Interview--talking back: Women in NYC confront street harassment

On July 19 off our backs intern Elizabeth Brookbank interviewed Michelle from the Street Harassment Project (SHP). The SHP is an action group based in New York City that works to combat and prevent harassment that happens in public spaces. This type of harassment, which is commonly called street harassment, happens to women every day-walking to work, riding the subway, jogging through the park, everywhere. Here Michelle talks with oob about how a group of activists has created a burgeoning movement.

bob.- How did the Street Harassment Project get started?

M: It started about three years ago as a group called Feminist Living Labs, which was started by two women who are now members of the Street Harassment Project. Basically, it began as consciousness raising once a month, and one thing that kept coming up was the issue of street harassment. Eventually they decided that it might be a worthy enough issue to form a whole group, an action group, around the issue of street harassment. At the time there really wasn't any group anywhere, that we knew of, dealing with that issue.

Shortly after the group was formed the Central Park attacks happened. These were attacks on women that took place during the Puerto Rican Day Parade on June 11, 2000. A large group of men harassed and attacked at least fifty-six women, perhaps more; they doused the women with water, ripped off their clothing, and groped and molested them. It went on for a long time and when some of the victims tried to get police to intercede, they were simply shrugged off and ignored. Most of it was video taped and aired across the nation. By a huge coincidence the Street Harassment Project had a meeting already scheduled for the Thursday after the attacks happened. They happened on a Sunday, so of course the attacks were the major theme of that meeting. A lot of women wanted to do something about it, and so they had a rally that next Saturday-they actually organized the whole thing in four days.

Eventually, after a huge outcry from women and men in the city, a number of men were arrested. Three men went to trial, and two received jail time. Most of the assailants who were arrested received community service.

After this incident the Street Harassment Project really took off. I came into the group the second meeting after the attacks and joining the group has been a really positive experience for me.

oob: It sounds like the project was something a lot of women probably needed after those attacks.

M: Yeah, it just brought home so many issues for me. I had always thought about street harassment and it had always made me really angry, but these attacks just...

oob: Not only is it angering when something blatant like the Central Park attacks happens, but also when it happens in everyday life, as it does to women all the time. It's not always as extreme as those attacks, but it is still harassment. How do you really do anything about what strangers are saying to you on the street? It's a hard thing to combat.

M: Right, exactly.

Oob: How does your group combat street harassment? What are your strategies. What does your group actually do?

M: We consider ourselves an action group, so we are obviously doing things to directly combat harassment. But we also think it is important to be a forum for women to come in and be a support for other women. If they have a story and would like to relate it to us, they can do that and we will discuss it and talk about why it happens. And a lot of times we will have stories of resistance where women decided to get back at the street harasser, which is always encouraging. We tend to build off stories like that and talk about ways of responding to street harassers.

oob: So it's also still kind of like a consciousness-raising group?

M: Well, it's not as formal as that, but you can't really get away from that kind of thing when you are dealing with harassment. It is all connected to feminism and the issues that surround street harassment are definitely feminist issues. We feel that talking about it also gives everyone a reminder of why we're here doing this. And it is also informative; it enlightens us to all the different ways and forms of street harassment.

Of course, we do actions as well. We have committees that meet on a semi-regular basis, and they are organized around different ways to combat street harassment. We have a workshop committee, and we have two different kinds of workshops. One is usually for students or kids to discuss what street harassment is, an awareness-raising type thing, and the other one that we are trying to work on now is for women in other areas who want to start up their own Street Harassment Project. They wouldn't have to use our name if they didn't want to, but we are really trying to get other women all over the country to start coming together around this issue.

oob: So is that one of your big goals? To get groups started around the country?

M: Yes, we've gotten a lot of emails from women around the country asking us if we know of any groups like the Street Harassment Project in their part of the country. They have even asked for ideas on how to start a group where they are, so we know that there is interest out there. So it really got us thinking that this is not just a New York City thing. We get emails from all over the world from women telling us their experiences.