taxi assault Archives | Stop Street Harassment

Weekly Round Up Jan. 24, 2010

January 24, 2010 By HKearl

Stories:

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

On this blog, a woman tells how a man followed her home from the metro in St. Louis, another talks about her vulnerability to harassment while riding her Vespa in Dallas, a woman in Michigan has a guy regularly leer at her at her work, a woman talks about how men harass her on her way to her volunteering appointments, and a woman in California had a man touch her butt at a restaurant.
On HollaBack DC! a woman tells how a man exposed himself to her and masturbated.

In the News:

Taxi drivers harass, assault women in Canada and Australia.
An Italian tv presenter groped David Beckham during a tv interview.
When groping victims talk back (via The Washington City Paper)
Battling phone sexual harassment in Egypt

Announcements:

Want an easy way to report harassers from your phone or want to receive a report showing all the places harassment has recently occurred? Then vote for HollaBack 2.0! This is a proposed project by HollaBack NYC and RightRides and they’re in the second round of a competition for funding to make this a reality.

Events:

Eight weeks of self defense classes through Defend Yourself begin Jan 26. Learn more, sign up.

Resource of the Week:

Street Harassment Project’s archives of harassment stories

Street Harassment Round Up – July 12

July 12, 2009 By HKearl

Stories:

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.

On this blog, a woman in London shared how a man in her neighborhood always harasses her when he sees her alone. Read through the comments to learn how she took the advice of a blog commenter and contacted the police and what happened from there.
On HollaBack Australia, a guy brags to his friends about touching the contributor’s butt in public.
On HollaBack Toronto, a contributor tells how she called the cops when she saw the same man who had masturbated by her in his car while she waited for the bus last week.
Holla Back DC! had three blog posts discussing street harassment while biking.
Blank Noise Project is asking people to send in photos of the clothes they have been harassed in to help disprove the perception that it only happens when women wear certain clothes. They say, “write to us at blurtblanknoise @gmail dot com subject titled “i never ask for it””

In the News:

Time.com published a good article about how the Egyptian government is tackling sexual harassment (including street harassment) through religion by distributing new books on sexual harassment to 50,000 imams at mosques across Egypt.
A taxi driver in Perth, Western Australia, who allegedly sexually assaulted a female passenger in February is now being charged with that crime.
Carmella Etienne, a transgender female, alleges she was hit by rocks and a beer bottle and threatened in Queens.
Since June 19, there have been nearly a dozen reports of a man slapping women on their backsides on the subway around Crown Heights in Brooklyn, NY.
Jessica Reed asks in a blog post on UK’s Guardian website: “What is it about a woman on a bike that attracts such unwelcome attention?

Announcements:

RightRides in NYC has just expanded their services of a free ride home from Saturday nights to include Friday nights too! They offer this service from 11:59 p.m. – 3 a.m. in 45 neighborhoods across four boroughs. To call for a ride, the dispatch number is (718) 964-7781 OR (888)215-SAFE (7233).

Street Harassment Resource of the Week:

Street Harassment: A Feminist Guide to Analysis and Direct Action, by Cathy Ramos

Earlier in May in Malaysia, a taxi driver with tinted windows allegedly raped a 17-year-old passenger. He was recently arrested, but a “newspaper noted that women were [still] arming themselves with self-defense products and reluctant to board empty buses. Community leaders and non-governmental organisations yesterday demanded that the authorities do something to better protect passengers.” Seven women in another area were also allegedly raped by a man posing as a taxi driver who has since been arrested.

The taxi incidents are part of the larger problem of sexual harassment and assault on public transportation feared by many women in Malaysia.

“Selangor Community Awareness Association member and lawyer Honey Tan, said they wanted such attacks to stop and said one of the most common things to happen to women was sexual harassment on public transportation….

Subang Jaya assemblyperson Hannah Yeoh said she felt the Home Ministry should allocate more resources to crime prevention as she claimed many women were afraid to go out these days.”

Many countries have taxi services where women are the drivers for women passengers precisely because of these types of terrible incidents. While such a measure is surely a relief to worried and fearful female passengers, I think it is merely a band aid and doesn’t fix the real problem. Your thoughts?