Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

50,000 People Use #WhenIwas to Share Experiences of Sexism, Harassment and Abuse

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Last week, more than 50,000 people used the Twitter hashtag #WhenIwas to share their first experiences of sexism, harassment and assault. They show how huge the problem is and how young it starts.

Laura Bates, founder of the Everday Sexism Project, started the hashtag and wrote about why in a recent article for The Telegraph:

“I started it because I wanted people to recognise that sexism, harassment, discrimination and abuse can begin from a shockingly young age.

When you talk about women being shouted at in the street, or fielding unwanted sexual advances in the workplace – as we do daily on the Everyday Sexism Project, which I founded – a common response is: ‘It’s just a bit of fun – can’t you take a harmless compliment?’

One of the most effective ways to counter that argument is to reveal the fact that this ‘harmless fun’ starts when girls are under the age of 10-years-old. That we’re talking about schoolgirls in their uniform being groped on public transport, or hearing grown men shout at them in language so sexually explicit they sometimes don’t even understand what it means.

What kind of ‘compliment’ is that? The idea that sexual harassment is just gentle flattery completely fails to acknowledge the fact that it sets up a power dynamic. This is about preying on women, asserting power and control over them. Nothing about that is flattering.”

I agree and always mention the young age that street harassment begins in media interviews and speeches that I give. If we can’t all agree that grown women shouldn’t have to face sexual harassment and abuse, surely we can all agree that girls shouldn’t, right??

Bates concludes her article by saying:

“The #WhenIwas hashtag makes difficult reading, but it is important, especially for those who want to believe that these things are ‘one off’ incidents. While many men have tweeted their shock at the stories being shared, many women remarked that they could identify with almost every single one.

It’s sad that this is what it takes for people to recognise the problem. That an individual woman’s word isn’t enough for people to believe her until 50,000 others come forward and say that the same thing has happened to them, too. That even when we provide reams of examples, people continue to doubt the systemic nature of the problem.

I hope that movements like the one I started last week help those who might have been made to feel ashamed – or even responsible for what happened to them – to realise that it was never their fault, and that they’re not alone.”

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Watch: “I Smile Politely”

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Newly released this week, check out Ness Lyon’s spoken word piece “I Smile Politely,” performed by actress April Hughes. Director of Photography & Editor: Luke Bartlett.

Ness wrote about the back story for The Pool, here is an excerpt:

“I’d been harassed in the street personally as a young woman, and professionally I’d handled sexual harassment cases as an employment solicitor, but it wasn’t until I experienced street harassment in my role as a mother that I felt compelled to publicly speak out.

Last year, on a family holiday in Southeast Asia, the part of the world I grew up in and which I adore, a man in the street made a sexual remark to my 10-year-old daughter that left her feeling terrified. I asked her how she reacted to the man’s comment and she answered, ‘I just smiled politely and quickly walked away.’ I felt a surge of anger: how dare that man make my child feel she had to respond to being sexualised with a polite smile. I told her that if someone made her feel uncomfortable, she shouldn’t feel she had to smile. But then I hesitated, remembering the times in my teens and twenties when I’d been subjected to humiliating, provocative and threatening comments by strangers. Sure, sometimes I’d sworn or glared in response. And on one memorable occasion, merely responded with a look of pure disbelief when a man shouted at me to “smile love for God’s sake, it might never happen’…. when I was in a hospital. ON CRUTCHES.  But a lot of the time, I too had simply smiled politely, not wanting to offend….

I wanted to explore this issue the best way I knew how: by writing about it. I started by having lots of conversations with a diverse group of women, hearing about the various ways they all ‘smile politely’.

I wrote a spoken word piece about it, performed by actress April Hughes (at WOW Festival and in a video to mark Anti-Street Harassment Week)….

My daughter’s phrase of ‘I smiled politely’ was a refrain echoed by nearly every woman I spoke to about street harassment. I want us to change that conversation: why, when we talk about politeness in these situations, is the word usually in relation to the woman in the scenario, and not the man? Instead of expecting us to simply smile, men need to learn to ‘speak politely’.

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Man in his 40s Harasses 9- and 11-Year-Old Girls

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When I was 12 years old, I was walking down to the beach with my cousin who was 9 years old at the time. We were both wearing shorts with a bikini top on because we were going swimming. On our way down to the beach a man that looked around 45 whistled at us and kept on staring at me and my cousin.

At the time I only ever heard stories about cat calls and never had it done to me. When it happened, I got really scared my stomach felt like it dropped to my feet. Then my cousin asked why he whistled at us. I didn’t know what to say so I just said, “It was to someone else not us”.

That was a lie, but I didn’t want her to feel bad about what she was wearing and blame herself for that happening. I told her to not talk about it ever again. I never told anyone because I was embarrassed and felt like it was my fault for wearing shorts and a bikini.

Optional: What’s one way you think we can make public places safer for everyone?

I think one way to make public places feel safer would be that if you ever see anyone being cat called, make sure you let them know to not blame them-self. If you blame yourself you get an awful feeling inside that never goes away. Catcalling and harassment are NOT a compliment.

– MA

Location: Hastings, Oshawa, Canada, at a cottage

Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more idea.

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“You girl, wanna play?”

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At the age of 12 (I’m now 14), I was walking down the street wearing a short dress, and a grown old man came to me, and he told me: “You girl, wanna play?”

And I just stared to run and run. I came home, but I didn’t said anything because I didn’t think it was bad enough.

I think that we need a radical change. Places can be safer for women if we’re informed about these sexism and feminism stuff. And I will start to speak out, because this is a big problem.

– Jessica Atencia

Location: Colombia

Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more idea.

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The UK’s First National Street Harassment Study

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EVAWstudy3.8.16End Violence Against Women Coalition, our allies in the UK, commissioned YouGov to conduct the first national poll on street harassment. The results were released today, for International Women’s Day.

Prevalence:

64% of women of all ages have experienced unwanted sexual harassment in public places. (This is almost the same as the USA, our 2014 study found that 65% of women had been harassed.) Additionally, 35% of women had experienced unwanted sexual touching.

Age:

When they looked at just young women ages 18-24, however, the percentages increased significantly: 85% had faced sexual harassment in public spaces and 45% had experienced unwanted sexual touching.

Related, across all ages of women, most said it began at a young age. More than 1 in 4 said it happened before age 16, and more than 3 in 4 said it happened by age 21.

Bystanders/Upstanders:

Sadly, only 11% of women said anyone had intervened when they were harassed though 81% said they wished someone had.

Changing Their Life:

When it comes to feeling safe, 63% of women (versus 45% of men) said they generally feel unsafe in public spaces and almost half do conscious “safety planning” when they go out in the evenings.

What Can We Do:

When asked what should be done, many said “they supported more police (53%), better street lighting (38%), more transport staff (38%) and public awareness campaigns encouraging others to intervene (35%). No women we asked believed this problem should be ignored and no measures taken.”

Racialized Sexual Harassment:

Because women of color may also face racialized sexual harassment, EVAW partnered with Imkaan to produce a five minute film featuring young women of color talking about their experiences.

In discussing what it feels like to experience racist sexual harassment one woman in the film says:

“My experiences are different as a Black woman than they are for my white friends. I should be ‘up for it’ or I am ‘fair game’, or I shouldn’t care if my body is touched in a specific way.

And another woman says:

“After me ignoring them, that’s when it turns racial, so that’s when it might be ‘you black this’ or ‘you black that…how dare you ignore me’.”

In a press release for the film and survey, Lia Latchford, Policy and Campaigns Coordinator at Imkaan said:

“Our film tells a powerful story of young black women’s everyday experience of racialised sexual harassment. For us, we cannot ‘leave race out of it’ because the way we are treated is based on how our whole identities are perceived as black women. This harassment and abuse often uses racist stereotypes and insults as an attempt to put black women in our place. Everyone, adults and young people alike, need to talk about it and it needs to stop.”

Sarah Green, Acting Director at the End Violence Against Women Coalition said:

“Sexual harassment is an everyday experience which women and girls learn to deal with, but it’s time to hold a mirror up to it and challenge it. We did this survey to find out about the scale of sexual harassment and the impact it has on the way women live. If women are planning their lives around not being harassed or assaulted, they are not free. Women should be free to live their lives without the threat of harassment and violence, not having to plan and limit their choices to make sure they’re safe.”

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