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We All Want to Make It Home Safely

March 12, 2021 By HKearl

This week, 33-year-old marketing executive Sarah Everard’s remains were found in the UK after she went missing last week. She was attacked and murdered while traveling home from a friend’s house. A police officer was arrested on suspicion of her murder.

Her story is tragic — and it’s the worst-case scenario that makes so much street harassment unnerving. We wonder: which harassers might escalate their behavior and strike us, follow us, grab us, assault us and even kill us?

Her story also confirms that police officers may NOT be people we can turn to for help and protection… instead they may ignore, blame, harass, assault or even kill us.

Since Sarah went missing, thousands of women have shared their own stories of assault and street harassment by men. A new representative study in the UK released this week backs up their stories – 97% of young women have faced sexual harassment and 80% of all women have experienced street harassment.

Of course, street harassment is a global problem, a global crisis, and these figures and stories in the UK are just the latest documentation of it.

During our collective year of global health pandemic, the issue of street harassment has often become a lower priority, a lesser problem to address, but Sarah’s story shows that street harassment is also deadly. The study shows that street harassment is also a far-reaching crisis.

Share Your COVID Street Harassment Stories
Ahead of International Anti-Street Harassment Week (April 11-17), we invite you to share your experiences and stories with street harassment across the pandemic – and/or submit artwork to stopstreetharassment@gmail.com.
We’ll share them across the week to help raise awareness that this is STILL a critical issue that we must address, we must work to stop.

And we must hold men — yes, all men — accountable for the culture they directly or indirectly contribute to and benefit from that turns women into prey who cannot safely walk home.

Anti-Street Harassment Week Partners & Activities
Thank you to Safecity/Red Dot Foundation, Catcalls of NYC, Hollaback! and L’Oreal Paris as well as other partners for their help this year’s Week of Action!!

As a reminder, we imagine much of the world will still be practicing social distancing next month, and so we encourage you to engage in online action (and use the hashtag #StopStreetHarassment) or, if it’s safe to do so, take small offline actions, like go with a friend or two to chalk on sidewalks or post flyers in your community. 

If you have ideas already, you can let us know what you’ll do by filling out this form, and you can let us know if you’d like to be listed on the website as a participating co-sponsor, stopstreetharassment@gmail.com.


March 27 Event
Catcalls of NYC turns 5 years old this month and we’ll be hosting their anniversary event on our Facebook Page on March 27. More details to come!

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Filed Under: anti-street harassment week, COVID19, News stories, police harassment, street harassment Tagged With: police, research, sarah everard, share stories, street harassment

Tackling Street Harassment in Bristol

April 5, 2017 By Contributor

Cross-posted from Zero Tolerance Bristol for International Anti-Street Harassment Week. By China Fish in Bristol, UK.

Report on Conference: ‘Safer for women’ – Tackling Misogyny and Street Harassment in Nottingham, September 2016.

Background to the conference

My name is China Fish and like many women, I have experienced frequent and unwanted sexual harassment as I walk our city streets. In 2010 I created a satirical performance about this very subject called ‘Lucky Saddle’, two words shouted at me by a man as I cycled in Bedminster when I was around 21 years old. It is an issue close to my heart, as, like most humans, I desire to be able to move freely and safely through the world I inhabit.

The response to the show was powerful; many women were relieved to find allies in their vocal sisters, and a lot of men were astonished to learn that this is something that happens to women. It is for many men, an invisible occurrence, as men who harass tend to refrain from such activity when other men are present. Such invisibility does little to protect women from these daily threats, as the severity of what is happening goes under the radar with almost no avenues for reporting or state protection. Currently, men who harass women are free to do so without any repercussions.

So where do we turn?

In January 2016, I met with Avon and Somerset Police and Crime Commissioner Sue Mountstevens to discuss the potential of criminalising street harassment. After this meeting, Charlotte Gage of Bristol Zero Tolerance and I met regularly to discuss potential ways of tackling street harassment from more of a legal standing. In March 2016, Charlotte heard that Nottingham Women’s Centre had created a new hate crime category with the Nottinghamshire police recognising ‘misogyny’ as a hate crime.

The definition of a hate crime is: “a crime motivated by racial, sexual, or other prejudice, typically one involving violence”.

Currently, there exist the following categories for recognised hate crimes in Bristol:

  • Disability
  • Race, skin colour, ethnic origin, nationality
  • Religion or belief
  • Sexual orientation
  • Gender identity.

The definition of ‘gender identity’ as a hate crime on the Avon and Somerset Police website seems to use the terms ‘transgender’ and ‘gender’ interchangeably. Grouping these two categories causes some confusion and does not serve to clearly identify the need for a category for women to report street harassment as a gender-based hate crime. According to Nottingham Women’s Centre, transgender hate crime is recognised in law and gender-based hate isn’t. For these reasons, Nottingham decided to create a new category for ‘misogyny’ to clearly recognise and define the way that women’s experiences differ to men’s. As an, ‘other’ category already existed in the list of hate crimes which enables men to report instances of misandry, it was possible for them to create ‘misogyny’ as a new category.

Nottinghamshire Police defines misogyny hate crime as: “incidents against women that are motivated by an attitude of a man towards a woman and includes behaviour targetted towards a woman by men simply because they are a woman.” (Conference brochure)

To test the impact of this initiative, a pilot programme was launched in April 2016. The Nottinghamshire Police received thorough training – funded by the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) – from hollaback, a grassroots organisation that combats street harassment, in partnership with Nottingham Women’s Centre.  Nottinghamshire Police hope that through recording incidents in this way they will be able to:

  • “Raise awareness of the seriousness of these incidents and encourage women to report”
  • Gather better intelligence to disrupt activities/perpetrators
  • Better manage risk and support women affected.

Since the pilot, women who live in Nottingham have said they feel safer walking the streets and have increased confidence in the police force. They now know they will be taken seriously and that steps are in place to prevent and protect them from such violence. Nottingham Women’s Centre have said that there have been 70 reports made under the new ‘misogyny’ category between April 2016 and January 2017. The long-term aim of Nottinghamshire Police is to “nudge people towards a culture shift and to reframe these behaviours as socially unacceptable.”

Highlights and outcomes of the conference

The ‘Safer for women’ – Tackling misogyny and street harassment conference was organised by Nottingham Women’s Centre and Nottinghamshire Police. The event was chaired by Chief Constable Sue Fish who has been pioneering this work alongside Melanie Jeffs from Nottingham Women’s Centre, both warm and admirable women with great humour, wit and impact. Police, academics, women’s groups and grassroots organisations attended to learn about the work, its benefits, and how it may be implemented in other areas throughout the UK.

Amongst the panel were key names in this field, including Laura Bates from The Everyday Sexism Project; Sam Smethers from the Fawcett Society; Zahra Butt, community activist; Dr Irene Zempi, Director of the Nottingham Centre for Bias, Prejudice and Hate Crime; and Mark Simmonds from Nottingham Trent University.

It was a powerful event with evidence and testimonies from a cross section of women living in Nottingham. Amongst these was an account from a Year 8 student who has encountered regular street harassment from older men, including being followed by men in cars on several occasions. To hear such experiences from women themselves was a compelling reminder of the reason this work is being done, and was instrumental in helping other constabularies throughout the UK to see the urgent need for action.

Amongst the inspirational sessions I attended was a Q&A for voluntary sector staff and activists. Here I forged more connections with Nottingham Women’s Centre and gained a deeper understanding of how we might implement this in Bristol.

Since the event, a small group of us have been meeting to navigate potential ways of implementing something similar here. We will be collating a body of evidence, both written and spoken testimonies, from the women of Bristol to present to Avon and Somerset Police. (Please find information below of how to get involved). We are in communication with our PCC, Sue Mountstevens, and will continue, with support from Nottingham, to pursue this change locally.

Three police forces in the UK have agreed to begin recording misogyny as a hate crime and a number of other forces are looking into it. We are hoping that Bristol will work with us to forge the way to achieving a safer community and have a significant impact on the lives of women and girls in Bristol.  Nottinghamshire Police are also trying to roll this initiative out nationally, a steady process that perhaps one day will manifest.

Sam Smethers from the Fawcett Society said at the conference; “if we can tackle the small things, maybe it will tackle the more severe”.  We must begin to recognise the links between a wolf whistle, a shouted verbal assault, a grope, a threat of rape, physical attacks, rape and murder. Smethers added, “every time a woman is wolf whistled at, it is a reminder of her position in society.”

Let us shift this now!

Take action in Bristol!

Tell us your stories:

You can support the local campaign by helping us to gather evidence of street harassment around Bristol. Tell us about your experiences or those of others to develop a picture of the problem.

See www.facebook.com/BristolStreetHarassmentProject for more information.

Map the issue:

Take part in our community safety audit of Bristol to record any incidents and create a picture of street harassment across the city. Alternatively use our online survey to add information https://goo.gl/forms/bj05R5IGdoizYbmw2

Take part in Anti-Street Harassment Week 2nd-8th April 2017:

Take part in our Call Out Card day of action on Thursday 6th April – distribute and use the cards to start a conversation and let us know what happened.

To order the cards e-mail maisy@bristolwomensvoice.org.uk

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Filed Under: anti-street harassment week, Resources, street harassment Tagged With: Bristol, Nottingham, police, Somerset, UK, united kingdom, Zero Tolerance, Zero Tolerance Bristol

“They continued trying to create a picture of me as the victim who deserved this act of violence”

July 6, 2016 By Contributor

I was driving into an outdoor shopping center a little after lunchtime when two men who were walking in my direction looked at me and yelled, “Hey” in a loud and not-so-friendly way.

When I didn’t look in their direction, they hit my car with metal pipes and yelled, “Hey, Bitch watch where you are going.”

I drove my car to a different area of the parking lot. When I walked out, they followed me in their car and yelled,”Hey, Bitch you really need to listen to us. You’re not that important.”

When I reported this incident to the police, they advised me to stay in the same parking lot while they sent a patrol car, which never arrived. They joked about it and asked me what I had done to encourage their behavior. When I finally decided to drive to the police station in Canoga Park on my own, the police officers asked me if I like it hard in the middle of their interview with me of the incident. They continued trying to create picture of me as the victim who deserved this act of violence. They behaved in the same way with another woman who was filing a report against a man who had assaulted her.

However, they were far too patient with a man who was talking about real estate laws because it allowed the police officer to gloat about the house he owned. It showed the dichotomy between the way the police officers treated the women and men in their precinct. There was not one single female police officer in the precinct and as I and the other woman told our story, the police officers in the front and back chuckled and laughed, because that is how much they valued our words.

Optional: What’s one way you think we can make public places safer for everyone?

Educate police personnel not to take this issue lightly. The police officers I spoke to on the phone joked about it and insinuated that it was somehow something I had done that caused the incident. Make sure there are enough female officers or well trained officers to deal with these types of incidents.

– Anonymous

Location: Shopping center on the corner of Topanga Ave in Woodland Hills

Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more idea
s.

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Filed Under: Stories, street harassment Tagged With: police

“Make it known”

June 22, 2016 By Contributor

I have been harassed four times this week by men standing on scaffolding. This is something I have come to accept in daily life as the norm. My male friends seem not to know or understand that this is happening and my female friends don’t talk about it.

After these men shouted again today at me with more sexual profanities, I decided to call the police, once I took the long way home avoiding these men. Once I was through to the police, I was really happy to be talking to a woman. But not for long. The policewoman seemed to think I was blowing everything out of proportion and suggested I go up to these men in the street and tell them how it was making me feel and that they should stop.

Any woman who knows what type of situation this is will know that this will not only fan the flames and encourage them, but will bring the spotlight on me more. This will cause a scene and they will most likely laugh and shout more. I wouldn’t want them to see my face more and give them any kind of satisfaction from communicating with them. Plus, since they are only a few houses away, they will know where I live.

After I told the policewoman this, she said, “What are you even expecting them to do?”

I held onto the phone in silence, but in my mind I felt like shouting, “Rape me” “Follow me” “Harass me more.”

Isn’t it bad enough that they are already verbally abusing me everyday?

I said, “Sorry. I don’t understand, why are you not taking me seriously?”

I think she then was worried as she said she would look up the address and try and call the residence and tell them the police have had a complaint.

Since I was around 11, I have noticed and experienced this sort of abuse from men. After hearing a woman police officer sympathise with these men, I questioned it myself. Maybe I was being too much of a wimp or that I need to be stronger… but NO! it’s not right, and it never is. I say complain every time, tell people what happened, educate friends about what you have gone through and MAKE IT KNOWN.

– S

Location: Cumbia

Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50
Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more ideas.

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Filed Under: Stories, street harassment Tagged With: police, young age

Mumbi Police Tackle Holi Harassment

March 23, 2016 By HKearl

Image via Wonderful Mumbai
Image via Wonderful Mumbai

The Mumbai police are taking action to help ensure women can have a safe and enjoyable Holi celebration.

Via Vagabomb:

“If you’re dreading the creeps who use Holi as an excuse to do disgusting things like throwing semen-filled balloons, condoms, eggs, forcibly applying colour on people, or simply groping them, the Mumbai Police has decided to do something very smart this year.

People who throw water balloons or colour at women on the streets can be booked for crimes against women by the Mumbai Police, which will take the strictest action against the perpetrators.

Victims of such assaults can simply take a picture of the location of the assault, and if possible, the perpetrator, and upload them to the Mumbai Police’s Twitter handle, @MumbaiPolice. They should also mention their own names. When the complaint is received, the police will deploy personnel to the location and book the person accused…

The police is afraid of people misusing the initiative and lodging false complaints, which is why they will be verifying the authenticity of each complaint, and the victim will be required to go to the police station.

This is a terrific initiative, and we request everyone in Mumbai not to misuse it. At the same time, please do not hesitate to lodge a complaint if you actually feel harassed. “Bura na maano Holi hai” is a regressive excuse to get away with harassing people.”

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Filed Under: News stories Tagged With: festival, Holi, India, mumbai, police

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