Lemondrop

Monday iHollaback announced the launch of their new smart-phone apps that will track and map where and when harassment happens, in real time.

According to iHollaback:

When users sign into the iPhone app, they will be given choice to Hollaback! with or without a picture, describing the type of harassment: verbal, flashing, groping, assault, or other. A GPS mapping feature automatically tracks where the harassment is taking place, and maps it on iHollaback.org. The user gets an email entitled "You Hollaback'ed!" and is encouraged to tell the rest of her story when she is safely back at her computer. The iPhone app will pilot in the U.S., with plans to expand internationally and onto other smartphone platforms.

The release of this innovative app (which you can download here) follows the Oct. 29 hearing on street harassment held in New York City, the first of its kind to take place in a major U.S. city.

I had mentioned iHollaback in a piece about cat-calling -- or, as I like to refer to it, cat-vomiting. ("Cat-call" sounds too cute for something so gross.) In the article, I expressed my frustrations with being harassed by men on an almost-daily basis.

When I heard about the hearing I was thrilled that action was being taken, seeing as kicking the perpetrators' cars was not working -- and such an aggressive reaction potentially put me in more danger. But, at the same time, suggestions like "Put in headphones and ignore it" made my blood boil. Why should they be able to speak such violating venom, and I have to stay silent pretending to bop along to tunes when I can feel their glares, their lip-sucking noises, their footsteps uncomfortably close behind me?

At the N.Y. City Council street harassment hearing, no one was silent. Representatives from street safety and harassment-prevention groups as well as community members of all ages, genders and races spoke up and testified before the city council, sharing stories of street harassment and their ideas for change. Council Member Julissa Ferreras, who chairs the Women's Issues Committee, oversaw the meeting in which the following three ideas were continually suggested and discussed:

• a citywide study researching the impact of street harassment
• a citywide campaign educating all genders and ages that harassment is unacceptable
• creating "harassment-free zones" (similar to drug-free zones) in schools in order to raise awareness and support of the movement


Let me reiterate, the above quotes were said to little girls by adult men, and yet many think street harassment is not a real issue. According to ignorant statements shared (anonymously of course) in the comments section following almost every article written about the Oct. 29 hearing, the issue of street harassment is just "crazy feminists looking for ways to destroy men" and "women need to learn how to take a compliment." (For more cowardly nonsense, check out the comments below articles found here, here and here. That last link is to a New York Post piece that features a video in which I share a wonderful tale of a gross fat guy who was parked outside my apartment harassing me.)

Here's the thing, I am a feminist. (Women and men who believe in gender equality are feminists.) I do not want to destroy men (I love men -- smart, compassionate men, who don't get a boner by following a girl home at 10 p.m.), and I can certainly take a compliment. (I love compliments, when they are specific to me and not shouted at me by a gang of creeps who howl at anything with a vagina.) I wonder how these same people who harass women and who think harassment is not an issue would feel if their mothers, sisters and daughters were harassed. Would it be an issue then?

I know stopping all street harassment is an ambitious ideal, but the N.Y. City Council meeting and the creation of this awesome iPhone app are huge starting points in opening minds, raising awareness and making our streets safer.

Agree? Hollaback at me in the comments.