spoken word Archives | Stop Street Harassment

Newly released this week, check out Ness Lyon’s spoken word piece “I Smile Politely,” performed by actress April Hughes. Director of Photography & Editor: Luke Bartlett.

Ness wrote about the back story for The Pool, here is an excerpt:

“I’d been harassed in the street personally as a young woman, and professionally I’d handled sexual harassment cases as an employment solicitor, but it wasn’t until I experienced street harassment in my role as a mother that I felt compelled to publicly speak out.

Last year, on a family holiday in Southeast Asia, the part of the world I grew up in and which I adore, a man in the street made a sexual remark to my 10-year-old daughter that left her feeling terrified. I asked her how she reacted to the man’s comment and she answered, ‘I just smiled politely and quickly walked away.’ I felt a surge of anger: how dare that man make my child feel she had to respond to being sexualised with a polite smile. I told her that if someone made her feel uncomfortable, she shouldn’t feel she had to smile. But then I hesitated, remembering the times in my teens and twenties when I’d been subjected to humiliating, provocative and threatening comments by strangers. Sure, sometimes I’d sworn or glared in response. And on one memorable occasion, merely responded with a look of pure disbelief when a man shouted at me to “smile love for God’s sake, it might never happen’…. when I was in a hospital. ON CRUTCHES. But a lot of the time, I too had simply smiled politely, not wanting to offend….

I wanted to explore this issue the best way I knew how: by writing about it. I started by having lots of conversations with a diverse group of women, hearing about the various ways they all ‘smile politely’.

I wrote a spoken word piece about it, performed by actress April Hughes (at WOW Festival and in a video to mark Anti-Street Harassment Week)….

My daughter’s phrase of ‘I smiled politely’ was a refrain echoed by nearly every woman I spoke to about street harassment. I want us to change that conversation: why, when we talk about politeness in these situations, is the word usually in relation to the woman in the scenario, and not the man? Instead of expecting us to simply smile, men need to learn to ‘speak politely’.

This is POWERFUL. Hear Safiya Washington and Kai Davis perform “Stares,” a spoken word piece about receiving unwanted male attention in public and not receiving wanted male attention in public and the similar way it makes them feel about themselves.

Both of these articulate, passionate young women are part of the Philly Youth Poetry Movement, which is a non-profit organization committed to helping the youth of Philadelphia discover the power of their voices through spoken word and literary expression. Through free weekly workshops, monthly slams, national/local performance opportunities, mentoring and community service, PYPM provides a safe environment for at-risk youth ages 13-19 to use poetry as a vehicle to express and advocate for themselves, explore their identity(ies), enhance literacy and critical thinking skills, and become agents of social change.

Their piece reminds me how for many women (especially young women), interactions with men in public are either as the target of unwanted attention or nonexistent because we are invisible because we don’t meet the traditional beauty standards. The notion that women’s worth is based on how men view them is damaging; we are more than our bodies, we are more than what others think of us and how they treat us. We should be respected and we should be visible.

[Thank you @NualaCabral for sending the video]

Watch: “I Smile Politely”

“Stares”: Spoken Word by Philly Youth Poetry Movement Members