Midterm Project: Street Harassment

Street Harassment, what is it? It's any unwanted comments, gestures, and actions forced on a stranger in public without their consent. This includes anything from unwanted whistling to homophobic or transphobic slurs. People are harassed for several reasons, some being, race, religion, gender, or how a lot of people like to refer it, "the way they are dressed." Unfortunately, everyone at some point in their lives have or will experience some sort of street harassment. The biggest victims to street harassment are woman. Which is where I want to focus.

I work in the mall, at American Eagle, a fairly popular store known for their jeans. Due to its popularity, a lot of different personalities come into the store. As an employee, my job is to help the customers. In many occasions, I have found myself in situations that a customer says or does something unwanted that makes me feel uncomfortable. For instance, a couple months ago, I was helping out a male customer, around the age of 30-35. This man was asking for assistance in styles of jeans as well as color. As I was helping him, I placed a pair of jeans in between my legs, to free my hands so that I can grab another style. When doing so the customer said "Damn Ma, I wish it was me in between those thighs instead of those jeans." This was one of my first occurrences working there, I was surprised and in shock and simply walked away. That was when he said "It was a joke, you can't take a compliment?"

That situation inspired my project. Women everywhere are harassed in similar ways, sometimes worse and because of society, we are taught to just take it. That is why I created an Instagram account  named "not just a compliment" as a response to the customer that told me that I couldn't take a compliment, when clearly his comment was disrespectful and a way to insinuate his intentions with me. With this Instagram account I look forward to highlighting situations like this and raise awareness about street harassment. I want woman to realize that we do not have to take that kind of behavior form anyone especially men. I want to create this area where woman are able to share their experiences and have an open conversation with other woman that have gone through similar situations.

 

Situations like these, make woman hide from the streets. From personal experience, ever since situations like these, i have been more cautious about helping men at my job. I sometimes dread having to talk to customers because of that reason. No woman should feel that way, that is a human rights issue. It prevents women from being in public. A survey in the UK found that four in ten women felt at risk of harassment on the city streets. This happens everywhere, and we must put a stop to this.


Artist:

1. Tatyana Fazlalizadeh: "Stop Telling Women to Smile"

"The project consists of a series of portraits of women - women who I have sat talked with about their experiences with harassment. 

The portraits are designed into posters, including text that is inspired by the subject's experiences. And then I wheat paste. STWTS started in Brooklyn in the fall of 2012. It is an on-going, traveling series and will gradually include many cities and many women participants. 

Street harassment is a serious issue that affects women world wide. This project takes women’s voices, and faces, and puts them in the street - creating a bold presence for women in an environment where they are so often made to feel uncomfortable and unsafe."

2. Jenga Mwendo: "A multimedia art exhibit on catcalling"

Mwendo, created an exhibit to showcase catcalling.

"Walk of Shame" The artists built a hall with cloth walls onto which videos of men catcalling were projected.Another component was the Talking Heads. Mwendo interviewed men, women, and girls about street harassment, asking them all the same questions. Then she edited and compiled the video clips. The finished piece was a row of computers featuring each interviewee, synced so that when they played, it seemed like they were on a panel talking with one another.

3. Sarah VanDenbergh: "Hot Pussy is No Way to Say Hello"

"She created six life size silhouettes of men and placed them in Union Square on a Saturday from 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. Attached to the cutouts were signs that said: ‘I grope women on the train,’ ‘I objectify women’s bodies,’ ‘I masturbate on women on the train,’ ‘I make catcalls to women in the street,’ ‘I say crude comments to women on the L train,’ and ‘I expose myself to women almost everyday.’ She had sound boxes with mp3 players and portable speakers sitting in front of the silhouettes playing a loop of 109 crude things men say to women. These quotes were directly from the HollaBack NYC website and from her own experiences. They passed out cards that said, ‘Hot pussy is no way to say hello.” On the back of the cards it said, ‘Sexual harassment is a crime, from crude comments and threats to stalking and indecent exposure…if you see a perv holla back, take their picture and file a police report.’" 

4. Nuala Cabral: Experimental Film 


Cabral uses a video of different people to exemplify some of the voices heard when "walking home." the thoughts of woman and how they feel, when situations like these happen.

5.  Sophie Sandberg: @catcallsofNYC 


Sophie runs an instagram account where she showcases what men say. She uses chalkboard to draw on then streets of NYC.

References:

http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/about/what-is-street-harassment/

https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/d3wdvk/tatyana-fazlalizadeh-stop-telling-women-to-smile-artist-to-help-fight-street-harassment-nyc