Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Skinny jeans will end rape…?

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A defense lawyer in Australia has devised a solution for ending rape: skinny jeans. Like courts in South Korea (2008) and Italy (1999) that ruled on similar cases, an Australian jury acquitted an alleged rapist based on the defense lawyer’s claim that his client could not have removed the woman’s skinny jeans without her help and therefore he did not rape her.

Of course, in this particular case, the woman the man raped disagrees. But too bad for her, right? It’s her fault, right? What was she thinking wearing provocative skinny jeans in the first place? And good, her rapist is free! He can go attack her or other women again. Yippee!

Umm, no. Everything is wrong with this outcome and the logic behind it.

Clothes can be ripped or forced off of people or people can be coerced into taking off their own clothes. People can be engaged in consensual foreplay or related sexual acts but if one of them takes it further without the other person’s consenst, then they are entering the land of rape. There are just many variables – with or without skinny jeans – that can result in rape.

And let me ask a question. What if a man was wearing skinny jeans and he got robbed? Would he be disbelieved because of his pants? After all, he is the one who must have taken his wallet out of his jeans.

Let me answer my question. I doubt anyone would argue or believe that the kind of pants he was wearing would eliminate the possibility of a robbery. But that’s the kind of frightening logic at work in this case.

So why are there people who believe women are to blame/are lying when women are wearing skinny jeans and men are raping them?  It seems like only with crimes of sexual violence do such absurd victim blaming excuse come flying out. And that’s a big problem and a barrier to working to end sexual violence. Now women whom men have raped will probably be even less likely to report the rape if they know that their clothing will be under scrutiny and could result in the rapist walking free. And that is wrong.

Check out the work of Jeans for Justice, a nonprofit organization based in San Diego that was founded in response to a similar jeans-related argument in a 1999 Italian rape trial. Their work focuses on how rape has nothing to do with what a survivor wears.  They use fashion as a vehicle to speak out against sexual violence and raise funds to promote prevention through awareness and education, by creating partnerships with cutting edge events, designers, innovators, survivors and advocates. It’s stories like this one in Australia that will keep them busy. Find out how you can get involved.

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Metro rape reports “got lost in the shuffle”

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I take the Washington, DC, metro to and from work every weekday, so I have general and personal outrage over this report from the Washington Post:

“There have been four rapes on Metro property this year, up from one last year, but unlike assaults reported elsewhere in the Washington area, at least two of the crimes were not immediately made public.

Metro officials gave differing accounts of why the public was not informed about the crimes. Metro spokeswoman Cathy Asato said on Tuesday that the police deliberately withheld information on two assaults that occurred in the parking garage of Largo Town Center in February as they searched for suspects. However, Peter Benjamin, chairman of Metro’s board of directors, said information on the attacks “got lost in the shuffle” during the February snowstorms.”

Once there is a report, how hard is it to notify the public so they can take necessary precautions/be aware of potential threats in that area?

HollaBack DC! just wrapped up Public Transit Awareness Month in March and they have more to say on this disappointing news story.

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Sexual Assault Awareness Month: 10 Ideas for Activism

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Verbal gender-based street harassment would not be as threatening or scary if there was not a very real underlying threat of sexual violence. About one in six women will face sexual violence in her lifetime (roughly 17%). While most women will know the person who hurts them, the randomness of the attacks on those who do not can keep most women on guard when they are alone in public.

Ending sexual violence would make women feel safe in public and in general (though not always welcome in public if they’re still being demeaned and disrespected by verbal harassment).

Ending sexual violence is an abstract and seemingly unrealistic goal, but it is an important one. And we can each do small things to help achieve it. For example, in our daily life we can challenge sexism, always ask for consent with our sexual partners, and avoid using violence.

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) so I also want to highlight some of the many projects and initiatives you can become involved with to work to end sexual violence. The initiatives focus on raising awareness about the high rates of sexual assault and raising money to help fund essential programs focused on prevention and helping survivors. I’ve included a list of several of these below.

I hope this month everyone can do at least one thing – be it donating a few dollars to an anti-sexual violence organization or attending an event – to help bring us that much closer to the ultimate goal of ending sexual violence.

  1. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center provides a variety of resources each year for Sexual Assault Awareness Month, including free reports and manuals and campaign materials. Their goal is to raise public awareness about sexual violence and to educate communities and individuals about how to prevent sexual violence. Order and use their items in your workplace, campus, or at a community event.
  2. Organize or participate in The Clothesline Project, an initiative to bear witness to violence against women. Women affected by violence decorate a shirt and hang the shirt on a clothesline to be viewed by others as testimony to the problem of men’s violence against women. Read instructions on how to start a Clothesline Project in your community or on campus.
  3. Participate in Denim Day in LA & USA. Make a social statement by wearing jeans on a designated day in April (this year it is April 21) as a visible means of protest against misconceptions that surround sexual assault. Order their Denim Day Action Kit and raise awareness at your workplace, neighborhood, or community. Encourage each person who participates to donate one dollar to Denim Day to fund prevention programming.
  4. Are you a runner or walker? Sign up for a local race in April and fundraise for Jeans for Justice as part of their Justice in Motion program. All fundraising proceeds will go toward art-based educational initiatives about sexual assault at high schools and college campuses. (My parents and I are participating in this program by running a half marathon on April 11)
  5. Organize or participate in a Take Back the Night March in your community or on campus and make a statement that women have the right to be in public and to go about their lives without the risk of sexual violence. Order a kit with resources for the event.
  6. Organize or participate in a V-Day event. V-Day offers several performance and film screening options for groups to implement in their community in February, March, and April. The purpose of these events is to raise awareness about violence against women and girls as well as raise money for local beneficiaries that are working to end violence. There is no theater or producing experience necessary. Visit the V-Day website to learn how to organize a V-Day event.
  7. Help start a White Ribbon Campaign in your community. By wearing a white ribbon, campaign members make a personal pledge to “never commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women and girls.” You can order materials to help challenge the community to speak out on the issue, learn about sexual violence, and raise public awareness.
  8. During April you can order Men Can Stop Rape materials at a 30% discount. Order posters and hang them up in your community or workplace or on campus. Sign up for their summer training on prevention and involving men in ending sexual violence.
  9. Are you on campus? Find out your campus sexual assault policy and participate in SAFER (Students Active for Ending Rape) and V-Day’s Campus Accountability Project. Submit your school’s policy for inclusion in their database. Want to improve your campus policy? SAFER offers various online resources and guides and they will even come to your campus to train you in how to go about improving the policy.
  10. Volunteer or donate for a rape crisis center at the local or national level. Help raise money or donate to an organization like RAINN. (I’m coming up my second anniversary as a RAINN volunteer for their Online Hotline; it’s emotional but powerful and worthwhile work).

Thank you. You can make a difference!

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Chemical Castration for Sex Criminals?

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Manuel da Cruz kidnapped Marie-Christine Hodeau while she was jogging near a forest, 30 miles south of Paris, France, last week. She was able to call the police from the trunk of the car and gave them the make and registration of the vehicle. Cruz killed her before police could help (she actually escaped at one point when he stopped to change cars but he caught her again). The articles I read did not say if she was sexually assaulted too; it does not seem like it. The information she provided led to his arrest and the police recovered her body in the forest.

This is the extra kicker: Cruz, a father of four, had been sentenced to 11 years in prison for the kidnap and rape of a 13-year-old girl in early 2000s, but he was released seven years later (and he returned to the same place where his victim lives)!

Rightly so, this case is generating an outcry against the French judicial system.

It’s also generating pressure for the “hardening of a law introduced in 2005 which allows sexual offenders to volunteer for so-called ‘chemical castration’ – the use of anti-hormone treatment to reduce or destroy the sexual appetite.” This is already used in Germany, Belgium, and Denmark.

Last week, the justice minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, said that “she would propose a draft law by the end of this month to toughen the existing legislation. She said, however, that chemical castration would remain ‘voluntary.'”

I know very little about this topic, but I’ve found out that chemical castration is reversible and is used to diminish or switch off the libido/sex drive, but that only lasts as long as the treatment. This legislation and mindset suggests that rapists rape because of an uncontrollable sex drive – but aren’t issues like power and control more at play? And if so, will chemical castration really help?

What do you know/think?

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A Trip to the Store

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I live in a suburban neighborhood in Portland, OR. I was walking alone to a corner store a few blocks from my house, when I saw a group of four young men standing in front of the door. I heard them saying nasty things under their breath as I moved past them into the store but I just ignored it. They began following me around the store through the aisles. I made a purchase and walked out, and they followed me. Still, I said nothing and just kept walking.

They began to follow me down the street and started yelling, “You think you’re too good to talk to us, bitch?” Then they began threatening to rape me, screaming, “I’ll stick my dick up your ass! You’ll be even quieter with 4 cocks in your mouth!” I couldn’t believe it, I hadn’t done or said anything at all, my only apparent crime was walking into a store.

I was so scared as they followed me down the dark street, I was shaking. I began looking for houses with lights on inside so I could run up and bang on the door for help. Finally they stopped and began to walk in the other direction. I started running and didn’t stop until I got home where I locked the doors, got out my gun and called my husband. He came home with some male friends and they went back up to the store to look for the men but they were gone. I haven’t walked up to that store since.

I’m scared to walk around my own neighborhood unless I’m carrying my gun. That’s what its come to. I’d like to think this was an isolated incident but similar things have happened to me before. I guess that’s what you get for simply being female. I don’t believe that violence should be answered with more violence, but God help the next man that does it.

– anonymous

Location: Portland, OR

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Include your location and it will be added to the Street Harassment Map.

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