sexual violence Archives | Stop Street Harassment

USA: Compassion over Compliance on the College Campus

February 23, 2018 By Correspondent

Connie DiSanto, USA SSH Blog Correspondent

Street harassment, or sexual harassment in public spaces, involves an unwanted and unwarranted interaction with a stranger in a public place. Sexual harassment on a college campus also involves an unwanted and unwarranted interaction but it’s happening between peers (and in some cases, it involves faculty or staff) and the place could be an academic hallway, a quad, in a classroom or on the street in town that the college resides in. And when efforts are made by a harassed person to avoid a repeat interaction, it may be tough because of the community setting and the fact that often both the survivor and the harasser live on or near campus.

Although this type of behavior has been prevalent for decades across on campuses, it is not taken seriously enough, and in many cases, it is still seen as the normal culture of the college experience despite federal legislation prohibiting it.

*Students, staff and faculty at the 2017 UNH Anti-Violence Rally & Walk.*

Long gone are the days when you heard someone reference Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and it only brought to mind equal access to sports for girls and women in public education. Today Title IX acts as a federal civil rights law prohibiting sex discrimination and addresses sexual harassment, gender-based discrimination and sexual violence. Yet the original intent of this protection with survivor-based policies is now under siege.

The current administration has begun to dismantle Obama Administration-era guidance and protections claiming that it denies due process to accused students. But in reality, it provided more protections, to both the accused and the victim, then any other law on the books. Under the leadership of current Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, the Department of Education went as far as claiming that false accusations occur at the same rate as rapes, which is gross misrepresentation of the actual 2-6% of false accusations compared to the 1 in 5 women sexually assaulted, according to many studies. The Department of Education is supposed to be issuing new regulations to colleges for guidance sometime next month, and the general public will have an opportunity to give input via a “notice and comment” process, but until we see the actual proposed rules, we are left to wait and see and then act.

And despite demands for more funding to the Office on Violence Against Women, budget cuts to the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, which investigates charges against schools for mishandling sexual assault claims and Title IX violations, are still among those cuts that will be made under the current administration.

If federal guidance becomes less strict on accountability and funding diminishes, then compliance becomes yet another barrier to a survivor’s protection under the law.

Just as the #MeToo movement recently spurred all 50 state attorney generals to demand from Congress an end to the practice of forcing sexual harassment cases into mandatory arbitration, changes need to be made on college campuses to help to put a stop to the culture of silence that protects perpetrators at the cost of their victims. One such promising recent action is the Alert Act which was introduced by a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators. It would ensure that the “I didn’t know” excuse can never again be used by university presidents for not protecting students from abusers, in particular, employees of universities. This bill would require an annual certification for federally-funded college and university presidents ensuring that they have reviewed all cases of sexual misconduct reported to their campus Title IX coordinator, and that they have not interfered with investigations of those cases.

Compassion for student survivors was the focus of the Obama-Biden campus sexual assault advocacy era, due to, in part, the “Dear Colleague Letter” that was announced here at the University of New Hampshire in 2011. We need that focus again.

Connie is the Marketing Communications Specialist for the Sexual Harassment & Rape Prevention Program (SHARPP) at the University of New Hampshire.

#MeToo Ends Here Unless Men Step Up

October 18, 2017 By HKearl

Millions of people have tweeted #MeToo and Facebook shared that 45% of people’s friends have posted it on their timeline to indicate they have experienced some form of sexual abuse (rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment at work or school or street harassment). The hashtag was started in 2007 by Tarana Burke and brought forward again a few days ago by actress Alyssa Milano in the wake of women coming forward revealing sexual abuse they faced from Harvey Weinstein, a very powerful man in Hollywood who could make or break people’s careers.

I began receiving google alerts about the story before it really got going but it took me days to finally engage with it on my own social media accounts, let alone here for Stop Street Harassment.

I know that the hashtag has done a lot of good and it’s created space for more people to share stories and others to read them. But my knee-jerk reaction was not positive. This is what I wrote on my personal Facebook page two days ago, at the height of people sharing #MeToo online:

While I’m glad #MeToo is trending and blah blah blah people are paying attention to sexual harassment and assault again for a minute, I just honestly feel TIRED. Do any of my other activists allies who’ve been working on this issue for a long time feel similarly? I feel worn down from the accumulation of stories I hear daily and have heard nearly daily for 10 years and periodically for years before that and by my own 100s of experiences of sexual harassment (school, work, public spaces, online, interpersonal), including 3 street harassment incidents in the past 9 or so days. I just wish sexual abuse would STOP. Don’t make us have to keep telling our stories and living through this and then when the new cycle shifts, forget about us. I just wish and wish it would stop. Just STOP.

It received over 165 likes (one of my most popular posts all year) and nearly 50 comments, mainly from people who also work on sexual abuse issues for a day job or as a volunteer activist. So many of them voiced fatigue, too. Like literal fatigue of their bodies shutting down. Many said they were getting triggered by seeing so many stories and others just felt too overwhelmed to engage. Yes, they said, they too felt tired.

Those of us working on these issues know all about the problem and I know the hashtag wasn’t for us. But we’re still impacted. Who will be the ones continuing with the work once the hashtag fades away? Who will still be facing sexual harassment and abuse in our day-to-day lives and having to figure out ways to cope with it and keep moving through our day? Us. Us. Us. Us. Us.

Don’t get me wrong, at an individual level, I think story-sharing is the best way to raise awareness about this issue. But at a community, national or global level, I’m tried of us having to pour open our souls and then seeing the attention end there. WHERE are the policies that can actually make a dent in stopping this? WHERE are the male allies who are vowing to speak up and do something proactive to stop this?

Yesterday and today I noticed several articles asking similar questions and challenging additional action, like Jessica Valenti who suggested in her Guardian piece that we now call out the perpetrators.

Or Rozina Sini who wrote at BBC, “I’d love to see a counter trend of men posting ‘I’m sorry and I’ll do better’ if they feel they’ve ever made a woman uncomfortable, unheard or unsafe. This one’s on you, dudes, and yet I still see all the mobilisation and conversational labour being held by woman.”

Or Wagatwe Wanjuki who wrote for Daily Kos, “If we really want to reduce sexual violence, we need more than social media statuses by survivors. We need more than just our stories of trauma to stop sexual assault. We’ve had many similar efforts (#BeenRapedNeverReported, #YesAllWomen, #IBelieveHer, etc.) in the past, but gendered violence remains a serious issue. It’s because we need more. Listening and believing survivors is great, but it should be the first step of many in doing our part to end sexual violence. We need everyone to participate in raising awareness and taking concrete actions against rape culture, rather than leaving it to survivors to do the heavy lifting.”

I agree with them. And I will add this:

I know there are many good men out there who don’t harass or abuse women but I think the bar should be higher than not raping someone or not catcalling them on the street. That doesn’t make you a good guy. The bar should be truly treating women as equals.

What does this mean?

Do you actively try to ensure women are paid fairly, are not ignored or spoken over in meetings, and are not sexually objectified behind their backs? Do you reject forcing your last name on women at marriage and do you perform an equal share of the childcare/housekeeping/cleaning? Do you raise your daughters to believe they can be as strong, as brave and as competent as your sons? Do you accept no when women don’t feel into having sex?

I think there are A LOT of “good guys” who don’t do these things or at least not all of them. That’s a problem. Treating women as less than, as objects, as property, as your personal thing is connected to sexual abuse and sexual violence. If you don’t respect someone and treat them as an equal, it’s much easier to objectify and abuse them or to tolerate it when someone else does it.

Unless men are actively working to respect women in all aspects of their life, they are part of the problem. Sadly, sharing our stories until we are BLUE in the face and worn out and exhausted won’t do a damn thing at the macro level. Men, please step up and examine ALL of your behaviors toward women. Please, be better

Thank You, Taylor Swift!

August 15, 2017 By HKearl

Have you been following Taylor Swift’s lawsuit the last few days? If not, here is context via an excerpt of an article I wrote for Huffington Post a few days ago:

“Pop star Taylor Swift testified a few days ago about David Mueller, a former radio DJ, allegedly groping her backstage during a meet-and-greet after an event in 2013. Groping is a form of sexual violence. When her team reported the incident to his company, they launched their own investigation and fired him.

If her allegations are true, and I believe they are, then Swift’s experience is not unlike that of millions of Americans. In 2014, my organization Stop Street Harassment worked with national survey firm GfK to conduct a nationally representative survey about sexual harassment and violence in public spaces. Alarmingly, 23 percent of women and 8 percent of men nationwide had experienced some form of unwanted sexual touching while they were in public spaces, including streets, buses, trains, stores, bars, concert venues and parks…

Another common reason why people stay silent about groping is they fear being disbelieved or blamed for the incident. Countless women have written on the Stop Street Harassment site about encountering these kinds of responses when sharing their stories of harassment with friends, relatives or police. Even though she is a megastar, it is telling that these are both responses Swift faced. She had the fortitude to refute them in court saying, “This is what happened, it happened to me, I know it was him,” and “I’m not going to allow you or your client to make me feel in any way that this is my fault, because it isn’t.”

Yesterday, Swift won her lawsuit and today she announced she is donating money to organizations that work with sexual violence survivors.

Via ABC News:

“After a Denver jury found that a preponderance of evidence showed that former radio DJ David Mueller had groped the pop star, Swift said in a statement that her four-year ordeal, which included a two-year-long trial process, was for “anyone who feels silenced by a sexual assault.”

“I acknowledge the privilege that I benefit from in life, in society and in my ability to shoulder the enormous cost of defending myself in a trial like this,” the 27-year-old singer said in a statement obtained by ABC News. “My hope is to help those whose voices should also be heard. Therefore, I will be making donations in the near future to multiple organizations that help sexual assault victims defend themselves.”

Two organizations working with victims of assault told ABC News that they have already benefited from Swift taking on Mueller in court [including RAINN].”

Thank you, Swift, for using your platform in this way and for standing so tall in the face of abuse and disbelief. You are an inspiration and a role model.

The Bahamas: Interview with Founder of #LifeInLeggings

December 7, 2016 By Correspondent

Guest post by former Blog Correspondent Alicia Wallace

*Image via: https://redforgender.files.wordpress.com*

From #BlackLivesMatter in the U.S. to #SupportThePuff in The Bahamas, we’ve seen the power of social media, the rise of hashtag movements, and the propensity of new media to create change. Recently, #LifeInLeggings has gained the attention of the Caribbean region, giving women the space to share their stories of sexual violence ranging from harassment to rape. Started in Barbados by Ronelle King, the hashtag made its way to Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and The Bahamas among among other countries.

King, founder of #LifeinLeggings, told me she was frustrated by her own experiences of sexual violence. “I had an idea to create a hashtag that would create a forum for Caribbean women to share their daily experiences of sexual harassment and abuse.” She recently worked with B-GLAD (Barbados Gays, Lesbians and All-Sexuals Against Discrimination), but has found social media and blogging to better suited forms of activism for her personality and schedule.

The launch of #LifeInLeggings on the first day of 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence was coincidental. “I wasn’t aware of the 16 days of activism until the hashtag took off and people starting mentioning it in correlation with the hashtag.” King noted the importance of the annual campaign, and said she is happy to have #LifeInLeggings play a role in bringing awareness to the issue of gender-based violence.

It is difficult to predict the success of a hashtag movement, whether by geographical reach or number of participants, but King was certain she would receive support from her friends and women in Barbados, knowing it’s an everyday reality for them.

“I did intend for it to spread through the Caribbean. Rape culture isn’t just a Barbadian issue; it’s a Caribbean issue as well as a global one, so I know that support would pour in from the other countries.”

Sexual violence is a pervasive issue in the Caribbean, as evidenced by statistics. In a survey conducted in nine Caribbean countries 48% of adolescent girls reported that their sexual initiation was “forced” or “somewhat forced.” The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Latin America and the Caribbean Region of the World Bank report noted, “While the worldwide average for rape was 15 per 100,000, The Bahamas had an average of 133, St. Vincent and the Grenadines 112, Jamaica 51, Dominica 34, Barbados 25 and Trinidad and Tobago 18.”

#LifeInLeggings has given Caribbean women space to put their names, faces, and stories next to those statistics, making them a visible reality for the people around them.

In Dominica, Delroy Nesta Williams and Khadijah Moore saw the effects of #LifeInLeggings and the potential to have a national conversation. The pair started #LévéDomnik to engage the country of less than 73,000, primarily on Facebook, in the discussion. Within days, they had collected over 400 stories, some of which were shared anonymously — sent to someone’s inbox and then posted on their behalf.

Williams said this is only the beginning of the conversation in Dominica. The #LévéDomnik has met with the country’s Bureau of Women’s Affairs and several NGOs, and is planning activities for 2017 that include advocacy training, yoga sessions, focus group meetings, and educational talks. “We want people to be more empathetic towards survivors, and we want to address institutional issues that act as emotional and psychological barriers to reporting sexual offenses and seeking redress through the judicial system.”

For King, #LévéDomnik is proof that #LifeInLeggings is serving its purpose. “The hashtag was created to not only show the realities of rape culture in Barbados, but in the Caribbean. It is a defiant cry for justice and a blatant refusal to be silent.”

Sexual violence is still a taboo subject, and survivors often find it difficult to talk about their experiences. In sharing our stories, we have the opportunity to sensitize people and bring attention to an issue that is often avoided in both private conversations and public discussion. Unfortunately, large numbers of people are unmoved by issues that do not directly affect them or people close to them. People participating in the #LifeInLeggings movement have commented on changes in attitudes of men around them who have been privy to the conversation. King shared that she personally received numerous messages from men who admitted they were a part of the problem, and intend to do better.

The Barbados team encourages those following #LifeInLeggings to reflect on their own experiences with sexual violence, and think of ways to keep the discussion going in family, peer, and community groups. It is also imperative that we consider the ways our words and actions contribute to women’s everyday experiences.

#LifeInLeggings started as a simple idea, and a group of dedicated women worked together to make it region-wide conversation. It caught the attention of two women in politics and Tanya Stephens among others, and is evidence of the power we all have to make a difference. In sharing our stories, women call upon men in The Bahamas and throughout the Caribbean to respect women as human beings, and take on the responsibility in engaging other men in these important conversations and holding them accountable for their actions.

We are not only responsible for what we do, but for what we allow to happen. Bystander intervention is critical to the creation of a new culture where sexual violence has not place. Bahamian women are invited to share their stories on Facebook and/or Twitter using #LifeInLeggings. Hollaback! Bahamas is accepting stories via an online form and will post on Facebook and/or Twitter for those who would like to remain anonymous.

Alicia Wallace is a women’s rights activist, public educator, and movement builder. She is the Director of Hollaback! Bahamas, produces The Culture Rush monthly newsletter, and tweets as @_AliciaAudrey.

USA: Shine Squad Confronts Violence in Activist Organizations

February 22, 2016 By Correspondent

LB Klein, Georgia, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

Gender-based violence is currently ingrained in our society, and only true culture change will eradicate it. While we want to believe that organizations and groups working to end this violence and advance social justice are immune, abuse happens in these spaces as well. What happens when though when spaces that have a mission to end violence are actually perpetuating it? What happens when the perpetrators are our colleagues, our fellow activists, our leaders?

Enter Shine Squad, a tumblr space by and for folks who have experienced harassment and abuse while they’re working within these movements. As Shine Squad’s first video mentions, we often expect that abuse will be “overt and straight out of Mad Men.” However abusers, particularly those who know the language and values of our movement-building spaces, use more subversive strategies. Shine Squad’s tumblr is full of stories from women and trans folks whose colleagues and supervisors used these spaces against them in overt and covert ways.

It can be challenging to “rationalize [perpetrators’] work in the movement with their abusive behavior.” Because it is so disarming and surreal to experience violence in these spaces that are supposed to be safe, survivors can feel “on an island.” This cognitive dissonance leads to isolation, silencing, and self-blame that shifts the focus from what the perpetrator did wrong to blaming the survivor.

The painful consequences of violence in these spaces can be overwhelming to face alone, so Shine Squad provides a platform for “story sharing, expressing needs, and action taking.” Through their online form, anyone can submit anonymous stories of the harms they have experienced in activist communities and social justice organizations. These reports encompass a wide range of behaviors from subtle workplace discrimination that was “gross but you can’t quite put your finger on it” to intimidation to financial threats to digital harassment to sexual assault and abuse.

Shine Squad is not stopping with story sharing, however, they are also providing connections. They’re introducing survivors to others who have also survived abuse, even connecting those who might name the same perpetrator. They’re offering emotional support, connections with journalists, legal referrals, and opportunities for activist and organizing opportunities around addressing the “systematic problems of discrimination, harassment, and abuse in social justice movements.” They also give opportunities for members to help others through hosting conversations, sharing skills including legal and HR, or offering opportunities to advance the public conversation.

By building networks and sharing stories, Shine Squad is addressing a valuable need. This activist space provides a powerful reminder that for our movements to be successful, we must start at home, by fostering organizational environments that support survivors, prevent violence, and hold perpetrators accountable.

LB is an Atlanta-based researcher, advocate, and educator dedicated to ending gender-based violence, supporting survivors, and advancing social justice. You can follow her on twitter @LB_Klein.