment when the let “boys be boys” changes into a hate crime, sex crime, whatever? In situations like that, when we’re talking about children and parenting, it’s important not to blame it on the kid – it’s never the kid’s fault. At the same time, we have to keep in mind that at some point, the child will start making informed or less informed choices and we are here to help them carry out the good ones by promoting healthy life choices and providing positive models to look up to.

Society changes step by step, and we are the society, so wouldn’t it be logical to teach our children the same values we desire? We can talk about how to combat street harassment with activities, rallies, and websites, but we will not make as big of a positive impact until we start teaching the next generation how to avoid becoming those harassers.

Marinella is a freelance journalist/writer, feminist activist, and soon-to-be administrative law student. She writes for Croatian portal on gender, sex and democracy called Libela.org and covers CEE stories for globalvoicesonline.org. Follow her on Twitter @mmatejci.

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Do some parents promote street harassment attitudes?

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This is not actually a personal story about street harassment. It’s a theory of where people learn the attitudes.

Some things I’ve noticed about street harassment are that the men don’t care that the women want to be left alone, and that the men get angry and believe that a woman who rejects his advances is a stuck-up bitch.

This brings to mind some things my parents told me. They were overly optimistic and assumed that I was a perfect goody-goody nice guy. Whenever I asked where the best place to meet women is, they just said “anywhere”. Whenever I told them that a woman didn’t like me, they automatically assumed that she was stuck up, and that there’s nothing I could have possibly done wrong.

I’m sure I’m not the only man who heard that from his parents. I bet even rapists have heard that. Men are taught to believe that if a woman doesn’t respond to his advances, she is a stuck-up bitch, and they learn this from their parents!

My parents were also very anti-sex. My mom once told me that I shouldn’t do anything with a woman that I can’t do with my sister (yes, she actually said that, nearly word-for-word). So whenever I wanted to know how to flirt, I had to trust my peers and the media. I didn’t learn about women’s rights until almost half way through college. Once I learned about women’s rights, I stopped hanging out with the jerks who promoted sexism.

I also remember my parents constantly telling me to smile, even if I didn’t want to. I purposely frowned to rebel against them. Perhaps this attitude is learned from parents too.

I wonder if parents are the biggest promoters of street harassment attitudes.

– Concealed Weapon

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