Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

It’s time to embrace our voice as bystanders

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By Julie Patrick

The #MeToo movement has been powerful – increasing visibility and giving strength to survivors while exposing behaviors that are troublesome or abusive. Too often as a society we have ignored these behaviors, excused, and normalized them while silencing survivors. We have been a part of the problem because we did not speak up – not as individuals, not as companies, not as industries or institutions. And that must stop. International Anti-Street Harassment Week is the perfect time to interrupt and challenge behaviors that are disrespectful. We can prevent harm.

It’s time to look out for each other

Understanding the prevalence of sexual harassment and assault in public, private, and online spaces helps us shape prevention strategies. That’s why Raliance, a national initiative of leaders working to end sexual violence in one generation, teamed up with Stop Street Harassment to gather facts behind the #MeToo movement.

In our national study on sexual harassment and assault, we learned that 81% of women and 43% of men reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment and/or assault in their lifetime. Among those, 57% of women and 42% of men said their first experience occurred by age 17. In addition to young people, women with disabilities and men in socially marginalized groups experience high levels of sexual harassment and assault. This includes Hispanic men, men with disabilities, men living below the poverty level, and gay and bisexual men — in addition to men in rural areas.

It’s time to reclaim our public spaces

Sexual harassment takes place across a range of locations, but the most frequently listed location is a public space. And we can reclaim our public spaces when we all embrace our voice. We know that young people and socially marginalized folks are experiencing sexual harassment in public spaces most frequently. Our findings show us that sexual harassment and assault are abuses of power, disrespect, and disregard for human dignity. When we look out for each other, we challenge these behaviors and their root causes. One of the core values we can all share is the dignity of all people.

You can be a good bystander by showing up

Remember that your age, race, or gender may make it safer for you to speak up and act. When you witness a concerning situation, you can disrupt it. Remember every situation is different, and there are many ways you can respond. Disruptions and interruptions can be as simple as asking the harasser for directions or striking up a conversation with the person being harassed. If you don’t feel safe, contact the police or involve people around you to help. When you hear something, say something – being direct and honest that these comments or actions are not acceptable reinforces that they won’t be tolerated. You can tell someone their “joke” isn’t funny.

This is also important in our online interactions. Sexual harassment and assault are never the survivor’s fault. That’s why it’s important to believe and support survivors. Reinforcing these messages online when you see concerning posts helps shift the accountability from the person experiencing the harassment or abuse to the person who committed the abuse.

We are in this together!

Enforcing the behaviors we want to see will help us create a safer world. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect; no one should experience sexual harassment or assault. You can Embrace Your Voice this April as part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month! Learn more tips for being a good bystander!

Julie Patrick is the National Partners Liaison for Raliance and a staff member at the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. Prior to this, Julie worked for over a decade in the Family Advocacy Division at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

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Today’s Events – April 16

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Virtual Events:

April 16 | 4:30 p.m. in Delhi, 6 p.m. in Kuala Lumpur (7 a.m. EDT): @INBreakthrough, @FemIndProject and @PixelProject will co-host a Tweet chat about cultural differences in harassment and reactions.

No Moleste di Strada has designed thought-provoking stickers and are placing them in public spaces highly affected by street harassment. They intend to creatively raise awareness on the phenomenon by also asking peoples’ contribution. They encourage our followers to spot the stickers, send us the pictures, and suggest us new ideas! Find the stickers on their Facebook page, and share both online and in public spaces near you!

 

International Events:

Bahamas: Hollaback! Bahamas will be hosting a chalk art event at College of the Bahamas in collaboration with the PRO Society (art club) as well as a free self-defense workshop for College of the Bahamas students.

Canada (Toronto): The Street Talk Project is launching their new exhibit! Inspired by the Take Back The Night movement and #yesallwomen, The Street Talk Project is a public art installation and gallery exhibition that addresses how women navigate the city and the socialized sexism that governs their bodies on a day-to-day basis. Using humour and subversive advertising, this project will bring attention to the ways in which public space is navigated differently by different bodies; address how sexism is felt viscerally on a day-to-day basis; and further the belief that we are all responsible for making public spaces accessible and welcoming for all bodies. [Exhibit Launch is April 16, 7-8pm at the Whippersnapper Gallery in Toronto.]

Colombia: OCAC Colombia will host ANY AGGRESSION WITHOUT RESPONSE. The Colectiva Urgente Anárquica y Sinverguenza (C.U.C.A.S), will do a workshop teaching feminist defense. We are still waiting to confirm the place, so please be aware. [2pm] | JUEVES 16 DE ABRIL – 2PM. NINGUNA AGRESIÓN SIN RESPUESTA. A cargo de la Colectiva Urgente Callejera Anárquica y Sinverguenza (C.U.C.A.S), se realizará un taller de defensa feminista. Aun estamos a la espera de confirmar el lugar, entonces estén muy pendientes

France: Stop Harcelement de Rue will be going in subway and suburban trains, and a Paris train station in order to distribute flyers and to sensitize people to all the types of violence women have to go through in transports. During these events, they will be wearing a super-hero costume as the “Team Zero Relou” (no streetharassers team)! They will also hold a Artistic happening in the hall of the Gare du Nord station, where actors will play scenes of harassment (the public will not be made aware of it being acting until the end) [5pm Gare du Nord, Paris]

France: Stop Harcelement de Rue Lyon will hold a chalk walk [5 pm. Location: Quai Victor Augagneur]

France: Stop Harcelement de Rue Lille are holding a leaflet distribution at Lille Flandres subway station. [5 pm]

Nepal: This is the final day of Nepal Mahila Ekata Samaj (Nepal Women Unity Society)‘s five day self-defense training with adolescent girls of the slum community.

United Kingdom: Hollaback! Nottingham is holding a clay workshop! They’ll be discussing street harassment and methods to deal with it while creating pieces for an upcoming exhibit [2pm at Nottingham Women’s Centre, 30 Chaucer Street, Nottingham UK. Women only please]

 

USA Events

California: Valley Crisis Center will have a button making machine where individuals can make/design their own button describing what they can do to fight street harassment/catcalling/degrading comments and also empower others to do the same. Today is your last day to snag one!  [Merced Community College  10-1PM]

Illinois: Volunteers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne campus are  holding a tabling event, and handing out buttons and sexual harassment resources [11a-1p, Main Quad]

Maryland:  UMBC’s Take Back the Night 2015: In recognition of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, join the Women’s Center on Commons Main Street Thursday, April 16th and let’s take back the night!!

Events and activities include:
– Community Resource Fair (begins at 6pm)
– Clothesline Project
– Survivor Speak Out Forum (begins at 6:30pm)
– March Against Sexual Violence
– FORCE Monument Quilt Making Opportunity and other art activism projects
and more!

[Women’s Center at UMBC 1000 Hilltop Circle, Commons 004 at 6 PM]

Minnesota: Hollaback! Twin Cities is hosting a chalking event at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. [7:30 to 9 p.m]

Nebraska: The sociology, queer alliance and radical notion clubs at Hastings College will be distributing bystander intervention flyers on campus.

New York: No Disrespect & The Safe OUTside the System Collective present: Free the Streets. Panel discussion making connections between sexualized, gendered, and police harassment + breakouts creating solutions through prevention, intervention, support, and accountability. [6:30-8:30 p.m. at Audre Lourde Project, 85 South Oxford Street, NYC]

Pennsylvania: SAFE at Temple University, Philadelphia, is holding a self-defense class. [6pm in Morgan Hall D301]

Pennsylvania: Touch Me Philly Productions will be debuting “Reasonable Fear: A Series on Street Harassment and Rape Culture.” Touch Me Philly Productions Presents two weeks of theatre and events exploring the topics of Street Harassment & Rape Culture. This series includes a main stage theatrical production, workshops, comedy, films & more. All designed to let you explore this topic in a safe atmosphere. Nine short plays were chosen from our open submission call to create our Main Stage Theatrical Production. Catch this show Thursdays – Saturdays April 16-18 & 23-25 at 8 p.m. | INFO

Massachusetts: Guerilla Feminism Boston is collecting short stories for their handmade zine, to be passed out during their Chalk Walk (see below). As they say, “As Black women, women of color, queer, trans women & gender nonconforming poc we’re often made to feel unsafe in our own communities due to gender, homophobia, race, sexuality, and gender expression. Often this affects our commutes to and from work, school, social events and other engagements.” To submit your story to be included in our zine, please email submissions to guerrillafeminismboston@gmail.com. We’re looking for artwork, poetry, stories of what it means to be YOU walking down the street, hanging out at a bar, interacting with the police, etc. Please keep these writings under 500 words. [Submit by April 16]

Virginia: Hollaback! RVA is hosting a chalk walk on the VCU campus! They invite you to visit their table to pick up candy, literature, and chalk. [VCU Campus in Richmond]

Washington:  Jaded at Club Contour, a weekly dance night with a heavy focus on safety in their community, is hosting a dance night and distributing pamphlets explaining what street harassment is and why it’s so dangerous, and (if feasible) set up a large poster board where people can write their own stories. [9pm-2am at Club Contour, 807 1st Ave Seattle, WA]

Washington, DC: American University will host a chalking on campus [10 a.m. – 1 p.m.]

Washington D.C.: Collective Action for Safe Spaces will be hosting their 6th anniversary party, “Lights, Camera, Collective Action!” [6-9pm at Room & Board, 1840 14 St., NW]

 

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How To Deal With Street Harassment On Campus?

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I’ve been experiencing street harassment since the age of twelve, but when I started college it suddenly became something that happened to me several times a week – even though my college was nearly 75% female. I was harassed both on-campus and in neighboring residential areas. I was harassed walking to and from class, the library, friends apartments, downtown on a Friday night…while it became a “normal” thing that I learned to more or less deal with, it never stopped making me feel uncomfortable.

One incident stands out in particular. It was a warm night, still early in the fall semester of my senior year. It was 10pm on a Monday night, and I was walking back from an on-campus club meeting to my off-campus apartment.

“Hey! Hey you!”

I ignored the calls, assuming they weren’t for me. Though there were few people around, I was on a well-lit main path on campus where I had always felt safe.

“Girl with the ponytail!”

Ok, that was definitely meant for me. Someone was yelling at me. Someone I didn’t know. I started to walk a little faster.

“Hey! Girls shouldn’t be walking out here alone. Where are you going? Let me walk you to your apartment. Where you live? I could walk you right up to your door, you know.”

He was following me. I was walking straight back to my empty apartment, and this stranger was following me. My thoughts started racing, and I pulled out my cell phone.

“Why you grabbing your phone?” my harasser yelled, now angry. “Who you calling? Girl, this is a private party!”

My heart immediately started pounding, my vision went blurry with fear. I made a split-second decision to run into the nearest academic building, where I hide in furthest stall of the women’s bathroom, feet up on the toilet seat, praying he wouldn’t follow me in.

I called my boyfriend. Luckily he was nearby and able to run over and get me. I went back to his apartment rather than mine, and once my hands and voice stopped shaking I decided to call campus police.

“I’m fine now,” I told the dispatcher when she picked up, giving the best description of the event that I could. “But I wanted to let you know that a strange man just tried to follow me back from my apartment, and I’m worried he might do the same thing to someone else tonight.”

“Well, you should have called while it was happening,” she replied curtly. “There’s nothing we can do now.”

I thanked her, for some reason, and numbly hung up, feeling a dull anger inside of me. Call while it was happening? I tried. It had only made the situation worse.

While the police dispatcher’s reply made sense, logically, it also displayed a basic misunderstanding of how to deal with victims of sexual harassment. I had been followed and threatened. I had been forced to hide in a bathroom out of fear. And when, out of concern for my fellow classmates, I reported it to the police, I was basically scolded for not acting sooner. I felt like I had done something wrong, rather than having been wronged. And for the rest of the year I refused to walk back from nighttime club meetings without my boyfriend accompanying me.

Colleges, we need a little help here. What do we, as students, do when we are threatened on campus? When our activities and movements are restricted due to gender-based harassment? When we begin to fear walking on our own campuses? When we are made to feel ashamed for having been harassed in the first place?

College is a time when we learn to embrace our own mobility and freedom. Harassment and the threat of sexual assault more than puts a damper on that, but there doesn’t seem to be much we can do. So colleges, I’m imploring you: help us learn what to report and how to report. Show us you’ll listen, and show us you’ll care. Remember back to the time when you were first learning to be free, yet constantly being told by society to be scared, and choose compassion rather than curtness. Teach us to be safe; but more importantly, teach us all not to put others in danger.

Britnae Purdy, Anti-Street Harassment Week Online Manager

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10 Ideas for Sexual Assault Awareness & Prevention Month 2011

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Do you care about ending sexual assault and helping survivors? I know many of you do because my 2010 post listing 10 ideas for action has been well viewed! Well, I care, too and fortunately for us there are tons of resources, activities, and initiatives this month (and most are applicable beyond the month) that make it really easy for us to do something.

Before I give you 10 of those resources and initiatives (most of them are new for 2011), here is a powerful excerpt from President Obama’s proclamation for Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month 2011:

“Despite reforms to our legal system, sexual violence remains pervasive and largely misunderstood.  Nearly one in six American women will experience an attempted or completed rape at some point in her life, and for some groups, rates of sexual violence are even higher.  Almost one in three American Indian and Alaska Native women will be sexually assaulted.  Young women ages 16 to 24 are at greatest risk, and an alarming number of young women are sexually assaulted while in college.  Too many men and boys are also affected.  With each new victim and each person still suffering from an attack, we are called with renewed purpose to respond to and rid our Nation of all forms of sexual violence…

Each victim of sexual assault represents a sister or a daughter, a nephew or a friend.  We must break the silence so no victim anguishes without resources or aid in their time of greatest need.”

So what can we do about it?

1. Believe/help survivors. I loved a tweet earlier this week from Students Active for Ending Rape (SAFER). At minimum, they noted, believe survivors when they tell you. I’ll add, visit the website of the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network to find information to help you help the survivor. And to find information to help yourself.

2. Find help. If you are a survivor who isn’t sure where to turn to or how to get help, I highly recommend visiting the RAINN website. I volunteered with them for 2.5 years and applaud their work. You can find information about a phone or online hotline and information about recovery.

  • Are you in the military? RAINN has a new helpline called Safe Helpline specifically for survivors in the military.
  • Are you male? Visit the website 1 in 6 for resources specifically for you.

3. Play BINGO.  The Washington Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs developed a new thought and conversation provoking game of Bingo! They filled each square with ways in which participants can be part of the solution to end sexual violence.

4. Use the arts. Take part or organize arts-based initiatives to raise awareness about sexual assault. Four examples of initiatives include:

  • 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.
  • V-Day event 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.
  • Story of a Rape Survivor (SOARS) is an award winning multimedia performance you can bring to your community that entertains as well as educates the audience about sexual assault prevention. Featuring the music of Nina Simone,Maxwell, and Sade, SOARS tells one woman’s story about how she reclaimed her body, sexuality, and self-esteem after being sexually assaulted in college. SOARS is a cutting-edge theatrical experience that stars a diverse cast of women, combining photographs, dance, spoken-word poetry and music as a way to educate about healing from sexual violence.
  • By wearing a white ribbon, 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.

5. Wear jeans. Make a social statement by wearing jeans on a designated day in April (this year it is April 27) through Denim Day in LA & USA 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. (I just ordered my kit.)

6. Make a pledge. This month, Students Active for Ending Rape encourages college students, alumni, parents, faculty, and administrators to transform their awareness into activism by pledging concrete action toward ending college sexual assault.

7. Tweet or Write Facebook Posts. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center provides a variety of resources each year for Sexual Assault Awareness & Prevention Month, including free reports and manuals and campaign materials. This year, they’ve created social networkers with 30 suggested tweets/posts to publish, one per day in April. (I just tweeted the suggestion for April 1.)

8. March. 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.

9. Support consent. One fun way to work to prevent sexual assault is to talk about and emphasize consent in all sexual activities. Here are two amazing initiatives you can bring to your campus or community to do that:

  • The Consensual Project is an interactive, sex-positive, fun workshop during which participants can learn why consensual hooking up is hotter hooking up. College students are an ideal audience for this workshop.
  • The Line is a film that explores the intersection of sexual identity, power, and violence. How do we negotiate our boundaries as sexually liberated women? How much are we desensitized to sexual violence? Through conversations with football players, educators, survivors of violence, prostitutes, and attorneys, this personal film explores the “grey area” and the elusive line of consent. This April, 16 participating Hollaback! chapters will show The Line and host community events, screenings and parties in cities around the globe.

10. Do something about campus sexual assault. The rates of campus sexual assault are quite high, yet very rarely are there adequate prevention programs or proper channels for handling perpetrators. AAUW and SAFER created a Program in a Box toolkit with ideas for concrete action that can lead to concrete change, tailored for audiences of students, faculty, alumni, and parents of students. Download the free toolkit and find out what you can do to make campuses safer for all.

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SAFER’s Sexual Assault ACTIVISM Month Initiative

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For 10 years, advocates across the country have spoken out against rape during Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM). Today, Stop Street Harassment’s ally Students Active for Ending Rape (SAFER) is challenging campus communities to recognize this SAAM as Sexual Assault ACTIVISM Month and pledge to change how their campus prevents and responds to sexual violence.

From SAFER:

“During Sexual Assault Activism Month 2011, SAFER encourages students, alumni, parents, faculty, and administrators to transform their awareness into activism by pledging concrete action toward ending college sexual assault.

Participants will commit to at least one of the actions listed on our pledge page, which include: joining a national movement to hold schools accountable by participating in V-DAY and SAFER’s Campus Accountability Project; building that movement by submitting definitions of accountability via video or visual media to SAFER’s Tumblr; starting or strengthening a campus sexual assault policy reform campaign; telling SAFER about the movements that they were or currently are part of; and spreading the word to other student organizers, alums, and allies…

Young people have a right to a safe college campus that is free of sexual violence.  Join SAFER in moving from awareness to action by holding colleges and universities across the country accountable during Sexual Assault Activism Month 2011!

Excellent.

I’ll write a more thorough post for Friday about sexual assault awareness/activism month, but in the meantime, you can check out ideas for what you can do – whether you’re on or off campus – about campus sexual assault through the AAUW-SAFER Program in a Box on the topic that I helped write last year.

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