Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming
From Nuala:
“This is an experimental piece about women ritually facing street harassment as they walk home. It mixes 16mm film, video, poetry and music in an effort to honor and reclaim our humanity in the public sphere. This is for the walkers, talkers and those who say nothing.”
The NYTimes reports that in India, gender-based street harassment (or eve teasing) is so bad that the government has instituted a pilot program for eight new commuter trains exclusively for female passengers in India’s four largest cities: New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Calcutta. They are called “Ladies Specials” and offer women relief from harassing men. (view a slideshow from NYTimes)
Gender-based harassment of women on public transportation is widespread. There are many countries that have instituted women-only subway or train cars, buses, or taxi cab services because so many girls and women are groped and harassed by men.
For example, some cities in Thailand, Mexico, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, and UAE have women-only buses.
Japan, Brazil, Egypt, Iran, Mexico, and South Korea are examples of countries with women-only subway cars in their major cities.
In some places in England, Russia, Australia, Lebanon, Iran, India, and the UAE, there are women-only taxi cabs with women drivers.
In the U.S., transit systems in NYC, Boston and Chicago are all struggling to deal with high rates of harassment. Both NYC and Boston have anti-harassment PSAs on some of their subway cars.
Women-only cars are only a band aid fix that does not fix the overall problem of men harassing women. Men will still harass them on the platform, in mixed car trains, on streets, in parks, etc. Separate cars can make women who can’t access women-only cars seem like fair game for harassing men. In Tokyo, which has women-only subway cars, there were 2,000 groping cases reported last year, 30% were of teenage girls. The crime is underreported, so imagine how much higher the figure may be. Again, Tokyo HAS women-only cars. This is not a solution.
Men must be taught to respect women and not see them as available for comment, touching, following, and assault when they are in public simply because they are female. Check out what Blank Noise is doing to address eve teasing in India (they aren’t advocating for separate train cars for women and men).
Thanks to my google alerts, I find gems like Lindsey’s PSA on street harassment (found via grandweerachel’s blog in a post where she talks about her street harassment experiences). Check it out!
(WordPress won’t let me embed the video. Click on the link to view it.)
As the news reminds us almost daily with abduction stories like Jaycee Dugard’s, most Americans realize children are at some risk for abduction from strangers and, as a result, fewer parents allow their young children to go to school alone (though the figure of abductions is smaller than people may realize: 112 children are kidnapped by strangers per year). I don’t think people realize, however, how many girls and young women are followed, verbally harassed, and touched by boys and men as they wait for a school bus, walk, or ride the subway to and from school, particularly once they reach puberty.
Last fall I conducted an informal online survey about people’s experiences with street harassment and over 900 people responded. In an open-ended question where people could share a story, many females mentioned the harassment they had or do receive en route to or from school.
“When I was a freshman in high school a girlfriend and I were followed home by a car of teenage boys who shouted remarks and the occasional lewd comment. We veered off our route and onto the campus of the elementary school where we went to a former teacher’s classroom and asked her if we could stay for a while, until we felt sure those guys were gone.” – 20 -29 year old Anglo American young woman in Murfreesboro, Tennessee
“One day in 8th grade (when I was 13), I was running late. The train was crowded, but I had to get on. As I shoved myself in, a fat man suddenly came out of nowhere and wedged himself in behind me… He started rubbing his crotch against my leg and panting. I was so scared, I didn’t know what to do or say. When the train reached the next stop and a lot of people got off, I tried to get away from him. He followed me and continued rubbing his crotch against my leg … He didn’t stop until more people got off and I finally found a seat.” – 13-19 year old Asian American young woman in New York City
Of the 811 females who took my survey, 22 percent said they were first harassed by men in public when they were ages 0-12, 40 percent said ages 13-15 and 25 percent said ages 16-19.
Unfortunately, harassment of girls on the way to and from school is a global problem, from England to Italy to Brazil to Mexico to Egypt to Mauritius to India to Japan to Canada.
For example, in large cities in Japan, men groping women on the subway is a huge problem. According to a recent article in The Japan Times, last year in Tokyo alone there were 2,000 reported groping cases (and it’s a vastly underreported crime). Most of the attacks occurred during morning rush hour and almost half of the women targeted were in their 20s and more than 30 percent were teenagers. To combat this problem, there are women-only subway cars and PSAs telling men to stop groping.
Another example is in rural areas throughout African. A recent news story detailed how only an estimated 20 percent of children who enter primary school in rural Zambia complete Grade 12, in large part because of the long distances that they must travel (up to 13 miles) which is tiresome and also places them, particularly girls, at risk of assault and rape. To enable more school attendance, Chicago-based World Bicycle Relief is donating bicycles to children in Africa to help them stay safe as they travel to school.
In the U.S., to combat parents’ fear of child abductions, SafeRoutes works to enable children to more safely travel to school by foot or on bus in an effort to reduce traffic congestion, etc.
I think, however, people need to pay more attention to how boys and men are treating older girls going to and from school. My research has shown that street harassment impacts females of all ages but, the harassment of teenage girls upsets me the most because I believe they are the most vulnerable to believing this is how women are supposed to be treated and the least likely to know how to respond or protect themselves.
And it should not be girls’ responsibilities to have to protect themselves; boys and men must stop preying upon and harassing young women. I’m currently writing a book on this topic which will explore ways to accomplish this goal. In the meantime, here are suggested strategies to share with the young women in your life about dealing with harassers and, if you are a parent or in a position to mentor youth, please especially note #7 for ways to help stop harassment overall.
(cross-posted at AAUW’s blog)
I am 70, in good shape, look much younger, but thinner than I’d like to be due to stomach problems which is no excuse for being harassed or made fun of on the street. Someone in a car yelled “twig” at me yesterday. I’ve been honked at ever since I’ve been a teen and it still goes on even at my age. I try to ignore it except for one time when I stopped dead, pulled out my mace and yelled “Back off.” He did. I’ve never had to use mace but I wouldn’t hesitate to use it on some bozo in a heartbeat if he deserved it.
When I was young and out for a walk in the daytime, I was touched on my bottom by a guy on a bike. I ran after him and almost caught him. I almost knocked him off his bike as he sped away.scared. I called police when I got home but they didn’t find him. A few days later a girl was almost raped on her way to school but luckily a neighbor heard her screams and yelled out the window and the guy ran off.
On my way home from work , I sat in the back of the bus and suddenly this guy opened a sex book and tried to show it to me. I tried to get up but he wouldn’t move so I poked him in the stomach with my umbrella and he let me up. The bus driver acted deaf and dumb when I reported it so I called the CTA when I got home. The next few days, the CTA had their detectives watching me and they caught the creep. As I was coming down the stairs from the el to the bus, he was following me but I never knew it. Luckily the CTA detectives saw it and they grabbed him and patted him down, taking out his wallet and everything in his pockets. I asked the detectives if they needed me to testify but they said they would handle him. I never saw him again.
– anonymous
Location: Chicago, IL
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.
