Have you seen the YouTube video that shows an attractive young woman being harassed by
by men in the streets of New York City? Well, it’s attracted more than 33 million views
so far. And some say stopping the verbal harassment of women in the street is the new frontier
for human rights—and they see this video as a critical tool for raising awareness. Could
they be right? That’s coming up next on the Factual Feminist.
Street harassment can be very annoying and it is possible that the video will do some good as a
reminder to men that women often don’t appreciate it. But the feminist anti-harassment group
that put out this video –Hollaback!—it does not merely want to improve public manners.
It wants to raise consciousness about what life is like for women under patriarchy. And according
to this group, street harassment is a quote "power dynamic” that silences women’s voices
and reminds them of their subordinate status. Its website calls street harassment “the
most pervasive form of gender-based violence.”
Well let's check some facts.
The viral video ad was created by an agency that specializes
in creating viral video ads. It’s a riveting bit of advertising, but it forces the complicated
issue of street interactions into a simplistic, Oppression 101 victimology morality tale.
It's propaganda, not evidence of a crime against womankind. The video gives the impression
that the woman is relentlessly targeted. But we only see highlights from a ten hour shoot.
We have no idea what happened during the other 9 hours and 58 minutes. Viewers are lead to
believe the harassment took place everywhere in the city. But some writers at the website
Mass Appeal took a careful look and were able to determine that most of the footage— about
80 percent—is from one street in Harlem and Times Square. Now if the ad makers would manipulate
our perceptions about the where the harassment took place, what else might they manipulate?
Now I'm not faulting them. It’s an ad after all.
But here is a second and more serious problem. The video overrides critical distinctions.
Unsolicited attention from strangers. It ranges from friendly comments, to annoying
jeers—to stalking. Now why conflate these? Street interactions are complicated,
and context matters,
Is it night? or is it day? What’s the neighborhood? Some women might feel flattered or delighted
by comments like “good morning, beautiful,” while others would be put off.
Amanda Hess argued that comments from a male strangers like “How are you this
morning? are just another unearned claim for a woman’s attention.” Well, anyone who's
has ever walked a city knows that there are many annoying, unearned claims to your
attention. I mean if we deserve to be protected from comments, then what about panhandlers, or evangelists
with pamphlets, or Greenpeace volunteers with clipboards? I mean I love the environment, but
I don’t like being shamed for not stopping when they say, “Do you have a moment for
the environment?” Personally, I’d probably prefer that a man whistled at me, than have
to respond to that.
Urban streets are free spaces— they're not gated communities with a rigid set of bylaws. And
the First Amendment applies as well.
Now according to Hollaback’s mission statement,
the group is hoping to find a way to inspire legislators and the police to take action.
They’re vague about what precise actions they have in mind. But the Northwestern Professor
Laura Beth Nielsen is not vague at all. She wants a law prohibiting, “uninvited harassing
speech or actions targeted towards individuals in public spaces on basis of sex” because she says
it would “weigh on the side of equality.” Equality? Is she serious? And harassment can happen
anywhere, but it's far more common in economically deprived neighborhoods. And as several critics
of the video have noted, such a law could cause poor men, especially Latino and African
American and working class white men—to be targeted by police.
Now there are a lot of men who jeer at women near my place of work in downtown Washington, DC.
And these men sit in the park on benches and they make comments to almost every woman who walks
by. Now Hollaback suggests that women should document the harassment with their smartphones,
post it on the web or, perhaps summon the police. And as they say, protecting women from
those intrusive men is a new frontier in human rights.
Well, reality check.
The women in this park?
Well, They’re mostly professionals in Manolo Blahniks who work at nearby law firms or
government offices –the harassing men? They’re homeless. They sleep outside on building stoops.
I don’t think it’s the cat callers who need to check their privilege. I think it’s
the women at Hollaback who need to check their facts.
Well ladies.
Do would you want laws
that stop harassing speech at the cost of free speech? Let us know in the comments. Please
share this video, and subscribe to be notified when the next one is posted. And follow me
for more conversations on Twitter. Thank you for watching the Factual Feminist.