Young Women's Action Team

I don't want this blog to only be stories of violence and victimization. Women (and men) resist violence and harassment every day. I hope that this blog contributes to that resistance.

I was just made aware of an event on May 22 at Loyola University. The Young Women's Action Team is sponsoring a forum that addresses street harassment and violence against women. It is from 5 to 7. For more info shoot an e-mail to: rpywat@hotmail.com

Also check out the Young Women's Action Team website. They do great work!

Violence on the CTA

One of my classmates was attacked on the CTA #8 bus yesterday afternoon. Another classmate shared her story with us. Normally I choose not to speak for anyone but since she is still in shock and has not left the police office, I am going to share her horrific story.

Around 4:30 yesterday afternoon Jasmine (name changed) boarded the #8 bus to DePaul for her evening class. She sat in an inside seat by the window near the back and pulled out a magazine for the long ride. Before long a man sat down next to her. He began arguing with a woman in the aisle of the bus. Engaged in her magazine, Jasmine didn't notice until the argument escalated. Feeling threatened, she tried to get out of her seat by gesturing to the man that she needed to get off. This only focused his attention in on her.

I am not sure exactly how their exchange turned violent but he let her out of the seat and punched her in the face. When she fell over, he grabbed her by the leg and started dragging her down the aisle of the bus. By this point she and many passengers were screaming at the bus driver to stop and help out. The bus driver did nothing. He just proceeded on to the next stop while several passengers called the police. The man who attacked Jasmine escaped at the next stop, while the bus driver, again, did nothing. A few people chased him off of the bus in an attempt to restrain him until the police arrived. He managed to hop on an "L" train before anyone could catch him.

Jasmine has spent the past 24 hours dealing with police and recovering from her injuries and the general humiliation of being dragged through a crowd of people.

Again, this is my telling of her story and I hope that when she is feeling better she will tell it herself. Something is seriously wrong when CTA staff and passengers are so desensitized to violence and harassment something like this could happen and the perpetrator could escape! People should not be subject to violence during their commutes. It is just that simple.

"I Never Feel Safe"

I am a white, 17 year old girl living in the South Side, so you can imagine how much attention I get just for being present. But I can't leave the house without some nasty guy slowing down in his car to holler at me, or some guy on the red line sitting across from me so he can try to look up my skirt.

A couple weeks ago I was walking home. It was late, around midnight. I was listening to my iPod and not paying much attention to my surroundings when I noticed that a car had slowed down next to me and the driver was trying to get my attention. I said "Can I help you?" and he said "Hey girl, you fine as hell. You wanna come home with me tonight?" I promptly told him that I was a lesbian and did not desire his company at any point in my life. He said "You like girls? I like girls too. I got plenty of girls I can share with you. Hot little white girls like yourself." At this point I told him to fuck off and put my earphones back in. After a while he got frustrated and sped off.

~

I was walking down my street last summer in the middle of day. I was going to visit a neighbor who lived about three houses down. As soon as I started walking down the sidewalk, two boys started following me. They kept watching my ass and pretending to grab it while saying "hey baby, hey baby." I got sick of it after about 2 seconds and turned around to say "I am not your baby. Get the fuck off my sidewalk." They didn't continue harassing me.

~

A couple weeks ago a friend of mine was visiting me. We were on the red line heading downtown. A man was sitting across from us and staring openly. In the beginning I didn't say anything. I get stared at a lot, mostly just because I am out of place. But after a while, this guy tried to start a conversation. My friend and I were polite. We said hi and contributed to his small talk. Then he looked at me and said "So, Velma." (He thought I looked like the character from Scooby-Doo. I was wearing a plaid skirt and thick-rimmed glasses.) I could tell he was trying to look up my skirt and I squeezed my legs shut as tight as possible. "When we gonna kick it?" "Excuse me?" "Come on Velma, you think I'm fly, I think you fly, let's fuck." I grabbed my friends hand and proceeded to tell him we were gay.

I never feel safe.

Summer Is Upon Us!

Sorry for the lack of updates this winter. I didn't get very many e-mails and I didn't do much to promote the blog because of my own busy schedule. But summer is quickly upon us and most women know what that means. Skimpier clothes and more street harassment. Now I don't want to suggest that women are not harassed during the winter because they certainly are. I had plenty of stories from friends being harassed in Lakeview and I even experienced a few cat calls while I was wearing my enormous winter parka and, in my opinion, looked pretty gender neutral. Regardless of what we look like, women are always the sex class which means that in the eyes of some people, we are always sexually available. In this way weather, clothing, body type, location, etc do not matter when considering street harassment.

That being said, women certainly exerience more street harassment during the summer. I am going to try to commit myself to maintaining and promoting this blog with more ferocity because we MUST hollar back and end street harassment so that women (and men) can feel safer on their streets.

"Damn girl looks like a sister"

Two weeks ago I was off the Kedzie stop on the green line for a job
interview and this guy walks by me and says something like "Hey baby
how you doing." I didn't look at him or say anything, and he walks
past me. Then from behind me I hear him say "Damn girl looks like a
sister." This kind of thing happens frequently. Yes thank you all very
much I'm aware that I have a large ass.

The best was when one of my co-workers referred to me as "thick as
hell" and proceeded to inform that if I went to his neighborhood I
would be like "A piece of fried chicken on a string" and all the guys
would be jumping to get a bite at me. Really, was that necessary? The
next time we worked together I made it perfectly clear that I did not
want him to talk to me anymore and he has not bothered me since.

Now that I know this exists I'll probably be a frequent poster since
this kind of thing happens daily.

~Submitted by Molly

Creepy Guy Does NOT Get the Message

I was coming home from law class at about 8:30pm on Monday the 29th. I noticed a man sitting near the adjacent door wearing an overcoat and green leather "cabbie" hat, neatly dressed. This man began to make suggestive "compliments" and hand gestures to two young women as they left the train. The young women looked a bit embarrassed but said nothing. Unfortunately, I became the next target of his attentions.

He points to me, then gives me the "thumbs up," and says, "you, you're a bit old but I wouldn't mind fucking you either!" (I'm in my late 30s, not dressed suggestively or revealingly - but neither were the other women he spoke to) I say nothing, but I move a bit further away and put in my earphones to communicate I'm not interested in any interaction.

He becomes angry that I don't acknowledge his comments, shouting "I'm talking to you, bitch! I just paid you a compliment, and you didn't say thank you!! Didn't your mama teach you to say thank you? What are you, a wiseass or a smartass? Fucking bitch, you listen to me when I'm talking to you!"

I say nothing and continue to ignore him, but stand my ground because I am sick of this type of behavior. I feel I'm too old to have to deal with this crap and I refuse to run away and be forced to move. I just pretend he doesn't exist.

He gets up and walks over to a young woman, and I hear him ask her if she knows me - she shakes her head.

There were perhaps a dozen other people on the trains car, who (of course) said and did nothing.

~Submitted by Lenka

Resisting Violence Against Women in Chicago

Paving New Roads: Communities Engaged in Resisting Violence

This is your opportunity to hear about innovative, creative & grassroots strategies in Chicago to end violence against women & girls!

Groups from around Chicago will be holding hands-on workshops with concrete ideas, tools and strategies to resist violence, including…

• Media Justice & How to Deconstruct the Media
• Performance as a Means of Activism & Resistance
• Engaging Young Men as Allies: Lessons Learned
• Using Platica & Storytelling around issues of Violence & Reproductive Justice
• Creating Alternative Responses to Violence against Girls & Women of Color in the Sex Trade & Street Economies
• Inclusion of People with Disabilities in Anti-violence Work
• Violence & the Prison Industrial Complex
• Queer Youth Resisting Violence
• Educación Popular y Violencia de Género

Participating and presenting groups include: Access Living, AquaMoon, Broadway Youth Center, Casa Segura, Females United for Action, FIRE, Latinas Organizing for Reproductive Equality, the Rogers Park Young Women's Action Team, Take Back the Halls, and the Young Women's Empowerment Project.

The event will take place on Saturday, December 1st, 2007, from 11:30 - 4 pm, at DePaul University SAC - 2320 N. Kenmore

The event is FREE and open to the public, but space is limited, so if you haven't already, RSVP today to pavingnewroads@gmail.com

This event is sponsored by Women & Girls CAN, the Community Accountability Planning Group and DePaul University Program in Women & Gender Studies.

Proof that some men who harass are cowards!

Last Thursday, September 27, around 6pm, I was waiting at the
Montrose stop on the Blue Line to go downtown. I had just missed the
train, so it was just me and a guy, who was wandering the platform,
muttering to himself. After a minute or two, he wandered over and
stood uncomfortably close to me, looked me up and down, making eye
contact and muttered something unintelligible.

I looked him in the eye and asked "Can I help you?"

He said something else I couldn't understand. At that point, I noticed a younger guy with a bicycle had come onto the platform. I decided to go stand next to him and
see if this other guy would follow me. He did, but didn't stand as
close. The train came and of course, he got on the same car as I
did. I sat at one end and he was standing at the other. There were
some other people on the car, but it wasn't full. I looked over at
the guy a few times to make sure he wasn't coming my way.

It was then that I realized he had found a new victim! A woman was sitting
and he was standing over her, muttering quietly to her. I caught her
eye and saw fear and discomfort. At that moment, a great wave
of anger rose up in me and a voice inside me shouted "Do
something!"

I suddenly remembered my new camera phone and reading
about taking a picture of street harassers. I whipped it out, jumped
out of my seat and walked quickly over to him in a rage.

"Get away from her!" I shouted. "Stop bothering her!"

He stopped and looked at me. I lifted my phone and got his face into focus. Suddenly he
was able to communicate clearly and put his hand up, saying "I don' want you to take a picture of me."

"Then get over there and leave us alone!" I said and pointed to the end of the car where I had been sitting. Then I sat down next to the woman. He obeyed and shuffled
down to the other end of the car.

The woman thanked me repeatedly and got off at the next stop. He got off a few stops later.
I have never done anything like this in my entire life but I am so sick of this shit! I grew up in Chicago and have been street harassed since I was 9 years old. Enough is
enough!

The sad part is, that after I ordered him to the other end
of the train car, I looked around at all the other people on the
train, fully expecting a round of applause or at least some nods and
smiles of approval. No one would meet my eye. Everyone was looking
down or out the window, acting like nothing had happened! There is
no way that every single person on that car did not see and hear
everything that took place, but not one acknowledged it.

~Submitted by Shari P

Holly Holla's Back

I went to grad school at UIC. One nice fall day, I was walking between the east and west campuses. I think I was on Polk, a few blocks east of Ashland. This older man said hi to me, so I said hi back. He seemed perfectly nice, and I keep trying (stupidly) to give people the benefit of the doubt so I don't turn into a misanthrope. So much for that. So he is making small talk (beautiful day, pretty leaves, and such), then comments about the small community hospital nearby and says it's a shame it's closing. What are the neighborhood people going to do, that sort of thing (oh, I don't know - go to Rush, or UIC, or County, being that this is the MEDICAL DISTRICT), ok, he's concerned about his community, that's good. Then, completely out of the blue: "suppose you and I were dating, and we were having intercourse, and I pulled out and flung the condom against the wall. Bye!" and walks off. WTF? It was a verbal flashing.

~

On the inbound blue line, these guys get on at Pulaski and start harassing people. They are probably in their early 20s and trying to look cool in front of their friends by being complete dicks. The ringleader is just walking around shouting at people, who are all trying hard to ignore them. So he starts to shout at me, and I just cannot take it. I think that their goal is to make people afraid, shut them down, and I just wasn't going to play along (though I am normally not at all confrontational). I said something loudly like "stop shouting at me," not really expecting him to stop and go away - I just had to holla back. So when I get up and wait for the Medical Center stop, he stands behind me and says something like "I'm gonna part your legs and make you scream." I say, "whatever," and he says "did she just call me a n-----?" (he is black and I am white). Um, yeah. You're harassing me, threatening to rape me, and so I call you by the worst term I can think of. I am not stupid! (nor do I use the n-word). I don't know if he really thought I said that or if it was just something else inflammatory for him to say. I wasn't scared since I was getting off the train right then. It was morning rush hour, loads of people around, cops & security probably not too far off. But what if it had been night? No one around? I supposed I wouldn't have holla'ed at all.

~

I worked at a counseling center in Uptown. I was accompanying a client back from the bank one cold winter day, when this guy honks and waves me to his car at Lawrence just west of Broadway. I figured I must know him - why else would he be waving to me? There are lots of people who work at my agency, it was probably one of the doctors. So I go over there and he asks if I want to get together and go to lunch. What? Um, no! I was so confused. Tries again to get me to go with him, and I just walk away. When I got back to my office, I tell my coworkers, who practically fall down laughing, saying he thought I was a prostitute. He couldn't possibly have thought that though. What prostitute wears a calf-length, wool German navy coat, with a black and white middle eastern scarf over her head, tied under her chin?? I looked like a cold woman who had someplace to be!

~

Another Uptown incident. We had an employee appreciation lunch at some hotel, so I had dressed up a bit. Had on a dress with above-the-knee skirt, but quite modest. One of my clients was leaving my office at the same time as me, so he walked me partway home. When we got to Lawrence and Broadway, I was just about to tell him it was time to part company when I noticed this guy stopped in his fancy car at the light. He was just smiling and smiling at me, in such a creepy way. I let my client walk me a little further on, until the smiling guy was gone. I didn't tell my client about him - might have been inappropriate - but I sure appreciated his company at that moment. Oh, how I hated Uptown. When I moved to Lakeview and couldn't walk home anymore, I waited for the bus at Clark just south of Lawrence, and guys were constantly checking me out. And I was always dressed for work, nothing revealing! And so often it was middle-class men in nice cars. Why are they cruising Uptown? Ugh. Not to mention the married medical director of the agency, very high profile in his profession, who asked me if I had any other body parts pierced (I have a nose ring). Ick!



~Submitted by Holly.