A hidden video camera records the unwelcome advances a woman in Manhattan, New York, over ten hours/Hollaback.
You may not have heard the term “street harassment”, but if you’re a woman in Australia, you’ve probably experienced it: whistles, stares, unwanted comments, touching or being followed by strangers in the street.
According to research by the Australia Institute, 87% of us have experienced some form of physical or verbal street harassment, often before the age of 18. Internationally, this figure is higher, at 96%.
As with other forms of sexualised violence, men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of street harassment and women the victims – although victims may also be targeted on account of ethnicity and or sexual orientation.
While it may be tempting to dismiss such occurrences as “minor” or “harmless”, there is a substantial body of research that tells us this is not the case. The impacts of street harassment vary depending on the context, and range from the immediate, visceral responses of anger, repulsion and shock, through to longer-term effects such as anxiety, depression and, in some cases, post-traumatic stress disorder.
Street harassment also has a very real impact on women’s use of and access to public spaces. Women consistently report that they limit their movements in public in order to avoid street harassment as well as more “serious” sexual violence.
While there is considerable merit in documenting the prevalence and impacts of street harassment, we need to ensure that this is not all we do.
Violence Against Women
Street harassment is part of the continuum of men’s violence against women, which includes what we might consider to be more “serious” forms of gender-based violence, such as sexual assault, rape and physical abuse. These seemingly vastly different forms of behaviour are interconnected, and all contribute towards women’s oppression and inequality.
