News – On Wolf Whistling, Media Blitz & Sensationalism

We have had quite a busy month here at HollabackLDN. Along with the Government finally signing up to the European convention on domestic violence, came the most recent flurry of media interest in HollabackLDN, as increasing mentions of outlawing wolf-whistling drew more and more attention from the sensationalists.

While the media were overwhelmingly concerned with what they see as the  more ‘petty’ symptoms of street harassment, namely wolf-whistling, coverage was wide, and that can be no bad thing. In the space of a few days we appeared in four national newspapers, The Guardian, The Sun, The Daily Mail and The Sunday Telegraph and on a number of radio stations including BBC Radio 5live, BBC Wales, BBC Birmingham, SPIN Southwest and SPIN Dublin in Ireland, and Talk Radio Europe in Spain. The theme that rose again and again was the perceived threat to (predominantly male) freedom of speech, and the right to wolf-whistle. What we talk about is that wolf-whistling is part of a spectrum of behaviours that create certain environments or dictate patterns of behaviour for women, that are not acceptable. Think about the times you may have changed what you wear in order to try and avoid male attention, for example. We are not pro-censorship, we believe strongly in freedom of speech, but we believe also in a woman’s right to be free from objectification, free from sexual threat, and free from public humiliation.

HollabackLDN’s co-director Julia was quoted in the Guardian as saying, “If you want to tackle it, you tackle all of it – you say no to all forms of unwanted sexual harassment, that includes wolf-whistling, comments, everything”. Should there be any need for clarification; we are talking about addressing these issues, talking about them, understanding the dynamics and situations in which these behaviours are used, and making those behaviours socially unacceptable. We do not believe in the criminalisation of wolf-whistling, nor do we believe that it is realistic that such behaviours can be prosecuted. It seems that our media has taken a rather giant leap from not talking about the issues of sexist behaviours to talking about criminalising them. It’s not productive to suddenly outlaw behaviours which have for so long been acceptable in our society. The point of our campaign is to generate debate and to push to make sexist behaviours socially unacceptable.

More recently, we appeared in a great Radio 4 Programme ‘My Name is Not Hey Baby’, that aired last Tuesday night (17th April) and was repeated on Sunday 22nd. It can still be found here on iplayer. Bryony was interviewed and discussions that took place at our Hollaback workshop at Queen Mary University was also featured.

It’s always great for us to get press attention of any kind; it means that these issues are being discussed in the national media, and in most cases that we are being given a voice. It was only two years ago that we were told we’d never reach The Sun. This recent media blitz really stands to show how all the hard work of all the men and women who have stood up to talk about street harassment is not falling on deaf ears. Our main objective when we started was to get people talking, and we’ve certainly done that.

We have said this before, and we’ll say it again, and again and again: We are not talking about one incident on one day perpetrated by one person received by one person. We are talking about the collective consciousness of the thousands of people who suffer this harassment every day all over the city and all over the world. We are talking about the fact that any one person can receive incidents of these behaviours, 3, 5, 12 times a day.  The more we address that, the easier it will be to understand, the easier it will be to tackle it, the sooner we can eradicate it.

Accepting submissions for issue 2 of our zine

HELLO!

We are looking for submissions for the second issue of our zine ‘Langdon Olgar’. We need words and artwork on a number of themes affecting the anti-sexism cause including but not limited to:
Street harassment (Of course!).
Sexism in everyday life.
Public spaces.
Women in media, women vs media.
Feminist movements.
Abortion policy.

These are just a few ideas but please feel free to send us some more at ldn@ihollaback.org PLEASE NOTE: we want submissions from contributors of all genders, this is not a female-only project, it is a keenly mixed-gender project!

THANKS! XX

Rape Crisis South looking for help with research

If you’re interested in helping out with some great research into street harassment, check the link here

Article

Interesting article on The New Humanist website about Female Genital Mutilation.
http://newhumanist.org.uk/2673/the-cutting-season-female-genital-mutilation-and-the-uk

Media Blitz – On Grazia, the Mirror and representation

I doubt it’s escaped many of our regular readers hawklike attention that in the last ten days, we’ve been featured in both Grazia and the Daily Mirror. And lo, the big time doth hit us like a slap on both cheeks. I jest, I jest. Now, we’re not in the business of breeding pigs with wings here at HollabackLDN, so we don’t expect reasoned pro-feminist critique from a magazine that frequently dedicates hearty chunks to such daily conundrums as ‘Hmm, golly gosh, where are the best clinics to have one’s face injected with miracle strains of botulism?’ nor for that matter, would we be so foolish as to expect any kind of balanced opinion in a ‘news’paper that could not be more bursting with steaming effluent should I somehow find its pages worthy of wiping my ample rear end.

To be fair, the Grazia article could have been far worse, and we’re obviously grateful for the coverage. It told the story of  journalist Amy Molloy, as she resolves to directly engage with every person who harrasses her. For a week. Amy is shocked when her harassers immediately turn nasty at the suggestion of their being inappropriate – ‘Frigid bitch, why don’t you loosen up?‘ – but rather than questioning how presumed and ingrained these power dynamics must be to provoke such sudden outrage when prodded, she concludes that street harrassment is just a ‘downside of being a moderately attractive woman.‘

This is a crucial and dangerous assumption, because, as we keep on bloody saying, gender-based violence is about power not sex, or flirting, or your eyeshadow, or neckline.  Hadley is right on the money. Every women-identified person that doesn’t present within the framework of conventional beauty standards, yet still faces harassment every day can back this up. Molloy’s piece does accept some of the fundamental aspects of what Hollaback is about, and employs facts and figures to explore the issue, but her hinging of this piece around our campaign without contacting or consulting us meant that the core arguments got kinda lost.

While it’s a shame and a little embarrasing to have our global groundswell against the most daily manifestation of socialised sexism written off as little more than a bit of a curious overreaction,  far more disturbing are the responses from readers that encourage other women to ‘take it and smile, after all a smiling woman is a beautiful thing.’ Top Tips, right? Yowzer.

The second piece of coverage in the Delightful Daily Mirror, manages to make Grazia look like Spare Rib, such is its bewildered self-hatred, encapsulated by the catchy headline ‘When the Wolf-whistles stop it’ll be time to Die.’

Yep, because life without uninvited comment on your appearance from strangers would surely be a bleak and wasted existence, n’est-ce pas? My instinct is to hide under my (obvs) humourless feminist rock until this moronic diatribe fades into the ether, but this is so weird and messed up that it almost deserves a little unpacking.

“These men can then consider themselves well and truly named and shamed (although, presumably for both legal and practical reasons, without actually being named. And therefore not being particularly shamed that much either. Still, that’ll show ’em!)”

Biting rapier wit on display here, YOU GOT US GOOD! In reality, of course, the idea of ‘naming and shaming’ has never been suggested anywhere on any of our websites, because they are actually a place for people who have experienced harassment to share how THEIR experience made THEM feel, and that has little to do with some bizarre fantasy of vigilante justice.

“There are so many other injustices women have to fight that are much more worthy of starting a website over, rather than something ­harmless like this”

Except for the fact that street harassment is happening right now all across the city and going unchallenged, and that it’s so obviously a symptom of these larger systemic injustices, and the thin end of a thick wedge which has rape and murder at the other end, and is as such undeniably part of the continuum of gender-based violence. Except for the fact that women continually write to us daily saying they don’t feel safe, that they have been punched outside their front door, spat at and abused. Except for that.

“The day I walk past a building site in silence is the day I kill myself”

Seek help.

Okay, it was never going to be positive, was it? The Daily Mirror is one of a slew of newspapers so retrograde in their perspective as to still feature Page 3, so I’m possibly expecting a little much. [EDIT: Excuse my ignorance, apparently they no longer do - more fool me!] But there’s a deeper disquieting element to this article. Hudson goes on to conclude that we must take compliments from strangers because women find themselves unable to accept them from anyone else. She may indeed have hit upon something, but to me this has more to do with the daily torrent of out-of-reach beauty standards churned out across all media,  breeding terminal insecurity. Opinions like hers add only further darkness to a pretty starless horizon when we talk about self-acceptance. Indeed, loving and respecting yourself should make you more likely to defend your physicality against comments you didn’t ask for, not accept them regardless of tone or intent.

Personally what grinds my gears the most is that this piece, having been written by a woman, will represent for some a glorious green light, an invitation to go right ahead in harrasing whoever, whenever, because as Polly has now so helpfully whittled down, the choice is clear: wolf-whistles or invisibility, cat-calls or irrevelance, humiliation or death.

***

We’re being a bit slow and rubbish about updating the press section, but you can expect screencaps of all these soon. Also, let me say explicitly that we WILL make time to speak with, email or have any kind of dialogue with you if you’re a journalist considering covering HollabackLDN or any these issues. It’ll be better for everyone this way, we promise!

(Bryony)

First International Anti-Street Harassment Day: The Roundup!

We’ve been following the groundswell for the first International Anti-Street Harassment Day since it was announced. While we organise and raise awareness here in London, all across the world people are making their voices heard in relation to this issue, redressing the balance of power that incidences of harassment so consistently and cruelly skew.

One of the reasons I think that discussions around street harassment attracts so many opinions is the direct, often daily experience so many women and LGBTQ people have of it, regardless of whether they identify as feminist, regardless of if they consider themselves politically engaged. People can barely wait for you to finish explaining what HollabackLDN is before they want to share their story and frustrations with you, which is further proof and affirmation of why we do this! That universal sense of outrage, shame and embarrasment, together with the process of unpacking the issues at play when ‘Nice Tits!’ breaks the silence or the hand brushes your bum, can be the ultimate gateway drug into beginning to read the world through a feminist lens.

What IASHD has done is put a crucial spotlight on this issue and of the work being done to interrogate the prevalence of gender-based violence in our lives, because it’s far from only Hollaback who are on the case. Check out:

“When we speak of the daily realities many women and LGBTQ folks face when they walk down the street, let’s not forget to mention the children and youth who learn how to repeat these behaviors from the widespread sexual violence in our communities, the media, their homes, streets and schools.”

These are just a few, tell us what you did to mark the day in the comments, and if you didn’t do anything, why not join us tomorrow at 7pm, Wah Nails Dalston, for an all-genders-welcome social night, where we’ll be workshopping ideas to combat street harassment and discussing gender-based gubbins and ways to get involved in a judgement-free forum, with drinks and baked goods and a top secret awesome film screening afterwards too!

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY EVERYONE!!!!

International Women’s day exists to recognise the achievements of women in a still sexist society. To mark the 100th anniversary of the day, Bryony and Julia will be speaking at the free Enabling Women event tonight in Aldgate. Hope to see some of you there.

In other news, a very special secret film screening has now been confirmed to end our next meeting on March 22nd at the WAH Salon. The meeting starts at 7pm, the screening will start at 8.30pm. Bring some beers!!!

International Women’s Day Press.

And also, check out these links:

www.thegreatinitiative.com

www.weareequals.org

www.actionaid.org/iwd

HollabackLDN speaking at “Enabling Women” Event – for International Women’s Day

Join 100 other women to hear from inspirational speakers about how they are making social change and impact in the world, for both women and men, as well as the opportunity to come together to discuss the issues that still face women today, whether at home or abroad, and see what solutions or actions can be collaboratively generated.

We’re stoked/terrified to be speaking about HollabackLDN as part of a series of ‘inspiring women’ talks this coming Tuesday, March 8th at Cityside House in Whitechapel. The event, organised by 8fold to celebrate International Women’s Day will also include speakers from these really exciting projects:

Julia Lalla-Maharajh, Founder of The Orchid Project – a campaign to end Female Genital Cutting by 2025.

Sophie Cox, Founder of Worldeka - a social network and collaborative platform for charities, NGOs, activists and policy makers

Servane Mouazan, Founder of Ogunte – a Social Innovations Development company focussed on women-led social ventures with a talk on making collaboration happen for real social change.

Anne-Marie Lewis of Oasis Open Door – a social enterprise that helps young people in gangs harness their entrepreneurial spirit and set up their own entreprises. Hear about the difference she is making with young girls and women.

Kathleen Cronin from Ignite Leadership on their GirlsCan project which provides girls with inspirational stories from positive, female role models.

It’s FREE to come, you just need to RSVP here.

Press: Stylist Magazine

Delighted to be featured this morning in the best free underground-based reading material since thelondonpaper went under (RIP) Despite some factual issues, hello to all our new readers, submit your latest brilliant rebuttal to the daily grind of catcalls right here; make your voice heard!