WOMEN AND GIRLS DESERVE BETTER....NO MORE STREET HARASSMENT!

I was sent a link to this really great website recently which is all about stopping street harassment. Stress harassment is something that we face a lot as women, and it makes us feel unsafe and unwelcomed everywhere. Street harassment intimidates women and girls in an attempt to keep us out of public spaces so that we stay at home where it's safe like a good woman should! The irony is that most of our homes are unsafe from abuse, violence, and misogyny as well!

According to the website:

"Catcalls, sexually explicit comments, sexist remarks, groping, leering, stalking, public masturbation, and assault. Most women (more than 80% worldwide) and LGBQT folks will face gender-based street harassment at some point in their life. Street harassment limits people's mobility and access to public spaces. It is a form of gender violence and it's a human rights violation. It needs to stop."

I also love that they have a blog space that allows women and girls to submit their own experiences about being harassed. However, while I understand why a lot of the submitters chose to do so annonymously it does make me a bit sad. The reason I talk so openly about my own experiences of abuse as a woman, is because I am sick of us feeling ashamed about it. I am sick of the stigma and the blame that is placed upon us when we are victims. It is not our fault as women that this happens to us, and we need to be standing up, showing our faces, and taking all the shame and stigma of it and placing it right back onto the men who choose to abuse us. They should be walking around with their heads hung low, and with a scarlett letter permanently attached to their chest ashamed to show their faces, NOT US!

http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/