CoP 3// Summer Project Part 2 - Street harassment research

Social responsibility is the idea that every individual and organisation within a society is responsible for that societies conduct. For this project I'm taking on this basic definition of social responsibility and applying it to responsive I've seen within the society I'm currently living within towards sexual harassment.

Image from www.stopstreetharassment.org

I've been researching street harassment statistics on a site I saw reported in an newspaper article 'www.stopstreetharassment.org' about sexual harassment. The website features a number of pages involving statistics, online articles, help & advice and a blog that that documents different stories submitted by readers. The blog posts are predominately submitted by women, about verbal harassment. The statistics recorded show a clear larger percentage of women have experienced street harassment then men and of the men that took part in the survey were LGBT identifying men who faced homophobic street harassment and slurs.

I've also spoken to three people about their experiences with street harassment - all had experienced sexual street harassment in some form. All had been verbally sexually harassed and made to feel uncomfortable. All had been followed either around a bar/pub or on the street and two had been sexually assorted multiple times. I also interviewed each on their experiences, below are quotes from the interviews;

'' So I was 14, maybe? I was on my way back from school, so I was in a school universe - it was a skirt, a shorter skirt but it was obviously a school uniform. And I walked past these guys, about four of them, all taller than me and one of them just wolf whistled at me at me and then another one joined in, and the whistles followed me down the street. And the other two guys laughed, ya'know they were laughing at me. It was terrifying, I was on my own and I was 14. ''

'' Okay so, he worked in a different building of the college but we had to walk up the same road. And I remember he would  come in on his bike, but when he saw me he'd slow down so he was right next to me. And he started off talking just kinda friendly like, like 'you're in the art class, yeah?' - it was fairly harmless. And then it just starting getting really uncomfortably sexual? He kept asking if I'd come round his place that night, happened about three times on different days. Whats worse, whenever i'd get into college he knew one of the guy's in my class - and the guy, knew it was going on and he didn't seem to care. In fact one day, after this happened I escaped into the art building and then the guy in my class came in and said 'yeah you know my mate? talking to him earlier? yeah he wants to shag you tonight at 6, so yeah.' and he just had this big old smile and found it really funny. He didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with that statement, I talked to him a lot less in class after that. ''

''so i was at the brudenell and i was with everyone, just drinking and seeing a gig, everyone had gone outside for a cig and i was taking a bit longer, when i was done i went inside, and these two men, like, called me over, and i couldn't not go near them 'cause they were standing near the front door, when i did  go near them one of them got so close i had to back against a wall, they were just trying to flirt with me, being very provocative, i was really intimidated, they were really big men, their hands were all over me, they seemed to find it quite funny with one another, i pushed past them, but afterwards i was mortified that i didn't say anything to them, and that i had to ask my friends for help because it was just so mortifying, and scary, and they both just seemed to find it funny.''

'' Alright so, (NAME) has always been a little too 'approachable' and she gets a lot of harassment, so we were walking home from college one day and we saw this dude loitering at the intersection of a road we were crossing. (NAME) made eye contact with him, smiled and said she liked his hat. We kept walking after that, heading back to my place. And we looked back and the guy was following us, just a few meters back. Not even being very subtle about it. It was very worrying and uncomfortable. In the end it took an advance from our more intimidating female friend to scare him off, well it was back when she had a mohawk. Big leather jacket. And Dr Matins. All it took was a few stomping steps towards him to have him running off the other way, if it had just been me and (NAME) I doubt he would of left us alone. ''

"so i was in a bar, where my boyfriend works. and it was pretty, quiet, it was maybe 6, he was about to get off work and i was waiting for him. this guy comes in, as soon as he comes in he looks at me, and starts going 'mmm yeah!', biting his lip, looking dead pleased to look at me, and he comes up to me and starts saying how much of beautiful woman i am, looking me up and down, i didn't say anything to him but he kept saying how beautiful i looked, how i was a 'proper' woman, it was very uncomfortable, my boyfriend noticed and came up 'cause i was looking so uncomfortable. the guy noticed that the bartender must be my partner and started justifying himself, claiming he wasn't trying to steal or objectify his woman, he's just lucky to have this woman, whatever, obviously my boyfriend was working behind a bar, and had to serve customers, and this guy just stayed next to me, staring at my breasts and legs, saying the same things over and over, and he kept trying to justify himself, saying women 'like the attention'. it was about twenty minutes before he left. But before he left, he forcefully kissed my neck. Then he left. ''