Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

“I’m going to continue to speak up “

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I live and work in Queen Anne, Seattle. Currently Seattle is exploding with construction, and I pass by MANY construction sites on my morning walk to work.

On one particular day, I crossed paths with a construction worker before he entered his office building. He suggestively said, “Hello”. (You know the tone. It wasn’t a polite “hello” to a passerby. I hadn’t even made eye contact with him. He just saw it as an opportunity to interject himself into the attention of a young, small girl, wearing a dress and walking to work alone.)

I had to do something about it. I stopped walking, asked him to repeat himself (which he did, even clarifying the creepy way in which he said “hello”), and I began to explain to him why what he just did wasn’t okay. Then, since we were conveniently right outside his office, I asked for a manager to be sent down.

Also conveniently, other construction workers were filing into the office around this time, so I asked several of them to send someone down (hoping to up my chances of one of them actually doing it). To my pleasant surprise, a project manager came outside with the man who’d harassed me. I explained again what happened and why it wasn’t okay, ending with the request that they think about their words and why they’re speaking them to women they don’t know on the street.

Then I was offered a half-hearted apology and walked away. Very doubtful that the manager reprimanded or talked to the employee further, I also sent an email to the Seattle branch president of this construction company, asking if their employees are trained on street harassment and explaining once more why this is an important issue.

I haven’t heard anything back, and doubt I will, but at least I’m trying? And I’m going to continue to speak up when things like this happens, unless I feel it would put me in danger of bodily harm- in which case, my plan is to get away and then send the cops to the location.

Optional: Do you have any suggestions for dealing with harassers and/or ending street harassment in general?

1. Ask them to repeat themselves, hopefully embarrassing them and making them think twice.
2. Stop and demand a moment of their attention, since they’ve entitled them self to yours. Explain that you are a human being who deserves respect, not an object to be commented on.
3. Ask if they have a wife, mother, daughter, or niece and ask how they’d feel if someone did that to one of them. If they have a wife, also ask what she might think if she knew her husband was harassing women on the street.

– BW

Location: Near the corner of Republican and 2nd Ave W in Seattle outside the Lease Crutcher Lewis construction office

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

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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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Seattle street harassers used to face this punishment…

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In the late 1800s and early 1900s, street harassers were called “mashers” across the USA. In Seattle, if you were convicted of being a masher, you may have to put in time on the chain gang! Wow.

Via CrossCut.com —

“Even though Seattle was awash in prostitution, behavior toward ‘proper’ ladies had to be protected at all costs, especially as the city’s middle class expanded. Two young men in Ballard were sentenced to the gang for getting a 16-year-old Ballard girl drunk on beer.

The Seattle Times defended a chain gang sentence for another young man who was arrested for “annoying a young woman on a Seattle street.” The paper editorialized, “That penalty, too, may seem severe to some, but it does not to any man with a wife or daughter who is occasionally compelled to be upon the streets of this city alone. The offense of the ‘masher’ is akin to that of the rapist. There is only a difference in the quality of the nerve displayed. The penalty under the law is, unfortunately, too light.”

In 1907, police chief Charles “Wappy” Wappenstein decided to crack down on men and boys who harassed proper ladies on the street — a bit ironic for a policeman who was later prosecuted and jailed for taking bribes from prostitution interests in the city. Wappy threatened to start a “second chain gang to be made up of dudes and brainless individuals who have the mashing habit.” He said, “It would be a joy to me to see a finely dressed young man…working alongside a hobo, chained together with irons….”

 

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Violated at the Seattle DMV

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I was in the Seattle DMV on 2nd and Spring and a man bent over as he was leaving, then stood up and said, “Thanks for that.”

It took me a few seconds to realize he had been looking up my skirt and was now thanking me.

I started shaking and yelled after him “fucking dick.” I didn’t have a cellphone and I was frozen.

He came back in and said, “Are you laughing at me?” and I said, “Get the fuck away from me now.”

After he left I went to the bathroom in tears thinking, “Call the police they will have his name. Call the police.”

I will forever hate myself for walking back out into the waiting room and not calling the cops. I feel like that is too high a price to pay for one man getting five seconds of his jollies. I wish I had done everything different. Next time I will.

– Sarah

Location: DMV on 2nd and Spring, Seattle, WA

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Find suggestions for what YOU can do about this human rights issue.

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Men think that my body is public property

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I go to school in Seattle, Washington, US. I have always lived in Washington. For me, street harassment started when I was in high school.

I started riding public transportation when I was 17, because I was in a program at my high school where I could take college classes and receive credit for both high school and college. I couldn’t get a car so I had to ride the bus. Over my time in high school, I was followed off the bus by grown men and harassed by a bus driver and several passengers.

I am 21 now, I go to school in Seattle, and the harassment has only gotten worse. I have been followed down the street by a man screaming at me and calling me a bitch because I wouldn’t stop to talk to him. I’ve been groped, grabbed by the arm, cornered on the bus, catcalled, honked at and yelled at from cars, you name it. Men have tried to get up close and invade my personal space when I refuse to talk to them.

The time I was groped, I was waiting at my bus stop in the International District. A man came up to me and started introducing himself and trying to have a conversation with me. I can’t remember what I said to him, but I made my answers short and tried to brush him off. When I went to put my headphones on, he tried to reach down the front of my shirt. At first I was so shocked that I couldn’t think of what to do, but then I managed to yell “Don’t touch me!” Other people waiting at the stop looked my way, the guy got embarrassed and left.

I have gotten increasingly wary of strangers because of this and the fact that I am catcalled two or three times a week.

So what I have been doing now is holding my head high, walking with a strong, purposeful gait, and trying to appear intimidating (which is hard to do when you’re 5′ 2″). I thought maybe that would make me less of a target. I yell back and I give people the middle finger. So far it hasn’t changed anything.

Everyone spends all this time telling us we should watch what we wear, where we go, what time we go out, etc. I just want to live my life and not worry if the guy that groped me would have stopped if no one had been around to see. Or if something worse will happen.

I am so sick of taking their shit. I’m sick of these men that think they are entitled to treat me however they want. Men that think my body is public property. I just want to walk down the street in peace.

– Lisa

Location: Seattle, WA

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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