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Sexual street harassment in Brixton

ViolentPanda said:
The last time I heard that argument made with any force was in the '80s w/r/t the treatment of women in the various "Asian" communities, and it was as shoddy then as it is now - oppression is oppression, regardless of any cultural factors that supposedly explain such oppression. Obviously it springs up every now and then to "explain" everything from "honour" killings to arse-pinching, but no-one should kid themselves that such explanations are anything more than an excuse for socially-unacceptable behaviour. As you say, that's apologia.
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This reminded me of such incident when my mum and I were travelling around Mexico (I was 9 years old I think). We were walking around some town, when all of a sudden I see my mum turning around and slapping a man's face. I was completely puzzled. She had a massive go at this man, he had pinched her bottom! :oops: but also when I think back at it this now I can't help but smile :D Go mum!
 
Kizmet said:
Is anyone really stupid enough to believe that a father of two daughters with a number of close female friends would ever tell any of them to "shut the fuck up" about sexual harassment?
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Are you really stupid enough to think that some fathers of two daughters, who have a number of close female friends, wouldn't ever tell any of them to shut up about sexual harrassment?

Extrapolating from the personal to the general is a mug's game, as is expecting people to attribute positive characteristics to a poster who at the very least has expressed himself poorly enough that his posts warranted scrutiny.
 
Gramsci said:
Given that one aspect of this thread is what constitutes street harassment can you define what you would regard as the difference between harassment and a compliment?

I do think that you feeling that you have not been harassed in Brixton is just as valid as those women who feel they have suffered harassment. It should be taken into account in any article about Brixton

(set aside the cultural issues for the moment).
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The dividing line between compliment and harassment varies hugely from individual to individual and even tell minute to minute in an individual. Because of that I think you have to rule out the "intentions" behind it and focus on what "it" actually is.

When you do this it becomes clear that a common factor is a lack of respect for women.

This ties directly into what some people are saying about patriarchy being the cause.

But it does also directly bring cultures and influences into the discussion because to deal with a lack of respect you have to know from where it comes.

Also respect or lack of it is much easier to detect than intentions... identifying respect and what is respectful behaviour is a significant feature in my discussions with my eldest.

This is not to say that lack of respect is the only cause but I do believe it to be common.
 
ViolentPanda said:
expecting people to attribute positive characteristics to a poster who at the very least has expressed himself poorly enough that his posts warranted scrutiny.
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I don't expect it, anymore.

I just think more highly of those who are capable of it and pay more attention to their opinions.
 
girasol said:
This reminded me of such incident when my mum and I were travelling around Mexico (I was 9 years old I think). We were walking around some town, when all of a sudden I see my mum turning around and slapping a man's face. I was completely puzzled. She had a massive go at this man, he had pinched her bottom! :oops: but also when I think back at it this now I can't help but smile :D Go mum!
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I would LOVE to have the guts to do that, arse pinching is something that truely enrages me but sadly I dont have the power or ability to lump the person doing it. Id be too scared of it backfiring so to speak.

Thsi thread has reminded me of one of the reasons I listen to music virtually all the time when out and about - you block out the sound of others :D
 
Callie said:
I would LOVE to have the guts to do that, arse pinching is something that truely enrages me but sadly I dont have the power or ability to lump the person doing it. Id be too scared of it backfiring so to speak.

Thsi thread has reminded me of one of the reasons I listen to music virtually all the time when out and about - you block out the sound of others :D
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I read something somewhere (might not be true) about a woman holding a mans hand up on a busy tube and asking "does any one know who this belongs to? Coz I just found it on my arse" :D
I hope it is true.
 
ViolentPanda said:
So you prefer posters who'll give you a free pass if you express yourself poorly and/or chat shite?
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You do, so why shouldn't I? :)

Anyway, we can have different opinions on what is poorly expressed or not. Lets leave it there... you seem to be trying to justify something that I just don't agree with.
 
I once verbally flamed a groper on the Tube so loudly, obscenely and angrily that he slunk off the carriage actually saying : "no need to be so shouty and sweary about it" :cool:

One of my finest hours... (it didn't feel like it at the time, tho, 'cos I'd really lashed out as was so sick of regular incidents and didn't feel it was an entirely controlled response)
 
kittyP said:
I read something somewhere (might not be true) about a woman holding a mans hand up on a busy tube and asking "does any one know who this belongs to? Coz I just found it on my arse" :D
I hope it is true.
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I did it to a guy in the lobby of the Met in NYC. And I know someone who did it on the tube. It's a useful urban myth as it gives people something to do, so is now urban fact :D
 
Rushy said:
She said that people would have to be very over sensitive to interpret the comments which she received as being harassment. Interestingly nobody asked her anything about those comments and her experiences. Is that because no unsolicited comments whatsoever could be acceptable and the details of her experiences are therefore irrelevant?
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there comes as point tbh, where that (and a few other) particular doozie becomes 'oh no, not again' and i loose the will to try to respond to the same thing that will then get jumped on by the same serial apologists and made about them.

Her experiences aren't irrelevant. but she seems to think the experiences of those who have complained of harassment are.maybe she's not getting it as bad as others, maybe she's not noticing some stuff, maybe she's able to give the entitled men calling to her the kind of comments they want in response so they don't start yelling the nasty stuff at the woman who rejected them. if the later, fine for her, but a woman should not have to behave in the way those men want so she can get from one end of the street to the other without facing abuse for not being friendly, flirty and responsive.
 
MrsDarlingsKiss said:
Fair enough. Although it was a genuine question, your ref to imams and fgm seemed odd to me. I'm not firky, I'm not going to accuse you of being a wacist ;)
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Good! That little witch hunt was horrible.....

However, is something I should be careful about- fgm predates all the big monotheistic religions and Judaism is the only one that has completely stamped it out. It is often used to attack islam (esp in the US) but In Egypt, for example, they estimate 97% women have been cut in some way, so just on the basis of the statistics on ethnic make up you have to accept Coptic Christians are also practising it. Conversely places like Saudi are *very* anti, despite being the negative vision of islam in many ways. And it isn't a middle eastern or African problem, it's more complex than that. However, there is a Hadith that has been used to justify it. It's a weak Hadith, and most (sane) scholars think that the overriding principle that a woman should not be harmed and should take sexual pleasure in her husband means it rules out anything more than a symbolic cut on the prepuce (type 1 according to WHO categorisation) tho many go further and say even that is not allowed.

<<derail>>
 
MrsDarlingsKiss said:
Only just spotted this, my understanding is that imam is a leader of prayers whereas iman means faith.
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I have seen 'leader of prayers' spelt iman, imam, Eman, Imaan and Imaam. And I just googled it and encountered one site that categorically stated you need iman to be an imam, and another than seemed to use three spellings in the first page... My Arabic is seriously rusty (and wasn't great in the first place) but I can't find the standard summary of accepted transliteration conventions: they are usually on the Harvard website. :grr:

What I meant is that where the source of a language Iain a non-Latin script, there are always huge debates about how it s written in Latin script. *usually* there are a generally accepted set of rules at a point in time, but then someone will be along who is differently educated, working to a different agenda or whatever and challenge them. Add complications like symbols that change meanings of letters, pronunciation and tonal elements to language (same letters written mean different things when pronounced differently- one of the joys of Arabic) and you end up with a specialist study subject :). Russian is the one I can talk about with confidence (ie romanisation of Cyrillic) as there is a lot of politics behind it: with Arabic the disputes are partly religious and partly linked to the fact classical and regional Arabic(s) differ.

E2a found something! Not what I was looking for but it'll do
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Arabic
 
Can't say it's really ever bothered me, lived here for 20 years - always been like that in Brixton but it's usually just all chat and no action - just part of the furniture the randy males who 'think out loud' and seems to be part of the west Indian culture to do that - at least it used to be. The women give some pretty good back-chat too which could also be deemed to be offensive. It's part of the living theatre of Brixton which is why we choose to live there. If you don't like it then perhaps you should live somewhere like Surrey where everyone is frightfully nice and nobody would dream of speaking to anyone out of turn. This is grimy old London and it has been ever thus.
 
Gramsci said:
I agree. Glad you pointed this out. The Met website does not have any figures for harassment of any kind.

Either its not reported or its not taken as a serious issue by the Met. There is new recent offence for stalking. So looks like the Police will take interest if its repeated harassment/stalking by a man of a women.

Im assuming the Met figures are reported crimes not convictions. As that seems to be the data the Met use.
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Yes, I do wonder how you would report this. Would it fall under 'antisocial' behaviour? I emailed the local police to see how best to report things like this but they've not yet responded.
 
Gramsci said:
Hi Sirena.

Given that one aspect of this thread is what constitutes street harassment can you define what you would regard as the difference between harassment and a compliment?

I do think that you feeling that you have not been harassed in Brixton is just as valid as those women who feel they have suffered harassment. It should be taken into account in any article about Brixton

(set aside the cultural issues for the moment).

Rushy

toggle

S A Villarino
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Sorry Gramsci, this reasoning doesn't wash with me. There is sufficient evidence to prove that sexual harassment is an issue in and outside of Brixton. 43% of women under 34 have claimed that they've received unwanted sexual harassment on the street/public transport in London in 2012. Right now the status quo is all too much in the favour of Sirena - that street harassment is not a problem and that women are oversensitive. But from this thread and from many people I know, the actions that women have to take to avoid these problems - listening to music all the time, dressing down, avoiding eye contact etc. - impacts our quality of life. This is something that very very few straight men will have to put up with.

Her experience is valid but that does not invalidate the thousands of voices that find this behaviour threatening. You cannot give them equal weighting. Not interested in continuing the normalisation of street harassment. That's what the rest of society does.
 
McGc said:
Can't say it's really ever bothered me, lived here for 20 years - always been like that in Brixton but it's usually just all chat and no action - just part of the furniture the randy males who 'think out loud' and seems to be part of the west Indian culture to do that - at least it used to be. The women give some pretty good back-chat too which could also be deemed to be offensive. It's part of the living theatre of Brixton which is why we choose to live there. If you don't like it then perhaps you should live somewhere like Surrey where everyone is frightfully nice and nobody would dream of speaking to anyone out of turn. This is grimy old London and it has been ever thus.
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and here comes another to try to make out that this is behavior done mostly by black males and black women are all able to handle this, with added 'fuck off if you don't like being abused on the street,m cause this is my well cool place'

read the tread, already covered why this is bullshit
 
toggle said:
and here comes another to try to make out that this is behavior done mostly by black males and black women are all able to handle this, with added 'fuck off if you don't like being abused on the street,m cause this is my well cool place'

read the tread, already covered why this is bullshit
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Init! Where I live is a predominantly white area. I get this shit all the time.
 
McGc said:
Can't say it's really ever bothered me, lived here for 20 years - always been like that in Brixton but it's usually just all chat and no action - just part of the furniture the randy males who 'think out loud' and seems to be part of the west Indian culture to do that - at least it used to be. The women give some pretty good back-chat too which could also be deemed to be offensive. It's part of the living theatre of Brixton which is why we choose to live there. If you don't like it then perhaps you should live somewhere like Surrey where everyone is frightfully nice and nobody would dream of speaking to anyone out of turn. This is grimy old London and it has been ever thus.
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I think the appropriate response here is

1/10. Could Try Harder.
 
S A Villarino said:
Sorry Gramsci, this reasoning doesn't wash with me. There is sufficient evidence to prove that sexual harassment is an issue in and outside of Brixton. 43% of women under 34 have claimed that they've received unwanted sexual harassment on the street/public transport in London in 2012. Right now the status quo is all too much in the favour of Sirena - that street harassment is not a problem and that women are oversensitive. But from this thread and from many people I know, the actions that women have to take to avoid these problems - listening to music all the time, dressing down, avoiding eye contact etc. - impacts our quality of life. This is something that very very few straight men will have to put up with.

Her experience is valid but that does not invalidate the thousands of voices that find this behaviour threatening. You cannot give them equal weighting. Not interested in continuing the normalisation of street harassment. That's what the rest of society does.
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There is not a lot of evidence as its been not been researched that much. There is the YouGov poll I found. A study from North American study is mentioned on the YouGov poll. This indicate little or no research has been done here. Most research is of workplace. The other poll by YouGov of 16 to 18 year olds indicates there is a problem for young women in particular. So there is limited research on this topic.

The YouGov poll indicate that 2 out of every 5 women have suffered sexual harassment in public places in last year.

Thats not to say that its not an issue. Its just that there appears to be little or no actual social research on it. Unless I have missed something.

Sirena first post was that she did not feel that she had been harassed.

Her reasoning, in her later posts, is flawed. As was made clear to her by me among others. She made generalisations about one particular community in Brixton. Which she did admit was a generalisation.

But her experience is hers. If you see what I mean. What I am saying is that whilst she can be criticised for devaluing other womens experience her own experience needs to be taken into account.

You did ask in first post:

I want to know other people's stories. Have you experienced it? Have you seen it happen to others? How does Brixton square with other areas?
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Sirena answer as long time Brixton resident was no to your question.
 
S A Villarino said:
Yes, I do wonder how you would report this. Would it fall under 'antisocial' behaviour? I emailed the local police to see how best to report things like this but they've not yet responded.
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Looks to me like the reason they have not replied is because they do not have a way set up to report it.

Get the impression from the YouGov poll that maybe the Transport Police are better bet to ask about this. As poll asked questions about public transport. The Transport Police are separate from the Met. Even though they have all the same powers as Met cops. Brixton is big interchange and transport area (overhead trains, underground and buses). So it might be worth asking them directly rather than local Met police.

ASBO is used for repeated behaviours. Its normally is used to exclude and individual from a particular area. But ASBO s are contentious area.

There is or was a "Dispersal Zone" in Brixton. So Police had powers to tell a person(s) to leave an area if they were causing distress. I guess that could cover sexual harassment. It might be worth asking local cops if there is a Dispersal Zone in Brixton now and would they "disperse" a man/ men who were harassing a women and also use the possible powers of ASBO or "acceptable behaviour order". It does not say anything about sexual harassment but I would have thought the DZ powers are widely enough drawn to do this if the cops are so inclined. Be interesting to see if they think this is possible. Depends on what kind of mood they are in that day.

For the record I am no fan of DZ, ASBO etc.

ASB is dealt with in conjunction with the Council and Police. It comes under:

Cabinet Member for Safer and Stronger Neighbourhoods - Councillor Jack Hopkins

020 7091 9010
jhopkins@lambeth.gov.uk

Might be worth dropping him an email. New Labour types take an interest in these issues.
 
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