What is Street Harassment?
Gender-based street harassment is unwanted comments, gestures, and actions forced on a stranger in a public place without their consent and is directed at them because of their actual or perceived sex, gender, gender expression, or sexual orientation.
Street harassment includes unwanted whistling, leering, sexist, homophobic or transphobic slurs, persistent requests for someone’s name, number or destination after they’ve said no, sexual names, comments and demands, following, flashing, public masturbation, groping, sexual assault, and rape.
Of course, people are also harassed because of factors like their race, nationality, religion, disability, or class. Some people are harassed for multiple reasons within a single harassment incident. Harassment is about power and control and it is often a manifestation of societal discrimination like sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, classism, ableism and racism. No form of harassment is ever okay; everyone should be treated with respect, dignity, and empathy.
What Are We Doing?
April 12th-18th is 2015’s International Anti-Street Harassment Week. RU Student Life will be joining the week’s message with a little push of our own. As a community, street harassment is something we take a hard stance against and we hope you will join us!
Take a Stand With Us
Share the graphics below on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram and show that you also stand against street harassment! Use #EndSH to join the conversation.
Hear Ryerson’s Stories of Street Harassment
We asked Ryerson students and staff what they think about street harassment and how it affects them, and the answers are powerful, critical, and take a stand against street harassment. Read the stories and join the conversation on our Facebook page.
Why do you think people harass on the streets?
“Well for one we live in a society where men think they’re superior. They feel like they’re allowed to say all this stuff to women because of the way they dress, or whether we’re wearing minimal clothing, or are fully clothed, they still feel like they have a right to say that stuff. I can’t even try to get into their mind to find out why they feel the need to say anything.”
