After a man was arrested on the National Mall for voyeurism after filming up women's skirts on July 4th, some people were like, hey now—that's illegal? It is in D.C.: Voyeurism was made a criminal offense by the Omnibus Public Safety Emergency Act of 2006 [PDF].
Below, the District's rules on putting your "electronic devices" in other people's "private areas":

So: "Electronic device" is defined as "any electronic, mechanical, or digital equipment that captures visual or oral images, including cameras, computers, tape recorders, video recorders, and cellular telephones."

And a "Private area" is defined as "the naked or undergarment-clad genitals, pubic area,
anus, or buttocks, or female breast below the top of the areola."

Here's how not to put those two things together:

It is unlawful for a person to electronically record, without the express and informed consent of the individual being recorded, an individual who is: using a bathroom or rest room; totally or partially undressed or changing clothes; or engaging in sexual activity.

Also, don't do this:

It is unlawful for a person to intentionally capture an image of a private area of an individual, under circumstances in which the individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy, without the individual’s express and informed consent.

Breaking those laws is a misdemeanor that can draw up to $1,000 in fines and up to 1 year in jail. If you then go on to distribute or disseminate those images or videotapes, that's a felony that can draw up to $5,000 in fines and up to 5 years in jail.

But what if a person's "private are" is exposed in public—and you use an electronic device to snap a picture for your garden-variety Huffington Post nipple-slip feature? Are you looking at jail time? According to D.C. law, "Express and informed consent is only required when the individual engaged in these activities has a reasonable expectation of privacy."

And what's "reasonable" is up for debate. Does Tara Reid have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" when she appears on the red carpet and her breast escapes from her dress? How about a man who deliberately changes his clothes in the middle of the street? How about a woman in the park in a skirt—does she have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" when there's a big old hole in the bottom of that traditionally feminine body-covering? What if she wears that skirt, and then raises her leg at too high an angle as she exits a car? With the July 4th arrest, D.C. police are asserting that filming "up-skirts" is illegal in the District. But questions over consent, privacy—and angles—remain.

Photo by Mr. T in DC, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

D.C. police may not have stuck anyone with illegal fireworks charges this July 4th, but police did manage to nab one man taking advantage of the day's patriotic displays: On Sunday afternoon, D.C. police detained 49-year-old Maryland resident Charles Defoe for engaging in voyeuristic activities on the grounds of the Washington Monument. According to an affidavit, "Defoe was surreptitiously videotaping the underskirts of numerous females" in the holiday crowd gathered on the Mall throughout the day. A parent of one of the victims reported Defoe, and a review of the tape in his video camera confirmed the activity. The affidavit reads that Defoe "admitted to intentionally video capturing images of private or undergarments-clad genital areas of numerous females on the National Mall, without their expressed and informed consent."

Photo by Mike Hicks.

After Miss D.C. 2009 Jen Corey's claim that the Washington Examiner mischaracterized her sexual assault as a simple "bar fight," reporter Tara Palmeri first defended herself by claiming she doesn't always write her own stories. Now, the paper has revealed its second line of defense: Accusing Corey of being a bad sexual assault victim.

After registering Corey's complaint with the Examiner's coverage of her assault, J.P. Freire, the Examiner's associate editor of commentary, has decided to lend his expert opinion on the appropriate response to being sexually assaulted! And the appropriate response is: "to get away as fast as" possible. Thank you, noted sexual assault victim appropriateness expert J.P. Freire! What would victims of sexual assault do without J.P. Freire making things "fair"?

Let's follow the trajectory of the Examiner's response here: Corey was concerned that the paper had mischaracterized her experience with sexual assault, conflating her self-defense with "controversial" aggressiveness befitting a "bar fight." Palmeri responds by claiming that she didn't write the story—she just represented an intern's work as her own. Then, editor Freire jumps in to suggest that the paper's mishandling of sexual assault is justified because Corey wasn't a demure enough victim for Freire's taste.

Never mind that Corey has spoken publicly about all the potential tactics available to victims of sexual assault—from physical self-defense to verbal diffusion strategies to running to safety to reporting to authorities. Never mind that she's emphasized that there is no one "ideal" way to respond to an assault. Never mind that it is, in fact, the Washington Examiner that has been goading every beauty queen it can squeeze a quote out of into adopting Corey's own self-defense strategies. Never mind all that! I'd hate to let actual reporting get in the way of some dude offering glib 140-character solutions to sexual assault over Twitter:

Bonus: Freire has previously written on the dangerous problem of institutions mischaracterizing sexual assault! In April, Freire criticized Duke University's "disturbing" new sexual assault policy, which he said makes "no clear distinction between genuinely horrifying behavior and non-offenses." You don't say.

UPDATE: Freire has posted a response in the comments.

Last month, Washington Examiner gossip columnists Tara Palmeri and Nikki Schwab drafted a hot little item about Miss D.C. 2009 Jen Corey "kicking some tail at the local bars." Corey, the gossips reported, recently physically defended herself after being repeatedly "spanked," "touched," "pushed," "slapped," and "sexually harassed" by men in public. Corey's got a different word for what those men are doing— "sexual assault"—and she wishes the Examiner would use it.

The terminology dispute arose today, when Palmeri and Schwab attempted to get some additional mileage out of Corey's history of being publicly sexually assaulted. The gossip duo asked newly-crowned Miss D.C. 2010 Stephanie Williams if she would also "slam a man" while out at the bars, and reported that "Williams, 23, told Yeas and Nays that she respects all of the controversial decisions of her predecessor Jen Corey, including that bar fight last month."

Corey took to Twitter to contest the Examiner's characterization of the "bar fight," which suggests that Corey was the aggressor—not her sexual assailants.

"Still pissed @washexaminer for not getting the story right. My controversial decision to fight? You mean defend myself when attacked?" she wrote, adding: "Apparently @tarapalmeri is the only reporter in dc who doesn't understand the term 'sexual assault' #stillcantgetitright."

Palmeri also jumped on Twitter to defend her work. Her excuse? She didn't actually write that story—she just slapped her byline on an intern's reporting. And if Palmeri attached her name to a story that happens to downplay the seriousness of sexual assault? Well, that's hilarious!:

Corey's response:

UPDATE: Examiner moves on to victim-blaming to defend its journalism.

Five years ago, Emily May started up Holla Back New York City as a "little blog" for friends to share their experiences with sexual harassment on the streets of New York. Back then, May was hard-pressed to find who agreed that those "hey babies" and "nice asses" constituted a legitimate form of harassment. "I was getting street harassed three or four times a day and I felt like I didn’t have an adequate response," May says. But within six months of the blog's launch, victims of street harassment from around the world had joined May in hollering back online. "I never expected to strike such a nerve," says May.

"Hollering back" implies a verbal response to street harassment, but May and co. have always considered the blog a visual medium: Part of the therapeutic effect comes from actually photographing the creep. "We encourage it. It's kind of our model," May says. "It feels a lot more fierce and bad-ass and validating to take a picture." The blog is regularly peppered with shots taken at the scene of the harassment, featuring logo-emblazoned delivery trucks, blurry license plates, and slumped-over Subway riders.

Photography-as-activism was "always the original intent" of Hollaback, says May. "That was the classic Hollaback: To take a picture of what happened. It was never intended to be a mugshot—you could take a picture of his shoes, or you could wait until he was a few blocks away and he was a tiny dot on the camera—but the idea was to respond in the moment and capture some essence of the harassment."

But when local activists Shannon Lynberg and Chai Shenoy mounted a D.C. branch of the Hollaback movement last March, they found that local harassees were a bit more reluctant to whip out the camera phone. On Holla Back DC!, locals regularly write lengthy retorts to the strangers who harass them on the street, but don't usually accompany the prose with a visual.

Why are District holla-backers more shutter-shy? Perhaps it's as simple as a branding issue. Holla Back New York City's main page features a line of New Yorkers holding their open cell phones menacingly toward the camera. Holla Back DC!'s more textual approach doesn't aggressively encourage the harassed to snap a pic in the moment, but it does provide the multimedia option on its submission form page. In lieu of user-submitted photos, Lynberg and Shenoy often accompany anonymous posts with stock images from Flickr.

But the local reluctance to broadcast visual evidence of incidents that often aren't quite crimes also illuminates a rift in activism styles between D.C. and New York. "D.C. is a much smaller place," Lynberg hypothesizes. "Someone knows someone who will know someone that knows the perpetrator in the picture. And that breeds fear. . . . people are more afraid of litigation here." According to May, to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot is a highly personal consideration, regardless of locale: "We know that in a lot of situations, people aren't comfortable taking a picture of the harasser," May says. "It's not appropriate for every situation, and it's up to the individual to decide if it’s appropriate or not."

Perhaps individuals in D.C. are more likely to decide that snapping a photo of a stranger isn't appropriate—or perhaps they just need a little encouragement. This month, May plans to launch a new iPhone app that she hopes will facilitate both photo- and text-based holler backs around the world. Meahwhile, Holla Back DC! is working to address street harassment through less confrontational methods —the group is working on a public mural in Columbia Heights, is raising money to start up a "RightRides" program to help women and LGBT people travel safely through the city at night, and is planning "town halls" to engage directly with community members on the issue. The blog also maintains a Google map to chart incidents of street harassment around the city, a technological feature the founders hope will encourage solidarity against street harassment, and help victims "find courage and strength to report their incident," if they so choose.

"Activism [is still] different in D.C. than it is in New York City, but that's changing," Lynberg says. Case in point: Last month, a Holla Back DC! photograph helped police identify a serial harasser who was groping and photographing women at the Courthouse Metro station.

Via Holla Back NYC, it's "the most amazing song about street harassment ever written." Songwriter Satah Cameron, who plays as "Duckies Are The Best Animal," says the epic song covering all the stages of street harassment is dedicated to "one of those people who thinks they have the right to make a woman feel uncomfortable because she dares expose her ankles in public: fuck you, so much."

Today on Holla Back DC!, a bystander witnessed a man harassing and stalking a woman on the street in Mount Pleasant, and decided to step in. After a confrontation, the bystander walked away with bruises courtesy of the harasser's belt. Here's the story:

I was walking off a late-night snack around 3:30 in the morning. There was a woman walking with a man right behind her. She kept turning around at him. I could tell that she didn’t want his attention. She was headed down Irving which is a very dimly lit street. At one point the woman suddenly jumped back and began dialing on her cellphone. I figured she was calling the police. Being just across the street, I approached them and ask for the time. The woman seemed startled. The man just looked at me. The woman then continued down Irving street. The man began to follow her. I yelled,”You shouldn’t be doing that.” The guy stopped and turned around towards me. I pulled out my pocket camera and took a quick picture. That really got his attention. The woman kept walking down Irving and the man’s attention was now on me. He mumbled something and then came towards me.

I crossed Mount Pleasant street and he followed me. He began taking off his belt and then began swinging it at me in a zig-zag cross motion. The belt buckle struck me several times. I lifted my cane to stop the blows. I began yelling. There was a couple walking across the street and a guy yelled, "We’re calling the police." I managed to strike the assailant with my cane on his head. I had hit him so hard that my cane bent. He ran across the street into an alley. Another man was walking past me and I told him to watch out. The assailant was now gathering beer bottles as the police approached. He threw a bottle just as the first of 3 police cars stopped. . . . The assailant was arrested. The woman was safe. I am covered in bruises.

When the problems of street harassment and public sexual assault are raised on this blog, readers sometimes respond by placing the onus on ending harassment on the harassee. This usually takes one of three forms:

(a) Don't overreact. Just learn to take a compliment.

(b) Why didn't you fight back? Kick him in the balls.

(c) Street harassers are too dangerous for us to expect anyone else to intervene.

Of course, challenge (c) points out the problem with expecting victims of harassment to either (a) shake it off or (b) fight back. It also shows how violent misogyny can transfer pretty easily from female targets to anyone who would defend them. So—beyond preventative measures—how do we help minimize the risk of street harassment when we see it, while keeping ourselves safe? Last year, local self-defense expert Lauren Taylor gave Sexist readers some tips on being a pro-active bystander:

* Look out for number one. “Always think about your own safety first,” Taylor says. “Look at who’s around who could back you up if necessary. If you’re inside, say at a bar or social event, figure out where the doors are.”

* Speak to the victim. “When you’re thinking about intervening, address the person you think is being targeted,” Taylor says. “Say to her, ‘Are you OK?’ Or, ‘Can I do anything?’ Or, ‘Do you want to come with me?’ This won’t necessarily solve the situation, but it will let her know that there are other options. It will let her know that people are seeing what’s happening, and it lets the harasser know the same thing. There are witnesses, and it’s not going to go unnoticed.”

* Make a scene. “For example, you could draw attention to it by saying something like, ‘This guy is putting his hands all over her!’ Or, ‘This guy is harassing her!’ and that could draw enough attention to the situation that the harasser would cut it out,” Taylor says. “Airing any of these things, and making them more visible, will ultimately make them better.”

“Now, the harasser may respond by saying, ‘Who are you? This has nothing to do with you! She doesn’t mind!,’” Taylor says. “But you still have transformed what’s going on, and possibly made it safer. The harasser talking back doesn’t mean it didn’t work.”

* Even if the victim doesn’t ask for help, you can still do something. “Like with everything, it totally depends on the situation,” Taylor says. “Especially if it’s a partner thing, you may hear the victim respond, ‘Oh, I’m okay, go away.’ But I still think it makes a difference that it was noticed and recognized.”

The Holla Back DC! witness looks to have followed Taylor's tips to a T. Results were mixed: While the initial harassee got away safely and an obviously dangerous person was arrested, the bystander paid the price with a painful and scary physical confrontation.

Photo of Mount Pleasant by NCinDC, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

According to Metro Transit Police, the sexual comments a bus driver made toward his 16-year-old passenger weren’t explicit enough.

At 7:21 a.m. on Friday May 14, according to a report filed with transit cops that day, a Silver Spring high school student boarded the Z13 bus that takes her to school every morning. She sat near the front, catching the attention of a driver she had never seen before. His remarks quickly turned sexual: “You look really sexy . . . you have really big breasts,” he told her. After asking her age, he said, “You really don’t look like you’re 16.”

As the bus made its way toward school, the girl attempted to deter his advances. When he asked if she had a boyfriend, she lied and said yes. But when the bus reached her stop, he said, “Stay on this bus, honey, and I’ll make it worth the time, if you know what I mean.”

The girl and her family are pretty sure they know what he meant. “Clearly, the guy knew that she was a student,” says the girl’s aunt. “She had her backpack on. She looks very, very young. She’s mildly autistic. All of which is to say: This guy knew exactly how young she was.”

After the girl exited the bus outside the school, she sent a text message to her mother. The mother notified Transit Police and “immediately jumped on a bus” to meet her daughter and an officer. “She was embarrassed. She was obviously offended. She knew it wasn’t her fault, but she felt that she had done something to make him say those things to her,” the mother says.

After hearing the story, the report says, the responding officer determined the identity of the driver based on the girl’s description. He also mentioned that Transit Police had received “four to five other complaints” in the same vein. But two weeks later, the family is still waiting for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to take action against the employee. (The family shared the police report with Washington City Paper on the condition that the girl’s name remain anonymous; the bus driver’s name does not appear in the paperwork).

“They haven’t done anything,” her mother says. “They said that because he didn’t touch her, because he didn’t make her stay in the bus, because he didn’t explicitly request sex, they don’t have a reason to take him in,” she says. “And he didn’t do any of those things, thank God.” Unwanted sexual comments may not justify an arrest, but a Metrobus driver isn’t just a citizen—he’s a public employee tasked with taking passengers to their destination safely, presumably while not commenting on the size of their breasts.

WMATA has an extensive sexual harassment policy targeted at protecting its employees against harassment by fellow staffers. “It is the Authority’s policy to protect all employees, both male and female, from any form of sexual harassment, intimidation, or coercion, either physical or verbal,” the policy reads. But WMATA Public Information Officer Steven Taubenkibel speaks less categorically about the question of what staffers may or may not say to ordinary passengers. “I believe the sexual harassment policy really encompasses everything, whether it’s harassment against another employee or a customer,” he says.

The website Holla Back DC!, which focuses on street harassment, has repeatedly highlighted the problem of unwanted WMATA employee-on-passenger intimidation. In a public Q and A, the site filed this complaint with then–General Manager John Catoe: “Several women and men have reported to us, at Holla Back DC!, that they have been harassed by bus drivers and WMATA employees in Metro Stations. We know Metro officials [do not] condone catcalling, honking horns to get attention of passerbys, or asking patrons for their numbers when they are seeking assistance. However, it continues to happen.”

Catoe replied: “Anyone being harassed in any way by a Metro employee should take the name of the employee, record the date, time and location of the incident and report it our customer service department … Harassment is not acceptable, please do not tolerate it, take action and report it, so that we can take action as well.”

But when faced by complaints of passengers, not all Metro employees are in agreement that employee-on-customer sexual harassment demands disciplinary action.

In March of 2008, Kate Langsdorf, then 26, entered the King Street Metro station and performed the typical subway-passenger routine: She opened her purse, removed her Metro card, and passed through the turnstile. Then a uniformed employee “came up to me and said, ‘Excuse me, there’s something you should be aware of,’” Langsdorf recalls. The employee took her into a hug, placing one hand on her purse and one on her lower back. “He told me that I should be careful not to be walking around with my purse open.”

Langsdorf says the man kept his hands on her in the otherwise empty station for about 10 seconds before she politely extricated herself from his grasp. “I had no idea why he was doing this—whether it was ‘Yes, I get to touch a back!,’ or ‘This poor dumb broad doesn’t know how to handle her belongings.’”

When she returned home, Langsdorf sent two e-mails: One to a manager with the Blue Line, and one to a manager with the Yellow Line. “One response was totally awesome,” she says. “One was not.”

One line—Langsdorf says she doesn’t remember which one—responded with a form letter thanking her for riding Metro, informing her that police can’t be everywhere, and reminding her that food and drink are prohibited in the Metrorail system. “It didn’t look like they read my email. It looked like someone scanned it, put it in the complaint category, and then sent the standard complaint response,” she says. “It seemed like it was meant to address anything from ‘So, you got stabbed in the eyes’ to ‘You were told to put your Pepsi away.”

A few days later, she got a call from the manager of the other line. “She was appropriately horrified,” says Langsdorf. After getting a description of the employee, “She said that as a woman, she wants to be able to feel safe on the Metro, and that employees shouldn’t be touching passengers. She understood that touching my purse was as inappropriate as touching me, and I was satisfied that some action would be taken to inform the employee that touching women in the Metro is not okay.”

Two-and-a-half weeks after the 16-year-old reported her harassment, Transit Police phoned her mother with the latest lead in the case: the name of the driver’s supervisor, so the family could file and administrative complaint. For a teenager who rides the bus twice a day, the bureaucratic response to harassment may be moving too slowly. “This is a staff member of WMATA driving a route that takes children to school,” says her aunt. “He harassed a 16-year-old, a minor, one who has mental health issues. I think that they really need to prioritize this.”

File photo by Darrow Montgomery

You'd think that a feminist blogger with a noted disdain for people who ask her to smile would be the ideal consumer for street harassment-based first-person shooter game. (Guilty!) But after a test-run, even I can't get behind gunning down street harassers for fun and profit:

First, here's how "Hey Baby" (produced, naturally, by LadyKillas Inc.) works: A man approaches. He sexually harasses you. You respond by gunning him down with your .80 caliber machine gun. Then there's this soul-sucking noise, a tombstone pops up reading the harasser's last words ("C'mon, smile for me baby"; "I want to lick you all over"), and the harasser's bloodied corpse is flung into the street. Repeat! Or not. I could only murder like six street harassers before throwing in the towel. Why?

a. Perhaps it's because I wasn't weaned on murdering aliens and sex workers and other targets of your typical first-person shooter game, but virtually murdering people fails to tickle my fancy. Violence is not the answer, nor is it particularly interesting, mmkay?

b. I get street harassed all the time! I don't also need to get harassed while I am not on the street, and in fact alone on my computer. I've got trolls for that.

c. What is the point of this game? I killed half a dozen dudes and couldn't figure out if I was making any progress toward some sort of discernable goal. I'm bored! Where are the mushrooms I eat to make me bigger?

d. The "premium" version of "Hey Baby" offers "Cool advanced technology [that] allows you to get up close." Because the one complaint I have about dudes who harass me on the street is that I cannot get close enough to them.

e. I eventually got stuck behind a fence and couldn't make the machine gun stop shooting. Did I mention I was not weaned on first-person shooters?

I will say this about the game: I appreciate that it sees street harassment as a problem, and I'm eternally grateful that players aren't forced to watch sexy avatars of themselves do the harasser-murderin' so as to satisfy the erotic requirements of any dudes who might be playing the game (all you see of yourself is the machine gun you're wielding). I realize that "Hey Baby" is kind of in a tough spot. It seems to want to subvert the kill-the-hooker imperative of some video games without sacrificing all the bloooooooood. Call me a pessimist, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that feminist issues can never be perfectly applied to a game based on simulated murder.

D.C. police have released an alert about a "suspicious male individual" who is "attempting to make contact with adolescent females as they walk to school." The alert says that yesterday, "the suspect exposed himself to four juvenile females that were walking to school." He's operating around the 200 blocks of 17th Street and 17th Place, NE"—close to both Eliot Junior High School and Eastern Senior High School. He's described as "a black male, 20-30 years of age, 5’7, thin build wearing a white t-shirt, blue shorts, a black skull cap and sunglasses."

One Thursday last month, during the lunch hour at H.D. Woodson Senior High School, half a dozen teenage boys have gathered to eat pizza and talk about hollering at women. “From where I come from, you holler at a girl,” one student tells the group. “A girl can’t be too upset when a guy is paying attention to her.” “It depends on the type of girl and whether she has respect for herself,” another says. “Some girls will say, stop. But they like it, for real.” “If she’s wearing short shorts, booty shorts, short skirt, with the thong showing, she wants it,” another guy says. “Can’t blame it on the boy. She knows what she’s doing.”

“But what if it’s hot out?” This is Kedrick Griffin. He’s here to play the 37-year-old devil’s advocate on a subject that’s generally considered normal behavior for a teenage boy in the District of Columbia.

“What if all her other shorts are dirty? What if it’s 2 a.m. in a dark alley? What if it’s your girlfriend who’s wearing the short shorts?” Along with the targeted line of questioning, Griffin has also brought three boxes of Pizza Boli’s and an 18-pack of Sierra Mist. These Woodson students have been eating Griffin’s pizza since September. By now, they know full well that it’s wrong to blame a woman for rape based on what she’s wearing—now, they’re just struggling through the street harassment piece. This exercise has come almost at the end of a year-long District program called the “Men of Strength” club—MOST Club, for short. The same pattern is repeated with groups of boys in public middle and high schools across the District: Come for the pizza, stay for the deconstructions of masculinity.

Getting teenage boys to engage in gender theory can require a soft approach. The vague title of the clubs—“Men of Strength”—dodges the activist implications of the D.C.-based organization that runs them: Men Can Stop Rape. At the beginning of each school year, MOST facilitators arrive on campus and lure in participants. “Last year, we were hanging out outside school, and some people were like, ‘we need some males over here to eat some free pizza,’” says Eugene, a 16-year-old junior at Foggy Bottom’s School Without Walls. At that first MOST meeting, Eugene and a dozen other guys were fed pizza and offered free movie tickets; over the next school year, they came back each Tuesday for the pizza, and gradually advancing conversations on gender. Now, “I kind of like to keep the MOST club secret from other dudes,” says Eugene. “We all have this strong connection with each other . . . But also, if you bring more people in, then there are fewer slices.”

Griffin facilitates two MOST club meetings a day at nine different DCPS schools. Every week, he spends less than an hour with each group. But that’s enough time, he hopes, to challenge traditional masculinity and push his young charges to respect their female peers.

Thus Griffin has become accustomed to addressing thorny concepts in abbreviated time frames. At one middle school MOST club, he says he knocked out a discussion on prison rape in the time it takes to travel between classes. “One of the guys said, ‘When you go to jail . . . you get raped and when you come out you’re gay,’” Griffin says. “I said, ‘Oh really? Well, I’ve got ten minutes. That’s enough time for me.’” So he moderated a discussion with seventh and eighth grade boys about why a man’s sexual orientation and history with sexual assault make society see him as less of a man. “I wasn’t prepared for that discussion. It wasn’t even on my radar,” says Griffin. “But if a young person brings up a topic for discussion, I can’t just ignore it.”

Griffin doesn’t just stroll into D.C. public schools with a pizza and start engaging boys on topics like rape. Each MOST meeting begins with a slow wind-up: a weekly “check-in” in which each student updates the group on his recent life developments. Stuff like how he can’t find a ride to football practice, or how he only slept in one class today, or how he’s starting to look at colleges, or how he put his rap video on YouTube but then he took it down. These personal conversations are meant to transition into headier discussion topics like understanding rape culture and questioning the patriarchy. As a short-cut, MOST has chosen a phrase that Griffin employs more than once in each meeting: “The Dominant Story of Masculinity.”

In order to illustrate what that means, Griffin performs an exercise he calls “The Real Man.” Griffin shows students photographs of male celebrities—from Lebron James to Barack Obama to 50 Cent to Johnny Depp—and asks students to comment on “who they think society says is a real man and why.” The exercise is meant to reveal how society’s idea of ‘manhood’ is threaded with negative attributes. While it’s reasonable to want to be president and dunk a basketball, do you really want to get shot nine times in order to prove you’re a man? “When we talk about what a ‘real man’ is, we think of stuff like: Strong. Lifts weights. Spike TV. Prison. Explosions,” explains Eugene. “When we start talking about men in our lives and what we want from them, we think: Nice. Fun. Cares about us. Respects his family.”

By the time the exercise is finished, a few students at each D.C. public school have at least a taste of looking at gender expectations from a different perspective. When they leave the club, the theory goes, the students will tell their friends, and gender relations in the District will slowly begin shifting. Woodrow Wilson Senior High’s MOST club, facilitator Nate Cole says, averages from between two to eight students every meeting—but five are members of the school’s basketball team. In “the hierarchy or food chain of high school, they’re at the top,” says Cole, 23. “When they start challenging their friends and the people they come in contact with, that has a huge effect on the school.” But even with these high-status students, an hour is not always enough time to tease out all the complexities of gender relations.

At a recent Woodson MOST meeting, Griffin starts off the discussion by raising the murder of University of Virginia lacrosse student Yeardley Love. “She got killed, she was on the lacrosse team. I think they said her boyfriend did it,” one student says. Griffin explains that the man charged with her murder is George Huguely, a male lacrosse player who allegedly sent Love death threats—and then violently beat her head against the wall—when she tried to break up with him. “Remember, in the dominant story of masculinity, the only emotions we are taught to show are anger and rage,” says Griffin. They nod. “If a girl broke up with me, I’m like alright. Oh well,” says one student. “You can be mad but you don’t have to kill somebody.”

Time to move on: In the last ten minutes, Griffin mounts a quick discussion of the murder of D.C. principal Brian Betts, who was allegedly targeted on a gay chat line. In order to illustrate the social dynamics behind the killing, Griffin constructs a social ladder with his hands. “If a heterosexual man is on this level,” he says, raising his hand to his nose —“and a woman is at this level”—his hand descends to his chin—“then a homosexual man is on this level”—his hand drops down to his chest. “No, no, women are at the top,” one student says. “Fags. They got the most money,” another suggests. As time runs out, Griffin discards the gender discussion and tries a more accessible approach: Don’t kill a guy, steal his credit card, and get locked up. Stay in school.

Photo via Darrow Montgomery

Miss D.C. Jen Corey discusses defending herself against gropers with body-slams and head-locks on NBC4. AWESOME. She also makes some really important points about public sexual assault:

"It doesn't just happen at bars, either—it's happened to me at the grocery store, it happens to me on my lunch break in Georgetown, and it's just demeaning, and it's disrespectful, and it scares you, which is the biggest thing," Corey says. "The big thing that's upset me the most is people say, 'Oh, you're at a bar or you're out in public, you should accept the fact that that's going to happen.' And that's not OK."

The disappointing part of the interview is the reporter, who frames groping as a newly emerging and unexplainable trend. Her line of questioning: "Why do you think this is? . . . Where was this? . . . Who knew? Is this a new thing? Is this something you started seeing in college that is now accelerating?" To her credit, Corey handles the feigned disbelief well: "No. This started happening to me as soon as I started hitting puberty. As soon as I got tall enough, guys would yell things to me from the car, and now that I'm out in public more often, I get grabbed a lot."

Corey's headline-making body-slams aside ("I'm lucky because I'm almost six feet tall"), the queen presents a variety of groping response tactics in her four-minute interview: physical self-defense, verbal responses, getting quickly to safety, reporting the incident to authorities, and even hollering back.  "I want girls to know that it's okay to tell people and say something out loud," she says. "The biggest thing is that it's so underreported. . . . This has happened to me dozens of times, and I've never once reported it."

* I am in love with Kerry Howley's book review of Paco Underhill's "What Women Want"—an examination of the consumer behavior of what Underhill terms "the female of the species" of humans. Marry me, Kerry Howley's book review:

Instead of telling us what women actually buy, Underhill considers a product and deigns to divine its male or female origins. Often, the thing he doesn't like is the "male" thing. The product he does like he attributes to the growing and glorious power of the woman consumer. McMansions, which Underhill considers vulgar and atomizing, he deems male. For New Urbanist communities, we are told without benefit of explanation, you can thank women. And because women are in charge now, McMansions are going out of style. ("Good-bye, McMansions. And hello to a new species of home that accommodates the female of the species.") In a typical passage, Underhill notices that pillow quality in American hotels is improving. He attributes this, on a hunch, to pillow-demanding women travelers, which sounds plausible. But might good pillows merely be a response to the taste preferences of an increasingly wealthy society? Would a world without women necessarily be a world with a smaller proportion of soft pillows?

* Who wants to go see Love Ranch with me? Alyssa Rosenberg describes the plot: "Older couple fights for the legalization of their brothel and prostitution in general while [wife] falls for a much younger, exceedingly sexy Latin American boxer." I'm sold.

[youtube:v=cC4i83ejkbo]

* Via THE LINE, it's a headline fail!:

Hmm!

* Speaking of pillows: Are dead ladies sexy, and are they sexier having expired from a girls-only pillow fight? Sociological Images points to some recent instances of sexualized violence for fashion's sake, including "a fashion shoot in which women were depicted as having died in a pillow fight."

* Amanda Marcotte on D.C.'s "modesty police" who shame Supreme Court nominees for leaving their legs uncrossed and First Ladies for showing just a touch of cleave:

The modesty police here or in Saudi Arabia use sex as cover to shame women for having the temerity to walk around in public while possessing lady parts. Creating a situation in which everyone is staring at your crotch or boobs in hopes of finding some transgression from arbitrary modesty standards is just a way to pick on women for being women. I've often been tempted to take pictures of what I was wearing when some guy on the street harassed me, just to point out that if your harasser is determined enough, a hoodie sweatshirt and a pair of jeans can be considered hoochie-mama clothes that somehow demand harassment.

Photo via Romantic Crafts, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Photo via JenniferCorey.com

This odd ad for Arlington's "Car-Free Diet" initiative, currently appearing in D.C.-area Metro stations, encourages Metro riders to tone up—and get flirting!—on their commutes. Love-themed transportation initiatives may fly in Copenhagen, but since D.C. already has plenty of passengers looking for "love" with the closest unsuspecting target on a crowded Metro train—sometimes non-consensually—is this really a selling point of ditching the car? Say what you will about the economic and health benefits of public transportation, but at least car-drivers don't have to deal with close-proximity leering. [Photo via Nikolas Coukouma].

This week, local street harassment blog Holla Back DC recorded two incidents of street harassment by local firefighters. In the year that Holla Back has been publicizing sexual harassment in the District, the blog has aired plenty of stories of harassment originating from the District's men in uniform. In honor of this dubious occasion, I've collected the stories submitted to Holla Back about those firefighters, police officers, security guards, deliverymen, and bus drivers who are comfortable hollering at women while representing the D.C. government—or UPS.

* Harassment by firefighter:

As I was looking down the street at oncoming traffic, a fire engine drove by. It was not on its way to an emergency, as its lights and siren weren’t on and they were driving at a somewhat slow speed. However, they honked their loud siren at me and started cheering out of the window. This was of course just as my fiance was walking out of the ATM. He was offended that men in uniform would do that, and to tell you the truth, it made me feel like common street trash and that they treated me like a hooker.

—

A few weeks ago, I was walking my dog past Dunbar High School across from the fire station. It was one of the particularly beautiful days we’ve had this Spring, and a group of all male firefighters was sitting on lawn chairs outside. A couple of the firefighters hollered at me from across the busy street, but I couldn’t understand their exact words because of the traffic. When I (reluctantly) glanced over, it was clear from their leering and the lack of any other pedestrians in the vicinity that they were targeting me. I understand they wanted to enjoy the nice day out, and evidently they weren’t busy fighting any fires, but their behavior toward me was unprofessional. I wanted to enjoy my time outside, too. Instead I felt uncomfortable and the need to get away

* Harassment by U.S. Capitol police officer :

when I came upstairs, one of the capitol police guys started asking me a bunch of questions about myself. At first I thought he was just doing his job, or being friendly. But then he asked me for a number. I attempted to excuse myself, but I didn’t feel free to totally blow him off because he was a police officer. He persisted in “can I get to know you?” and “next time you’re in town, you can stay at my house,” and “you’re so beautiful,” and “you know, I could take very good care of you, and you could take care of me [implying sex].” Finally, I told him that I date women, not men… that’s not actually true, but I thought it would be a way to excuse myself without hurting his pride. His response was “really? Well, maybe I can turn you back.” That has to be the most offensive thing he could have said. He also suggested that we could take a bath together, and that he could wash me. This went on for at least 15 minutes—if he’d been some loser on the street, or a rent-a-cop, I totally would have left, but I was afraid to piss off a capitol officer, so I put up with the bullshit until finally I told him that I would think about calling him, and he put his number into my palm.I was actually a bit threatened/frightened by the incident, because he was a police officer, and very persistent, and sexually explicit right off the bat. I hate that shit!

* Harassment by uniformed officer:

The other night my roommate and I were going to a club together. We had both never been to the place before and weren’t really familiar with the area so we were looking a little ‘distraught’. As we were passing a street corner we spoted a few police officers or security guard looking men. So, being 2 girls alone we decided to cross over to their side of the street. However, as we cross over we hear an onslaught of sexual remarks. “Hey baby where are you going tonight? You sure look sexy in that skirt!” We didn’t really think much of it – beyond the fact that it was annoying- until we realized who it was who was saying these things. It was none other then those officers/ security guards we were going towards! We both walked past them as quickly as possible. It was one of the most ironic situations!

* Harassment by security guard:

Tonight I left my gym (13th and F NW) and hurried down the street to catch my bus home. I was walking and texting, and I noticed a uniformed guard standing outside a building up ahead. As I passed, he said loudly, “Hey yo, can I get a text too?” I kept my head down and ignored him; I had a long day at work and I was tired. I always feel somewhat defeated when someone in uniform (guard, police officer) says something or leers at me. I suppose it’s because they’re supposed to protect us and make us feel safe.

—

Then there’s the evening security guard at my office building who, if nobody else happens to be in the lobby, will carry on with the, “Hey sexy, how are you? I like that dress, you look fine. Give me a smile, girl. I watched you walk all the way down the street the other day,” until I’m out of the building. This happens several times a week.

* Harassment by UPS employee:

After getting my free ice cream from Ben & Jerry’s, at M & 31st I had to crouch down to pull my umbrella out of my bag since it started raining. A UPS driver was waiting at the light, and he had to say something to me:

“Ooh, girl! You don’t need to finish that all by yourself!”

Ugh! This man did not give a damn about his job.

When I told him that it was tacky and classless for him to hit on me in uniform, he started cracking up. Oh yes, sexual harassment is funny! (obvious sarcasm).

I am never one who takes harassment lightly, be it from a citizen or someone in uniform representing a company . . . I did get the UPS driver’s license plate number: Maryland plates 21S 925. As soon as I got home I called UPS to report him, and the woman who took the info down was so sympathetic and apologetic and said she’d have someone get in touch with me in the morning.

Ladies, don’t let these men get away with harassment, and never feel bad about these men getting in trouble at work if you report them. If they cared about having jobs they wouldn’t feel the need to do this in the first place.

* Harassment by bus driver:

This may sound silly to people, but this makes me uncomfortable. There’s this driver of the 38B that goes through Georgetown around 5:40 in the evenings, and when we board the bus, he completely ignores everyone else but says “Hi, howya doin’?” to me. Then he stares at me a little too long for my taste. I have no problem saying “hi” to a bus driver if s/he says “hi” first—I do it frequently and thank them when I get off the bus. . . . One time I didn’t respond to his “hi,” and he gives a huge sigh and mumbles something under his breath. I don’t know why this driver is so desperate to get my attention. If it’s for what I think it is, then sorry man, I’m not interested in you like that. My only interest in you is for you to get me to my destination safely.

—

i never bothered to complain when this one bus driver would harrass me. if they cant even get their shit together to get my bus on schedule, how much faith do i have in them following up on dirty and corrupt employees? BUT it’s time to take a stand and hold them accountable!

* Harassment by parking attendant:

I was not being harassed, but I saw a young woman approaching me walking toward the garage in a professional dress. There were two men standing at the entrance to the garage, one wearing a PMI hat and appeared to be the attendant. The other man was wearing a light green button up shirt. The men cat-called and said things loudly in a language I could not understand (but the intent was clear) while pointing and turning their bodies to follow the path of the young woman, who ignored them.

Even in uniform, no respect.

File your experiences with uniformed street harassment in the comments. Here's mine.

Photo via NCinDC, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

* The Abortioneers ask: Why can't anti-abortion activists get along?

A grumpy anti and a soft-spoken priest [were] protesting at the same clinic.

Priest was youngish, bright-eyed and eager to start doing God's work. Grumpy was a veteran with a gruff voice and quivering jowls. Priest was not amused by his hollering; he only wanted to pray for the women and their dying babies. He inched away slowly at first, then took giant steps towards the other end of the sidewalk, leering at Grumpy all the time. By noon, as Priest prepared to depart, he put his hand on Grumpy's shoulder, made sure he looked him in the eye, and asked, "Do you really think you can help these women by screaming at them?" It was a genuine, reasonable question.

Priest never came back.

* Via Nerve: A Swiss prophylactic manufacturer has begun producing extra-small condoms for sexually active preteens. From the New York Daily News:

Dubbed the Hotshot, the prophylactic was developed in response to a study that indicated young teens were regularly engaging in unprotected sex.

"The result that shocked us concerned young boys who display apparently risky behaviour," said Nancy Bodmer, who oversaw the research for the study at the Center for Development and Personality Psychology at Basel University in Switzerland.

"They have more of a tendency not to protect themselves," she said, adding that because of their young age, they also do not know much about sexuality.

A friend's take: "I like the concern about unwise sexual activity shown by the manufacturers, who named it . . . 'The Hotshot.'"

* Bitch takes on the "innovative" new marketing campaign used to promote popular videogame Bayonetta. Bayonetta, for the uninitiated, stars a sexy heroine who kills bad guys via stripping, rolls on the ground in porny poses while killing said bad guys, and restores her power by sucking on a lollipop. How could this videogame ever spawn a misogynistic marketing campaign, you ask? Bitch answers:

[youtube:v=hcaKvZLNVek]

* On another note, try Meat Cards: the "one-and-only laser etched beef jerky business cards."

Photo via Darrow Montgomery

* Irish academic Dylan Evans has been accused of sexual harassment after discussing a paper on bat fellatio with a female colleague. Seems like a perfectly acceptable topic of conversation to me; at the same time, I'm not entirely convinced that this guy wasn't discussing bat fellatio in the creepiest way possible. The New Scientist report is vague:

It seems there was more to the grievance between Evans and the complainant than the fellatio paper incident, but an independent investigation found that Evans was not guilty of sexual harassment. The investigation stated that it was reasonable for the colleague to have been offended and that showing the paper was a joke with a sexual innuendo, but that it was not Evans' intention to cause offence.

Evans was censured by the University, which he says "may" prevent him from securing tenure. So what sort of behavior was Evans involved in beyond the bat fellatio incident? Here's an excerpt from his colleague's complaint:

Since he arrived at the school last year, Dr Evans has often come to my office, generally early in the morning and always uninvited, to talk mainly about himself.

On many occasions he used unwelcome patting, hugging, kissing on the cheeks and touching behaviour with me; he also used to make compliments on my beauty or the way I was dressed.

I told him that I do not appreciate compliments as they do not mean anything to me.

Some high-profile academics—like Tufts' Daniel Dennett and Harvard's Steven Pinker—have come to Evans' defense:

Dennett calls the punishment "an outrageous violation of academic freedom" and Pinker says the "absurd and shameful" judgment "runs contrary to the principle of intellectual freedom and freedom of speech, to say nothing of common sense."

Ah, the freedom to unwelcome-pat. Look: There are hundreds of contexts in which one can discuss a bat fellatio paper with a colleague. We should probably consider that before concluding that sexual harassment policies are killing our freedoms.

* The newly-crowned Miss USA, Rima Fakih, is "the first Arab-American and Muslim to win the title." Is this a sign of the widening of traditional American beauty standards, or an Islamofascist conspiracy?

* Meanwhile, some guy at the Huffington Post has called her a whore.

* Glenn Beck and the performance of femininity through fake tears.

Photo via Wikipedia Commons

Yesterday, the c-word—chivalry—arose in the comments section of this blog, in the context of the outdated gender code's unfairness to men. Ah, chivalry: That old code of behavior that men must follow in order to protect the "honor" of women they know. Through chivalry, a woman's honor becomes a man's responsibility; her honor brings honor to him, and her shame brings him shame. Chivalry isn't just offensive because it forces men to protect women, but also because traditional ideas of what brings  "honor" and "shame" to women are often highly sexist. And so, chivalry also works to encourage women to internalize misogyny in order to preempt shame from befalling men.

Three recent events that provide an insight into chivalry, and how it functions:

1. In a recent post on Holla Back DC, a woman describes being harassed by a group of firemen while out celebrating her fiance's birthday. As her fiance stepped away to retrieve cash from an ATM, she stepped to the curb to look for a cab. She was "dressed up," but "did not look slutty," she says; the firemen disagreed:

As I was looking down the street at oncoming traffic, a fire engine drove by. It was not on its way to an emergency, as its lights and siren weren’t on and they were driving at a somewhat slow speed. However, they honked their loud siren at me and started cheering out of the window. This was of course just as my fiance was walking out of the ATM. He was offended that men in uniform would do that, and to tell you the truth, it made me feel like common street trash and that they treated me like a hooker. Even if my fiance was outside with me and it happened, nothing could really have been done. He may have yelled after the fire engine, but that wouldn’t have accomplished anything.

I was really embarrassed and am still embarrassed when I think about it. I even felt embarrassed on behalf of my fiance, as I thought others may have thought he was with a hooker. I don’t know if that’s rational or not. It makes me want to cover up more when I go out, but I shouldn’t have to. I was dressed quite nicely, yet I still was treated in this manner. It was disgusting.

For this anonymous Holla Back DC poster, being treated "like a hooker" was a stunning insult of her value as a woman, and therefore a great source of shame. (As far as traditional expectations of women go, being confused with a sex worker is, unfortunately, pretty low on the "honor" list). This woman's reaction may help to explain why some victims feel shame after being sexually harassed or assaulted. When women are treated as less-than-human, there are often two conflicting internal reactions: (a) anger at the harassers who devalued her based on her gender, and (b) being forced to consider the idea, however briefly, that she has no value.

Our writer presents a third reaction: A secondary source of shame, derived from the possibility that someone "may have thought [her fiance] was with a hooker." Since the woman's fiance is responsible for her shame as well, he may have a similarly conflicted reaction: (a) anger at the harassers who devalued her based on her gender, and (b) shame that he is associated with a woman who is considered by other men to be valueless. Chivalry encourages him to take personal offense to this, inciting one of two reactions: (a) engaging in a verbal or physical altercation with the harassers in order to compensate for the woman's shame with a display of manhood; and/or (b) chastising the woman for bringing shame upon him, i.e. "Don't embarrass me in front of other men"; "Don't go out looking like that"; "See what you made me do."

In this case, there's no indication that the fiance openly chastised this woman for dressing inappropriately (though he may have gone after the firemen had he had the opportunity). The actual display of chivalry isn't necessary to instill in this woman a sense of responsibility for her fiance's honor. The realization that a man may be shamed when she is harassed for being a woman makes her want to dress more conservatively in order to preempt any further shame on him in the future.

2. This weekend, I had a conversation with a guy visiting the District from Turkey. We got to talking about the evolving tradition of women wearing headscarves in his country. About half the women he knows wear headscarves, and half don't; his mom wears one, but his wife doesn't. In Turkey, he said, a woman who doesn't cover her head brings society's shaming not only upon herself, but also upon her husband. Insisting that a woman wear a headscarf is considered a man's responsibility, and a woman with her head uncovered can reflect a personal failure on the man assigned to enforce the rule. "If you follow all the rules of the religion, you get an A+ in being a Muslim," he explained. If your wife doesn't cover your head, you can still be a good Muslim, but your grade gets knocked down a few points.

Not all women wear the headscarf because their husbands or fathers or brothers tell them (or force them) to. Some choose to wear it for personal, cultural, and religious reasons. And some choose to wear it in order to preempt any possibility of shame being brought upon the men in their lives. They want their husbands to get an A+.

3. Today, WTOP reported that Vladimir Djordjevic has died after spending three years in the hospital attempting to recover from the extreme burns covering his body. Djordjevic, a manager at District strip club Good Guys, was "doused with gasoline and set on fire" on Nov. 4, 2007, after he ejected a patron for breaking a house rule—he took a cell-phone photo of a dancer's butt. The patron, trucker Vasile Graure, returned to the club with a gallon of gasoline and proceeded to light Djordjevic—and then the club—on fire. (You can read a complete account of the trial here; Graure was sentenced to 30 years in prison, which may be increased in light of Djordjevic's death).

So: Graure thought he had complete authority over the naked woman in front of him; Djordjevic informed him that he did not; Graure set Djordjevic on fire.

Djordjevic's death is an extreme example of how chivalry facilitates the transfer of misogyny from women to men. As Amanda Marcotte noted earlier this year,  "when it comes to the patriarchy, sexist men will enforce the rules not just on women, but on other men who seem insufficiently committed to the art of oppressing women," she writes. When Graure set Djordjevic on fire, he applied his misogynistic rage to the man who would not sit back and allow him to control women. You see the same kind of transfer of misogyny with guys who, thanks to chivalry, will "Never Hit A Woman"; instead, they'll hit the closest guy.

This kind of misogyny transfer doesn't just result in the tragic deaths of guys like Djordjevic (who, as club security, had the unnerving professional task of protecting dancers from misogynistic patrons). It also helps to obscure the root of the violence, which is an extreme hatred of women. By placing a male intermediary between a misogynist and the intended recipient of his misogyny (a woman), the misogynist can walk away from a chivalry-induced fist-fight patting himself on the back for how much he "respects women." Meanwhile, some blame for said fist-fight can be conveniently transferred onto the woman for failing to take the punch herself. In order to avoid both the fist-fight and the self-blame, the woman has one line of defense—don't do whatever you think caused the misogynist to get so angry. Don't wear a short skirt. Don't protest when he takes your photo in a strip club. Don't get angry when he sexually harasses you.

"The lesson here is not that women should be more eager to be treated like subhumans," Marcotte writes. "The lesson is that sexual harassment is a dominance display, and the harassers will often resort to violence to maintain the dominance they desire. 'Never hit a woman' doesn’t really do much to address the underlying cause of violence against women, which is male dominance and misogyny."

Chivalry encourages a form of preemptive internalized misogyny that results in the policing of women, how they dress, where they go, how much hair they show, and whether they stand up for themselves when harassed or assaulted. In the future, the woman harassed by the firemen may dress more conservatively, or avoid standing on the street corner alone, in order to prevent her husband from ever being associated with someone who is confused for "a hooker". A woman may choose to wear a headscarf in order to preempt any shame being brought to her husband. And a woman who is victimized by a man may not speak out, in order to avoid the chivalrous man-next-door from starting a fist-fight—or criticizing her for somehow encouraging the harassment.

Chivalry works to unfairly displace misogyny onto men. But focusing solely on that particular failure of chivalry ignores the obvious truth—that misogyny is unfair for everyone. Women, too!

Photo via David Spender, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Last week, we discussed a public masturbator operating on Metro's Orange Line. Commenters disagreed on how victims ought to react to a public sexual assault—and why they sometimes feel ashamed.

kza writes:

It’s important to report this to the police. A cop can actually do something unlike a regular citizen. I’m not quite sure how you could blame yourself or feel shame …

Emily WK writes:

kza, telling a victim of sexual assault what they should do afterward is in a general sense not very helpful at all. Neither is dismissing their very real and valid feelings of helplessness or shame. You might want to learn a little more about sexual assault and why people who have been victimized feel the way that they do before you start proclaiming what’s best and what each person should do in a particular instance.

Until then, you don’t really know what you’re talking about.

kza writes:

I think shame comes about after doing something shamefull. I don’t believe being a victim is a shamefull act. And I know I don’t know what I’m talking about here but I’m going to go out on a limb and say the women in these stories weren’t soliciting the guy so it’s not as if they are to blame…

Emily WK writes:

kza, try this.

That’s a start for what you might be able to find out about shame and why it isn’t always what you expect it to be. Human emotion, particularly when it relates to something like sexual assault, is a lot more complicated than “You have to do something shameful to feel shame.” You’re way over simplifying it.

Nobody here posting thinks these women should feel shame. But when we live in a world where women are routinely blamed for being raped, what on earth reason do you think these women would have NOT to feel shame? Jeez, dude. Like, think for a few seconds.

kza writes:

Rape is different. People blame victims of rape so I can understand that of course. Anyone who blames the girls that had to forcibly watch some jerk off jackin off is a lunatic who should not be listened to. No person can blame them.

Emily WK writes:

You are willfully not trying to understand. Have a great day, kza, and enjoy your little bubble of ignorance. Hope it serves you well.

kza writes:

You know what Emily? I probably am wrong. I think that victims should not feel blame but in the society we live in it’s understandable that they feel that shame. I would love to live in a world where victims didn’t have to feel that way. Maybe figuring out a way to stop making victims feel blame could lead to more of them being able to take a stand and force police into actually stopping this shit. I just feel like the best way to combat sexual assualt is with 1st hand accounts. They have 0 responsibility to stop future assaults but I think they can do more to change people’s minds then people like me, a random male who gets outraged by assualts I read about online.

groggette writes:

kza, I think you’re wrong about that last part:

"I think they can do more to change people’s minds then people like me, a random male."

Whether we like it or not, men’s (or white people’s, straight people’s, able bodied, etc.) voices are heard more often then women. In general, people are more likely to listen to what you have to say on this, just because you are male. And I want to make it clear that I would never ask someone to do anything they perceive would put them in harms way, but if you see something like this going down and feel safe, you telling the creeper to stop is almost always going to be a hell of a lot more effective than the woman (who should have been paying more attention, shouldn’t have been wearing those shoes/that shirt/those earrings, is just looking to be offended, etc.) saying or doing anything.

And it’s not just with the assholes doing what the guy in the OP does. If your friends are always talking about how this or that woman (that they probably don’t even know) is a slut for whatever reason, call them out on it. Your words will carry more weight than the women they are talking about.

I agree with you that these women shouldn’t feel shame. But that doesn’t change the reality. Men calling out other men is just as effective (if not more than, at least for now) as women trying to call them out and sharing their stories.

Saurs writes:

kza and others like him are merely parroting the party line. Only in a misogynist culture can the majority of people (women) have to fight to get a powerful, vocal, furiously self-centered minority (men) to recognize that their experiences are valid and true. “Changing people’s minds” is a neat little code phrase for “getting men to appreciate that women know what they’re talking about when they talk about themselves and their lives.” It’s a nearly impossible task to actually pull off. Privileged dudes don’t recognize how fucking privileged they sound when they talk about the necessity of “changing people’s minds” or “educating people” – “people” not actually signifying people in this instance, but ignorant men who want desperately to stay ignorant.

Man becomes the default person, his point-of-view the default point of view. Women, who actually outnumber men, become a fringe group that out of necessity must work in a unified fashion to mold their opinions into something palatable for men, to work hard not to worry male insecurity, and placate their delicate, fragile world-views in order to be “believed.” Sometimes this requires that every woman a man has ever known profess the truth of some perspective; otherwise a complaint is not universal, and therefore not worthy of interest. Other times, like all paternalists, anti-feminist men need other men to explain to them why misogyny is awful; otherwise, it’s just a bunch of bitches crowing and clucking, and who the fuck cares what dumb whores think, anyway? The person of the messenger and the appearance of the packaging really become irrelevant, because they’re always lacking; women are always fucking up and making men ignore them and discount them.

Why men are the arbiter of truth and reality – those who constitute a group that must “be convinced” of something in order for it to be true – remains to be seen, as most have a vested and entirely selfish interest in disproving or ignoring sexual inequality. It’s frankly laughable why anyone should take anything a man says about sex and gender seriously. When anti-feminists feign dispassionate, would-be scientific skepticism about feminism, they’re being disingenuous; like all conservative counter-reactionaries, anti-feminist men are threatened by feminism and have every reason to be frightened of it. Women, meanwhile, have nothing left to lose. The opposite of a feminist world is the here and the now; things can’t get very much worse, comparatively speaking. The dominant culture in the United States is violent, woman-hating, racist, capitalistic, greedy, and very, very dumb. If we don’t succeed, we know what to expect because we’re living it, and each day we become more backwards and more subject to repressed, oppressive ways of thinking. Men, on the other hand, would very much like things to stay the same – barring bigger tits, more housewives, more houseboys, more male privilege. Most can probably barely fathom a world and a culture in which men do not have the final say, in which what constitutes progress is not decided and fashioned solely by men, in which the minor inconveniences they mistake for grievous injuries against themselves and all men are put into their proper proportion, in which they can actually muster up empathy.

It’s little wonder why a lot of men need “convincing,” but convincing men is probably not actually a worthwhile cause.

Photo via stevebott, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Over the past week, Holla Back DC has received two very similar reports of a man masturbating on Metro's Orange Line. The first incident occurred near the Metro Center stop on a train heading toward Vienna; the second occurred near the L’Enfant Plaza stop in the same direction. In both, a man targeted a female passenger and proceeded to masturbate at her.

From the first incident:

I was playing solitaire on my phone, not really paying attention to what was going on around me. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a man, about 5’10″ wearing a white t-shirt tucked into black gym shorts wearing a backpack. I noticed him because he was standing closer than most people do. I saw a jacking off type motion out of the corner of my eye, but wasn’t sure that is what I was seeing so didn’t look over.

When the train arrived I hurried toward the front of the car to sit down. A man came and sat down beside me. I thought it might have been the same man but I wasn’t sure. When a similar motion caught my eye again I looked down and realized his penis was outside of his shorts and he was using a grey sweatshirt to prevent other passengers (other than me) to see what he was doing.

From the second:

I was engrossed in a book and on “auto-pilot” on the way to work. When I got on the train, a man sat down next to me, in the seat closest to the aisle. I sat next to him for about 10 minutes before I realized he was masturbating right next to me. I was shocked! When he realized that I had noticed he started talking to me, and making comments about oral sex. The train car wasn’t full, but there were many people in my near vicinity including families with small children. I had to ask him to get up and let me out, which thankfully he did, and moved to another car.

The first victim reacted in the way that many victims of public sexual harassment and assault do—she froze. Later, she reported the experience to Holla Back:

I took a minute to think of what to do—snap a picture, no because I don’t know how to turn off the picture taking sound on my phone—say something? no, what if he is a psyco, plus bad shit happens to people all the time when they say the wrong thing to the wrong person—even if there are many others around. I picked a third option—I got up, walked around him (luckily I was in the seat with no seats in front of it) and took a seat next to a woman.I feel bad because by not saying anything I may have made him more likely to do this to another woman, but at the same time someone who would do this clearly has limited sense of propriety. I wanted to post to Holla Back DC! to at least have my experience documented or recognized in some way. Unfortunately this is the second time I have had to post.

The second victim had a less common reaction—she reported the incident to Metro Police:

I was so nauseous and disgusted after this whole incident. Its especially shocking considering the time of day and the amount of people on the train. I reported the incident to Metro Police. The man was African American, about 40 years old, wearing jeans and a baseball cap. We were in the last car of the orange line train departing from L’Enfant Plaza in the direction of Vienna at about 10:30 AM this morning.

I don’t know what good it does to tell you this story, but I know there is little that the Metro Police can do.

There are a variety of reasons why victims might be uncomfortable immediately reporting an incident like this to the police—fear, shame, self-blame, the possibility that they won't be taken seriously, the idea that incidents like this don't constitute "real" threats, and the suspicion that the cops wouldn't be able to do anything about it. Thanks to Holla Back, public records of this pattern of behavior that can help to empower future passengers who sit down next to a guy like this. Writes Holla Back: "If you feel comfortable reporting this perpetrator, contact Metro Transit Police at  202-962-2121. And/or, take a picture of the perpetrator on your cell phone and send it to us. HOLLA BACK DC!"

Photo via stevebott, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Chloe Angyal has been cat-called all over the world. She's been harassed on the streets of Sydney, Paris, Bali, and New York, in the suburbs and on her stoop, near taco trucks and on college campuses. In this edition of Reader Beatdown, Sexist reader and feminist writer Angyal writes that street harassment happens everywhere—and that claiming catcalls only occur in "bad neighborhoods" only helps to excuse the real causes of gender-based harassment.

—

"I guess it’s just the neighborhood, right?" said a fellow yogi as we left the studio one night last week. I had been walking toward the glass exit door of the building after yoga class, my hoodie unzipped to reveal a sports bra and bare midriff, when I saw a gaggle of men standing just on the other side of the door. A taco truck parks outside the studio every night—the scent regularly wafts through the windows as we strain to hold warrior pose—and the men had been partaking of the cheesy, meaty goodness.

Not wanting to invite their attention, I turned around and quickly zipped up my hoodie. "Whoops, I should probably do this up," I said to the girl behind me. "I’ve been cat-called enough already today." It was then that she offered the suggestion that the odds of experiencing cat-calling and other forms of street harassment were worse in this neighborhood than in others.

My neighborhood, Sugar Hill, is in north-west Harlem; it stretches from 145th Street to 155th street, between Amsterdam and Edgecombe Avenues. Most of its residents are Black or Hispanic, many of them recent immigrants from the Dominican Republic or West Africa, and despite slow gentrification, for the most part the area remains economically disadvantaged. Across the street from the yoga studio, a beautiful old public school with a carved bust of Minerva over the entrance stands abandoned, its windows boarded up or broken, plywood construction scaffolding wrapped around it to keep squatters out. There are homeless people on the streets, and on windy days, St. Nicholas Avenue, one of the neighborhood's main arteries, is strewn with trash. In other words, this is a “bad” neighborhood, the kind of place you’d expect to be catcalled if you’re a pretty, young white girl. That’s just the way things are, my fellow yogi seemed to suggest, in this poor, largely non-white neighborhood.

I have been cat-called and harassed on these streets almost every day since I moved here last July. It happens as I walk to the subway and in the grocery store as I buy beer and one day a few weeks ago, on my own stoop the moment I walked out of the house to go to work. But I have also been cat-called and harassed all over this city and all over the world. In Sydney, in Paris, in Bali, in “bad” neighborhoods and in “good” ones. So when my yoga classmate sighed in a “what do you expect from these people” sort of way, I knew that she was wrong.

The misconception that street harassment only happens in “bad” areas is a common one. People of both sexes tend to brace themselves, to keep their wits about them more than usual, when they’re in “rough” neighborhoods. But as Sexist readers noted last week, street harassment happens in almost every city in America, and not only in areas with higher poverty or crime rates. A person’s chances of being mugged are higher late at night are probably higher on St. Nicholas Avenue than they are on Madison Avenue. But a woman’s chances of being catcalled or harassed are probably much the same everywhere in this city.

At Duke University, reports sociologist and gender studies scholar Michael Kimmel, “the frats have these big benches (as in gigantic and oversized), and they face the major walkways on campus, and so the guys gather and hold up numbers rating the women walking by, or loudly evaluate them.” My mother remembers experiencing something similar when she and a few hundred other women became the first women to attend Yale as undergraduates in 1970: As the women walked through the dining hall with their trays, the male students would hold up score cards to indicate how attractive they found them. Clearly, the harassment that I endure on the streets New York doesn't just happen in rough neighborhoods or in foreign countries; it happens on the manicured green lawns and crisscrossing walkways of some of the nation’s most exclusive universities, too.

Growing up in Sydney, Australia, my first experience of street harassment was in Chinatown, as I walked to dim sum with my family. A few weeks later, it happened again, this time in the wealthy suburb where I was raised. That was my first lesson in the unpleasant reality of street harassment—like domestic violence, or alcoholism, it knows no socioeconomic bounds. And our willingness to believe that it does, our persistent cultural myth that it only happens in rough neighborhoods, makes it harder to eradicate than it already is.

The week that I spent in Bali, Indonesia, was my first exposure to a near-constant stream of cat-calling, street harassment and leering, usually from men twice my age. I was thirteen, and by the end of the week, I was too miserable to leave my hotel room. My mother, who has worked all over the world and knows a thing or two about dealing with street harassment, did her best to cushion the blow. When men would yell obscenities at me from across the street, she would pretend to misunderstand who their target was, giggling like a woman half her age and saying, “Oh, I’m so flattered!” During the summer I spent living in Paris, the  cat-calling wasn't quite as bad, but I, along with several of my female friends, were groped on the Metro.

Jazmine, a classmate of mine who grew up in Queens, experienced the worse street harassment of her life when she visited Cairo last year. “Though I tried hard to be respectful, I found that every move I made on the Cairo streets was followed intently by devouring eyes . . . At first I was flattered by the longing gazes, but I soon became extremely self-conscious," she writes. Soon, though, “self-consciousness led to intimidation and I tried to hide from the stares and frequent marriage proposals that followed them." But it didn’t stop at leering and declarations of love, Jazmine says: The friend she was staying with had stones thrown at her by a gang of little boys because she dared to wear a t-shirt on the street. The staring, the jeering and the violence took their toll: When Jazmine came back to the US, she felt emotionally exhausted, worn down by the feeling of having been stripped of the ability to move freely and express herself in public. "I returned home a slightly broken version of the Jazmine I once was."

We are not unique, Jazmine and me. We are not alone. A look at Stop Street Harassment’s map—and a survey of their street harassment stories from around the country and around the world—suggest that Sexist readers were correct in their assertions that there are few places on earth where women can escape the stares, the comments and the obscenities screamed from speeding cars.

Street harassment happens everywhere, every day, and the myth that it can be avoided by staying in "nice" neighborhoods or developed countries obscures that reality. The myth allows us to blame women for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It allows us to tell ourselves that "it doesn’t happen here." And it allows us to dismiss anything event that contradicts that belief as a one-off, an aberration, rather than a reflection of the way our culture treats women in public spaces.

Street harassment is isn’t about where you are, but who you are. The overwhelming majority of targets of street harassment are women. We are women no matter where we go. So no matter where we go, we are harassed. For women, there are no "nice" neighborhoods: In Sugar Hill and on Park Avenue, in Sydney and in Paris, in Bali and in Cairo, we are always women. And until the world recognizes our right to move freely and without danger through the streets, we will always be harassed.

—

Chloe Angyal is a contributor at Feministing. Want to contribute to Reader Beatdown? Send your thoughtful essays and scathing criticisms to ahess@washingtoncitypaper.com.

Brooklyn Museum

In Christopher Hitchens' impassioned defense of the French veil ban, he claims that veils are, in practice, "a ban on the right of all citizens to look one another in the face." Where, oh where, have I heard this dubious "right" to the faces of others claimed before? Oh! Hitchens is channeling the Smile, Baby Guy!

Hitchens' essay posits some feminist arguments against the veil: In short, it's a cultural expectation made only of women, and it's not always worn freely, as some "mothers, wives, and daughters have been threatened with acid in the face, or honor-killing, or vicious beating, if they do not adopt the humiliating outer clothing." But Hitchens' central argument isn't that veils deny women equal rights. It's that the veil denies Hitchens his right—the "right to see your face":

So it's really quite simple. My right to see your face is the beginning of it, as is your right to see mine. Next but not least comes the right of women to show their faces, which easily trumps the right of their male relatives or their male imams to decide otherwise. The law must be decisively on the side of transparency. The French are striking a blow not just for liberty and equality and fraternity, but for sorority too.

In an essay condemning a cultural institution that prevents men from looking at the faces of women, Hitchens instead argues that men have an inalienable right to stare. Of course, Hitchens phrases this in gender-neutral terms—"My right to see your face is the beginning of it, as is your right to see mine"—that assumes social equivalence between the gazes of women and men. In fact, the gender-neutral approach fails to acknowledge the sexist cultural institutions that allow men to exert ownership over women's bodies through their gaze—like street harassment and sexual objectification. When a guy passes a woman on the street and tells her to "smile, baby," he's asserting authority over her face, her feelings, and how she chooses to express them—or not. Those who would declare their "right" to look at women should first note the social context in which women's faces are often examined.

Forcing a woman to wear the veil is one way to own women's bodies; declaring that it is your "right" to force her to take it off is just another tactic in the same vein.

Photo by fabbio, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

In Washington D.C., a great deal of sexual harassment is reported within the city's public transit system. But over in Copenhagen, one Danish bus company is concerned that there may be too few bus-based sexual advances in the city. So, in order to "encourage flirtation, smiles, romance and happiness among the city’s passengers," bus company Arriva has introduced a "Love Seat" program on its Copenhagen buses [Thanks to Ben for the tip!]. From The City Fix:

Starting on May 3, Danish transport company Arriva introduced red-upholstered designated “love seats” on more than 100 buses in Copenhagen to encourage flirtation, smiles, romance and happiness among the city’s passengers, whether they’re happily single, married or still looking for love. The bigger idea—besides being cute—is to get people to leave their cars parked at home and enjoy riding public transportation, as more of a social endeavor.

The buses are outfitted with pairs of red upholstered seats with a sign designating them a "love seat." According to an Arriva spokesperson, the Arriva social experiment is going just swimmingly!:

"You never know what will happen," spokesman Martin Wex told AFP. "We cannot guarantee that you will find the person of your dreams. We are just offering the possibility for people to communicate, to smile a bit more and possibly, to win someone's heart."

The experiment, which according to driver testimony has lightened the mood on buses, is to last two weeks, Wex said. "Some drivers have noticed smiling girls sitting in these seats," hoping for interesting company, he said.

Ah, Europe. Wouldn't it be nice if the biggest cultural problem for your city's public transit system was that too few people succeed in finding unexpected love there? I don't know much about bus culture in Copenhagen, but I imagine that red "Love Seats" would serve an entirely different function in a place like D.C.—they'd inform passengers where not to sit in order to avoid the worst of the harassment. D.C. isn't exactly known for spontaneous smiles, romance and happiness breaking out on our public transportation—but perhaps that guardedness is a product of the prevalence of gender-based harassment here, not a sign that we need to encourage more flirting.

Possible cultural differences aside, I'm not sure that anonymous "driver testimony" filtered through an Arriva spokesperson gives us the best idea of how this program is actually working out abroad. Wex is right that "you never know what will happen" on a Love Seat. What if one person with an interest in "smiles" and "happiness" sits next to someone more inclined to "flirtation" and "romance"? Are passengers who sit in Love Seats considered "asking" for whatever advances come their way? When buses are crowded, will passengers be forced to open themselves to "flirtation"?

So far, the only photographic evidence I've found of the Love Seat in action shows one scowling older gentleman sitting alone—in an aisle seat. Perhaps the most dangerous threat posed by Arriva's initiative is the possibility that it will simply be ignored.

Photo via genelin1221, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

* Older, but good: Sex blogger Hey Epiphora on why writing about sex is not an invitation for harassment. Of interest to any reader who has ever, ever considered sending a message like this one to his favorite writer:

Dude: horny?

* Holly Kearl of Stop Street Harassment writes an op-ed on harassment of women runners, and offers some thoughts for positive action:

– Men, don't harass women—including whistling and honking.

– Everyone should take women's harassment complaints seriously.

– Everyone should help women they see being harassed.

– Women should report harassers.

– We can brainstorm creative ways to deal with harassers, such as issuing fake citations (until real laws are passed).

* Via Jen at Gold Sound, a quick hit on rape advice by Katie Arb:

* Via Salon, it's the action-figure Brontë sisters. When their powers combine, they become a Brontësaurus:

[youtube:v=-NKXNThJ61]

* Barney Frank says he supports transgender protections in ENDA, so why the fuck is he talking like this?:

“There’s no chance of doing it without it,” he said of the transgender protections.

Frank said he’s told wavering Democrats that “the principle is the same. It’s discrimination.”

He said concessions were made in the drafting of the language to address moderates’ concerns. For instance, Frank said, transgender people with “one set of genitals” would not be able to go to a bathroom for people with another set of genitals.

And, Frank said, they also would have to have a “consistent gender presentation” in order to be able to sue for discrimination.

“They can’t sit there with a full beard and a dress,” Frank said.

Photo via The National Archives UK

Last week, I asked you whether there are any cities where street harassment dare not rear its ugly head. As many commenters made clear, street harassment isn't about where you are—it's about who you are:

A woman:

Honks, shouts, barks, cat calls, offers for a ride, “smile baby”—in a nice, progressive town in Arkansas. This isn’t regional. If there’s a place on Earth where grody dudes leave women alone, I’ve never heard of it. —a. brown

A lesbian:

Having lived in Philly (center city and south Philly) for the previous six years, I can say that street harassment does happen there– but in my case, it was generally from crazy/homeless people. I got a lot of guys yelling at me to ask if I had a boyfriend/was looking for a date or some “company”– one man, when I told him no, I was not looking for a boyfriend, offered to “bite that angry p*ssy all night long.”

I now live in Savannah, GA, and while people are a bit more…pleasant in the terms they use, I have gotten a lot of attention (I don’t wear short skirts/revealing clothing at all…if anything I’m pretty dykey). In a particularly unpleasant incident earlier this week, I was sitting in my window having a cigarette and a middle aged black man shouted up to me that he loved me and had something to tell me, and when would I next be down on the porch so he could talk to me?

I haven’t had anyone try to touch me in either city, but I’ve been trailed by cars, shouted at, catcalled, and had all manners of “love” professed to me everywhere I’ve been. I used to say that sure, I was flattered, but honestly I’m not. I’d like to be left alone. My girlfriend would appreciate it too.

A curvy WOC:

I think it also depends on WHO is not experiencing the harassment. I know that being a curvy woman of colour has made the likelihood of being street harassed WAY higher than my skinnier, whiter friends. For some reason because I have body fat, any clothing I put on can be over-sexualized. I’ve been harassed when a girl wearing MUCH less clothing walked right before me.

Also, I’m not sure how I feel about implying that being in a “safe, middle class” neighborhood makes one less likely to be subjected to street harassment. In New York I live in Harlem and I have only been catcalled *once* by a construction worker. The others didn’t even glance twice. However, when I’m around my work in Midtown…oh the street harassment is BAD.

So in short, I think it is about who you are and where you are in combination. I definitely did get touched a LOT when I lived in DC, however. New York is a welcome change. —Wagatwe

Young:

I’ve lived in suburban and rural towns. Like some of the others here, I saw more street harassment when I was 11-12 years old (and more conservatively dressed) than now. No one would argue I was “more attractive” in braces and a bob. I suppose that various 20-40-something creeps think pre-teens are more receptive and clueless i.e. vulnerable. Moving hasn’t changed anything; looking like a legal adult has. —h

Alone:

In my research on street harassment, I’ve found it happens pretty much everywhere, though I personally think it’s lower in places w/higher rates of gender equity. But my research shows that if you drive or are often accompanied by others in public you’re not going to experience it as much as someone who walks or takes public transportation and often is alone in public. Young women, women of color, and members of the LGBQT community tend to experience it more. So if someone feels there isn’t much harassment in their area compared to another, it may be that you’re not in public as often or in the same way that you used to be. —hollykearl

Near a harasser:

8 years ago, i moved from Philly (south of South) to DC.

Harassment there? Yes. In DC, i’ve perceived far more and what harassment I’ve observed often takes to the more severe–same floor, higher ceiling.

Harassments don’t all have the same motive. Some people are just being assholes. Some people are actually trying to be pickup artists (of a low class variety). Some think they are supposed to boisterously express sudden extreme attractions. Maybe there are other kinds.

To be harassed, one must be near persons willing to harass. —DB

Photo via The U.S. National Archives

In regards to yesterday's conversation about where street harassment doesn't happen, Stop Street Harassment offered up its map of reported incidents from around the world. Add your stories here.

Last year, a friend of mine moved from D.C. to Philadelphia. After a year in Philly, she noticed something odd: "I don't get street harassed. At all. Ever." She writes:

So I've been in Philly close to a year now, and I've noticed something here that I wanted to talk to you about: I don't get street harassed. At all.  Ever.  I know it does happen here, I've heard stories from lady friends, from dudes with girlfriends, on the news.  However, I've walked around a lot of different neighborhoods in shorts, skirts, and tank tops here and no one has ever said anything to me.  Like, I've walked down the sidewalk towards a group of men, braced myself for a comment, and then not even gotten a "hello."  It is awesome.

I'm sure it has a lot to do with the fact that a) Philly is super affordable and I spend most of my time in relatively safe, middle-class areas and b) I drive a lot more often than I walk or take public transit.  But still, in DC you get comments in all neighborhoods, and even when driving I would get guys pulling up next to me in their cars and saying shit.  Not here.

Anyway, so I think this might be why you get so much resistance when you write about street harassment.  Outside of DC it's uncommon for men on the street to proposition you or touch you.  I can see now how someone wouldn't understand how a "compliment" can be threatening—it just doesn't happen in most other cities.  Have you heard this from anyone else outside DC?  Any idea why?

So: Has anybody else lived in an area that's seemingly devoid of street harassment? Um . . . any vacancies?

Photo via the Library of Congress

A local college student was shot in the ankle over the weekend after she refused to give her phone number to a guy on the street. The student was leaving a party with a group of friends on early Sunday morning when the man shot her for rebuffing his sexual harassment. As she told Fox 5:

He told my cousin that he was gonna shoot at us if i didn't give him my number, and then he started shooting . . . I thought somebody kicked me in my leg, like, it was a lot of us running, so I thought somebody kicked me. I didn't know it was a gunshot.

The bullet is still lodged in her ankle.

Women who are harassed on the street have two options:

1. Be nice. Do what they want. Laugh nervously at their jokes. Surrender your phone number. Endure an increasing amount of sexual harassment. Get labeled a tease when you eventually turn down a date / refuse sex / don't answer the phone call / otherwise fail to please the stranger who is harassing you.

2. Be dismissive. Ignore the stranger's advances. Refuse to surrender your phone number. Tell him you're not interested. Endure an increasing amount of vitriol for turning the guy down. Get labeled a bitch immediately.

Which path do you choose? The college student chose to be dismissive; she got shot. But remember what can happen to you when you choose to be nice: After being stalked and then cornered in an empty Metro parking garage early in the morning, Emily Ruskowski eventually agreed to give the man her phone number. Then he groped her breast and attempted to enter her car.

The bitch-or-tease decision is made necessary by the pervasiveness of casual street harassment that can quickly escalate into a serious threat. I would talk about how easily unwanted sexual advances can turn into angry, violent advances, but in reality, the two scenarios are often indistinguishable from one another. When a man demands the phone number of a woman who is obviously uninterested in him, or when he propositions a lesbian couple that is obviously uninterested in him, or when he reaches out to grope a woman who is obviously uninterested in him, he is just as threatening as the man who intimidates a person into surrendering her wallet, or screams homophobic slurs at a lesbian couple, or exerts physical violence over his victim.

The difference is that the first category of advances is explained away as innocent consequences of a runaway libido and the victims' mixed messages; the second category is recognized as unacceptable violence. Sexual harassment is harassment; sexual assault is assault. If you don't want to contribute to a culture of street harassment the moves a man to shoot a woman who won't go out with him, then don't cat-call, don't ogle, don't ask for a number, don't grab, and don't follow. Stop tasking women with the potentially dangerous decision of how to let a guy down easy.

When Lena Chen was a sophomore at Harvard, she started "Sex and the Ivy," a blog devoted to something that most college students do, but few are willing to talk about. On her sex blog, Chen unapologetically aired every taboo of a college student's sex life, from recovering from an eating disorder to recovering a condom from her vagina. And for that, several thousand people decided that Chen must be punished.

In 2007, when she was 19 years old, private sexual photos of Chen were planted in the comments section of Ivy League gossip blog IvyGate. From there, Chen's ex-boyfriend, her classmates at Harvard, and the greater Internet gossip world took delight in forwarding, downloading, and re-posting the images—a full-scale campaign waged to shame Chen for talking about sex. "I was never ashamed of my body or of people seeing it," Chen later wrote about the experience. "I felt victimized because I had been exposed without consent and doubly victimized by those who wrote salaciously about the incident."

Chen's legion of downloaders are on the cutting edge of public sexual harassment. The technology has changed, but the idea is the same: Find a woman who dares to have a sex life. Feel the need to exert sexual power over her. Police her by sexualizing against her will, and under your terms. On the Sexist, we've called out the inherent misogyny of publicizing something as seemingly innocent as an inadvertent "nipple slip"; at Pandagon, Amanda Marcotte has suggested that the dissemination of private sexual images (like the Carrie Prejean masturbation video) ought to be considered a form of sexual assault; around the country, similar incidents of harassment have moved girls to suicide.

Chen, now 22 and writing at the Ch!cktionary, didn't  "deserve" this because she happens to be a sex writer. But her pro-sex philosophy does help to articulate why disseminating sexualized images of women without their consent is wrong.

—

SEXIST: Could you talk a little bit about how the dissemination of photos like these can be so damaging?

LENA CHEN: People don’t really understand when there’s a line being crossed. People will say to me, “But how can you object to this when you post very provocative photos of yourself?” When I was 18, I posed nude for a friend of mine, for an art class. The photos went up in a student art gallery. Classmates saw the photos. They were taken completely with my permission, and I knew exactly the context in which they were going to be used. The leaked photos were taken in private by someone I was dating at the time. I didn’t expect them to be publicly disseminated. They were never meant for public consumption. It felt like a major violation. . . . But the part that I think is really exploitative is that these photos were obviously being spread in a manner in which the goal was to shame me. I’m not ashamed of my body or of people seeing my body. But the people distributing these photos didn't do it as an empowering, ‘rah, rah’ thing. These people took private photos of me and knowingly distributed them in order to try to make me feel ashamed of myself. I want to clarify the difference.

LC: In some ways, I was better prepared for this situation because I was already writing about sex. I know that slut-shaming is wrong and I'm not ashamed of being sexual. If this were to happen to someone else—a completely private individual—it would be extremely, extremely damaging to that person’s self worth. As for me, I went from being somewhat unhappy with my campus reputation to actually having panic attacks for the first time my life. I was placed under a considerable amount of scrutiny. These are real-world consequences. When slut-shaming works—and even when it doesn’t work—you end up losing a considerable amount of trust in people. And not just the person who posted them in the first place—you can’t even count all the people who helped to spread them. . . . Maybe you can predict the crazies, but you just can’t imagine the masses of people who will step up to help them. That’s what’s disheartening. And at Harvard, it wasn’t even that bad.  I think the difference is at Harvard—it’s not so possible to be a social conservative at Harvard. So everyone would be very politically correct about it to my face.

LC: I don’t think people forget that they also have sex. I think there’s a sense of false modesty about it. You’re not supposed to talk about it; that's the real crime. Even if you do it, you’re still less of a slut than a person who talks about it. People like to maintain the façade of sexual propriety. Think about the most embarrassing things that could happen to someone, and a lot of them will involve sexual performance. There is a great deal of anxiety about sex in our culture, and no one wants to talk about it openly and honestly. Because we’re neurotic about sex. We’re curious in a morbid way. That makes for some very ripe material for controversies like mine coming up. It’s a lurid, sensational story. Who isn’t going to be drawn into that? People project their own anxieties onto me. They want to shame me for letting someone take naked photos of me, but these people are going and downloading those images from a torrent. What does that say?

LC: Harvard has 6,400 undergrads. I don't think close friends of mine Googled the photos. Casual acquaintances, maybe we were close enough to be Facebook friends—they probably did. The people who are a few social networks removed from me. It’s bizarre to me, because obviously I’m a real person, even if I don’t talk to them. They see me in the dining hall, see me around school. It’s not like I was MIA. I really didn’t remove myself from Harvard campus life until after the fact [Chen took a leave of absence from school following the incident], but at the time, I was more or less a fully engaged student there. That’s why I found it really, really disheartening—the people behind it were my peers at Harvard. And maybe they didn’t think of it as some sort of huge betrayal of my trust, but it felt like a witch-hunt and felt like mass bullying.

LC: The person with the photos—my ex, presumably—left a bunch of comments on IvyGate with links to the photographs. Someone contacted me from IvyGate and said, "Do you want to comment on this? We’re going to write a story on it." I was so completely shocked that I didn’t even question what I was being told. You have to understand how quickly this all happened. Now I think I would like to go back and say," Do you really need to have a story on this? I’m 19 years old. I don’t think I fall into the category of a public figure. Exes go crazy. Where is the news?" People who are deemed “web celebrities” are just considered fair game for attack. Why would Gawker [porn blog Fleshbot] be posting anything about me? . . . The whole system is under the impression that if something happens to you, you "asked for it." And it’s applied more often to women bloggers. For example: I hate Michelle Malkin. But if she were a dude, would anyone want to find out where she lived? Conservatives and liberals alike—if you’re a woman you’re going to have to put up with a lot more vitriol. Certainly when it comes to matters of sexual shame. The best thing for everyone to do would have been to just ignore it. . . . I heard it was one of the highest-trafficked stories IvyGate ever published.

—

Previously in Sexist interviews:

* Jaclyn Friedman on Fucking While Feminist

* Thomas MacAullay Millar on men in the feminist movement

Abby, to her credit, suggests that the recipient of the "smile!" command drop the formalities and get the eff away from her harasser. But not before she engages in some dubious psychoanalysis of the "Smile, Baby Guy."

But first, the letter:

DEAR ABBY: I am a 29-year-old female who would like to know why people feel compelled to tell random strangers to "smile."

I was in the market the other night and a man came walking by me saying, "You dropped something," and was pointing to the floor. I looked down and said, "I don't see anything." He then told me, "You dropped your smile."

Abby, I was SO not amused. I turned around going back to my business saying, "Oh, OK." The man proceeded to walk away mumbling, "Don't look so serious. It's only the grocery store."

I hate when people do this. It happens to me a lot and has most of my life. People—especially seniors—say, "Don't you dare smile for me, don't you dare!" Or, "Smile! You're too cute not to smile." An old gentleman said, "Oh, she's like ice — so cold, never smiles."

What can I do if this happens again? I don't see the need to walk around the store or sit at my desk at work with a Cheshire cat grin on my face all day. Any suggestions? — OFFENDED IN GILROY, CALIF.

Offended in Gilroy is actually posing two questions here: Why are these strangers telling me to smile? And what should I do about it?

Interestingly, Abby's response to the second question—get yourself to safety—contradicts her answer to the first question, which positions the "Smile, Baby Guy" as a hapless social misfit, not a harasser.

DEAR OFFENDED: The man who asked if you had "lost" something may have been making a clumsy attempt to pick you up. That sometimes happens in markets. As to the "older people" who comment on your expression—or lack thereof—they may consider themselves so "senior" that they can "coax" you into doing as they would like—like "coochy-kooing" a baby to make it laugh on cue.

Making personal remarks to strangers is, of course, rude. My advice to you is to distance yourself from those individuals as quickly as possible. Speaking personally, if I was approached the way you have been, the last thing I'd be inclined to do is smile or engage them at all. I'd be offended, too.

In Abby's view, strangers who demand that women smile are harmless, "clumsy" romantics who are just following standard behavior or what "happens in markets." Interestingly, Abby comes around when she addresses the behavior of the "older people" who tell people to smile. Abby theorizes that harassment from the elderly is born of a sense of entitlement.

Actually, anyone who instructs a stranger to smile does so because they feel entitled to exert their power over another person's private emotions. The fact that these casual, grocery-store power plays disproportionally target youth and women says a lot about how our social hierarchy works—and the harasser's dismissal that it's "only the grocery store" shows how this sexism is far-reaching enough to be excused as "normal" behavior.

Last week, in a discussion of how to not harass people on the street, a few commenters floated a possible harassment loophole: Isn't it okay to call out people on the street if you're just insisting that they turn that frown upside-down?

I have previously delicately explained why people on the street should refrain from asking me to smile for them ("Don't Fucking Tell Me To Smile, Baby"). This time around, let's hear an involved and eloquent dissection of "smile!" from commenter Saurs, who enumerates the many reasons why she is not going to be smiling for you. My name is Amanda Hess and I approve this message.

It’s really very simple, actually. Men like these believe they have the right to intrude on a woman’s time and space whenever they sense or hope doing so might increase their chances of pulling, irrespective of what that woman is doing or what she wants, subtle signals or obvious ones (like headphones) be damned. They don’t acknowledge that a woman has an intrinsic right to remain mired in her own thoughts in public without being harassed, questioned, propositioned, interrupted, approached, or otherwise bothered. They don’t respect her enough to leave her alone and they’re bull-headed enough to believe their childish need for attention trumps the wishes of everyone else. Shapely Prose and Yes Means Yes also have useful blogposts on the subject.

The same sense of entitlement informs men’s decisions to approach random female strangers in the street and demand that they “smile!” Because a woman’s job is to brighten your day and make you feel better, and to be “pretty” and “sweet” and “happy”! “Smile! It can’t be that bad!” Effectively informing you, because as a woman you exist in a perpetual state of ignorance until some random fuckwad comes round with an illuminating piece of homespun male wisdom, that your life is great because you’re female and pretty, so don’t take anything too seriously lest you harsh the temporary high he gets from harassing you, eyeing you up and down, and making it his business to tell you how lucky you are. You dumb, hysterical bitch.

I use public transport often, both on short day-trips and longer, cross-country trips. As a grown-up type person, I know I’m going to have to occupy myself during such trips, quietly and without disturbing my neighbors. Often I become deeply absorbed in the tasks I plan for myself, including reading and writing. I don’t enjoy being interrupted and I can’t imagine why anyone would. I know for a fact that the men who interrupt me do so not because I am so entrancing and they are so mesmerized by my beauty and so frightened at the possibility of never seeing me again that they simply must speak to me. I’m not that good-looking or fascinating. The men who bother me when I’m clearly engaged in a task of my own choosing do so because they’re bored, and they know, from socialization, that a demure, female creature is much more likely to put away the book or notebook she has at hand and devote herself for a few moments to the needs of any male creature in the near vicinity who needs immediate attention, regardless of whether or not she actually enjoys his facile charm, his meager intelligence, his limpid attempts at humor, his ludicrous compliments. I do not gladly suffer such fools. They are singularly exhausting, like children.

When Woolf speaks of a woman’s need for a room to herself, that’s what she means; a physical and mental space wherein a woman can be the sole master of her own thoughts without interference from men she knows and from men she doesn’t know. It’s a sign of disrespect when a man intrudes upon a woman’s thoughts because he believes he is desperate need of her attention.

This is far different from people who have a mutual desire for conversation. I do this all the time on trains, with men and women. There are clear signs that we’re open to speak, to share a meal or a drink, to chat. We’re not wearing headphones, the books on our laps are closed, our pens are capped. It’s perfectly obvious when someone is interested in speaking to a stranger and when they aren’t. That men overwhelming choose to interrupt women when they’re engaged elsewhere and in other business in public is a clear example of men taking up mental and physical space and acting like pigs.

It also shouldn’t be difficult to see, acknowledge, and condemn the sexism in the casual exhortation of women to smile and look pretty. I’m forever being accosted and told to be happy, or, rather, to look happy, for the explicit gratification of my interlocutor. I generally walk down the street, for example, busying myself with my own thoughts, absorbed by a particular problem, flight of fancy, piece of recitation, something that interests and excites me. I don’t expect strangers to be interested in the contents of my mind, but neither do I expect them to demand that I neglect my own desires in favor of looking “pretty.” I don’t know from pretty. It may surprise some men to find that there are hordes of women who could not care less about looking pretty. When I’m in the midst of contemplating something that interests me, I don’t look pretty; I’ve probably got forehead wrinkles, I’m frowning in concentration, I might even go cross-eyed. I don’t care.

I happen to find surly, moody expressions attractive on men and women. Nevertheless, I don’t go round my neighborhood asking strangers to pout for me because I happen to like a good pout. It’s none of my business what expression a stranger chooses to don, consciously or unconsciously. And yet women’s bodies are constantly on display, constantly in a state of being judged, critiqued, and closely examined. Women’s physical selves are always in need of being checked, our expressions guarded, in order to please and gratify strangers by succumbing to certain conventions, like “prettiness,” a kind of passive, pleasing attractiveness that seems to delight some men. There are also some men who don’t care what a woman is actually feeling, so long as she masks those unattractive or complicated feelings by wearing a pleasing grin on her face, devoid of intelligence. Some men don’t want to acknowledge that women have inner lives that may not revolve around pleasing men. Even women who are not by convention good-looking, even ugly by convention, are still expected to “make an effort” towards conventional attractiveness — they are expected to wear make-up, care about their hairstyles, wear restrictive clothing, feign or adopt submissive, feminine mannerisms. Women are often found wanting, even by strangers.

The men who approach me and ask me to smile are being sexist. That some women also choose to engage in sexism by asking strangers to smile does not negate the sexism in their behavior. Some women like women. Some women treat other women like objects. This is no surprise.

Photo via Hendricks Photos.

"How else do you get a number of a girl walking past you on the street?"

"How do you know who gives out their number and who doesn’t?"

"But how would you know that someone feels? I can’t read minds."

"If I approach a woman for directions am I threatening?"

There are no hard-and-fast rules as to what exact words or actions might be perceived as threatening. Women are individuals, and our responses to men-on-the-street are as varied as so many unique snowflakes. What may strike one woman as an honest compliment may strike another as a possible prelude to stalking. When we establish strict rules about what men can and cannot say to women on the street, we set up street harassment as the woman's responsibility—as long as the man follows the established script, it's up to the woman to fail to feel threatened by his approach, no matter how threatening his subtext.

But that's not to say that harassers should be given free reign to indiscriminately come on to strange women, hoping to find the one snowflake that responds positively to the random ass compliment. So I'd like to propose one really simple guideline for approaching women you don't know: Treat them like people, not objects. When you're considering approaching a woman, ask yourself:

* When I hang outside my car door and yell at a woman about her physical features, am I treating her like a person who is busy commuting to work, or an object who is out on the street to aid in my arousal?

* When I approach a woman and ask for her phone number without ever having interacted with her previously, am I treating her like a person who will likely be wary of complete strangers attempting to gain her personal information, or like an object that's happened to catch my eye and that I'd like to be able to look at regularly?

* When a woman shows no interest in my advances but I push the interaction anyway, am I treating her like a person with a subjective experience, or an object whose feelings are unimportant to my actions?

* When a woman informs me that I am harassing her, and I become angry that she would ever interpret my comments that way, am I treating her like a person whose attitude is informed by her own unique experiences, or an object who must respond in the manner that I expect of her?

I bet that following the person-not-object rule will help to reduce most harassing behavior. But well-meaning men who treat women like people are still capable or scaring, threatening, or offending strange women they approach on the street. Because we're individuals. So for men who are truly uncertain about when their behavior crosses the line, his behavior following the perceived harassment is just as important as the approach itself. A recent post on Holla Back D.C. illustrates one ideal scenario:

I walk from the bus stop to get to my job this morning, and a homeless man was sitting outside of Starbucks on M near Wisconsin. He shakes his cup at people walking by, but with me it’s “Hey, gorgeous” and “Hey, mami.”

I walk up to him and tell him that he shouldn’t call women he doesn’t know “gorgeous” and “mami” and that he needs to refer to them as “miss” or “ma’am.” He immediately apologized, said he meant “no disrespect,” and told me to have a nice day. I wished him a nice day as well.

I rarely get apologies from harassers. Usually when they get called out on their behavior they get irate, start throwing insults and get violent. But this guy was genuinely apologetic and I appreciated that.

I wish more harassers would follow his lead.

When a woman is obviously uncomfortable by your advances, do you back off immediately? Do you apologize for the slight? Do you learn from this experience that not all women respond positively to the way you interact with them? Or do you project your expectations of correct female behavior on her, and call her a bitch for failing to take a compliment?

This week Chreky was expected to go to trial in his second sexual harassment case brought against him by an employee. The first case, brought by colorist Ronnie Barrett, was decided last week, resulting in a 2.3 million dollar judgment to Barrett. The new case, brought by another former stylist, accuses Chreky of persistent sexual harassment that allegedly escalated from inappropriate sexual comments into repeated, attempted rapes.

The stylist's complaint alleges a variety of horrific sexual acts inflicted upon her by her boss. A sampling of allegations from the complaint she filed with the court:

• "On a daily basis, Mr. Chreky will comment to one of more female employees that she looks 'sexy' or 'especially sexy today.' He also repeatedly references the sex lives of female employees, questions whether their husbands can please them in bed and offers to 'help out.'"

• "Starting in the fall of 2000, Mr. Chreky made daily comments to Plaintiff about the way she looked and her attire. Such statements included that she looked "sexy," had "sexy legs," and that he liked the way she looked in that shirt or with that lipstick."
• "Starting in the fall of 2003, Mr. Chreky repeatedly required Plaintiff to come to his office at the end of the day. During such visits, Mr. Chreky would discuss sexual topics and repeatedly proposition Plaintiff to have sex with him. He also told her that other stylists were having an affair with him."
• "During such visits to his office, Mr. Chreky would promise better work, such as assigning the President's family to her or offering to let her travel with the President's family, in an attempt to induce Plaintiff to have sex with him."
• "At a fundraiser in December of 2004, Mr. Chreky asked Plaintiff if she wanted to have a threesome and that he 'would get any kind of girl [she] wanted. blond or brunette.' Later he asked another employee if Plaintiff was the "hottest" stylist and if the three of them wanted to get a room for him for a threesome."
• "Throughout her employment, Mr. Chreky would often direct Plaintiff to help him with a client's hair. Mr. Chreky would then stand close to Plaintiff, rub hips against her or lean very close to her face as she worked."
• "On or about November of 2003,  Plaintiff was eating lunch in the kitchen area. In front of other employees, Mr. Chreky stated that Plaintiff had sexy legs. When the other employees had left, Mr. Chreky returned, leaned over Plaintiff and rubbed her leg and upper thigh. Plaintiff told Mr. Chreky to stop and he responded, 'you have such smooth legs. Just let me touch them.' Plaintiff slapped his hand and fled the room."
• "On or about early summer of 2004, Plaintiff was waiting outside of the Salon for a ride that was over an hour late. Mr Chreky offered her a ride, which she declined. After Mr. Chreky repeatedly insisted on driving her home, she reluctantly agreed. On the drive home, Mr. Chreky pulled the car over and attacked her. He pulled her toward him, tried to kiss her, pinned her to the back of the seat, and rolled on top of her. Mr. Chreky lifted her skirt, grabbed her underwear and pulled it to the side, exposing her vagina, and then grabbed her genitals. Plaintiff pleaded and tried to get him to stop. My. Chreky unzipped his pants and tried to penetrate her with his penis. When Plaintiff threatened to call the cops, Mr. Chreky stopped and drove her home while threatening her to not tell anyone about the ride home."
• "Later in 2004, Plaintiff was again assaulted while alone in the lunchroom. Mr. Chreky shoved her against the sink, pushed his groin against hers and attempted to get his hand under her bra. When Plaintiff grabbed his arm and told him to stop, he pleaded for her to 'let me touch it one time, just one time.' Plaintiff threatened to scream if he did not stop."
• "In 2004 through 2006, Mr. Chreky would continually attempt to trap Plaintiff alone while at work. If he ever found her alone, he would grab her around the shoulders or waist and press his groin against her body. He would often try to grab her buttocks or genital area, and would grab and lift her skirt. These attacks occurred, at times, as much as twice per day."
• "In March of 2005, Mr. Chreky attacked Plaintiff in the kitchen by slamming hr into the sink. He pressed his body against hers, pried her legs apart with his leg and placed his hand underneath her skirt. Although Plaintiff repeatedly tried to escape, Mr. Cherky physically restrained her. He repeatedly asked her to just let him touch her. Mr. Chreky was able to grab the side of her underwear and told her, while holding a lighter up to her face, that if he kept fighting that he was going to burn her underwear off. Mr. Chreky then violently ripped her underwear off (bruising her genital area) and holding it up to his face, while saying, 'see, now I got it and now I am going to keep it as a souvenir.' That day, he repeatedly taunted her at her work station following this attack."
• "Repeatedly during 2005 and up to her termination, Mr. Chreky would grab her when he found her alone and push her head toward his genitals demanding that she 'give him a blow job.'"
• "In late summer of 2005, Mr. Chreky ordered Plaintiff to do inventory on the fifth floor. Plaintiff thought she was safe on the fifth floor because Mr. Chreky was with a client, but Mr. Chreky followed and attacked her by forcing her against a wall at the top of the stairwell. Plaintiff tried to escape down the stairs, but to no avail. When Plaintiff screamed, he covered her mouth with his hand. Mr. Chreky unzipped his pants, pulled Plaintiff''s skirt up above her waist, pulled her underwear to one side and attempted to penetrate her. At this point, Plaintiff was sobbing loudly and having trouble breathing. When he released her mouth, she began screaming and again, he covered her mouth. Plaintiff was finally able to get away when another employee walked to the bottom of the stairwell."
• "In the fall of 2005, Mr. Chreky again required plaintiff to come to his office. She went, but stood just inside the open door. Mr. Chreky got up and slammed the door, pushed her over and got on top of her. Plaintiff began to cry and yelled for him to let her go. He grabbed her skirt, tore it and tried to get his hand to her genital area. Mr. Chreky unzipped his pants, tried to get her skirt about her waist and attempted to penetrate her At this time, another employee knowcked on the door. In response, Mr. Chreky jumped up and zipped his pants. Plaintiff opened the door and ran past her shocked colleague."

In a response to her complaint, Chreky and the salon denied all the stylist's allegations. They did include one clarification, in response to the allegation that Chreky would "rub hips against her or lean very close to her face as she worked": "Defendants deny the allegations . . . save that defendants aver that all employees of the Salon work in relatively close quarters and that, when employees collaborated on a single client, it was impossible for those employees to do other than 'stand close' to each other. Defendants deny that any such positioning was sexual in nature, or constituted discrimination or harassment during the course of employment based on gender or sex."

If you're wondering how allegations of attempted employee rape might affect a salon's business: Last week, Chreky's camp announced that the salon has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Date Rape Anthem: Another refreshing addition to the anti-rape contingent of musical date rape anthems: Fugazi's "Suggestion," which commenter paprbgprncs claims "Restored my faith in men (boys at the time) when I was 16."

Relevant Lyrics:

Why can't I walk down a street free of suggestion?
Is my body the only trait in the eyes of men?
I've got some skin you want to look in
There lays no reward in what you discover
You spent yourself watching me suffer
Suffer you words, suffer your eyes, suffer your hands
Suffer your interpretation of what it is to be a man
I've got some skin you want to look in
She does nothing to deserve it
He only wants to observe it
We sit back like they taught us
We keep quiet like they taught us
He just wants to prove it
She does nothing to remove it
We don't want anyone to mind us
So we play the roles that they assigned us
She does nothing to conceal it
He touches her 'cause he wants to feel it
We blame her for being there
But we are all guilty

Why I Love This Song: I love this song, and here's why: It clearly articulates the connection between all the flavors of harassment inflicted against women, from street harassment ("suffer your words"), to objectification through the male gaze ("suffer your eyes"), to physical sexual assault ("suffer your hands"). In the song,  all contribute to a social structure that devalues women ("suffer your interpretation of what it is to be a man"). By song's end ("He touches her 'cause he wants to feel it / We blame her for being there / But we are all guilty") it's clear that the harm done here has gone far beyond the realm of "suggestion."

The song is clearly anti-rape, but it's also a stinging condemnation of all the bystanders who don't speak up when women are assaulted: "We sit back like they taught us / We keep quiet like they taught us . . . We don't want anyone to mind us / So we play the roles that they assigned us. . . . we are all guilty." The song leaves a lasting suggestion for men who are born into this society: Want to avoid being lumped in with men who harass women? Speak up against sexual harassment and assault, and no one will mistake you for an offender.

A new study from University of Connecticut researchers Stephenie Chaudoir and Diane Quinn suggests that simply being a bystander to sexism is enough to inspire women to report higher identification with women as a group, and heightened feelings of negativity toward men. The effects of this "bystander sexism" help to explain how a cat-call targeted at one woman can work to demean all of us.

In the study, the researchers asked 114 female college students to watch one of two videos and imagine themselves as a witness to the scene that unfolds. In the first version, a man approaches a woman and says, "Hey Kelly, your boobs look great in that shirt!" In the second, the man greets the woman by saying, "Hey Kelly, what's up?" Study participants then completed a survey designed to show how strongly they identify themselves with women as a group, how much anger and fear they feel toward men as a group, and how likely they are to be prompted to either "move against" or "move away" from men in general.

The result? Even though women only graded the "boobs" comment as a "moderately prejudiced" thing to say, women who witnessed the harassment were more likely to identify as women, feel anger toward men, and express the desire to "move away" from men.

The fact that street harassment tends to divide men and women as classes is no secret. Women who have experienced street harassment often report coping by responding with wariness to all strange men, in order to fend off possible future harassment. And men express frustration that they can't approach a woman in a way they perceive as non-harassing—whether it's to ask for directions or deliver a compliment—without being regarded as a potential offender. But the defensive strategy is often made necessary by the frequency of such harassment; Chaudoir and Quinn note that  "42% of U.S. female college students [report] that they are the direct targets of cat-calls at least once a month." And this casual sexism has serious effects on its victims: "the experience of street harassment is directly related to greater preoccupation with physical appearance and body shame, and is indirectly related to heightened fears of rape for U.S. undergraduate women."

What the new study reveals is that harassment also has serious effects on women who are not victims—and men who are not harassers. "It makes sense that if women feel like they have been discriminated against, or that specific men are engaging in sexist behaviors that can harm them, they’re going to be on high alert in the future from other men, even if those men have no intent of participating in the discrimination," says Chaudoir. For the men, "our data do speak to this unfortunate predicament where men who are not harassers and men who are not doing anything wrong end up being painted in the eyes of women, at least for some period of time, in a negative way," Chaudoir says. "For men who are doing nothing wrong, these [harassers] may be shaping the ways that they’re being perceived as well."

Despite the depressingly divisive results here, this study shows that men and women alike have an investment in working to eliminate sexual harassment. As Chaudoir and Quinn's work demonstrates, harassment against women often occurs in public and in view of plenty of bystanders, male and female. We all have the opportunity to make it clear that this sort of behavior is unacceptable.

First up: Sexist reader and feminist blogger Chloe Angyal responds to Sexist Comments of the Week: “Yo, Gorgeous” Edition, in which a commenter suggests that some recipients of street harassment develop "thicker skin." Last year, Angyal wrote her sociology thesis at Princeton on women who work in male-dominated fields—where she found that systematic workplace sexual harassment was often excused using the exact same phrase.

—

Earlier this week, Amanda posted Sexist Comments of the Week: “Yo, Gorgeous” Edition, in which she summarized the discussion happening in the comments section on her post about HollaBack DC. The post she chose was one woman’s account of being catcalled on the street in D.C.:

Out of nowhere, I hear “Yo, gorgeous!” and I turn in the direction where it came from. I see these two losers in a red and yellow truck smirking at me. Gross. The truck pulls up further in traffic, and I catch up to it and snap a photo with my phone. . . . When I told them that they needed to do their jobs and not hit on women, they didn’t care. They continued to smirk and giggle… I felt like these harassers just ruined what was a good afternoon.

In the comments section, certain readers expressed misgivings about the idea that yelling “Yo, gorgeous!” at a woman could constitute sexual harassment. One man wrote:

Really? Your day was “ruined” by that? Seriously? No lewd comments, no name calling, no following. “Yo, Gorgeous” is what passes for sexual harassment now? Geesh…. I guess the women I know have thicker skins than the woman who wrote this particular piece. Not that that’s right or wrong or good or bad, it just is what it is and reasonable minds can and will disagree.

Ah, thick skin. When I read Amanda’s post, the phrase jumped out at me because much of my senior thesis in college focused on the idea of “thick skin.” For my thesis, which was about women who work in male-dominated professions, I interviewed women who worked on the trading floors of Wall Street, arguably one of the most statistically and culturally male-dominated workplaces in America. What I was interested in was how those women adapted their behavior, from how they dressed to how they worked, in order to survive and thrive in an often hostile environment. The answer: Thick skin.

During my thesis research, the concept of “thick skin” was constantly invoked by subjects. Dana, 30, had extensive experience on several trading floors. She explained that “you definitely need thick skin, because working on the trading floor, if you take anything personally, you just can’t, there’s no point in your working there.” Alana, twenty-five years old and in sales for Credit Suisse, warned that “You can’t be easily offended…you can’t be a prude and work on the trading floor. You have to develop thick skin.” The phrase came up again and again, and I realized after a while that it was no coincidence. A belief in the need for “thick skin” was a kind of shared narrative among all these women, a story they told themselves and each other in order to survive on the trading floor.

More importantly, “thick skin” was a way for women to ignore behavior that they might otherwise interpret as sexual harassment or discrimination. Alana described one male colleague, a trader “who’s very old-school, just because he didn’t start his career in the P.C. generation… the old-school guys will wink and call me ‘sweetie’ or ‘honey’ and wink. And if I were easily offended, then that would be sexual harassment.” But because Alana isn’t “easily offended,” because she has thick skin, that colleague isn’t a sexual predator. He’s “old-school.”

The women I interviewed were trying their best to succeed in a hostile environment, and that often meant adapting and changing their own behavior rather than demanding that the environment be adapted and changed for them. This is understandable, given that they were very much in the statistical and cultural minority. But when men like the commenter on Hess’s post suggest that women develop a thicker skin, they’re asking women to adapt to a hostile environment rather than asking themselves the hard questions about what they, as men, need to do to change that environment.

Of course, there’s an argument to be made that women who invoke thick skin are making it easier for men to do so, and are therefore being complicit in the ongoing hostility of the environment. And I’m not letting those women entirely off the hook, because the thick skin narrative is used, by men and women alike, to divide women into two groups: the reasonable women, and the victims. When I asked Alana about how other women might have responded to that “old-school” colleague, she talked about women who had filed sexual harassment and discrimination suits against her firm and other Wall Street firms. “I think that women who take that attitude are really at fault, because if you approach everybody like a victim, you’re not going to get anywhere… If you can fit in, and not call attention to the fact that you’re a woman… it’s better to just not call attention to the fact.”

The irony is that these women don’t need to call attention to the fact that they’re women – they’re being sexually harassed for that very reason. Women who accept sexual harassment, be it at work or on the street, have “thick skin” and are “reasonable.” Women who don’t are “victims” who “can’t hack it.” At work women are faced with two equally unpleasant choices: suffer harassment or discrimination in silence, or speak up and be branded a thin-skinned victim who makes all the other women look bad. On the street, speaking up comes with the added danger of a physical attack. It’s a no-win situation that we face on the way to work, on the way home, and every moment in between. “Thick skin,” as handy a survival method as it might be, is not a solution: the solution is to change the acceptability of harassment and discrimination.

—

Chloe Angyal is a contributor at Feministing, where she currently reviews romantic comedies. Want to contribute to Reader Beatdown? Send your thoughtful essays and scathing criticisms to ahess@washingtoncitypaper.com.

When I was an 18-year-old freshman in college, I was running around some side-streets in a hilly neighborhood when a black SUV pulled up next to me. The driver rolled down his window and started a conversation.

"Hey, how are you?" he said. Friendly enough. He was driving slowly to match my running pace. I kept focusing on what I was doing—I was out of breath, kind of busy, and didn't feel like talking—but I responded neighborly out of politeness. "I'm fine. How are you?"

"I'm doing good. So do you live in the neighborhood?" I really wasn't interested in having this conversation. But I looked over at the guy, and he was a cop, in uniform, and I felt like I was required to be extra polite. I informed him that I did live in the neighborhood. I kept a steady pace and he kept the SUV slowly rolling up next to me.

Things quickly got weird.

"You look like you work out a lot," he told me. Arm hanging out the window. SUV slowly trailing me. It was the sort of comment that made me deeply uncomfortable but that I felt I couldn't really argue with. He was big, easily 20 years older than me, in a big car, and a cop. I was 18, new to the District, and inexperienced. So I just kept my eyes on the road, hoping he'd get the hint. He didn't. I tried lose him down a side street and he turned with me. There was no one else around. "Where do you live? I work out, too. Let's work out together. You look great. You really do." And on and on and on.

At no point did I respond like I was interested. I don't hide my emotions well, and it would have been written all over my face that this man was scaring the living shit out of me. I could feel my heart beating out of my chest, my breath thinning, my face flushing with heat. What if he followed me all the way back to my dorm? What if he stopped the car? What if I tired out and couldn't run away? What was I supposed to do—call the cops?

If you're reading this story, you might have some different questions for me: Like, what if you were just overreacting? He didn't say anything explicitly threatening, did he? Why don't you learn how to take a compliment?

Last week, I wrote a post praising Hollaback DC for raising awareness about the problem of street harassment in the District. And one commenter was concerned about what behaviors constitute "harassment" these days. He pointed to a recent post on Hollaback where a woman reported the following incident:

Out of nowhere, I hear “Yo, gorgeous!” and I turn in the direction where it came from. I see these two losers in a red and yellow truck smirking at me. Gross.

The truck pulls up further in traffic, and I catch up to it and snap a photo with my phone. . . . When I told them that they needed to do their jobs and not hit on women, they didn’t care. They continued to smirk and giggle. Passers-by made a comment about me and giggled, and I don’t know if they were laughing at me getting harassed or laughing at me giving the harassers an earful, but I just didn’t care. I felt like these harassers just ruined what was a good afternoon.

Commenter Stewart is skeptical:

I understand that everyone has their limit but one of the recent entries on the HollaBackDC site has me scratching my head. A woman claims her beautiful Spring-like day was “ruined” because a couple of guys in a truck yelled “Yo, Gorgeous” at her and had the temerity to keep looking at her too?

Really? Your day was “ruined” by that? Seriously? No lewd comments, no name calling, no following. “Yo, Gorgeous” is what passes for sexual harassment now? Geesh.

LeftSidePositive counters:

Stewart, I’m glad for you that you’ve clearly never had to be treated like a piece of meat, and that your appearance is not treated like public property to be commented on and stared at by total strangers. How lucky for you that you don’t have your privacy invaded, and how fortunate that you’re insulated from common human empathy.

Stewart replies:

Think what you want but I have plenty of empathy. And I have heard some horror stories about male harassment. In my humble opinion, this isn’t one of them; it’s not even in the same universe. But like I said in my first post, everyone has their limit. I guess the women I know have thicker skins than the woman who wrote this particular piece. Not that that’s right or wrong or good or bad, it just is what it is and reasonable minds can and will disagree.

LeftSidePositive writes:

Stewart––because someone got killed today, would that make it okay for me to punch you in the face?? “It’s not even in the same universe.”

What’s more, there is a LOT of power in being continually reminded by minor slights that add up that you are perceived as less than equal or public property.

And, no, you don’t have a lot of empathy. You think you can brush aside something that was upsetting or frustrating to someone just because you don’t think it was important enough.

Amanda Hess writes:

People do have different limits, triggers, and past life experiences. These things all affect what level and type of harassment they can handle before they speak up about it. Perhaps you weren’t previously aware that some women can feel threatened by something as simple as “Yo, gorgeous” followed by aggressive staring and open laughter. I don’t have trouble understanding this reaction; I experience this all the time. But you were left scratching your head.

Well, the great thing about Holla Back D.C. is that now you know that some women are upset by this, and that they do feel harassed by it. So, instead of denying this woman’s experience by insinuating that she’s too sensitive, why not take this as an opportunity to consider why this behavior might have been perceived as threatening to this woman? Why not consider the ways in which you personally might not fully understand this specific type of threat? Why not ask yourself why your female friends don’t discuss this low-level type of harassment with you? Is it because you would dismiss them as overly sensitive?

About the severity of the harassment: I’ve heard some horror stories about harassment, too … and they usually have much more long-lasting effects than just putting a damper on one day in a person’s life. That doesn’t mean that that one day of stress isn’t significant enough for one woman to talk about her experience on a blog.

Julia writes:

Agreed, having someone yell “hey gorgeous” out their car window doesn’t seem like a big deal. And if it happened to you, you might still not think it was a big deal. But I can’t even count the number of times a stranger has yelled out a comment like that AND THEN FOLLOWED ME. Usually when I am alone, in a big city, often at night. So when you hear “hey gorgeous” you might think, ‘oh a complement’. but when I hear the same line, I think, “oh I hope I don’t get followed home today.” And trust me, it happens on a quasi-regular basis, even after I explicitly tell the man to stop.

Exactly. When I got followed by the cop in the SUV, he didn't start by saying anything half as explicit as "yo, gorgeous!" He eased in, got me talking, and because I responded to him, he refused to let go. So he followed me. In his car. On an empty street. I eventually lost the guy by steering toward a pedestrian-only footpath and running for my life. Every time a guy hollers out a "compliment" to me on the street, I have to weigh whether responding politely is going to get me a new stalker. So don't tell me that I'm overreacting.

As for the woman who responded impolitely to the call of "Yo, gorgeous"—at least someone is taking her concerns seriously. On Hollaback, a commenter suggested that the woman call the name of the company listed on the side of the truck and report the employees. She did, and the company's general manager responded positively to her concerns. "He said that he’s 99.9% sure of who the offenders were by the description I gave, and that 'extreme action' will be taken against them," she writes. "He apologized profusely for their actions."

Photo via _STANGSTA_, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Since last March, Holla Back has recorded hundreds of instances of sexual harassment and assaults that were never reported to police. Imagine how many more incidents are never reported to Holla Back D.C., either.

This month, Holla Back is taking a look at just how large the gap is between reports to Holla Back and reports to D.C. authorities. Over the past year, Holla Back has received 200 reports of incidents of sexual harassment and assault in the D.C. area. Last week, they crunched the numbers on how many of these self-reports occurred on public transportation. A look back at the year in sexual harassment, as reported to Holla Back:

* 40 reported incidents occurred on the Metro

* 8 reported incidents occurred at a bus stop

* 4 reported incidents happened on a bus

* 3 reported incidents were on a Metro station escalator

* 1 reported incident happened on the Circulator

According to a George Washington University crime alert sent out today:

On the evening of Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2010, GWPD received a report of a forcible fondling that occurred in Gelman Library on Sunday, Feb. 14, 2010, at approximately 11:30pm. The victim reported that she was assisting the suspect when he unexpectedly put his hands down her pants and up her shirt. The victim pulled away and fled the area and the suspect left the library.

SUBJECT DESCRIPTION: Black male, 6' 3"- 6' 7", 265 lbs., 35 to 45 years old, wearing a white sweater.

And those are just the sexual assaults that make the crime alerts and campus papers. According to the G.W. University Police Department crime log, which keeps a record of all illegal activity reported to campus police, the "forcible fondling" was the second sex abuse case reported to police this month (the other occurred off-campus). In January, the crime log recorded three incidents of indecent exposure (all likely related to the mountain biker), and one case of on-campus stalking. In December, another indecent exposure suspect was barred from campus. In November, a peeping tom case was closed without identifying a suspect; a sex abuse case in Mitchell Hall was referred to MPD. In October, a case of voyeurism was referred to Student Judicial Services. In September, the log recorded two cases of on-campus sex abuse. In August, it recorded two cases of off-campus sex abuse. That doesn't count sex-related crimes that are coded as harassment, assault, or "lewd acts"—or crimes that are never reported to campus police at all. We've still got three months left before the school year's over.

When it comes to college sexual assault, I have always been quick to point out that the media has a tendency to sensationalize sexual assaults committed by strangers while ignoring the underreported problem of campus acquaintance rape. But it's worth noting that even the rarer stranger assault cases are a fairly regular fixture on a college campus.

If you think it's possible that you have been discriminated against in the District of Columbia in housing, public accommodation, or employment, head over to the D.C. Office of Human Rights' free clinic at the DC Center next week for advice on filing a discrimination complaint. Details after the jump.

Location:

The DC Center
1810 14th Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20009
(202) 682-2245

Time:

Wed., February 17th
1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

and Wed., March 10th
1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Eligibility: In order to file a complaint, the discrimination must have occurred sometime in the past year within the District of Columbia. According to Fight HIV In D.C., you can file a discrimination complaint in D.C. based on any of the following criteria:

- HIV status

- disability

- sexual orientation

- gender identity or expression

- race

- religion

- national origin

- sex

- age

- personal appearance

- political affiliation

- family responsibilities

- familial status

- matriculation

- marital status

- source of income

- place of residence or business

For 15 years, Rob Kampia has served as executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), a nonprofit group dedicated to the reform of marijuana laws. In that capacity, Kampia, 41, has pursued two goals. One is the steady advancement of the organization, which he founded out of his Adams Morgan home in 1995. And the other is cultivating an office environment suited to his sexual appetite. A brief inventory of Kampia’s knack for mixing business with pleasure:

• In 2008, Kampia dated a 19-year-old MPP intern.
• “How was the NORML Conference?” a staffer asked Kampia one year. Kampia replied, “I got laid.”
• At a staff happy hour, Kampia guessed a female employee’s breast size and told her that she would be “hotter with a boob job.” (Kampia denies the conversation occurred).
• Kampia made it known that a female employee’s dress had “made an impression on him.” Later, he directed her to leave some room in his schedule for “bone-girl,” a woman he was “trying to bone.” He also repeatedly informed her of his intentions to perform a “breast massage” on another woman.
• At the conclusion of a staff happy hour last August, Kampia escorted a subordinate back to his home. The woman was so upset by what happened next that she refused to return to work at MPP ever again.

As office creeps go, in other words, Kampia can lay claim to being king of the water cooler. Kampia’s office politics hit the headlines this month with the announcement that he’d be stepping down to take at least a 90-day leave of absence in order to undergo therapy. “I just think I’m hypersexualized,” Kampia told the Washington Post. The coverage, accordingly, has focused on Kampia’s hands-on management techniques.

Less has been said about Kampia’s deputy, Alison Green. When Green, a longtime friend of Kampia’s, joined the organization six years ago, she brought along some serious management bona fides. Green, 36, writes a weekly online column about workplace issues at U.S. News & World Report. She started a blog called “Ask a Manager,” where she doles out workplace solutions to HR reps and low-level staffers alike. And she co-authored a book called Managing to Change the World, which MPP department heads were required to read in order to bring the organization in line with her philosophy.

How did a manager like Green deal with Kampia’s office conduct? By cleaning up after him.

Rob Kampia with chief of staff Alison Green

Case in point: In fall 2008, MPP’s director of membership, Salem Pearce, was rifling through some back e-mails of a recently fired female employee when she happened upon a past office flirtation: Kampia had sent an e-mail to the employee asking for her private e-mail address. “I discovered they had gone on a date and maybe more than one,” Pearce says. “I had known about how Rob acted toward women for a long time, but this is one instance where I had proof that he did it.” Pearce approached Green about the situation and told her it was a “problem,” and Green agreed to take the issue to Kampia.

Kampia and Pearce met. “You’re abusing your power,” Pearce recalls telling Kampia, adding that the 20-or-so females working at MPP are the only women “in the world that you can’t date.” In Pearce’s recollection, Kampia disagreed with that position. As for Green, Kampia’s input on the matter settled things. “Alison would always go and try to convince Rob,” says Pearce. “She did realize that it could be a problem, but she didn’t have the power to stop Rob’s libido.”

In Green’s view, Pearce’s concerns didn’t rise to the level of a “complaint” against Kampia. “I would not characterize that conversation as a complaint,” Green says. In fact, Green claims that she never received any complaints about Kampia’s sexual comments or behavior. “It was openly acknowledged in the office that many people on staff, including Rob, used crude sexual language in the office,” says Green. In her time at MPP, “I got some eye-rolling about Rob and others, but I never received a formal complaint.” As for Kampia’s pursuit of employees? “I call that terrible judgment,” Green says.

A formal complaint was hardly necessary to bring Kampia’s behavior to Green’s attention. The sexually loaded chatter—from Kampia as well as other MPPers—was hard to miss. “She was aware of it, for sure. Everyone was,” says Kampia. “You’d have to be blind and deaf not to notice it.” Green says that she approached Kampia with concerns about the inappropriate office environment “multiple times every year over six years,” but that Kampia “disagreed that it was something that required changing.” At one point, Kampia and Green even discussed instituting a sexual harassment policy at MPP, but Kampia ruled the possibility out. “I did discuss it with Alison,” says Kampia. “I thought it would be a bad idea at the time, because if we had a policy, two-thirds of the staff would have been in violation of it for their language and dating practices.” As executive director, Kampia was responsible for them all.

This week, I cornered people on the street, pushed a camera into their faces, and asked them if they've ever experienced sex discrimination in their lifetimes. Most of them had at least been called a "sissy" once. Above, D.C.'s men and women tell their tales of low-cut T-shirts, unwelcome sexual fantasy, and one too many Zoolander jokes.

Sexual discrimination in the office has come a long way. Once predictable—spurning male secretaries and sexually harassing female underlings—on-the-job sexism has since tackled more subtle arts, from cutting strategic holes in female bartenders’ uniforms to mocking the diet of male models. A recent hunt for sexism on the streets of D.C. revealed an evolution of sexism, from its golden age to its next frontier.

THE DISTANT PAST.

When Vernon Moore, 74, entered the workforce half a century ago, only women typed. “We, as young people, were told that women did clerical work,” says Moore. “I went to Cardozo Business High School, where they said that typing was for sissies.”

When Moore went out in search of a secretarial position, he found himself surrendering job opportunities to employees traditionally assigned to “sissy” work—women. When Moore did land a clerical job, he was pushed out of sight. “I was not put in an office, as an administrative aide would expect,” he says. “I was assigned to the shops. And in the shop section, you know, you’re basically right in the middle of the paint shop,” he says.

Even the backroom position proved too visible for a black man. “At the end of my year as a temporary employee, they let me go,” he says. “When I did go back [to the shops], there was a white female in that job. So it was definitely discrimination.”

THE RECENT PAST.

Mary Lou Walen, 68, can recall two instances of sexual harassment in her medical career. In the mid-’70s, Walen had been working at “a very large prestigious institution” for four-and-a-half months before the head of the pathology department thought she was ready for a private conference.

The doctor called her into his office at around 5:15, after the rest of the workplace had cleared out for the day. “He sat across from me at the desk and said, ‘First of all, I want you to know that what I’m going to say you’re not going to be able to repeat, because nobody will believe you—you’re a new employee, and I’m the head of the department.’” Walen repeats. “Then he said, ‘I can’t stop thinking about you. I have sex with my wife and I see your face. I think about you all the time.’ And then he propositioned me.” Walen thanked him and immediately left the office. “He didn’t bother me again,” Walen says, likely because she kept up her side of the deal: “I didn’t say anything.”

Years later, Walen experienced some harassment she couldn’t stand to keep quiet. “I got chased around the desk once,” she says. This time, the male higher-up who beckoned Walen into his office got a little bit more physical. “As soon as I got into the office, he said…‘I find you incredibly attractive’—or something like that—‘and I just can’t hold it back anymore,’” says Walen. “He came around the desk with his arms out to grab me and kiss me, and I just started running,” she says. “I said, ‘Doctor!…Don’t! Stop!’ He said, ‘No, I can’t!’”

This time, Walen talked: “I told the CEO. We just laughed,” she says. “There was nothing more to it.”

THE PRESENT.

Women in the booze-pouring profession experience so many advances from across the counter that they can become numbed to harassment from the back of the house. When asked if she’s ever experienced sex discrimination, Chantal, 26, is initially noncommittal. “I think so, but I can’t think of a specific example,” she says. Once she delves a bit in her employment history, however, the anecdotal evidence mounts. “I used to be a bartender,” she recalls.

At the bar, Chantal’s male manager often required some last-minute wardrobe changes for the female staffers. “He would cut my shirts—my T-shirts,” Chantal says, miming a pair of shears tearing into her chest area. Chantal’s girlfriend, Bre, chimes in to fill out the remainder of the uniform, which required no modification to achieve objectification. “You had to wear high heels and short skirts,” Bre reminds her. “Yeah,” Chantal says. “It was a requirement.”

At the bar, lucrative shifts were awarded to competent male employees—and flirtatious female ones. “For guys, it was the guys who could sell the most, the ones who were the good bartenders,” says Chantal. For women? “How much you flirt with the manager.”

THE FUTURE.

Once brazen sexual advances and modifying fellow employees’ clothes go out of style, workplace sexists may have to settle on more outlandish exercises—like ridiculing male models for eating cake. Jason Cooper, 23, and Rabon Hutcherson, 25, may very well be on the cutting edge of sexism. The male models are regularly subjected to the type of sex discrimination usually reserved for women.

There’s the wage gap: “It’s almost a female-driven industry, with the Heidi Klums and the Naomi Campbells,” says Hutcherson. “And in general they’re paid more—a lot more—than the male models.”

There’s the stereotyping: “When you’re a model, your goal is to sell something, whether it’s a product, a look, or a message,” says Cooper. “Most of those products are geared toward females.” Even products geared toward men—like alcohol and cigarettes—often require a female hire. “Sex sells,” says Hutcherson. That leaves Cooper and Hutcherson shilling for “the things that men are stereotypically better at,” says Cooper. In the advertising world, men are good for wearing suits, working out, and grilling.

And there’s the sex-based harassment: “All of my friends that don’t model or act have a real hard time dealing with it,” says Cooper. “It gets old. Dropping a Zoolander line is not funny,” says Cooper. “They’re not the first person to do it; I hear it all the time. If you’re going to be annoying about it, at least be funny and original.” Hutcherson says that ribbing from male friends can border on the obsessive. “If they see you eating a piece of cake, it’s like a news flash,” he says. “Oh he’s eating cake; let’s take a picture of this; what are you doing; you can’t eat that,” he says. “I still do eat cake.”

Yesterday, local cat-calling chronicler Hollaback DC asked for some street-harassment intel: "Have you been harassed on your bike in the DC Metro area?" According to Hollaback, "We have received several stories from individuals who have been harassed by a biker, but have yet to hear from any folks who have been harassed while biking."

The inquiry was sparked by a recent Guardian piece, titled "What is it about a woman on a bike that attracts such unwelcome attention?" Author Jessica Reed, frustrated by the cat-calls she suffered while biking in skirts, resorting to a program of "dressing head-to-toe in black lycra" while riding the city streets. "And wouldn't you know?" she reports. "The catcalling ceased immediately, except for that recent time when I had the incredible audacity to go on a bike ride wearing shorts."

My experience biking in the city has been similar to Reed's, though the harassment I've experienced has been less sartorially-motivated. Usually, just biking while female is enough. And I think I've figured out what it is about a woman on a bike that attracts such unwelcome attention.

It's an easy in. When it comes to picking up women, pick-up artists will tell you that the initial contact is often the hardest part. When your female target is perched atop a big, mobile metal contraption, would-be harassers have an easy way to spark conversation—or harassment. I'd say half the harassers who have targeted me on my bike resort to variations the same line: "Wish I were that seat." Simple, offensive, effective.

Bikers are a natural outlet for road rage. Bikers—whether preventing the driver's ability to drift thoughtlessly into the bike lane, or turn right without looking at who they might swipe in the process—are a constant annoyance to drivers. I've experienced my share of non-sexual harassment while biking as well—but it's a short leap from road rage to sexist verbal bashing. See: General outrage at "women drivers" of all vehicles.

People just love fucking with people on bikes. Pedestrians, too, love fucking with bikers. I have a few theories on why this is true. First, it's relatively effective and low-risk: bikers are close enough to the sidewalk to hear the harassment, but going too fast to bother to start shit. I also suspect that in some circles, biking is regarded as incredibly douchey, and harassing bikers is hilarious. This may explain why, several months ago, a woman leapt onto my boyfriend, laughing maniacally, as he attempted to ride past her. She didn't seem to want money or sex—just fun.

Bike naturally puts your ass on display. Just sayin.'

As a result, the bike serves as a proxy for the short skirt. As Reed points out, certain wardrobe choices tend to encourage harassers. Even on foot, a woman's interest in wearing a short skirt becomes a harasser's invitation—hey, she's not wearing pants, so she must want me to discuss her vagina! While elevated onto a bike seat, the harasser interprets your interest in using an efficient method of transportation that happens to elevate your butt as free vagina access. Most of the time, it doesn't matter what the victim is doing—all that matters is that the harasser can find a thread of justification for the cat-call.

So, what is a girl biker to do? Given my history with biking harassment, I was intrigued by the testimony of Lauren Mardirosian, a D.C. resident who launched pro-bike-helmet initiative "Safety is Sexy" in an effort to look sexier while riding. In March, CP's Tanya Snyder wrote of Mardirosian:

As a recent transplant, she liked flirting with people on bikes, figuring they shared at least that one interest. But she “felt dorky with a helmet on.” Instead of just chucking the helmet, though, she set out to change the reason she felt dorky, launching a “Safety is Sexy” campaign. Her trademark sticker, “You’d Look Hotter in a Helmet,” fits perfectly between the vents on helmets. She says she wanted people to look at someone riding with a helmet and say, “Hey that guy’s hot, he’s wearing a helmet—that’s smart.”

Reed started wearing androgynous clothing to look less sexy while peddling. While Mardirosian took an opposite measure—starting a campaign to make androgynous biking gear seem sexier—I think we can learn something from her tactics. Mardirosian "set out to change the reason she felt dorky." Instead of lady bikers curbing our own behavior—we like riding and wearing skirts for ourselves, not the harassers—I can't help but think we have to change attitudes, not wardrobes. I'm not sure how that's going to happen, but chronicling our bike harassment on Hollaback DC sounds like a good place to start

Photo by mindfrieze

Last month, I wrote a story about a sexual harassment complaint filed against D.C. police photo lab head William "Bill" Gresham. The story speculated on a finer point of the extremely graphic lawsuit filed by former Gresham employee Mary N. Gilkey—an allegation in paragraph 14 that “Defendant Gresham introduced what he called a ‘peter meter’ to the office.”

Gresham and D.C. police declined to comment on my story about what, exactly, a "peter meter" is. Now, the photo lab boss has officially denied that he ever "introduced" one to his office. Last Friday, a response was finally filed in the case on behalf of Gresham and the District of Columbia. The answer to the complaint denies the allegation concerning the "peter meter," along with the remainder of Gilkey's allegations of sexual harassment and retaliation. There are a lot of allegations to deny. In her Sept. 24 complaint, Gilkey claimed the harassment spanned 14 years of her employment in the photo lab, and included Gresham commenting on her body while "he licked his tongue and touch[ed] his penis," Gresham showing her "pictures of two men engaged in a sexual act where one man had his arm up the other man's ass," and Gresham hitting her "on the top of her head with a telephone receiver so hard she bled."

After denying Gilkey's "allegations of discrimination, hostile work environment, retaliation and violation of the common law violation," the answer to the complaint, filed by Acting Attorney General Peter J. Nickles, requests that the "matter be dismissed."

In the strangest allegation, the suit accuses photo boss Gresham of having "purchased panties with a MPD insignia and provided them to the females in his office." In the most violent, the lawsuit alleges Gresham "hit [Gilkey] on the top of her head with a telephone receiver so hard she bled because [Gilkey] made a disapproving face and mouthed disapproving words when she witnessed Defendant Gresham lying to his wife while he spoke to her on the telephone."

The suit accuses Gresham and the District of Columbia of "sex harassment," creating a "hostile work environment," "intentional infliction of emotional distress," and "retaliation." The District of Columbia is also accused of "negligent training and supervision." The suit alleges that "MPD knew about Defendant Gresham’s proclivities as a sexual predator, was informed of Defendant Gresham’s actions towards Plaintiff, and failed to take appropriate remedial actions against Defendant Gresham." The complaint requests damages for "physical and emotional distress" and asks that Gresham be removed from his post.

Gresham picked up the phone at MPD's photo lab yesterday. When asked about the case, Gresham said he hadn't heard anything about the lawsuit. "I have no comment, and don’t know anything about [the allegations]," Gresham said.

Gilkey's attorney, Ted J. Williams, previously represented MPD employee Tina Hall-Johnson in another sexual harassment case against Gresham and D.C., which the city settled in 2001. When asked about the new case against Gresham, Williams said, "I find it shocking that the Metropolitan Police Department would continue to employ this person, who clearly is a sexual predator and harasser and a wart, knowing what he had done to one employee. Also of concern is they were on notice of the actions of this man, and there is absolutely nothing that we’ve seen to show that they’ve taken any appropriate action."

According to the complaint, Gresham's alleged verbal harassment began shortly after Gilkey was hired on as an MPD lab technician in June of 1994. Gresham, Gilkey's superior, is accused of commenting that Gilkey "had big full breasts" and "walked like she had good pussy." Gilkey also alleges that Gresham told her "he would give her money if she would permit him to lick her pussy" and that "if he gave her his penis she would be wearing a mattress on her back." According to the complaint, Gresham made many of these comments while he "licked his tongue" or "while touching his penis. Gresham is also accused of introducing a “peter meter” in the office, a term the complaint does not explain.

The complaint also accuses Gresham of several instances of physical harassment:

While in the dark room, Defendant Gresham would walk behind the Plaintiff and touch her body with his erect penis. Defendant Gresham on one occasion grabbed the Plaintiff’s breast and told the Plaintiff that if she informed anyone he would make it hard for her. Defendant Gresham repeatedly showed Plaintiff pornographic pictures and pictures of nude women on beaches. Plaintiff informed Defendant Gresham over and over that his actions were unwanted and asked him to stop.

While MPD was investigating Gresham in regards to the Hall-Johnson suit, the complaint reports that "Gresham was detailed out of the MPD Photo Lab for approximately one year." Following the absence, however, the suit states that Gresham returned to work, "where he began his sexual harassment as if he had never left the photo lab."

After reassuming his post, Gresham is accused of continuing his verbal and physical harassment of Gilkey between the years of 2000 and 2006, including exposing Gilkey’s breast, displaying pornography “where one man had his arm up the other man’s ass,” and constantly telling Gilkey “how good she looked and [that] he would do anything to fuck her."

The suit claims that Gilkey reported the abuse to supervisors in 1998 and 2003, as well as during the course of the Hall-Johnson investigation. In both ’98 and ‘03, the suit alleges that supervisors "failed to act on Plaintiff’s complaint and did not either investigate Plaintiff’s complaint, refer Plaintiff to the MPD EEO office or restrain Mr. Gresham in any way."

In response, the suit alleges, the harassment intensified. According to the complaint, Gresham:

created a situation by which Plaintiff’s co-workers would not speak to her or assist her so that she was forced to ask him for assistance. Defendant Gresham would then take advantage of [Gilkey] having to seek assistance from him and would touch her inappropriately or ask her for sex while complying with her request for assistance. He also encouraged Plaintiff’s co-workers to harass her with the ultimate goal of increasing control over Plaintiff and force Plaintiff to have sex with him.

When contacted yesterday, MPD spokesperson Traci Hughes said that the police department "cannot comment on matters that are currently in litigation."