Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

“One of them reached out with both hands and clamped them onto my breasts”

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I was out running in clapham, London one day. Not one for Lycra, I was in a baggy t-shirt and my rugby shorts, pink in the face and sweating away. Nobody could say I was asking for attention but attention I got when I encountered a gang of young men who blocked my path and refused to let me past. I had my headphones in and couldn’t hear their words but their expressions spoke volumes. I could see they were posturing for each other. I was merely annoyed until one of them reached out with both hands and clamped them onto my breasts. I had to actually grab his wrists and yank his hands off to break free.

I would never have considered myself a timid person but in this case I turned on my heel and sprinted back to where I came from. It was the middle of a sunny Saturday in an area of posh housing. The only way to avoid an incident like this appears to be to lock yourself away and that is completely unacceptable. I am a structural engineer who works with mainly men but none of my male friends would object to something being done about this. My dad has offered to buy me a cattleprod.

– Anonymous

Location: Clapham, London

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“I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been harassed”

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I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been harassed and not just on the streets either. In the workplace, on buses and trains, and in shops and bars too. I’ll list some of those incidents I remember best.

The earliest I can remember is a trucker shouting something about my breasts as I was walking home aged 16. I was really upset about it and kept going. Thinking about it now, I looked younger than my actual age at the time so as far as he knew he was harassing a child.

On a long bus journey a man sat next to me while I was gazing out of the window very much in my own thoughts. I felt something on the side of my leg and assumed it was a bug or something. I scratched and thought nothing more about it, until a few minutes later when it happened again and I realised it was this man who was doing it. I pulled my leg away in surprise but this guy had picked the wrong woman to harass. I had my umbrella on my lap which had a hard plastic handle with a metal piece sticking out of the top of it for a long lost wrist strap. I tightened my grip on the umbrella and waited. Sure enough a couple of minutes later he did it again and I hit him hard on the back of his hand with the umbrella handle. I’ve never seen anyone move so fast. He raced to the front of the bus and got off at the next stop.

At work I persuaded a harassing colleague to desist too. He had a habit of putting his arm round me and one day I’d really had enough of it. I put my hand over his and dug my long nails into the back of his hand. To his credit he didn’t even wince outwardly but he never touched me again.

A man touched my breast as I sat on a bus. A man grabberd for my crotch as I was simply crossing a road in Manchester city centre.

When I was 18 I had a boss put his hand on my thigh when I was alone with him in his car, and one boss in particular harassed me constantly for several months when I was in my early 20s. Eventually when I got so upset that I turned on him verbally and got my coat to walk out he threatened to sack me if I did. I was forced to carry on but at least the harassment then stopped.

At a bar in the leafy Cheshire countryside I had a man come harass me while my then partner was in the toilets. He put his hand on my knee and I did the same trick again of digging my nails into the back of his hand before I lifted it and dropped it away from me.

Another bar incident was in a pub with incredibly loud music on. This guy started to talk to me but I couldn’t hear what he was saying and kept asking him to repeat it. He put his arm round me and I told him not to. He went away but, feeling upset about the incident, I went looking for him a few minutes later. By then he’d managed to persuade some poor blonde woman to let him paw her and he was sitting with her. I tried to tell him how his harassment had made me feel but he just started shouting obscenities at me. I snapped. I threw my fresh drink at him (what a waste of Martini) then realised an empty glass was no use to me so I threw that at him as well. Not to attack him, more a case of discarding it. Thankfully for both of us it didn’t break, but it must have hurt when it hit him. I then walked out and walked all the way home. I’m just grateful there were bouncers on the door as I suspect they may have stopped him following me.

One day I was getting the train to work at about 8/8.30am and a fresh train was setting off from within a double platform. It’s complicated to explain the set-up but basically the nearest part of the train was the end of it that was backed into the station. Most people naturally got on the rear carriage as that was nearest but, not liking crowds, I went for the second carriage. Just one other person got on with me, a man who was middle aged and creepily sweaty. He spent the whole journey to the next stop peering down the carriage to see if anyone else was on it with us, and I knew he was just trying to make sure it was safe to attack me. I formulated a plan for if he did. I was carrying a heavy book (complete works of Oscar Wilde I think) and I placed my hands under it so I could snap it shut quickly and then hit him with it. Thankfully my plan was never tested as the train was one that stopped at every station on the route and before this man had taken the resolution to make the attack we’d pulled in to the next station and lots of people were getting on. It was an incredibly frightening experience though, I genuinely thought I was going to have to defend myself from being raped.

Physical harassment seems to be less prevalent in the UK now, but the verbal still continues and it makes you very wary when someone says anything to you. I’ve got to the stage where I’ll sometimes give a guy hassle for even staring. Like when a man was walking up my local railway station road and looked back at these two young women who’d just gone past him. I said to him (in front of his partner and daughter who were with him) that “they’re only kids, you pervert”. I’ve done similar with men who’ve been staring at my legs or breasts too.

That doesn’t mean that I feel I’m invincible or that I don’t get scared on the streets sometimes. I think I just learned bolshiness and that I feel far better when I do stand up to these jerks than when I don’t. It’s still scary but at least I’ve not allowed myself to be silenced or to be put down. I don’t react every time but I do try to at least say something – usually loudly. They have far more to lose being called on their harassment than I do in making that call.

That’s not to say that everyone should do the same. We all have to decide for ourselves how we’re going to tackle each incident, and your own safety must always come first. I think what I’ve learned is that it’s best to have a plan. Plan what you’re going to do and to say in certain incidents. It really helps.

– Maat

Location: Northwest England

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Men Can Stop Rape…Men Can Stop Street Harassment

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Joe Vess speaks at the Stop Street Harassment book event at GWU in 2010

In a way, I owe street harassment a lot. It’s never done anything personally for me, and I’d eliminate it in a second if I could, but I really should acknowledge my debt to it, in full disclosure. Here’s the story.

Seven years ago I was living in Chicago, as oblivious to harassment and other forms of violence against women as I always had been. Sure, I knew it happened, and it was bad, so I didn’t harass anyone or rape anyone. So that made me a pretty good guy.

Around that time I was dating someone, and as things got more serious and we shared more and more about our lives with each other. She started telling me about how when she would go out running in the morning, or the afternoon, or on the weekends, she would get shouted at or whistled at or guys would say something to her. And she didn’t like it; in fact it made her really angry.

I was a little puzzled when I started hearing these stories, and my confusion stemmed from a few things. One, I’d never been harassed so I didn’t have a frame of reference. I’d never experienced it and never worried about it happening to me, so it ranked somewhere around lion attacks (not a huge problem in Chicago) on my worry list. Two, it seemed isolated to me. I didn’t connect it to other forms of violence against women, so even though it happened to her regularly I didn’t think about the threat of it as yet ANOTHER thing she had to deal with on a daily basis, along with the threat of physical violence, harassment, discrimination and more.

What my 2004 self could have used was a primer on understanding harassment and why it’s a problem; I didn’t have one, but I hope these points below will help us as men understand the issue a bit more, help us better challenge harassment when they see it, and better support women in our lives who are harassed.

It’s not about you, #1: One of the most common things I hear from men when we talk about harassment is that “it wouldn’t bother me.” That’s not the point, because it’s not directed at you, it’s directed at women. Whether or not it bothers you, or even bothers all women (because the other thing I hear is “some women like it”), is irrelevant. It definitely bothers many, many women and, if it bothers a woman you care about and who matters to you, isn’t that enough? Because we don’t get to choose who it happens to; the next person could be our friend or mother, sister or girlfriend, daughter or niece.

It’s part of a bigger problem: Even if you don’t think sexual harassment is a big issue, maybe you think rape is a big issue, or stalking, or domestic violence. It’s important to remember that they’re all related. Men who degrade women and treat them like objects in one context, such as walking down the street, often degrade women and treat them like objects in other settings.

The other part of it is that for women, harassment is merely one of the most visible parts of an iceberg of violence and the threat of violence they have to deal with daily, so don’t minimize it. Sexual harassment seemed weird and isolated to me, but because I always thought about it in isolation. I didn’t think, “what if that happened to me a couple of times a day, every day, my whole life,” which is the proper context for it.

It’s not about you, #2: Another thing I hear from men is this plea: “what if we just want to talk with a woman, to ask her out, to strike up a conversation with her?” My response is to ask, “Why do we as men assume that we have the right to just go around complimenting random women or talking with them?” Maybe she doesn’t want to talk with us for any number of a million reasons, all of which are perfectly valid and none of our business.

If you want to compliment random women, sign up for speed dating. Harassment is never about complimenting women, and it never has been. You may respond, “But I’m not trying to bother her, just be complimentary.” In that case, see above; it doesn’t matter what your intent is, it matters how what you do is received by her. This can be hard for us as men to hear, but intent doesn’t matter in this case.

There are things you can and should do: Since sexual harassment is often visible and public, it’s really easy for men to challenge it and take action to end it. Some basic things you can do are:

  • Don’t do it. Simple and easy. Most guys already don’t though, so luckily there’s more we CAN do if you’ve already got this one down.
  • Don’t laugh or go along with harassment when your friends or others do it. Harassment is often just as much a demonstration for other men. If someone harasses a woman and looks to you for validation, don’t laugh or smile in support. Instead…
  • Call out and challenge others who do harass women. If it’s your friends, tell them that you’re not ok with harassing women and that it bothers you. Tell them they can’t do it if you’re around. If it’s a stranger, tell him it’s not ok and he should stop. Or call the police or report it to the proper authorities; harassment is a crime.
  • Talk with the women in your life. Ask them about their experiences with harassment and how it affects them. And ask how you can be supportive as they deal with it. Don’t joke, minimize, or tell them to ignore or get over it, but be empathetic. It can make all the difference.

Think about it this way; you’ve been handed a great opportunity to not only improve the lives of women you care about (and others you don’t even know), but you’ve also got a chance to help some other men unlearn bad habits. Take advantage of it, and see what a difference it makes.

[En español, escrito por MariaLujan Tubio]

By Joe Vess
Director of Training and Technical Assistance, Men Can Stop Rape

Men Can Stop Rape is an international organization that mobilizes men to use their strength for creating cultures free from violence, especially men’s violence against women. Since its inception in 1997, MCSR has led the call to redefine masculinity and male strength as part of preventing men’s violence against women. For more information, please see www.mencanstoprape.org

This post is part of the weekly blog series by male allies. We need men involved in the work to end the social acceptability of street harassment and to stop the practice, period. If you’d like to contribute to this weekly series, please contact me.

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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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Whistling quickly turns into groping

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I was followed as I ignored the whistling from a guy. Then the guy ran after me quickly and grabbed me on my bottom!!! I felt disgusted and I shouted ‘you idiot’ as I was speechless.

– I

Location: Birmingham, United Kingdom

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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