Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

USA: A Response to Rush Limbaugh’s Comments on Street Harassment

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Kathleen Moyer, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

On Wednesday, First Lady Michelle Obama delivered a powerful speech in Argentina for her “Let Girls Learn” initiative. During the speech, she shared her experiences with street harassment and how she overcame those experiences by strengthening her voice through education. While her speech inspired people around the world, conservative radio host and infamous misogynist Rush Limbaugh felt that he had to set the record straight about women and street harassment.

Whether the issue is street harassment, birth control, domestic violence, abortion, our appearance, or our needs, Limbaugh always seems to know what’s best for women. Below are four comments made by Limbaugh during his radio show on Thursday, in response to Obama’s speech and the issue of street harassment, as well as my responses to those comments.

“She’s sitting as first lady of the United States and she can’t get past it, she can’t get over it, I’m telling you these people are bitter. They have not gotten over it, all of this is personal, and they haven’t gotten rid of their anger.”

Yes, we’re bitter. If Limbaugh were ogled, groped, and followed down the street by strangers, from the time he hit puberty, he would understand why we’re bitter. The reason why we don’t “get over it” is because it seems to be a never-ending problem. Women of all ages, in all areas of the world are affected by street harassment, to the point where it’s just seen by many as part of being a woman. We can’t get over a problem when that problem, itself, is never over.

First Ladies, like Michelle Obama, are not free from harassment either. With her Secret Service detail, she may not have people yelling obscene things at her anymore, but she still has many strangers commenting on her body and her clothing on the internet regularly. Limbaugh says that she hasn’t been able to “get past it”, but he seems to have missed the point she was making. Although she has experienced street harassment throughout her life, she has not allowed the way others have viewed her to define her. Instead, she has listened to her own voice, and I believe that’s how many women overcome the harassment they are faced with.

“Here’s the bit about sexism, do you know how many women would love being whistled at walking down the street?”

Probably the same number of women who enjoy listening to this sexist drivel. Believe it or not, women like to walk in public without being objectified and threatened by strangers. Some women find it irritating, some find it aggravating, and some find it frightening, but very few women find it flattering. Having to hold your keys like a weapon or carry pepper spray or a taser in order to walk safely in public is not an enjoyable experience.

If Limbaugh’s claim that women love street harassment were correct, I wouldn’t be writing this and organizations like Stop Street Harassment wouldn’t exist.

“Okay you have your average American construction site, and you have your average American construction worker, and every woman in the world knows you go walking by there, you’re going to get whistled at. And yet they walked by.”

If a woman happens to be walking by a construction site, why should she have to go out of her way in order to avoid being the target of sexual comments? This statement clearly exhibits victim blaming. Limbaugh’s logic that it’s a woman’s fault if she is harassed at a construction site is the same logic that has been perpetuating rape culture for years. If street harassment at construction sites is so common that Limbaugh just assumes that it will happen, women walking by are not the problem. In addition to this comment fueling the toxic practice of victim blaming, it is also an unfair generalization of construction workers. Surely not all construction workers share the misogynistic beliefs of Limbaugh. I’d like to believe that the majority of people agree that no one asks to be harassed by simply existing in public.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Obama, but God made me a man, and as such I can’t help noticing a woman who I think is attractive. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to shut up and not tell her so.”

Everything about this argument is wrong. Firstly, the idea that men cannot help harassing women is harmful and completely ungrounded. Plenty of men go out in public, every day, and manage not to harass anyone. It’s called being a decent human being. Implying that men are incapable of this is sexist and promotes the practice of not holding harassers and abuses accountable for their actions.

Secondly, Limbaugh’s refusal to stop harassing women is despicable. If someone does something that makes another person feel uncomfortable or threatened, he/she should stop immediately, without question. Limbaugh’s inability or unwillingness to grasp this shows that he puts his desire to reduce women to sexual objects above women’s safety. This idea is at the core of the problem of street harassment.

While reading Limbaugh’s comments, it occurred me that he may have simply said these reprehensible things for publicity. Despite this, I chose to write a response to his remarks, because I’ve heard his arguments echoed by others on a regular basis. If these ideas were limited to Limbaugh, they would not have a significant impact, but because many others share these adverse opinions, they must be addressed and debunked.

The first step in ending street harassment is thinking critically about this issue and making our voices heard, as suggested by Michelle Obama.

Kathleen is a full-time graduate student studying professional and business communication. She plans initiatives to increase awareness of sexual assault, domestic violence, and other related issues through her university’s anti-sexual violence group, Explorers Against Sexual Violence.

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Amsterdam Considers an Anti-Street Harassment Law

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A member of Straatintimidatie speaking at an event with the Amsterdam mayor. Image via their Facebook page.
A member of Straatintimidatie speaking at an event with the Amsterdam mayor. Image via their Facebook page.

Our friends at Burgerinitiatief Boete op Straatintimidatie in the Netherlands (read an interview with founder Gaya Branderhorst) told me that they recently had a discussion on street harassment and swayed the mayor of Amsterdam to address it, including by crafting legislation.

Via Dutch News, here is more info:

“One in three women reports being hassled, spat at or insulted while out in the Dutch capital but this is not currently an offence. Now the local branch of the right-wing VVD wants to change this by amending local laws to cover street intimidation.

The city’s mayor, Eberhard van der Laan, told councillors on Thursday: ‘This sort of behaviour goes against the key values of our society.’

‘And it happens a lot,’ the mayor said. ‘However, there are practical implications because it is difficult to prove and there are often no witnesses.’ Nevertheless, the mayor said he would ask the police and pubic prosecution department to look into the options.

The issue was first raised in Amsterdam by VVD councillor Dilan Yesilgoz at the end of last year. Labour MP Ahmed Marcouch is already working on draft legislation to make verbal harassment of women a criminal offence.”

Portugal just passed a law against street harassment.

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#CarnivalSemAssedio Campaign in Brazil

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CarnavalSemAssedio‬ campaign in brazil, feb 2016Via Telesur TV:

“A campaign against street harassment during Carnival is gathering steam in Brazil.

The campaign is using the hashtag ‪#‎CarnavalSemAssedio‬, or ‪#‎CarnivalWithoutHarassment‬, to help dispel the myth that harassment during Carnival is somehow more permissible.
“Unfortunately, sexual abuse figures increase in this period for many reasons and many men justify their abusive behavior as a normal attempt to ‘flirt’,” Heloisa Aun, one of the campaign’s founders, told Forum magazine.

According to the campaign’s materials, the goal is to “combat violence and machismo, promoting discussion that harassment is harassment no matter the time of year.”

Organizers are calling on women and men to break the silence and speak out against harassment during carnival, using the hashtag to document cases of harassment.”

Good for them!

I’m wishing all who celebrate it a safe & fun Carnival and Mardi Gras!

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OCAC Chile Supports an Anti-Street Harassment Law

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Sharing via an e-mail from OCAC Chile:

“By sharing an impactful video, OCAC Chile (Chilean Observatory Against Street Harassment) aims to promote a bill for preventing street harassment. In a non-expected way, the video shows that girls start being harassed in public spaces when they are 10 years old. The organization is calling on civil society from all around the world to sign a petition to support the local bill. The petition can be signed here.

The Respeto Callejero bill was recently approved by the Chilean Citizen Security Commission of the Lower House and now will be discussed by the Constitution Commission.”

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Croatia: Breastfeeding in Public is a Street Harassment Issue

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Marinella Matejcic, Croatia, SSH Blog Correspondent

Woman breastfeeding. Image via the Huffington Post
Woman breastfeeding. Image via the Huffington Post

You know how, when we talk about street harassment, most people just assume that it involves a woman, a man and physical or verbal violence? Maybe you’ll react on the sentence you just read and say: but it can involve a trans* person, as well! You would be completely right, but that’s not the issue here.

I want to talk about another form of street harassment, the one that we’re not “ranting” about enough. It incorporates patriarchy, body shaming and street violence as we know it: breastfeeding in public. Everyday Feminism and HuffingtonPost have covered the topic, but are we paying enough attention?

Sometimes, it is amiss, depending on your location and whereabouts, as well as your feminism postulates, to talk about the relation of feminism and childbearing/caring. But if we talk biology, kids are something some women have, which is perfectly fine. The broader feminist community has to incorporate mothers into their stories and keep the whole “women, sisters” agenda as far as possible from crossing a woman because of her reproductive choices. We tend to talk about sexual and reproductive health and rights, but, from time to time, ignore actual women who decided to procreate.

Saying: “I’m fine with breastfeeding, but…” doesn’t portray you as an open-minded individual – that but is what distinguishes a valid opinion from discrimination.

Some people say that it’s a disgusting site to see. Breastfeeding is disgusting because a woman’s boob is out and the baby is, ugh, eating from it? How awful is that? I really don’t even want to get into that double-standards-patriarchy talk. There is no doubt that the patriarchy itself is the core problem of why do people consider that they are entitled to judge, give advice to or obstruct any women’s actions. But I don’t think that we should discuss this topic related to general hyper-sexualisation and acceptance of women’s breasts in the media and marketing industry. That is a waste of time and emphasizes the wrong notion that woman has to do something specific with her body in order to please the general audience and expectations. Forcing a person to somehow feel ashamed because of a personal process that isn’t hurting anybody is a form of oppression, you know?

Let’s sum it up: I’m talking oppression, feminism and sexualisation. What does nurture have to do with that and how can I justify this blog post on a site street harassment, when it is clearly about breastfeeding? It’s really simple: street harassment can be broadly defined but in every definition, it includes some force of violence in public space – and banning a mother from feeding her child is violence. Sexualisation of that act is violence. There was a great article on this on Everyday Feminism, called 8 Reasons Why the Policing of Parents Who Nurse in Public Is Street Harassment. It is a good read.

Somehow I just can’t get rid of the notion that by shaming a nursing woman, we’re sending signals that a woman’s body is here just for being tangled by society’s ideas on a woman’s position. It’s fact that basically, a woman produces food and feeds her baby in a most natural way, but is seen as daring to provoke the general public by claiming her own body! What nerve, huh? Again, oppression through shaming. Sound familiar?

At one point in my life, I was a breastfeeding mom as well and had to cope with comments like, “Why don’t you just breastfeed her in the toilet, it’s not a nice sight!” or “Are you sure, somebody might see you?” or even “But that’s a private thing, don’t publicize it,” on, I guess, a weekly basis.

By opting-in for the shaming of breastfeeding mothers in the street or in some shopping place (for instance, these security officers that harassed a bunch of breastfeeding moms at a mall, because they were such a threat to public moral and everything) you are perpetuating the culture of violence and street harassment. Maybe, if you find it edgy to think about it in those terms, just try to put yourself in those shoes, while doing some dull everyday task. Imagine people telling you “don’t do that HERE”, “you’re OBSCENE”, “hush, hide!”

What would be your feelings if a complete stranger came up to you and told you to put that food of yours away because that’s not what a nice person is supposed to do outdoors and among other people?

So, what should one do when one meets a woman that nurtures her child in public? Nothing. Live and let live.

What if you breastfeed and somebody harasses you? Best for Babes has some good advice.

Views on breastfeeding in general and views about it specifically in public are so different across the globe, and we have to keep that in mind. Feeding a child in public is a choice that a woman has to have. After all, a baby has to eat.

Marinella is a freelance journalist/writer, feminist activist, and soon-to-be administrative law student. She writes for Croatian portal on gender, sex and democracy called Libela.org and covers CEE stories for globalvoicesonline.org. Follow her on Twitter @mmatejci.

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