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Speech Project and Online Harassment

February 16, 2016 By HKearl

There’s a new Speech Project about online harassment at Women’s Media Center, led by our friend, ally and supporter Soraya Chemaly!!

“The prevalence of online harassment toward women leads them to feel limited in their online interactions, and its frequent dismissal leads them not to take their own harassment seriously. By treating online harassment as the crime that it is, we make women less likely to blame themselves — because going online should not be another item on the list of behaviors women are told to avoid to stay safe….

The website contains a glossary of terms related to online harassment, research and statistics about its different forms, and a wheel demonstrating the different types, consequences, and legal classifications of online harassment.”

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Filed Under: online harassment, Resources Tagged With: online harassment, Soraya Chemaly, women's media center

Native Americans Speak Out About Street Harassment

September 10, 2012 By HKearl

Kristina and Sunny Clifford

““Hey baby girl,” a group of ten and twelve-year-old Native American boys yelled over and over as they jumped on a trampoline. Then they lifted up their shirts and said, “You want some of this?” as they pounded on their chests. Their targets: Sunny and Kristina Clifford, two Native American sisters in their 20s, sitting outside their mother’s home on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The boys wouldn’t stop and the young women felt so uncomfortable they went inside the house.

The Clifford sisters shared this story during a focus group I recently held at Oglala Lakota College on Pine Ridge Reservation about Native Americans’ experiences with street harassment. They said this incident had happened to them just the day before.

I quickly learned from the focus group participants that, like the rest of the country and the rest of the world, sexual harassment in public spaces is not unusual on the Pine Ridge Reservation, an area the size of the state of Connecticut with a population of 18,834 and an unemployment rate of 89 percent.

Most people on the reservation do not have regular access to a car, and the only public transportation available is a relatively new shuttle bus. As a result, walking is a primary way for people to travel from place to place. The women said that’s when they experience the most street harassment, at the hands of Native and non-Native men driving by in their cars. Kristina Clifford remarked, “There’s always somebody honking, or saying things, yelling, or whatever. It just makes me uncomfortable.”

Sometimes, another woman said, the men drive by once, turn around, and drive by again and again, just to harass them. Consequently, there are places the young women will not walk, and Sunny Clifford, a runner, said she won’t run along the roads anymore.” (Read More)

This is an excerpt from an article I wrote for the Women’s Media Center.

Five years after I turned in my master’s thesis on street harassment, I never thought I’d spend my weekends, most of my vacation days, and lunch hours researching, writing, and bringing attention to the issue. But street harassment has become so important to me that I do, and I feel lucky that I can. In particular, my passion is making sure as many stories and voices as possible are heard so that we can better understand the scope of the problem and its impact.

One population whose street harassment stories I had never seen shared anywhere before were Native Americans’ stories. Because they face higher rates of gender violence than any other racial group in the U.S., I felt it was especially important to learn about their experiences.

Two weeks ago today, I took four vacation days from my day job, caught a cheap flight to Denver and paid for a rental car to drive 6 hours to South Dakota. Through the help of Holly Sortland, the founder of an amazing initiative called ProjectRespect.org, I had the opportunity to hear from Native Americans living on Pine Ridge Reservation and in Rapid City. Their stories touched me, angered me, and made more determined than ever to do this work. I am grateful they were brave enough to share their deeply personal stories and I’m glad that the Associated Press and South Dakota PBS radio recognized the importance of their stories and shared some of them through their media channels.

The stories from these and other upcoming focus groups will supplement a first-of-its-kind national study of 2000 people I am trying to make happen. Please donate $10 (or more if you can) to ensure it happens; I have a great group of PhD-level experts ready to advise me on the surveying instrument and a very reputable survey firm ready to conduct it once we have enough funds.

Public policy and public attitudes about street harassment will change only once we have the right combination of stories and data. So many of you have shared your stories (thank you), now I need your help so we can have data. Thank you.

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Filed Under: street harassment Tagged With: indians, native americans, pine ridge reservation, projectrespect.org, sexual harassment, south dakota, street harassment, sunny clifford, women's media center

Street Harassment Round Up – April 19

April 19, 2009 By HKearl

Stories:

Holla Back DC posted many compelling posts this week, but one of my favorites was about male allies: “Can you imagine the affect this would have if enough men stepped in and said this every time they saw sexual harassment occurring? We would see a positive change.”

On this blog, a contributor wrote about her success in stopping chronic harassers near her workplace.

Activism/Recognition:

ineveraskToday Blank Noise held a street harassment event in Bombay (visit their site for an update on how it went), where women were invited to bring an article of clothing they’d been harassed in and wear clothing they’d always wanted to wear but hadn’t for fear of harassment. Details of the event were e-mailed to the participants with promise of public participation.

Street harassment-focused self defense class by Defend Yourself occurred in DC on April 18. Read my post about attending it.

Emily May of HollaBack NYC has been selected for the Women Media Center’s second class of Progressive Women’s Voices (PWV) for 2009. The program aims to make women visible and powerful in the media everyday and the selected women like Emily are the “go-place for journalists looking for women sources, experts, and commentators.” Emily was selected in great part because of her work on HollaBack and her expertise on street harassment. Congrats, Emily, way to get the issue out there in mainstream media.

Upcoming Events:

April 22, a RightRides volunteer orientation in New York

April 29, Holla Back DC! blog launch party in Washington, DC

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Filed Under: street harassment Tagged With: Blank Noise, defend yourself, emily may, holla back dc, holla back nyc, progressive women's voices, self defense, sexual harassment, street harassment, women's media center

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