Street harassment

"In this construction site we do not whistle at women and we are against street harassment." Poster at a construction site in Santiago de Chile in 2020.

Street harassment is a form of harassment, primarily sexual harassment that consists of unwanted sexualised comments, provocative gestures, honking, wolf whistles, indecent exposures, stalking, persistent sexual advances, and groping by strangers in public areas such as streets, shopping malls, public transportation, and college campuses. Besides actions or comments that contain a sexual connotation, it often includes homophobic and transphobic slurs, and hateful comments referencing race, religion, class, ethnicity and disability. The practice is rooted in power and control and is often a reflection of societal discrimination, and has been argued to sometimes result from a lack of opportunities for expression of interest or affection (e.g. an inability to have social interaction).

Recipients include people of any gender, but women are much more commonly victims of harassment by men. According to Harvard Law Review (1993), street harassment is considered harassment done primarily by male strangers to females in public places.

According to the founder of Stop Street Harassment, it can range from physically harmless behavior, such as "kissing noises", "stares", and "non-sexually explicit comments", to "more threatening behavior" like stalking, flashing, grabbing, sexual assault, and rape.

This page is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.