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

A lot of that stems from street harassment, because the underlying theme of street harassment is violence. When men harass it is not borne out of love or respect - it comes from some need to control women and that can lead to anything from stalking to rape.

So we definitely want to make a clear parallel between those other, seemingly far worse attacks on women, and street harassment.

Because although street harassment is often less extreme, it comes from the same place. A lot of times when a woman is harassed, even if it isn't very extreme, there is often that voice in the back of her mind wondering if the man is going to do something more violent and more extreme, especially if it is at night or if there aren't a lot of people around. And only when you start to fight back and you gain a little bit of power, do you start to feel like you can do something to stop the harassment. But, really, the only thing that is going to stop harassment is a full-blown feminist movement that actually gains acceptance by society.

Because harassment really does stem from the ingrained misogyny in our culture-you can't have one without the other.

oob: Right, if that didn't exist, then men wouldn't harass women. But since it does exist then it follows that men are going to exert their power and women are going to feel the effects of it.

M: Yes, because women can start to take back what little power they can on the streets, and we definitely advocate that. But this issue is definitely an integral part of the feminist movement, and once all those other issues are dealt with...

oob: Yeah, since it is all connected...

M: Exactly, it's like racism; one type of display of racism is not going to go completely away without fixing the root of the problem.

oob: Are there any actions in the near future that you want to get the word out about?

M: We really want to see our organization grow,-that's our main goal. We have a core group of seven to eight really dedicated members of various ages and backgrounds, and we want to be as diverse as possible. We recognize that there are many things that contribute to the way women experience street harassment and those are experiences that we want to hear and that we want included in our group. So we are really pushing to be as diverse as possible and work in coalition with other groups, other feminist groups, women of color groups, especially in rallies and other big events. And we try to attend other groups' meetings and introduce ourselves to them. We have a really strong network in our area, and it has been really important to have that support. But we are always looking to build even more awareness and support and to do that we need to build membership and get the word out about what we are doing. We are very dedicated to making this stronger and expanding to the rest of the country.