Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Support anti-street harassment efforts this holiday season

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Lately, I’ve been inundated with e-mails and letters from every organization I donated to during their year + their best friend organizations, asking me to donate again. As much as I obviously care about most of those organizations if I’ve already donated to them, my end of year giving is going to two organizations that do anti-street harassment-related work, RightRides and RAINN. You may be interested in donating to them, too.

  • Right Rides for Women’s Safety: For more than six years RightRides has been giving free rides home to women and male members of the LGBQT community on Friday and Saturday nights in New York City. This free service is particularly helpful to people who cannot afford a cab and are reliant on buses and subways and feel unsafe waiting for or taking these late at night. RightRides has a page about the many ways you can become involved. A new feature is recurring gifts. $10/month can cover rides home for 12 people that year and $25/month covers about 30 people’s rides home. Any amount helps.
  • RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network): Individuals across the United States can seek immediate assistance and advice if they or someone they know are survivors of rape and sexual violence via RAINN’s national phone hotline and online chat feature. While most people know their attacker, about 25 percent do not, and many of those cases are strangers in public places who harass and attack them. When too often survivors of sexual violence are blamed for it and thus are silenced and don’t know what to do, RAINN’s services are very important. RAINN also works on prevention legislation and programming. If you donate by Dec. 31, your donation will be matched dollar for dollar, so you can make double the impact.

Here are additional suggestions for organizations whose work makes public places – and the world in general – safer for women and girls. Not only could you do end-of-year giving to them, but you could make a gift out of donating in honor of family members and friends who care about ending and/or are impacted by street harassment.

  • Blank Noise – Support work in India to raise awareness about and end eve teasing/street harassment through performance art and online activism
  • Defend Yourself – Support the work of a Washington, DC organization that holds community workshops and classes that teach skills to stop harassment, abuse and assault. They particularly focus on girls, women, and LGBQT folks.
  • Girls for Gender Equity – Support a NYC organization that empowers teenage girls and has tackled street harassment through surveys, documentaries, conferences, and books
  • Helping Our Teen Girls – Help fund the programs of an Atlanta, GA, organization that empowers teenage girls and has tackled street harassment through workshops and music.
  • Hollaback – Support the NYC-based organization so they can  fund new Hollaback websites around the world
  • The Line – Help fund programs to raise awareness of healthy sexual boundaries, important work that can help prevent street harassment and sexual assault.
  • Men Can Stop Rape – Support rape prevention programming in middle and high schools and colleges that focuses on providing boys with a safe place to talk about masculinity issues and learn healthy definitions of manhood.
  • The White Ribbon Campaign – Support an international organization that works to educate young men and boys about gender equity, respect and healthy relationships.
  • Women for Women International – Help fund programming that helps women in war-torn areas gain skills and resources necessary to rebuild their lives and increase their safety in their community. You can also sponsor an individual woman as a sister.

And are you looking for other last-minute gift ideas? I can suggest a few:

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Groped & harassed, but victim-blaming keeps her silent

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I am a school student. In my area there is a 99 percent chance that you get groped on crowded buses…so i often go to school by cycle…thinking that it was safe…..but i was wrong…. a guy on a scooter squeezed my breast with one hand and before i could react sped off..i was both physically hurt and psychologically disturbed…often people in our society blame the girl for being the victim…for not being careful…so i did not dare to share this with anyone..i hate sick men….most of the men in Chennai are sick.

– Anonymous

Location: Chennai, India

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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The movie 678

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It’s no secret that public sexual harassment is a big problem in Egypt, for both Egyptian and foreign women. A new Egyptian film called 678, released this month, is putting the spotlight on this problem, as well as the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace.

Via Facebook

Via Gulf News:

In the film, popular actress and singer Bushra plays the part of an employee who suffers from harassment and is regularly molested while travelling to and from work on the public bus service. It marks the directorial debut of Mohammad Diab and is named after bus route No 678, which the heroine uses.

“The claim that the film harms Egypt’s image is a silly joke. Keeping silent on this phenomenon is what really harms Egypt’s name,” Bushra said in a recent interview.

Via The National:

Mohamed Diab, the director of the film, believed it to be among the most important movies he had produced.

Speaking at the seventh Dubai International Film Festival ahead of the gala screening of the film last night, Diab said: “I have made commercial movies before, but 678 was a risk. I have a strong belief in it and will continue its campaign, because it is not just a movie.” …

Egyptian singer Bushra, who was cast as one of the leading ladies, said the movie was about all women from all social classes.

“This film is about women’s rights, human rights and the invasion of privacy. We are discussing it from an Egyptian perspective because this is how we experienced it, but there is no doubt that this is a universal problem,” she said.

“Women of all ages and social class can [fall victim] to harassment, so the issue is how each relates and handles it,” she said.

Bushra also noted a surge of serious films which surpassed commercial motivation. “Politicians alone do not create change. It is high time for us actors and filmmakers to also participate,” she said.

Great!! I would love to see many more movies about sexual harassment that portray it in a negative light (instead of as a joke, compliment, or minor annoyance). Movies are powerful mediums for shaping public opinion. (Update: here is another article that describes more of the movie plot)

Another exciting new resource for changing the social acceptability of public sexual harassment in Egypt is HarassMap, which allows them to report harassers to a map tracking system.

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“He asked me if I was into S&M”

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A year ago I went with my mother to visit Chicago for my birthday. It was a weekend trip and the only thing that I could put down as harassment was when we were on the train going from the airport to our hotel.

There were no seats left and I was standing by the doors holding onto one of the metal poles. There was a man across from me and at first he didn’t say anything until about fifteen to twenty minutes later when he made a comment about a necklace I was wearing. He asked me if I was into S&M. The necklace was a pair of handcuffs that I had bought at Claire’s, of all places.

I was a little bit put off but simply responded, “No, I just liked the necklace” Thankfully he didn’t say anything to me until he got off about ten minutes later.

Later when I told my mother about the experience she said to me that I had to at least expect some comments because of what the necklace was. I don’t agree and I thought that what that man had said to me was inappropriate.

– Anonymous

Location: Chicago, IL

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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Street Harassment Snapshot: December 12, 2010

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Read stories, news articles, blog posts, and tweets about street harassment from the past week and find relevant announcements and upcoming street harassment events.

Story Submissions Recap:

I accept street harassment submissions from anywhere in the world. Share your story!

Street Harassment in the News, on the Blogs:

Upcoming Events:

Announcements:

New:

On-going:

Ten Tweets from the Week:

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