Street harassment

Street harassment, also known as everyday sexism is the widespread claim among feminists that women are routinely harassed in public by men. The founder of the site stopstreetharassment.org undertook two anonymous online surveys and found results that claim street harassment is very common, with 38% of women participating in these surveys claiming to have been harassed by way of honking and whistling within the last month.

Surveys like this are deeply flawed:

• They rely on subjective self-reporting.
• They involve a selection bias in that people who see relevance in an online survey are far more likely to take part in the survey.
• They can involve leading questions intended to elicit a particular answer.
• Having been undertaken by someone who has a known bias, the research is immediately suspect.

There is no doubt that both men and women are occasionally harassed in public by strangers and that some of this constitutes sexual harassment. Proof that this is endemic however, as many feminists now claim, is lacking. The site stopstreetharassment lists only surveys, questionnaires and polls as evidence.

Women who believe they are experiencing regular street harassament are encouraged to gather proof by recording this constant harassment. They should regularly record and upload the harassment. Software exists that will easily obscure faces if privacy is a concern.

When looking at Youtube it is easier to find videos of women imitating street harassment by men than it is to find street harassment by men itself.

Even the infamous '10 hours in New York' is 2 minutes long and not universally agreed to be full of harassment.

If street harassment is a problem then proof is needed. The onus of proof always remains with the person making the assertion. Cameras that can be fitted to clothing (often used by security guards and police) are readily available today.

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