noelia morales

On October 28, 2014 a video entitled “10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman” was published on YouTube and a national debate was sparked. The video, created by Rob Bliss Creative, a viral video agency, and sponsored byHollaback!, a non-profit fighting against street harassment, features an actress named Shoshana Roberts, walking around different sections of New York City with a hidden camera recording the different things that men say to her on the street. According to a statement released by Hollaback!, the video was “viewed more than 15,000,000 times in the first three days.” Much of the ongoing controversy surrounding street harassment today stems from this viral video and lies in the differing opinions of what really constitutes harassment on the streets of NYC.

“There is so much footage that people have not seen and that’s just one day,” Roberts said in an interview with the Guardian. “It disrupts my daily life. Not only does it stop my train of thought but it just creates unnecessary stress of comment after comment.” Comments on the viral YouTube video range from “Men shouldn’t do this to women (and vice-versa). People (women and men) should be treated with respect. It’s not okay for a stranger to say ‘hi, beautiful’, or ‘damn’ in the way they did in this vid. It’s creepy and disrespectful” from user Tiago Gomes to comments such as “Why would you include ‘How are you this morning?’ and ‘Have a nice evening’ as harassment? Some of these are genuinely disturbing, but when you include ones that are just being friendly, it detracts from the message, because it makes it seem as though you’re being overly sensitive” from userDarkMatter2525.

Following the viral circulation of the video, Roberts began to receive rape threats from YouTube users:

Hollback! tweeted after Roberts began receiving rape threats

“The majority [of feedback] is positive. And that’s what matters to me — that the ‘thank yous’ are the loudest. There are so many people who say ‘thank you, this happens to me and you are letting the world know,’” Roberts said in another interview with The Washington Post. “I can only share my story, but this story is the same for so many people.”

On April 11, a few months following the release of the video April 11, Emily May, co-founder of Hollaback! hosted an Anti-Street Harassment Rally in Washington Square Park in cooperation with various non-profit organizations, local activists and artists all with the same mission of ending street harassment. Hundreds of people gathered to listen and share personal stories of street harassment and the different ways it can be dealt with. There was also buckets of chalk available to all as a way to express their anguish in opposition of street harassment.

“I think the root cause of street harassment is sexism and depending on who you are it could be also racism or homophobia. And I think that as long as we have those things in this world, we’re probably gonna have street harassment, it’s just a symptom of those larger problems,” May said. “And I think that it has probably existed since the advent of streets. It’s not anything that’s new but it is something that really, for the first time in history, I don’t think we’ve ever seen this much attention paid to the issue”

Jennifer L. Pozner, media critic, public speaker and founder of Women in Media & News, an organization aiming to increase women’s presence in media, believes that pop culture plays a large role in the establishment of street harassment as it glorifies the behavior in many instances through film, television and music. “Everything in the media that they’ve [street harassers] ever seen about this says that this is just a normal, fun, all-American apple pie thing to do,” Pozner said. “Everything from, you know, the most recent music video. Who likes the song Uptown Funk? I like it, but the video starts with street harassment!”

Jamie Ziolkowski, one of the many young women attending the rally, said she has been living in New York for four months and experiences street harassment daily. “The people that catcall don’t have empathy towards women. In their minds women are not human, but objects and that’s how they justify harassing women,” Ziolkowski said. “That is why they won’t understand when I tell them that they are vocally assaulting women, which leads to further escalations of physical violence against women.”

“At least once a day I hear a story from friends who also live in New York about how they experienced street harassment at various times during the day,” said Taylor Reynolds, another young woman at the rally. “What are they [street harassers] expecting to happen? A woman smiles and that guy's day is made because he thinks he has control over all women? Grow up.”

According to a 2014 National Report from non-profit organization Stop Street Harassment, “Street harassment is a human rights violation and a form of gender violence.” Of the 1,058 men and 982 women surveyed in the United States, 57% of women reported experiencing verbal street harassment while 18% of men reported the same. So, the question remains: what exactly constitutes harassment on the streets of NYC?

Views on what is and what is not street harassment will vary from person to person. One clearer definition comes from Stop Street Harassment: “‘Street harassment’” describes unwanted interactions in public spaces between strangers that are motivated by a person’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, or gender expression and make the harassee feel annoyed, angry, humiliated, or scared. Street harassment can take place on the streets, in stores, on public transportation, in parks, and at beaches. It ranges from verbal harassment to flashing, following, groping, and rape.”

Data taken from Stop Street Harassment 2014 National Report

Jamie Ziolkowski, Designer and Blogger at 1995 The New Classic

Q: First, can you just tell me a little about yourself such as your age, gender, school or any other type of affiliation you identify with and anything else you feel is important.

A: “I am a female, 19 years of age. I am from the Midwest and I went to the University of Alabama –Tuscaloosa for a year and a half, I am currently in New York to intern, and I am transferring to a women’s college in the fall.”

Q: Why did you attend the Anti-Street Harassment Rally?

A: “I went to the Anti-Street Harassment Rally to connect with my community about the social issues I have to deal with every day. I also wanted to record the protests for social change in NYC for my blog, 1995 The New Classic.”

Q: Do you live in New York and have you experienced street harassment here?

A: “I have been living in New York for four months now and I experience street harassment daily.”

Q: How would you define street harassment and catcalling?

A: “Street harassment is calling a person out based on their sex and looks in a disrespectful or controlling way.”

Q: What would you like someone who catcalls people on the street to know?

A: “The people that cat call don’t have empathy towards women. In their minds women are not human, but objects and that’s how they justify harassing women. That is why they won’t understand when I tell them that they are vocally assaulting women, which leads to further escalations of physical violence against women. These type of men don’t see domestic violence as their concern.”

Q: What would you tell someone who comes to you upset about being catcalled and looking for advice?

Emily May, Co-founder of Hollaback!

Interviewed by Noelia Morales & Latecia Joiner

Q: What made you want to create Holllaback?

A: Yeah, so um if you don’t want to record it the full story is on the website. But basically, we were pissed off by our own experience of harassment. It started by four women and three men and we heard this story of a girl name Thao Nguyen, she was riding the subway, a man sat down across from her started to publicly masturbate. She didn’t know what to do so she took a picture with the intent of taking it to the police, the police ignored her, she put it up on Flickr, it went viral and we were like this women is amazing and it started this huge city-wide conversation about public masturbation. And so we took that idea and turned it into a blog and then that had a huge response and then it turned into an organization, five years ago. 

Q: Why do you think street harassment happens?

A: I think the root cause of street harassment is sexism and depending on who you are it could be also racism or homophobia. And I think that as long as we have those things in this world, we’re probably gonna have street harassment, it’s just a symptom of those larger problems. And I think that it has probably existed since the advent of streets. It’s not anything that’s new but it is something that really for the first time in history I don’t think we’ve ever seen this much attention paid to the issue, that I know of anyway. That’s not to say that this is the first time that activists have taken it on. In the 1920s they had something called anti-flirt club, 1970s the women’s liberation movement certainly took it on, but it is getting an unprecedented amount of momentum now. 

Q: What would your message be to people who are embarrassed to talk about being harassed or tell their story?

A: Yeah I mean I think that you know shame is like a really real thing that a lot of people struggle with, and I think, you know, the number one thing is to remember it’s just not your fault. I know that the world wants to tell you that it’s your fault, that every message you’ve ever heard points to it’s your fault, that it’s what you were wearing, it’s being out late at night, it’s walking with a group of friends or not with a group of friends or you know all this stuff, and the reality is there’s nothing that you could’ve done to prevent it and it’s not about you changing your behavior to somehow adapt to this problem, it’s about harassers not harassing and it’s about all of us coming together to see if we can actually solve this problem. 

Q: What do you think about street harassment being glorified in mainstream media?

A: Yeah I mean that’s a huge problem and we certainly see a lot of people who are proponents of street harassment. Fortunately like they’re not very well organized and that most people you know think that even the ones that think that it’s a great idea don’t think it’s such a great idea when they start thinking about it happening to their twelve year old daughters or their wives or their mothers. And on our site we see stories from girls as young as seven, um we see it really starting to kick up around ages like eleven, twelve... girls are like what the F, like I just got these [breasts] and now you’re making comments on them. And we are just about to release research with Cornell University that shows that, it was something like 78% of people experience it before the age of seventeen and 67% experience street harassment before the age of fourteen. You know? So we’re talking about something that happens to older women and middle-aged women and we’re also talking about something that happens to like kids. So, it’s a hard issue to defend as far as I’m concerned.

Q: What do you say to guys that just say that whatever they’re saying is not street harassment at all?

A: Yeah and we’ve definitely heard people say like oh it’s a compliment, I just wanna tell you have nice tits [laughs]. And I mean I think the response then is why doesn’t it feel like a compliment? You know, when someone gives you a compliment you’re supposed to be like oh that’s so nice... like nice tits doesn’t feel like a compliment. And in concert with all these other comments that you’re getting walking down the street it just feels like a barrage of comments about you, about your body and at the end of the day I think all of us kind of feel like we’re a little bit more than this physical form that we’re inhabiting when we walk down the street, we’re also people that care about people in our lives, we’re people that think about things, we’re people that don’t want our thoughts interrupted by strangers.

Q: How can people learn more about your organization and get involved? 

Non-profit Hollaback! brings awareness to street harassment by hosting series of lectures and Q+A at the New School. 

“We all know that you don’t need a degree in Women’s Studies to be street harassed,” Emily May, co-founder of non-profit Hollaback! said. A few laughs from the audience followed. With more than 300 tickets sold, The New School Auditorium at 66 West 12th Street was full with people ready for the event featuring talks and performances from a range of different experts, activists and artists focusing on street harassment. Audience members were encouraged to tweet questions during the event for the speakers to answer during the Q+A session using #HollaRev.

“You guys have made it through one of our biggest snow storms this year in New York City, so please give yourselves a round of applause for making it here today,” May told the audience. “We are all here today to learn about what’s been going on with the street harassment movement in the past year and to learn about where we need to go next to figure this all out.”

A video explaining street harassment was displayed on the screen above the stage. After the video, May asked for a show of hands in the audience of people that have experienced harassment, how many knew someone that was harassed and how many felt that the harassment they experienced was their own fault as she rose her own hand for each question she asked. The majority of the audience raised their hands for each question. To conclude her introduction, May let the audience know there was counseling available from a health educator and an art therapist. “They’ll be here if you need support throughout the day, this stuff is tough.”

Deanna Zandt, a media technologist and co-founder of and partner at Lux Digital discussed the impacts of online harassment that many people face daily. “You are not alone,” Zandt told the audience, “If you start getting harassed online, remember that isolation and shame will try to make this so much worse for you. The best thing that you can possibly do right now is to build up your networks and build up your communities. You don’t need a thicker skin, you need a strong community.”

“Alright! We are back! Could you guys say ‘I hollaback!’” La-Roka, Spanish Harlem born hip-hop dancer and choreographer, shouted to the audience after a fifteen minute intermission. “I hollaback!” the audience repeated, twice with enthusiasm. After the talks from each speaker and performances from Girl Be Heard, non-profit theater company bringing awareness to issues affecting young women locally and globally, and H+, hip-hop dance conservatory, were given, all the speakers sat on stage and awaited questions from twitter and the audience.

“How would you help or what advice would you give to any young person who tells of a personal harassment story that happened to them and how would you help them in that situation?” asked a High School student. “The most important thing is just remembering that this is not your fault,” May answered. “It feels like it’s your fault, it feels like it’s directed at you, but the reality is that this is about the bigger, more messed up world that we live in.” 

1.  Live sources - list of names and ideally cell #s, and emails.  ie folks you'd like to interview

-Emily May, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Hollaback! -

[email protected]

-Holly Kearl, founder of the nonprofit organization Stop Street Harassment -

[email protected]

-Feminista Jones, a mental health social worker, sex-positive feminist writer, public speaker, and community activist from New York City,

[email protected]

2. Published sources - list of articles, books, videos, pix, etc - with URLS and/or bibliographic info.

-Stop Street Harassment 2014 National Report -

http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/2014-National-SSH-Street-Harassment-Report.pdf

-“10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman” Viral Youtube video -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1XGPvbWn0A

-NY Times article- Article about how having a law in place against street harassment can be beneficial to many people who have been and are currently victims

www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/10/31/do-we-need-a-law-against-catcalling/street-harassment-law-would-restrict-intimidating-behavior

-Youtube: 

“Street Harassment” by user “xbabyfacexo” 

“He harassed me in the street” by user “Julia Hunt” 

“Women Of The Bronx: Speak On Street Harassment” by user “Project Bronx”

 “Gender Power: Street Harassment In NYC” by user Christine L.Mendoza

3.  Scenes -- places / events you'd like to report on.  ie a rally, restaurant, apt, etc.

-Holly Kearl speaking at NYU April 8th at 5:30 room 101 west 4th street

-NYC Anti-Street Harassment Rally in Washington Square Park

On Thursday, March 5  from 2 pm to 5 pm, the non-profit organization Hollaback! held an event featuring talks and a panel session at The New School Auditorium at 66 West 12th Street with more than 300 tickets sold. Tickets were free for students and youth eighteen and under and were a suggested donation for adults and organizations. Audience members were encouraged to tweet questions during the event for the speakers to answer during the panel session using #HollaRev.

At 2:22, once the audience was settled in, the stage was set and the podium standing, the event began. “You guys have made it through one of our biggest snow storms this year in New York City, so please give yourselves a round of applause for making it here today,” Emily May, co-founder and executive director of Hollaback! told the audience. “We are all here today to learn about what’s been going on with the street harassment movement in the past year and to learn about where we need to go next to figure this all out.”

“We all know that you don’t need a degree in Women’s Studies to be street harassed,” May continued. A video explaining what street harassment is was displayed on the screen above the stage. After the video, May asked for a show of hands in the audience of people that have experienced harassment, how many knew someone that was harassed and how many felt that the harassment they experienced was their own fault as she rose her own hand for each question she asked. The majority of the audience raised their hands for each question. To conclude her introduction, May let the audience know there was counseling available from a health educator and an art therapist. “They’ll be here if you need support throughout the day, this stuff is tough.”

The speakers and performances following May included La-Roka, a Spanish Harlem born hip-hop dancer and choreographer, Feminista Jones, a mental health social worker and sex positive Black feminist woman from NYC, Linda Sarsour, racial justice and civil rights activist, Quentin Walcott, a leading United States anti-violence activist, educator and writer and Co-Executive Director of a NYC non-profit organization CONNECT, Girl Be Heard, a non-profit theatre company that brings awareness to issues affecting young women locally and globally, Aden Hakimi, a filmmaker, editor, and actor, Michelle Charles, a multi-media artist, Deanna Zandt, a media technologist and co-founder of and partner at Lux Digital, and H+ The Hip-Hop Dance Conservatory, a dance company.

As the event progressed, the audience began to open up. “Alright! We are back! Could you guys say ‘I holla back!’” La-Roka shouted to the audience after a fifteen minute break. “I holla back!” the audience repeated, twice with enthusiasm. After the talks given by each speaker and performances given by Girl Be Heard and H+, the speakers sat on stage and awaited questions from twitter and the audience.

“How would you help or what advice would you give to any young person who tells of a personal harassment story that happened to them and how would you help them in that situation?” asked a High School student. “The most important thing is just remembering that this is not your fault,” May answered. “It feels like it’s your fault, it feels like it’s directed at you, but the reality is that this is about the bigger, more messed up world that we live in.” As the event ended, each speaker was asked to give a short closing statement.