Hey baby! Women speak out against street harassment – CNN.com

(CNN) — Head down, look straight ahead. Earbuds in, volume off. Walk quickly, but with purpose. Don’t make eye contact unless you need to. Look behind you every few blocks, make sure you’re not being followed. Don’t be obvious.

It’s not nighttime. You’re not in a known drug zone, or the sketchy part of town.

This is simply how many women steel themselves when walking down a city street in broad daylight, or even when boarding crowded public transportation. Why? Because many women, regardless of age, weight, or appearance, say they’ve heard something along the lines of “Hey baby, you want some of this?” or “I like what I see” or “nice ass.”

All of those statements are sexual harassment. And while some men might consider them compliments, to many women, they are a threat.

What is sexual harassment?

Fear and discomfort are what define sexual harassment. Not every catcall is followed by unwanted physical advances, and yet that reality has to be considered a distinct possibility for safety’s sake. Aggressive or sexual comments alone can instill terror — so why do catcallers think they’re OK?

Part of the problem lies in how the general public defines sexual harassment in public spaces. At work, there is a government-approved definition: “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature.” There are rules to be followed, departments to hear grievances, and punishments issued to offenders.

But out on the street, or on public transportation, that line is blurred or nonexistent. What may sound like a simple hello to some can come across as threatening to a woman trapped in a train car.

While the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects people against workplace harassment, street harassment is dealt with on a state-by-state basis. In New York, for example, a person is guilty of harassment “when he or she intentionally and repeatedly harasses another person by following such person in or about a public place or places or by engaging in a course of conduct or by repeatedly committing acts which places such person in reasonable fear of physical injury.”

Other states, such as Connecticut, are stricter in their definition. There, harassment occurs when someone “threatens to kill or physically injure [a] person and communicates such threat by telephone, or by telegraph, mail, computer network, or any other form of written communication.”

What if touching is involved? In California, you may be a victim of sexual battery if you have been touched in an “intimate part” against your will, and the touching must be for the specific purpose of sexual arousal, gratification or abuse. Lt. Karen Stubkjaer of the San Diego Sheriff’s Department said in an e-mail: “Simple ‘catcalling’ does not amount to a crime in California. If there are actual threats or improper touching, of course, we have more options for action.”

When things get physical

While the law might draw distinctions between verbal harassment and physical battery, on the street things get fuzzy. What’s standing between a catcall and a slap on the backside? Not much, judging from the experiences of women who talked to CNN.

Brittney Gilbert knows this all too well. Early September in San Francisco, a stranger on the bus she was taking to work assaulted her. “He was sitting next to me to my right and as I got up to de-board the bus I had to take a wide stance to get around him and when I did he reached up and grabbed my crotch,” she remembers.

CNN Radio: Calling out catcallers

Brittney Gilbert decided to put her private attack in a public space onto an even more public forum — the Internet.

Gilbert went to work, but later decided that what had happened to her should be reported. “All I wanted to do was report the crime. … My experience from there was disappointing and surprising. I didn’t expect anyone to give me a hug but I was just surprised at how difficult it was to file a report. [The policeman] didn’t say to me ‘You can’t file a report,’ he just kept questioning if that’s what I wanted to do.”

After the alleged assault, Gilbert did something unusual: She decided to put her private attack in a public space onto an even more public forum — the Internet. She blogged about her experience because, she says, “I had no idea [how being assaulted felt] until it happened to me, how incredibly violating it was. I felt really icky. It made me feel like crying, it made me feel like vomiting. I was just violated against my will. I wanted to get these feelings down on paper for myself. I just wanted to tell one story of what happened and it’s not exaggerated.”

CNN policy is not to name victims of sexual assault, but in this case, Gilbert wanted to make her case public.

After her blog went viral, the Special Victims Unit re-interviewed Gilbert. She says the followup reassured her that something was being done, but she’s not sure whether the initial handling of her case or the secondary interview is typical. The San Francisco Police Department declined to comment on Gilbert’s case as the incident is under investigation.

Women talk back

Emily May runs a group called Hollaback! — an international organization that’s trying to end street harassment using crowdsourcing. Women can post their stories and pictures to the Hollaback! app or website. The theory is that the more publicized street harassment is, the less likely it is to occur. Posts are carefully screened and most of the faces of alleged perpetrators are blurred. Hollaback! uses that information to lobby for greater public safety, be it more street lamps and emergency phones, or increased police presence.

According to a 2010 report by the Centers for Disease Control, noncontact, unwanted sexual experiences were the most common form of sexual violence experienced by women. One-third of women will experience this type of sexual violence in their lifetime, compared with 12.8% of men.

May wanted to take all the stories she heard from friends and colleagues and do something useful with them. There isn’t a lot of data out there on street harassment, and she is hoping that Hollaback! can change that. For her, the motivation is simple: “This is a human rights issue. This infringes our right to walk down the street safely, and we pay taxes too, we deserve to walk down the street and feel safe.”

Why catcall at all?

On the streets of Atlanta, men offered varying opinions about what motivates street harassment, whether they partake in it or not.

Kareem Watkins, a 26-year-old insurance claims adjustor said: “A lot of times it’s like pressure amongst men to like, you know, put on a show in front of each other. And kinda humiliate women sometimes … We’re raised to objectify women because we live in a TV world.”

But, Watkins went on to say that some women might be flattered by the attention: “I have heard that when a guy walks by a girl and doesn’t look, that she’s hurt by that,” he said. “I imagine it might feel pretty bad, but you know I can imagine it might boost their ego.”

Fury over Shanghai metro’s warning on women’s dress

Watkins and his friend Jay Woods also put the onus on women for inviting commentary with their style of dress. “Did her mom tell her how to wear that? It’s all about how you’re raised,” said Woods.

And while neither of them could explain how a woman might command more respect while walking down the street, both did agree: “Women get treated the way they allow themselves to get treated.”

But for Marcus Jeffries, a 25-year-old student, catcalling is more about biology: “Men prey on women, unfortunately, because women [have] things that men want.” His friend Tyrone Evans said it “makes you look like a pervert … like [you've] never seen a woman before.”

Jared Ripps, 39, says he’s never even considered catcalling a woman. Why? “I have a sister and I wouldn’t want people doing that to her,” he said.

It happens every day

According to a survey that Cornell University conducted with Hollaback! in New York City, 60% of reported incidents of sexual harassment happened on the street. A further 22% happened on public transportation or in terminals.

Lt. Stubkjaer of the San Diego Sheriff’s Department recommended that in order to prevent harassment, women might choose to walk with a friend or in groups, and practice “basic personal safety protocols.” But some women would argue that they should be able to travel independently.

Lola Binkerd was on a train in Los Angeles last month ago when she was sexually harassed. After already switching cars to avoid a group of young men who’d started verbally haranguing her, Lola found herself in a virtually empty car, save for a man with a bicycle.

“He sits down in the seat across from me he leans in and tries to be very flirtatious and I look him in the eye and I say, ‘Please leave me alone’… very quickly he became very angry, very agitated … and then he stood up, punching walls, and it escalated to him shouting sexual threats and threatening to shoot me,” she says.

Like Gilbert, Binkerd also blogged about her experience. Her story revealed another aspect of sexual harassment: “There’s this expectation that you can’t just tell them to leave. People tend to think of it as ‘it’s not a big deal, just be nice.’ They don’t realize that someone’s making you uncomfortable. … The idea that you have to be nice when someone is invading your space is ridiculous,” she says.

The women CNN spoke to who blogged about their experiences aren’t looking for pity, they said, they’re looking for awareness.

Holly Kearl, founder of the website Stop Street Harassment, said she believes sharing stories is a key to ending street harassment. The site collects instances of street harassment and maps them.

“We can read other people’s stories and see that we are not alone, we can find ideas for standing up to harassers,” she said in an e-mail to CNN.

Kearl sees the issue as a global problem that demands more attention, and while street harassment has historically been seen as normal, it is now “less so than before because so many people are speaking out, exposing just how often it happens … and the negative impact it has on our lives.”

via Hey baby! Women speak out against street harassment – CNN.com.

After Syrian attack, Turkey OKs foreign troop deployment – CNN.com

Istanbul (CNN) — Tensions rippled across Turkey Thursday, a day after Syrian shelling struck a Turkish border town and killed five people.

Turkey fired on Syrian government targets in retaliation for the artillery fire that struck the town of Akcakale.

In an emergency session Thursday, Turkey’s parliament authorized a resolution giving the government permission to deploy its soldiers to foreign countries, a semiofficial news agency said.

“This should not be seen as a war resolution,” said Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay. “It’s for the purposes of protecting our interests and for possible developments. It is a preventative measure.”

With the United Nations serving as an intermediary between Syria and Turkey, Atalay said Syria accepted responsibility for Wednesday’s shelling and apologized.

via After Syrian attack, Turkey OKs foreign troop deployment – CNN.com.

Conservative media coordinates on release of old Obama video – CNN.com Blogs

Posted by

CNN’s Ashley Killough

(CNN) – On the eve of the first presidential debate, conservative media outlets seized on footage of a five-year-old, widely covered speech by then-presidential candidate Barack Obama, who argued at the time that the federal government discriminated against Hurricane Katrina victims.

The June 2007 speech at Hampton University in Virginia was widely covered by CNN and other news outlets, as Obama was already well into his presidential campaign, running alongside then-Sen. Hillary Clinton at the front of the polls.

via Conservative media coordinates on release of old Obama video – CNN Political Ticker – CNN.com Blogs.

Escalating attacks, but few answers in Syria – CNN.com

(CNN) — Hours after world leaders created a grim picture of the Syrian war, a new wave of attacks erupted Sunday. The bloody conflict rages — and a solution continues to be elusive.

Here is the latest in the Syrian uprising.

Shelling and deaths

At least 23 people died in shelling and attacks nationwide Sunday, the Local Coordination Committees of Syria said.

In addition to the fatalities, eight people were found executed at a military hospital in Damascus, according to the opposition group. In another incident at a hospital in a Damascus suburb, government forces stormed the building and seized the wounded, the LCC said.

Syria state media reported that “armed terrorist groups … perpetrated a massacre against” a village in Homs. They did not specify the number of people killed.

Government forces also targeted “terrorists and their vehicles” in the biggest city of Aleppo, state media reported.

The government has consistently referred to anti-government forces as terrorists.

via Escalating attacks, but few answers in Syria – CNN.com.

Obama steps up over freedom of speech – Global Public Square – CNN.com Blogs

By Fareed Zakaria

Mitt Romney and his campaign feel that they have an opening in the presidential campaign, on foreign policy at least. The unrest in the Middle East the past couple of weeks, including the killing of the American ambassador to Libya and widespread protests over a controversial YouTube video that has been condemned as blasphemous, has left a general sense of turmoil in the region. The Romney campaign wants to take advantage of it.

On the surface, it seems like a reasonable idea. And Obama has made some missteps including the inexplicable decision to not meet with any foreign leaders this week during the U.N. General Assembly. But I don’t think it will work. And one need look no further than President Obama’s speech at the General Assembly to see why.

International events, even crises, typically help the president because they make him look, well, presidential. The symbolism of Obama delivering a speech at the United Nations will have been a powerful reminder to the public that Obama is the president and Mitt Romney is not. This in turn has the effect of conferring a certain gravitas on the incumbent.

The second reason why Romney is unlikely to be able to turn the current turmoil to his advantage, for now at least, is that Obama’s speech was very good. The president was able to play to his strengths in explaining events, placing them in a broader context, and acting as a kind of bridge to the rest of the world by explaining American concerns to an international audience while still showing an understanding of some of the international community’s worries.

But it was also a clever speech politically, as Obama was able to steal Republicans’ fire on two crucial issues.

Obama began the speech with an homage to Ambassador Chris Stevens, countering the claim that he was minimizing the death of the ambassador or viewed it as just a “bump” on the road. In addition, Obama defused the criticism of many conservative commentators by making a robust defense of freedom of speech. Bret Stephens’ column in the Wall Street Journal, for example, was constructed as the speech Mitt Romney should be giving at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York this week – as it turns out, many of the key points in Stephens’ column were actually made by Obama.

Obama’s speech wasn’t just good politics – it was good policy. He reminded the world that people like Ambassador Stevens represent an element of U.S. foreign policy that is often forgotten – deep-rooted idealism and a desire to understand different countries and cultures. Stevens, who was a fluent Arabic speaker, was committed to treating the Libyan people as equals, and helping them better their own lives.

Similarly, Obama’s decision to robustly defend freedom of speech was exactly right. In most such crises in the past – the Koran burning, Danish cartoons – the U.S. government’s position (during both the Bush and Obama administrations) has typically been to condemn these acts or publications to show that we don’t denigrate Islam.

That’s fine, but it was high time that the president also said “Yes, we are appalled by this appalling video, but a core principle of free societies is that things don’t get banned just because we think they are appalling.” And by defending free speech and its constitutional sanctity, and urging the Arab World to be more tolerant, President Obama spoke truth to power in a way that was effective domestically, but also the right thing to say internationally.

via Obama steps up over freedom of speech – Global Public Square – CNN.com Blogs.

Colombian president: Wanted drug lord captured – CNN.com

(CNN) — Authorities have captured alleged drug lord Daniel “El Loco” Barrera, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said Tuesday night.

Barrera was captured in San Cristobal, Venezuela, Santos said. He is accused of alliances with paramilitaries and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerrilla group in addition to drug trafficking crimes over a period of more than 20 years.

via Colombian president: Wanted drug lord captured – CNN.com.

Six things to know about attack that killed Ambassador Stevens – CNN.com Blogs

What will the United States do about the attack?

President Barack Obama said Wednesday that the United States “will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act – and make no mistake, justice will be done.”

A senior U.S. official told CNN that American surveillance drones are expected to join the hunt for jihadists who may be tied to the attack. The drones are expected to gather intelligence that will be turned over to Libyan officials for strikes, the official said.

A senior defense official said the drones would be part of “a stepped-up, more focused search” for a particular insurgent cell that may have been behind the killings.

In June, a senior Libyan official told CNN that U.S. controllers were already flying the unmanned craft over suspected jihadist training camps in eastern Libya because of concerns about rising activity by al Qaeda and like-minded groups in the region.

Two U.S. Navy destroyers – the USS Laboon and the USS McFaul – are moving toward the coast of Libya, two U.S. officials told CNN. Both ships are equipped with tomahawk missiles that could be used if a strike was ordered.

About 50 U.S. Marines are headed to the Libyan capital, Tripoli, after the attack to beef up security in response to the attack, U.S. officials said Wednesday. The unit is specially trained to retake or guard diplomatic installations and other U.S. facilities in troubled regions.

The United States said it also would increase security at its embassies around the world.

via Six things to know about attack that killed Ambassador Stevens – This Just In – CNN.com Blogs.

‘Slaughter at Chevaline’: More questions than answers as inquiry expands – CNN.com

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: The wounded 7-year-old survivor came out of a coma on Sunday, prosecutors say
• Investigators are tight-lipped about a possible perpetrator in the killing
• Authorities have not ruled out robbery as a motive, a prosecutor says
• Autopsies show each victim was shot twice in the head, the prosecutor says

London (CNN) — The slaughter at Chevaline.

That’s what the French media has dubbed last week’s daylight execution-style slaying of a British-Iraqi family and a French cyclist at a rural mountain rest stop on the outskirts of the Alpine village popular with outdoor enthusiasts.

Each of them — the man; his wife; a woman believed to be his mother-in-law, and the cyclist — was found with two gunshot wounds to the head.

The couple’s 7-year-old daughter was badly beaten and shot. Their 4-year-old daughter hid for hours behind her dead mother’s legs.

via ‘Slaughter at Chevaline’: More questions than answers as inquiry expands – CNN.com.

Isaac on verge of becoming hurricane, watch extends to Louisiana – CNN.com

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: Parts of Louisiana, including New Orleans, under hurricane watch
• Republican convention gets pushed back a day in Tampa
• Isaac is expected to become a hurricane Monday as it moves past the Florida Keys
• At least two people die in storm-related incidents in Haiti, officials say

Miami (CNN) — As Tropical Storm Isaac moved quickly through the Straits of Florida on Sunday morning, coastal communities in Florida issued mandatory evacuations and Republicans delayed the start of their national convention.

With sustained winds of 65 mph, Isaac lashed Cuba with strong winds and dumped rain on the island early Sunday. No major damage or injuries were immediately reported in Cuba.

Heavy rains were already falling in some parts of south Florida, where a tornado watch is in effect until 5 p.m. ET.

via Isaac on verge of becoming hurricane, watch extends to Louisiana – CNN.com.

Anderson Cooper: “The Fact Is, I’m Gay.” | By Andrew Sullivan – The Daily Beast

via Anderson Cooper: “The Fact Is, I’m Gay.” – The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan – The Daily Beast.