Photo courtesy of stopstreetharassment.com
My week of logging all incidents of street harassment has come to a close. This was an interesting experiment. I have to admit that when I was walking around, I would instantly remember the journal, then become hyper-aware of my surroundings and – just truth-telling here – almost eagerly await any harassment so I could document it. This is not how I typically behave when strolling the streets of my city. Admittedly, I’m glad I was often disappointed at how little I had to record.
So, just how much harassment did I experience? A total of 4 incidents. All were at night, and all were in my neighborhood or close by. They were things like, “Hey!” accompanied by ogling, or a guy driving by and honking to get my attention, then waving and “nodding approvingly.” Things that were largely annoying. Fortunately, there was no physical contact or aggression.
This week made me was realize how little I know about street harassment. For instance, is 4 instances of being harassed in a week really considered a low amount? Does it depend on severity of harassment? I have no idea what is considered a normal amount, or how much other women experience it, so maybe 4 is high. I consider it low largely because the experiences didn’t scare me or cause me to change my behavior in any way, so I was able to quickly brush them off. Had I experienced 4 incidents of being groped, or something worse, I think that number would seem a lot higher.
Honestly, for some of the things I recorded, I even wondered whether I should record it at all. Is a smile that’s a little too eager and clearly not a simple “hello” actual harassment? The deciding factor I used was this: If it were up to me to determine how this walk would go, would I want this to happen? If my answer was no, that I would prefer it didn’t happen at all, then I considered it harassment. No one made me feel afraid or unsafe, but I did receive unwanted attention.
In case you are wondering what the definition of street harassment is, the website StopStreetHarassment.org offers its own definition as well as some others:
Stop Street Harassment’s definition:
Unwelcome words and actions by unknown persons in public which are motivated by gender and invade a person’s physical and emotional space in a disrespectful, creepy, startling, scary, or insulting way.
Micaela di Leonardo, author of “Political Economy of Street Harassment” (1981):
“Street harassment occurs when one or more strange men accost one or more women… in a public place which is not the women’s worksite. Through looks, words, or gestures, the man asserts his right to intrude on the women’s attention, defining her as a sexual object, and forcing her to interact with him.”
Jessica Valenti, author of He’s a Stud, She’s a Slut…and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know(2008) and executive editor of Feministing.com:
“While I’ve heard the argument that street harassment is actually a compliment – you know, because we’re supposed to be flattered that strange men are screaming at us about our asses – it’s really a super-insidious form of sexism. Because not only do perfect strangers think that it’s appropriate to be sexual toward any woman they want, but street harassment is also predicated on the idea that you’re allowed to say anything to women that you want – anytime, anywhere.”
The fact that I wondered whether to record some of my experiences, when they meet the definitions provided by Stop Street Harassment (there are more too) kind of worries me. Have I become so accustomed to street harassment that only the really scary stuff, and the following and the loud and obnoxious stuff, registers any more? Have I developed a tolerance for street harassment? Do other women do this too? And if so, how much of it is a survival tactic, and how much of it is being too tolerant?
From what I’ve read recently, street harassment is all too common. The positive part of this is that a lot of women, and allies, are speaking up. As I mentioned in my last post, I typically don’t, but I may start. It makes me uncomfortable to even think about having to talk back, but really, it’s the better way to go. Street harassment won’t stop by people keeping silent.
If you experience street harassment, you can log it at Hollaback DC (other cities have Hollabacks too). Stop Street Harassment also has a lot of resources, including advice on reporting and how to respond.
Also, I’d like to give a quick kudos to The 42 blog for its post on street harassment. Thank you.
Thank you for participating Colleen!! I think that a lot of the “low level” harassment is quite normalized and becomes the background noise of our lives so having to actual consciously pay attention to it and write it down was something we hoped could jump start people out of that normalization. We’re hosting a happy hour wrap up at the big hunt in the dupont area this evening starting at 5:30 if you’re available. you can turn in your booklet then.
Thanks Holly! I will definitely try to stop by. It would be nice to talk to others about their experience.
I sincerely hope this movement fails to gain any traction. We already live in a society where men are under siege in almost all areas of life – relationships, workplace and now you want to extend the siege to public areas. The failure of your experiment should have convinced you that what you’re trying to solve is a non-existent problem. Instead you’re now trying to convince yourself that the “problem” exists and it’s just that your tolerance threshold is so high that it didn’t register and yet you state at the start of your post that:
“I have to admit that when I was walking around, I would instantly remember the journal, then become hyper-aware of my surroundings and – just truth-telling here – almost eagerly await any harassment so I could document it”.
So you were in a hyperaware state and still only managed to register 4 “harassments”. A more useful experiment would be one in which you count the number of men you came into contact with during a given period and state as a percentage the number who you perceive to have harassed you – the results will surprise you. My single female friends (very attractive ladies) constantly ask me why guys never approach them – the best answer I could come up with was that perhaps most guys fear rejection I had forgotten that most guys also (thanks to idiotic feminists like you) fear being labelled as harassers. So my advice to you is to actually interview some women (especially single ones) before going on a crusade to solve a non-existent problem and in the process creating an environment in which most NORMAL people do not desire.
PS: Sorry I shouldn’t have labelled you as an idiotic feminist – just because I disagree with your view point…
You couldn’t be more wrong. Every day, Holla Back DC (http://hollabackdc.wordpress.com/) gets stories from women in the DC area about their harassment experiences. Would you consider it “normal” to yell at a woman you don’t know about the way her ass looks in her skirt? Or to follow that woman when she doesn’t respond? Or to stand at the bottom of the metro escalator and try to see up her skirt? I really hope not. And I SERIOUSLY doubt this is the kind of attention your friends are looking for.
The fact is, 99% of women say they’ve been harassed in public before, and while some of it is so obvious it’s against the law (upskirting, flashing, etc.), a lot of it consists of other things that we take for granted as “normal” way too often, partly because it happens ALL THE TIME. Personally, I don’t like walking down the street and hearing men make unsolicited comments about my sexiness, or make kissy noises, or stare at my boobs. It makes me feel really uncomfortable to the point that I avoid areas where I expect this to happen, and that seems really damn unfair to me. Ask your friends again, and see if they’ve ever experienced anything like this. Even if they usually ignore it, I bet you anything they have tons of stories just like the ones at Holla Back.
To sum up: it DOES exist, it IS a problem, and it’s FUCKED UP. Just because it’s NORMAL doesn’t mean it’s RIGHT. And, as a point of etiquette, open your eyes and see that just because you don’t experience something doesn’t mean that people are idiots for talking about it from their perspective. You were right to apologize, but in general you need to cool it real hard on the condescension and stereotyping.
@Zosia
You have not understood my point. When I say my friends complain of not being approached by NORMAL guys I mean exactly that – normal guys don’t approach them for fear of (rejection and also) being labelled harassers and if you’re a normal guy with that normal job the harassment label and potential criminal record / police caution can have serious repercussions for your job, career, etc. My point is that only abnormal guys dare approach in our highly feminised society and movements like this will only make the problem appear worse since normal interactions will cease to exist. How do you define an “unwanted” interaction without actually having the interaction in the first place. If the “Stop Street Harassment” folks have their way we can kill spontaneous intra-gender interaction goodbye and for me that’s a price to high to pay. Especially given that the issue can be resolved by having existing laws enforced (which to me is the root cause – laws exist but aren’t being used). The pervy interactions you’ve described are not normal and the perpetrators can be prosecuted under existing laws. We don’t need new movements and laws to deal with that sort of behaviour. Women should report it to the police and have the perpetrators prosecuted.
Like I stated in my post above, “a more useful experiment would be one in which [women] count the number of men [they come] into contact with during a given period and state as a percentage the number who [they] perceive to have harassed [them]” I stand by my statement that the “the results will surprise you”. The problem with creating rules and movements to address problems caused by a minority individuals is that my majority will suffer the effects of the unintended consequences i.e. an even more feminised and repressed society where the silent majority are silenced even more. The problem with throwing around statistic like “Most women (more than 80% worldwide) will experience street harassment at some point in their lives” (see stop street harassment website) is that without context it can be misinterpreted and result in a disproportionate response to the issue. We need to contextualise the statistic with information such as: frequency of harassment, severity of harassment, percentage of (male?) population doing the harassing, etc…
PS: Thanks for taking the time to respond to my comment – I will look out for your response but unfortunately I won’t be able to reply due to other commitments and also I’m sorry you chose to interpret my initial comment as condescending – it wasn’t meant to be, I was merely stating my position in an unemotional matter-of-fact kind of way – the only way us males know.
Thanks for the P.S. and continuing the conversation. I don’t think I missed the point, actually, but I think you might be missing the distinction between harassment and respectfully approaching a woman. Harassment is about power, not attraction. It’s about the harasser, consciously or subconsciously, wanting to control a woman’s experience and make her feel uncomfortable. A lot of what I’m talking about isn’t against the law, like the verbal harassment I described that you can also see stories about on Holla Back’s web site. Again, this is an actual problem. It is a pervasive problem, happening all the time, to everyone. And while the lines may blur here and there, it doesn’t have much to do with the business of straight men and women getting to know each other.
That said, I just don’t understand your point about killing spontaneous intra-gender interaction. All Stop Street Harassment and Holla Back are trying to do is to make sure that a woman (or an LGBTQ individual) can walk down the street and be treated with respect. I don’t think there can be any disproportionate unintended consequences of a movement that wants to ensure that everyone is being treated equally. If you are approaching women with respect and treating them with dignity then I see no reason for you to feel so persecuted by this movement.