The Street Harassment Problem

A couple of years ago, I was on vacation in Croatia with my best friend. We’d stopped for lunch at one of the only restaurants open and ended up chatting with the owner over a few glasses of wine. As we prepared to leave, my friend went to the bathroom. The owner took this opportunity to reach up my skirt. Scared out of my mind, I barely reacted in the moment. It was only later — safely away from the café — that I hysterically burst into tears and tried to make sense of what had just happened to me. Unfortunately, it was not the first — or last — time I’d experience such an invasive encounter with a stranger.

Nearly every woman I know — regardless of race, sexual orientation, and age — has been catcalled, groped, or followed in her life. Holly Kearl, who currently lives in a Washington, D.C., suburb, says she faced the most extreme harassment in college. As an undergraduate traveling abroad in Bruges, Belgium, Kearl was followed and embraced by a stalker. An avid runner, she’s also been followed when jogging several times. [Full disclosure: Kearl is a friend and colleague of the author.] It was enough to get her to start the popular website Stop Street Harassment. Now she also has an engaging and accessible book called Stop Street Harassment: Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming for Women. Kearl hopes to force the conversation around gendered, public harassment to take a serious turn.

The problem with street harassment, a somewhat nebulous term for any undesired attention largely perpetrated by heterosexual men, is it lacks the names — and sometimes faces — of specific perpetrators. In many ways, street harassment is a "drive-by" crime with little accountability.

In Stop Street Harassment, Kearl explains that street harassment is difficult to combat without a standardized definition on which a larger movement can be built and sustained. Some women say they don’t mind being catcalled and find it flattering, while others see it as no less frightening than being followed or touched by a stranger in public. Without a general consensus on what behaviors are unwanted and undesirable, it can be tough to respond to the problem. There are few solutions to combating street harassment without relying on policing of all forms of behavior and speech in public.

Using data from her own studies, Kearl found that at least 80 percent of women around the world have experienced some form of unsolicited, harassing attention in their lifetimes. Many are whistled at, flashed, or touched on a regular basis.

Citing news reports from the last several years, Kearl notes that street harassment is increasingly taking a violent turn. In 2009, a pregnant woman was walking home from work in downtown Manhattan when she was hit and killed by a van driven by an aggressive catcaller she had been ignoring. Several other young women who ignored strangers’ comments have been run over, raped, or shot. Here, media truly fail to address the seriousness of the problem and often treat these cases as isolated incidents perpetrated by a few enraged men.

The stereotype of harassers doesn't end there: Harassers are often portrayed as low-income men of color or homeless, while harassment victims are portrayed as young, vulnerable white women. But Kearl points out that the majority of women experience harassment, regardless of race.

Women also continue to battle ridiculous assumptions about how clothing or physical appearance may be too tempting for men to resist. Many times, street harassment is blamed on women’s revealing clothing or the fact that they are out late at night alone, but neither should be an excuse for men to harass and assault women.

Still, many women change their behavior just to avoid being yelled at or followed home. Kearl devotes an entire chapter to the legions of women who have taken actions from altered wardrobes to gaining weight as a means to avoid undeterred harassers — not to mention women who carry chemical sprays or take self-defense classes.

Kearl offers ideas for holding harassers accountable. By assertively, loudly, and calmly stating “Leave me alone” or “Stop touching me,” women can flip the script on harassment by drawing attention to the harasser and the inappropriate behavior. Kearl also encourages harassment victims to report the incidents to the police and transit authorities. While the chances of catching and prosecuting a harasser may be slim, speaking to law enforcement about the problem may help raise awareness about its prevalence and how much it affects women’s daily lives.

Asserting that legal action and government intervention may be the only remedy for lewd, offensive behavior in public, Kearl makes her case citing previous legal scholars and their writings on the issue. She explores how other countries such as Egypt, Japan, and Indonesia have dealt with the problem by introducing women’s-only subway cars and taxis, but not a fan of public segregation — because really, who is? — she evaluates how public education campaigns can curb the prevalence of harassment. Inspired by the 1993 Harvard Law Review article by Cynthia Grant Bowman [PDF], Kearl even examines municipal ordinances and state statutes that criminalize harassment. Kearl is looking for a more equitable world in which women have just as much right to public space as men.

Kearl deftly debunks the ideas behind statements like “men are harassed too.” While this sort of statement is technically true, especially for gay men, street harassment occurs in the context of global gender inequality. When men harass women, women are reminded that they are — at best — second-class citizens, often seen as nothing more than sex objects. Harassment is one more reminder that women can legitimately fear being assaulted by strangers in public. Moreover, harassment is sometimes multilayered with racism, homophobia, and shaming language about women’s sexuality. Women can be made to feel oppressed just by walking down the street.

It is precisely for this reason that male allies who recognize public sexual harassment as a legitimate issue can be valuable. They can help educate other men and empower women to speak out.

When few believe that a daily commute can be a traumatizing event, riddled with snide remarks and obscene behavior, it’s no wonder women interviewed in the book feel simultaneously bewildered, disempowered, and filled with rage. Kearl may have finally named the problem, as well as some of its solutions. Perhaps next time I’m groped in public— and I'm sadly certain there will be a next time — I hope to employ a few of Kearl's recommended strategies.

Brittany Shoot is a writer currently living in Copenhagen. She has a master’s in visual and media arts from Emerson College. More at brittanyshoot.com.