Janne: “Op het moment dat ik wil oversteken draait de auto rechts af en blokkeert mij de weg, terwijl ze met een perverte grijns verder filmen.”
Ik fietste op 7/05/13 om 20uur langs de Begijnhoflaan in de richting van de Coupure.Wanneer ik het kruispunt met de Wondelgemstraat nader, merk ik dat er een auto aan mijn tempo naast mij rijdt. Wanneer ik naast mij kijk, zie ik twee kerels in de auto zitten, en de meest rechtse is mij aan het filmen met zijn gsm!!! Op het moment dat ik wil oversteken (ik moet rechtdoor) draait de auto rechts af en blokkeert mij de weg, terwijl ze met een perverte grijns verder filmen. Ik heb het gewoon genegeerd en ben rond hun auto gefietst. Achteraf gezien had ik beter hun nummerplaat onthouden, want ik wil graag klacht indienen bij de politie. Vuil kijken, dingen roepen enz. , dat vind ik ook al moeilijk te verdragen, maar gefilmd worden, dat gaat er keihard over. Ik ben geen object waarmee ze kunnen doen wat ze willen.Hun gezichtsuitdrukking vergeet ik niet, het gevoel van onaanraakbaar te zijn, was er vanaf te lezen.
Hollaback! Gent present at the Queer, Feminist and Social Media Praxis Workshop in Brighton, UK
On Friday, May 17th the University of Sussex in Brighton (UK) organised the conference Queer, Feminist and Social Media Praxis Workshop. A whole day revolving around feminist activism and social media, that’s something Hollaback! needed to be a part of!And so we were: after collecting the necessary funds to finance the trip, Aurore and Eglantine went all the way to Brighton. Delayed buses caused some trouble but in the end we made it to the conference – with a one-hour delay that is. As soon as we arrived we got some name tags and a folder with conference resources and off we went!
In the morning we saw the keynote speech from Alex Jahsz, an American professor that revolutionized the use of social media, and especially YouTube, in the field of women studies and for her classes in USC. After that we listened to some readings of papers on activism and digital media. Amongst them was a really interesting paper on the use of Facebook by Irish pro-choice activists.
The Hollaback! Community Circle
After that it was our turn! Hollaback! Gent did a community circle. We learned this method of group conversation from our sisters of Hollaback! Brussels especially for this event. This is how it works: the workshop participants and Hollabackers sit together in a circle and discuss their experiences with street harassment in a safe, supporting and understanding environment. We also exchange tips amongst each other on how to deal with street harassment as a harassee and as a bystander. After spending a whole day sitting inside and talking about activism, we felt it was time to take it outside! And so we did what we do best: we did a Chalk Walk. We had quite an international group of participants, which made our Chalk Walk very multilingual. Here are some pics:
Holding my girlfriend’s hand is not an invitation to harass us!
Catcalling never made a woman fall in love
Say no to street harassment; Hollaback!
La rue n’est pas qu’à toi! / The street is not just yours!
La Calle es por todo/as / The streets are for everyone
Thank you to our sponsors!
To make our trip to Brighton possible we collected money through a Go Fund Me page for Hollaback! Gent. We thank all our generous donors! Would you still like to make a donation? That’s still possible! Not all our costs are covered yet and if there is money left over, it will go directly to our Hollaback piggy bank to buy some promotion materials such as flyers and posters.
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Eglantine: “Op slag verstijfde ik. Ik kon niets zeggen, niets doen,… Hij kwam achter mij staan en duwde mij tegen de deur van de tram.”
Eerst gepost op Hollaback! Brussel.
Hoewel ik elke keer ik in Brussel ben wel op een of andere manier word lastig gevallen op straat of op het openbaar vervoer, is het toch in Gent, waar ik woon, dat mij het ergste is overkomen. Aangezien er nog geen Hollaback bestaat in Gent wil ik graag hier mijn verhaal delen. Ik leef er al enkele jaren mee.
Het gebeurde ongeveer 5 jaar geleden. Ik was toen amper 15 jaar. Ik zat met mijn beste vriendin op de tram 1 naar het St. Pietersstation. Het was heel druk en ik moest rechtstaan dus ik hield me vast aan een paaltje zodat ik niet omver zou vallen. Er stond een oudere man (ik geloof vooraan in de 40) naast mij. Hij nam mijn hand vast waarmee ik me vasthield aan het paaltje. Eerst dacht ik dat het per ongeluk was aangezien het druk was op de tram en de chauffeur net bruusk had moeten remmen. Ik dacht dat de man zijn evenwicht was kwijtgeraakt en dan per ongeluk mijn hand had vastgegrepen om niet te vallen. Maar hij liet mijn hand niet los. Hij begon erover te strelen en te wrijven en dat zeker niet op een onschuldige manier. Ik wist niet wat ik moest doen, ik stond perplex! Ik ben gewoon versteend en ik hoopte dat de tram snel de volgende halte zou bereiken want daar moesten we afstappen. Mijn vriendin had niets gemerkt want zij stond met haar rug naar mij gedraaid. Ik heb het haar wel direct daarna verteld. Het heeft daarna nog even door mijn hoofd gespookt maar uiteindelijk dacht ik er niet veel meer aan.
Een paar maanden later had ik afgesproken met een vriendin aan de Korenmarkt. Ik nam opnieuw tram 1. Ik moest niet lang op de tram blijven dus bleef ik rechtstaan. Ik stond naast de deur toen ik opeens zag dat dezelfde man van een paar maanden daarvoor in de tram stond. Op slag verstijfde ik. Ik kon niets zeggen, niets doen,… Hij kwam achter mij staan en duwde mij tegen de deur van de tram. Met zijn ene arm versperde hij de weg, zodat ik niet kon weglopen. Met zijn andere hand begon hij mij te betasten. Hij wreef over mijn benen en billen en ging zelfs tot aan mijn borsten. Er waren nog andere mensen op de tram aanwezig, maar zij deden niets. Ze keken gewoon toe. Ik wist niet wat ik moest doen. Er flitsten allerhande opties door mijn hoofd maar ik slaagde er niet in om tot actie over te gaan. Uiteindelijk ben ik elleboogstoten beginnen geven. Hij bleef verder gaan. Gelukkig kwam de tram op dat moment net aan een halte. Ik heb op het knopje geduwd om de deur open te doen en doordat de deur opende, kon hij mij niet meer tegenhouden. Ik ben toen snel weggelopen. Ik kon niet geloven wat er was gebeurd. Het was bijna alsof ik het meemaakte van op een afstand, alsof ik zelf niet aanwezig was toen het gebeurde.
Wat later, als ik het een beetje had kunnen verwerken, had ik besloten om een mail te sturen naar de politie. Ik was toen jong en bellen of langsgaan op het politiekantoor leek heel beangstigend. Zeker om zo’n verhaal te vertellen. Ik had schrik dat ze me niet zouden geloven, of misschien zelfs erger: het voorval gingen klasseren als iets banaals of onbelangrijk. Vandaar dat ik koos voor de meest laagdrempelige optie: een mail sturen. In die mail heb ik mijn hele verhaal gedaan. Ik heb nooit een antwoord gekregen op die mail. Mijn angst was dus bevestigd: ze vonden mijn verhaal te banaal of ze dachten dat ik het verzonnen had. Doordat ik geen antwoord kreeg, durfde ik al helemaal niet langs gaan op het politiekantoor.
Een klein jaar later stond ik opnieuw te wachten aan een tramhalte van tram 1. Opeens zag ik dezelfde man ook wachten aan die halte. Er stonden gelukkig nog mensen te wachten op dat moment. De tram bleef lang weg. Ik was al op voorhand versteend geraakt en was aan het denken wat ik moest doen. Uiteindelijk ben ik terug gelopen naar huis. Daarna heb ik hem nooit meer terug gezien.
Sindsdien heb ik mijn verhaal al aan een paar mensen verteld. Maar uiteindelijk blijft de reactie dezelfde: ze kijken me aan met een medelevende blik en zeggen dat dat wel erg is. Maar daar blijft het bij. Als ik nu nog op de tram moet zitten, probeer ik altijd in een rustig hoekje te zitten en zo onopvallend mogelijk te zijn. Ik wil dit echt niet nog eens meemaken! Af en toe krijg ik een zeer onbehagelijk gevoel als ik op de tram zit; het lijkt wat op claustrofobie. Als ik dat gevoel krijg, moet ik zo snel mogelijk van de tram geraken.
Ook al gebeurde het misschien lang geleden; het heeft wel zijn sporen nagelaten! Ik hoop dat ik op een dag zal kunnen zeggen dat ik zonder ongerustheid op de tram kan zitten.
Ellie: “He also turned back at that moment and was still grinning”
Ik liep zo rond 23u door de Kortedagsteeg naar huis, en één of andere pipo op zijn fiets die in de andere richting reed vond het nodig om naar mij te grijnzen alsof ik een stuk vlees was en naar mij te bellen met zijn fietsbel (midden in de nacht!!)
Ik heb me omgedraaid en “F*ck you!” geroepen. Hij keek ook net achterom en grijnsde nog steeds. Maar het deed me wel goed dat ik tenminste iets teruggeroepen heb. Ook al was het niet één van mijn meest briljante reacties…
Elke (Gent): “I turned back, stunned, and yelled ‘Jerk!’ while he quickly ran away”
(cross-posted from Hollaback! Brussels)
I was walking in a quiet street when I noticed someone was walking behind me. At first I didn’t pay much notice, but I noticed that when I upped my speed, the person behind me started walking faster as well, and was getting closer to me. Then all of a sudden, I feel a pull on my coat, and in one quick movement this guy just pulls up my skirt and exposes me right in the street. I turned back, stunned, and yelled ‘Jerk!’ while he quickly ran away. I was wearing heels, so it was no use running after him. It was infuriating.
Understanding LGBTQ and LGBTQ Street Harassment Experiences
Street harassment: is it only a question of men against women?
Street harassment is a phenomenon that is only beginning to be understood and, more importantly, also identified as an issue. Because most people personally experience or witness street harassment as violence perpetrated by men against women. Recognizing that gender plays a role in street harassment is important. What harassers say is mostly related to the performance of gender roles; “Hey baby, I like how you walk”, said by a man to a woman for example, reinforces the consideration of women exclusively as sexual objects and the social belief that a woman is always in a seduction process even if she’s just crossing the street to buy bread.
Acknowledging this does not mean that we should close the door to other experiences of street harassment. The LGBTQ community reports street harassment issues and it does not make sense to consider these experiences as fundamentally different from those of women as traditionally understood.
LGBTQ? What?!
LGBTQ is the short name for the following group of people: lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals and queer.
The three first groups are pretty transparent. It relates to the sexual orientation of people, i.e who you are sentimentally and physically attracted to. The other two groups require some clarification.
Transsexuals (trans-women or trans-men) are people who were assigned a gender and sex at birth, but grew up feeling this was not their right identity and are or want to be involved in a “transition”: passing from one gender to the other. This definition is quite generic and covers many different personal situations. A transgender woman is someone who identifies as a woman, no matter what sex was assigned to her at birth; and a transgender man is someone identifying as male.
In order not to exclude trans-women and trans-men from the “women” and “men”, you can find the terms: cis*women and cis*men, which identify the people who were assigned to a gender when they were born and still identify with this same gender. I.e, you are considered a girl or a boy since you’re born, you’re happy with that and you embrace it.
Queer may be used by anybody who identifies with a gender identity that is blurred. Gender identity does not boil down exclusively to “woman” and “man”: you may identify yourself anywhere between the two poles. Being queer does not involve a will to change your gender and/or sex, but simply to try to explain better who you are and how you self-identify as a person.
The Genderbread Person can help you understand that easily! — Click on it to enlarge!
Some figures and statistics
Very little data exists on how widespread street harassment against LGBTQ is. It is already rare to find academic literature on street harassment against heterosexual cis*women; finding specific literature related to LGBTQ is almost a Mission: Impossible episode.
The existing data has mostly been collected in the USA. Transgender Americans reported in a survey they had already been verbally (53%) or physically (8%) harassed in public space. Another 2001 survey conducted in New York with the gay and lesbian communities showed that 64% of gay men and 59% of lesbians concealed their sexual orientation on the streets.
Why? Well, maybe because another American study unveiled that 86% of openly lesbian women had already been verbally harassed because of their sexual orientation… Recent unpublished results reveal that 67% of gay and bisexual American men do not even make eye contact with others on the street by fear of being harassed.
Hollaback!Croatia interrogated a pool of 446 women and 54 male, most of them heterosexual, and asked them to rank the characteristics that would put a person at risk for street harassment. Not surprisingly, “female identity” arrived first. But guess what? “Public expression of homosexuality” ranked second, with 80% of women and 74% of men identifying this as a risk factor.
Chalk Walk #3 – Sint Pietersstation, International Anti-Street Harassment Week 2013, Ghent
The same survey showed that queerness or any behaviour not in line with gender identity, for example being a “masculine” girl or a “feminized” boy, is also very likely to attract street harassers. If you have doubts about it, you can just watch this video [watch from 1:14:07 to 1:15:30].
This French TV documentary (and this is not a show that has a history of deep investigation or of involvement with the LGBTQ community…) featured a heterosexual young man, walking with his girlfriend in a park, while he was wearing a skirt. Two cis*men verbally harass him and assaulting him, apparently having much fun chasing him in the park – in front of the camera recording.
What they say when assaulting him is basically that his behaviour is dangerous for the children in the park. As his girlfriend underlines, “Well, what kind of example do THEY give to those kids?!”.
LGBTQ testimonies of harassment
Some testimonies of LGBTQ’s experiences with street harassment may be found on the Internet. A 30 year-old South African lesbian reported for example being harassed on the street by a heterosexual cis*male teenager while she was in her car with her girlfriend. He told them: “Hey, you two girls are sexy. It’s a pity you’re lesbians”. When she confronted him, the teenager got physically threatening without triggering any reaction from the bystanders. An American lesbian blogger shared her story of being harassed by construction workers passing by in a truck when she was hugging her girlfriend on the street, and wondered about what strategies might be used by lesbians to respond to such behaviours.
But such testimonies are still rare. No LGBTQ has yet shared a story of street harassment on the Hollaback!Gent website. However, during our last chalkwalks, we wondered on how to better integrate more LGBTQ community members in our movement by creating a space where they feel safe and respected enough to share such experiences.
Academic research on those topics is scarce. But what currently exists shows that LGBTQ experience a “minority stress“ , which means a systematic stigmatization. Being marginalized, LGBTQ people become more vulnerable to discrimination – including harassment in public spaces. A more recent study interrogated a pool of transgender women and men, asking them about their experiences in overt and covert discrimination. Overt harassment would be people calling you names on the street; covert harassment is more about people looking at you in a judgmental way, with their eyes saying “what the fuck is wrong with you, sick person”. And both forms are experienced by transgender people as coming from both cis*women and cis*men…
Many participants reported having been harassed on the street. A transgender woman testified: “A couple of boys came in and started saying [in a threatening tone] ‘Why are you dressed like that? You’re a guy, what’s wrong with you?’ “. Transgender women are not the only ones to experience street harassment because of their transgender status; transgender men go through the same things. A transgender male participant shared: “This guy was like ‘Yo, is that a dude or is that a woman’ (…) and then he came up to me and said ‘Yo, yo, you have a dick or pussy?’ And I was just like ‘Why does it matter?’ “
What can Hollaback!Ghent do?
LGBTQ and street harassment is high on the agenda for future Holla activities. Here are some specific topics that will most probably be brought up during the discussions:
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Chalk Walk #5 – Zuid, Anti-Street Harassment International Week 2013, Ghent
slogans for chalk walks: do we really want to keep statements such as “Real men do not harass”, which were used in Ghent and in other cities in the past? We should develop more slogans targeting LGBTQ.
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What other actions could be useful to reach out this community?
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What LGBTQ organizations could Hollaback!Ghent build relations and potential partnerships in Ghent?
If you have any suggestions regarding LGBTQ and street harassment, please do not hesitate to contact us to share them!
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Tales of the Anti-Street Harassment Week 2013 in Ghent – Thursday and Friday
Thursday
It was already Thursday and the “girls with the chalks” were once again out to fight street harassment in Ghent. This time, they gathered in Zuid and they took care of both sides of the square: in front of the library and in front of the commercial centre. Actually, this time it was not just “the girls” since a young man had joined them to write down messages and take pictures of the results.
Many people slowed down their pace to have a look at what was going on on the floor. Some asked questions and the girls tried to explain why they were ruining their backs and legs, crawling on the dirty pavement. They were filmed by three journalist students who were building a documentary on street harassment.
They were delighted when a young woman decided to join them and wrote two messages she wanted to pass on street harassment. The group was also encouraged by a lady who, like other people, took the time to read all the messages that were written and supported the action.
Of course, the tales of the fight against street harassment are not all pink: the girls sometimes had to explain repeatedly why they were not just randomly distributing chalks for people to write their names and have fun. Even if the chalk walks are a nice way to fight, having fun is not the objective and those messages are all written with a purpose >>>>>>>>>>>>>> END STREET HARASSMENT!
Friday
And also on Friday 12 April we chalked in ghent for the Anti-Street Harassment week! This time we chose the Vrijdagsmarkt, and attacked it with… chalks! While we searched for cool slogans and fired them at the square’s pavement, many curious passers-by stopped to have alook. We explained what Hollaback stands for and why we are fighting agaist street harassment. We received a lot of positive input!
We were complimented by a “Dolle Mina”, and met a mother and daughter who had heard of our chalk walks before.
And, last but not least, even the weather gods liked us today! No rain, dry pavements… We had a wonderful day.
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Tales of the Anti-Street Harassment Week 2013 in Ghent – Wednesday
After two successful Chalk Walks the street harassment Avengers from Ghent circled further towards the center. A group of 8 enthusiastic women assembled at St.Pietersstation for their third Chalk Walk. Their mission? To clarify to commuters in all colors that street harassment is not okay, not okay at all!
Armed with lots of chalk, strong knees, fierceness and tag lines they started to spread their Hollaback message just in front of the entrance. Clear speech was written, was spoken. The first sentences nearly finished, the commuters slowed down their pace so they could read what we had to say. And we had a lot to say!
“Girls just wanna have fundamental human rights! …
Dit is ook ons plein …
Don’t be afraid on the streets, Hollaback! …”
We told gladly and fiercely that the streets belong to everyone, to anyone who was listening or taking pictures! We share our pictures on our facebook with you, we hope you want to join our colorful battle!
This third day proved again the power of just simple chalk and strong voices. The power of street wisdom we still need to bring to people’s attention.
The street is for everyone, is yours, is ours!
More pics here!
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