For this blog I will be focusing on harassment against women. Women are harassed everyday in a variety of places. Street harassment is getting unwanted comments or attention from strangers that are directed to you because of your gender. It causes a person to feel uneasy and threatened. It can also violate their dignity. This kind of verbal abuse is hard to deal with because the person does not know whether to ignore it or respond to it. If they ignore it, it can lead to additional harassment or even lead to being followed. If the person responds to it, it can be perceived as acceptance and encouragement to have even more confrontations from the stranger. The bottom line is that most women won't stand up to verbal harassment for fear of making the situation worse.
There have been several social experiments on this issue and the video below displays a woman ignoring the verbal harassment which unfortunately does not change her situation.
When a person is being verbally harassed in an area, especially somewhere in a place where they are not familiar of. They experience fear, anxiety, embarrassment, and victimization. It can cause psychological and physical health issues. The problem is that these harassers fail to realize that what they are doing is damaging.
I have personal experience with this. I have been verbally harassed on many occasions. In one example, I was shopping with my mother at the mall and I passed a group of men who thought it was okay to make verbal comments about my body. I shrugged it off and kept walking. The men failed to realize that my mother was behind me and heard what they said. She did not hesitate to confront them about their harassment towards me and they immediately apologized to her. She proceeded to explain to them why it was not okay and instead of apologizing to her, she suggested they would apologize to me.
What can be taken from this example is that someone who thinks there is no harm in verbally assaulting someone can learn that it is not okay by being confronted. However, when a person is alone, that could possibly lead to a dangerous situation.
The video below explains how verbal harassment against women is about power and control. Women who don't confront these men, are giving them the power. They are allowing control over the situation. Women have the opportunity to change the behavior by confronting it. Overcoming the fear of encouraging more attention. One of the girls in the video, actually fought back verbally with what the harassers were saying about her. She responded with confidence and did not show fear or intimidation which made the men stop talking.
Street harassment may seem harmless and playful. Most people would confuse it with just flirting. But in actuality, it is very damaging to the victims. It is important to teach people to be intolerant of street harassment because it can lead gender-based violence such as rape, assault, or violent crimes in general. Street harassment should not be ignored nor tolerated.
It is completely humiliating. Like it doesn't matter if you left your house that day feeling the best about yourself ever, new outfit, good hair, whatever... when you hear those catcalls, it isn't empowering. It's just embarrassing. I love that your mom was there to put those guys in their place!
ReplyDeleteOften times these street harassment are ignored and should not be Ignored people should act on these harassment and stand up. A YouTube video i found where this is similar is from a show called what would you do in the video The male actor assaults his girlfriend and people react to the situation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJmKPRTs6PQ
ReplyDeleteComming from a mans perspective I can tell you the reason we verbally harass someone on the street is not to eventually date or sleep with them. We do it because we think we are never going to see that person again its like being on the internet in a way. Since we don't know you we feel we can judge you and be total jerks and act without consequence.
ReplyDeleteFirst, great blog!. Coming from another man's perspective, it is not necessarily right or safe for women to "fight" back. At least not in all situations. It can get dangerous quickly which is why women tend to ignore in hopes of deescalating and surviving. I know this from my experience as a black man walking down the street. I know that I need to survive. I also know that if a white person steps up and challenges the racist behavior it will go better than if another black person does. The same is true for women. It is great that your mother stood up. But imagine how powerful it would be if a man who just happened to hear the harassment spoke up and shut the jerks up. This is how we are going to change the world. We need to speak up for the victims we don't even know.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad your mom was there to stick up for you! Its completely humiliating when men say things to me when I'm walking. Its insane for men to try to place the blame on women, "maybe if you didn't wear that" is total BS! Women shouldn't have to worry about what they are wearing, that isn't an invite to say rude and disrespectful things to me. And for the men who think this only happens to women who wear revealing things that's very untrue. It has happen to me while I was wearing sweatpants and looked a whole mess. I'm a very outspoken person so I'm always super conflicted if I should say something to the creep, most times I don't because if I do that could potentially put me in a very dangerous position. We need to stop blaming women but hold men accountable for their actions.
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