Fighting back (Hollaback NYC)

http://www.ihollaback.org/

This international movement started in New York City in 2005. Started by a group of women who were sick of being verbally harassed on their way to work or walking home at night; Hollaback, an imperfect but productive and progressive forum was born.

Emily May, executive director of Hollaback! states in the groups testimony that: "when we walked on, we felt weak. When we yelled at the guys, the situation escalated, and the police didn’t care. The most common suggestion for dealing with it was to plug our heads with earphones and pretend it wasn’t happening. But something inside us told us this wasn’t enough—we wanted to share our stories".

Hollaback depends largely on mobile technology but has other options for telling your story and getting it posted if you aren't smart phone equipped. The "harassee" is encouraged to take a picture of the harasser and send it to the site along with a description of the incident. Some of the incidents seem mild and distasteful, some are seriously terrifying and upsetting. All in all the idea of "Hollaback" is one that seeks to empower women to stand up for themselves when possible and when not possible encourages them to write about the experience. The site explains that most types of harassment has nothing to do with sex, and everything to do with power.

Obviously as in most cases this site has a few questionable quirks to it. One being that they actively discourage describing the race of harassers. It is better explained through the FAQ's on the site but it seems that the idea is to keep the focus on historically marginalized groups such as women and LGBTQ individuals without replacing sexism with racism. I have mixed feelings about the outcome of this. Is the site really trying to prevent stereotypes and generalizations by asking writers to with hold statements on race? Does this feed into the already prevalent preconceived notions on the race and gender of those who harass women and LGBTQ individuals?

I still think that Hollaback! is headed mostly in the right direction. Exposing men who feel no shame in verbally, physically and psychologically damaging women is completely justified in my opinion. From my own experience I will share one recent incident. Going to the goodwill on a main street I passed two older men sitting on a bench outside. As I passed by I heard one say to the other "she has a nice big ass." Without pausing I turned around and promptly shouted "Fuck You." Passerbys looked at me and shook their heads. One of the men shouted back, "I'm homeless." I skipped my shopping trip that afternoon.