This thesis explores the various discursive strategies that black women employ when they encounter street harassment from men. To investigate the ways in which these women choose to respond to men’s attention during social interactions, I examine their perception of social situations to understand how they view urban spaces and strangers within these spaces. Drawing on qualitative interviews that I conducted with 10 black women, I focus on how the unique convergence of this group’s racial and gender identities can expose them to sexist and racist street harassment. Thus, I argue that black women face street harassment as a result of gendered and racialized power asymmetries. I found that black women rely on a variety of discursive strategies, including speech and silence, to neutralize and negotiate these power asymmetries. They actively resist reproducing racialized and gendered sexual stereotypes of black women by refusing to talk back to men who harass. Understanding silence as indicative of black women’s agency, not oppression, remains a key finding in this research.

Street harassment, the sexual harassment by strangers in public places, is a common experience shared by many women and has been linked with other forms of sexual victimization. The negative impact of street harassment, such as fear and behavior to avoid being harassed, points to the need for preventing the behavior. This study sought to determine whether the documentary-style film War Zone may be effective in impacting men’s attitudes toward street harassment, and whether the effectiveness of the film would depend on men’s hostility toward women and level of peer acceptance for street harassment. Findings do not support the effectiveness of War Zone as a component of street harassment prevention. However, the data does suggest that endorsement of hostile attitudes toward women predicts a lack of empathy, and that endorsement of hostile attitudes toward women, a lack of empathy, and peer acceptance of street harassment predict acceptance of street harassment.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / Dana M. Britton / Feminists and anti-violence activists are increasingly concerned about street harassment. Several scholars, journalists and activists have documented street harassment during the last two centuries, and the recent development of organizations such as Hollaback! and Stop Street Harassment, as well increased attention from mainstream and feminist press, suggests street harassment is a serious social problem worthy of empirical investigation. In this dissertation, I focus on street harassment, fear of violence, and processes of doing gender. I take an intersectional approach to understand the relationships between gender, race, and sexuality, street harassment, fear, and social control. Furthermore, I investigate how accountability to being recognizably female is linked to street harassment and fear of crime for lesbians and other queer women. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with thirty white and women of color lesbians and bisexuals, I explore street harassment experiences, perceptions of fear and risk, and strategies for staying safe from the perspectives of queer women in rural, suburban, and urban locations in the Midwest. I discuss several key findings. First, there are distinct links between “doing gender” and the types of harassment these women experience, as well as links between “doing gender “and the types of assault they fear. Second, race matters - institutional violence shapes the fears and safety strategies of the queer women of color in my sample, and white privilege affects women’s willingness to consider self-defense in response to their fears. Finally, responses to fear and street harassment are shaped by the incite/invite dilemma. The incite/invite dilemma describes the predicament women face during street harassment encounters when they try to avoid responses that might incite escalated violence while also avoiding responses that might be viewed as an invitation for more aggressive harassment. This study extends research on accountability and doing gender, street harassment, fear of rape, and the gender differential in fear of crime. There are several practical implications of these findings. Chief among them is the need for activists and scholars to be attentive to the ways in which racism and racial inequality shape street harassment for women of color. In addition, feminists who work to end street harassment should broaden their focus to include a host of other pressing issues that influence the severity of and risks connected to street harassment for members of queer communities and communities of color. There are also theoretical implications for the theory of doing gender. Knowledge about accountability to sex category remains incomplete. Findings suggest the need to further investigate processes of accountability to sex category, with particular attention to diverse arrangements of orientations to sex category, presumptions about sex category, race, and queer gender identities.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-10T19:07:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissert Thayna Davilla Savio2.pdf: 2651873 bytes, checksum: e70439a3e1b991557cbb5fce33204228 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-21 / This dissertation s main objective is to analyze street harassment as a violation of social rules, and also its negative effects in the life of harassed women. Despite changes in relationships between men and women and the conquest rights directed to women, street harassment remains a common practice. Street harassment is studied from women s perspective as an undesirable interaction in public spaces, that shows the different ways men and women occupy this space. The argument presented is the glamorization of street harassment, the reinforcement of masculinity and the relationships between harasser and the harassed female that coexist with incresing critics from the media and from women. Street harassment is, therefore, analyzed as a tension between the reputed juridical equality and gender performativity, which is experimented through ambiguities. Synthetizing, street harassment is, at the same time, a violation of civil inattention rules e and an intensification of gender performativity. The data for the research was obtained through bibliographic sources, questionnaires applied in 97 students from a superior education institution and other sources obtained in the internet and social networks like facebook. / Esta dissertação tem como objetivo analisar o assédio de rua enquanto modalidade de violação das normas sociais, bem como seu efeito negativo na vida das mulheres assediadas. Em que se pese as mudanças nas relações entre homens e mulheres e a conquista de direitos específicos às mulheres, o assédio de rua permanece uma prática presente. O assédio de rua é estudado do ponto das mulheres como interação não desejada no espaço público, o que evidencia modos diferentes pelos quais homens e mulheres ocupam esse espaço. O argumento apresentado é a glamourização do assédio, o reforço da masculinidade e as relações entre o assediador e a mulher assediada na rua convivem com crescentes críticas da mídia e das mulheres. O assédio de rua é, então, analisado como uma tensão entre o suposto da igualdade jurídica e da performatividade de gênero, tensão experimentada por ambiguidades. Sintetizando, o assédio de rua é, ao mesmo tempo, uma violação das regras sociais da desatenção civil e uma intensificação da performatividade de gênero. Os dados para a pesquisa foram obtidos de fontes bibliográficas, questionários aplicados a 97 estudantes universitárias e outras fontes obtidas em sites da internet e redes sociais como o facebook.

Background and Aim: Street harassment is an international and trans-cultural phenomenon that has short and long-term negative effects on its individual targets impacting millions of people, mostly women and young girls, everyday. Most studies on the subject have been focused on defining the problem from a law point of view leaving a knowledge gap on how social structures and the various political, economic, and cultural means interact to (re)produce and perpetuate this social phenomenon. This study aims to explore the thoughts of young men in Iran in order to discover possible underlying mechanisms reinforcing street harassment.   Methods: A qualitative study consisted of four focus group discussions, with male university students, was conducted in Tehran, Iran. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data with social constructionism as the theoretical lens.   Results: Two candidate themes were developed: “Normalization and trivialization of the problem” and “Socio-cultural and political silence”. The first theme represents the discussions about street harassment as normal, inevitable, and harmless. The second theme embodies the systematic silence around the subject of sexual harassment. Both normalization and the silence construct street harassment as an invisible problem not only to men who are not directly harmed by it, but also to the society as a whole which led to developing the overarching theme describing street harassment as “an invisible gender-based violence” in Iran. Conclusion: The participants were unaware of the relation between power, gender inequality, and the concept of patriarchy, which in itself is a sign of an androcentric culture. Street harassment was conceptualized as normal and invisible since it doesn’t concern them. However, most participants were eager to discuss the topic developing their arguments as the discussion went on and stating that this topic needs to be discussed and studied which confirms that just providing a safe space and the opportunity for discussions can raise people’s awareness of this social problem.     Key words: Street harassment, male university student, conceptualization, Iran

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This study explores experiences of public sexual harassment among young women in the UKin light of a renewed focus on violence against women after Sarah Everard was raped andmurdered while walking home during lockdown. Thirteen young women were interviewed while this case dominated British media and public debate. The paper’s focuses is on how this cohort problematise street based harassment - how they encounter, negotiate and contextualise it at this time. The study uses qualitative methods of feminist phenomenology and narrative analysis. Participants describe everyday street harassments as a serious problem that regularly impactson their daily life and freedoms, while being sidelined and trivialised by wider society. They reject that it is a minor problem or a compliment, and push back about the onus being on them to problem solve and do safety work to avoid men’s violence and intrusions in public.They challenge the idea this is not worth talking about by telling their stories, particularly online. Collective storytelling is a form of agency and activism that empowers women to reframe social issues according to their own lived realities and terms. Two principle narratives emerge from the storytelling: resistance to mainstream ‘givens’, and positioning street harassment as a form of gender based violence that targets women as an entity. Participants situate VAW as men’s issue - men need to engage and address this social problem.

Women have always been concerned about their safety when walking alone and have taken precautions to protect themselves from harm. With the current advances in technology, women’s safety techniques and devices have drastically changed within the past years, for instance, by introducing the use of safety buttons. This study aims to explore the interaction women living in Stockholm, Sweden would have when carrying such a smart device. Through research and design methodologies and applying Feminist HCI values, two workshops were held to better understand this interaction between women carrying a Flic Safety Button and their street safety. The main conclusion of the study is that when designing such interactions, one should consider various of the different influencing mechanisms the women have as well as personal sentiments regarding their personal safety to encourage usability of the button to any situation. The most essential influences are the availability of friends and family, social lifestyles, and existing safety behaviors. To inspire future developments and exemplify this ecology of safety mechanisms, this thesis introduces three archetypes of interactions, materialized as personas in scenarios depicting different perceptions on how women interact when their safety is being compromised. / Kvinnor har alltid varit oroade över sin säkerhet när de går ensamma och har vidtagit försiktighetsåtgärder för att skydda sig mot skador. Med de senaste årens tekniska framsteg har säkerhetsteknik och anordningar för kvinnor förändrats drastiskt, till exempel genom att man infört användning av säkerhetsknappar. Den här studien syftar till att undersöka vilken interaktion kvinnor som bor i Stockholm, Sverige, skulle ha när de bär en sådan smart enhet. Med hjälp av forsknings- och designmetoder och genom att tillämpa feministiska HCI-värden hölls två workshops för att bättre förstå interaktionen mellan kvinnor som bär en Flic-säkerhetsknapp och deras säkerhet på gatan. Den viktigaste slutsatsen av studien är att när man utformar sådana interaktioner bör man ta hänsyn till olika påverkansmekanismer som kvinnorna har samt personliga känslor om deras personliga säkerhet för att uppmuntra användbarheten av knappen i alla situationer. De viktigaste påverkansfaktorerna är tillgången till vänner och familj, sociala livsstil och befintliga säkerhetsbeteenden. För att inspirera framtida utveckling och exemplifiera denna ekologi av säkerhetsmekanismer introduceras i denna avhandling tre arketyper av interaktioner, som materialiseras som personas i scenarier som visar olika uppfattningar om hur kvinnor interagerar när deras säkerhet äventyras.

La ville a été construite de façon genrée, créant des disparités quant à l’accès à ses aménagements et ses espaces publics. Ces inégalités entrainent souvent un sentiment d’insécurité chez les femmes lorsqu’elles doivent parcourir ces lieux au quotidien. Ainsi, celles-ci ont tendance à occuper la ville différemment des hommes, en se limitant dans leurs déplacements et en utilisant de multiples stratégies d’évitements. Les marches exploratoires tentent de pallier ce sentiment d’insécurité perçu et parfois exprimé, mais malheureusement souvent ignoré par les personnes en position de pouvoir. Elles ont comme intention d’explorer en petit groupe un espace donné afin d’analyser ses points forts et faibles, donc d’en faire ressortir des caractéristiques spécifiques à ce lieu dans un objectif d’appropriation futur de l’endroit. L’objectif de ce mémoire est de comprendre comment les marches exploratoires participent à l’inclusion et la (ré)appropriation des femmes dans les espaces publics urbains. À la suite des entrevues, trois types de marches exploratoires ayant chacune ses propres caractéristiques ont été observées. Les résultats obtenus démontrent que la marche exploratoire devient un outil d’un processus plus large qui peut mener à l’empowerment, lorsque les participantes font partie intégrante de cette démarche. En ce sens, les activités autour de la marche permettent aux participantes d’obtenir une voix et une meilleure compréhension des enjeux urbains. / The city has been constructed along gendered lines, resulting in disparities in access to its amenities and public spaces. These inequalities often lead to a feeling of insecurity among women as they navigate these places in their daily lives. Consequently, women tend to occupy the city differently from men, restricting their movements and employing various avoidance strategies. Women’s Safety Audits aim to address this perceived and sometimes expressed sense of insecurity, which, unfortunately, is often disregarded by individuals in positions of power. They intend to explore a specific area in a small group to analyze its strengths and weaknesses, thereby highlighting its characteristics, with the idea of appropriation in the future. This thesis aims to understand how the Women's Safety Audit contributes to the inclusion and (re)appropriation of women in urban public spaces. Following interviews, three types of safety audits, each with its own characteristics, were observed. The results demonstrate that the Women's Safety Audit become a tool within a broader process that can lead to empowerment when participants are an integral part of this endeavor. In this sense, the activities surrounding the walk enable participants to gain a voice and a better understanding of urban issues.