Gritty anti-street harassment photos are nice, but we need to change culture | Opinion
An orange fuzzy mascot should just be the start to a bigger conversation about sexual education in Philadelphia and across the state.
As summer turns to fall each year, the Philadelphia region welcomes thousands of new students to the area, which boasts Ivy League universities, community colleges, state schools and private institutions. According to the National Center for Education Statistics and the Census Bureau, the Greater Philadelphia area is home to 100 colleges and universities with half a million students.
With the recent start of the new semester, the Inquirer tapped students at local universities to hear what’s on their minds.
FROM UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE: Cam A. Johnson explores Generation Z’s social media addiction.
FROM TEMPLE UNIVERSITY: Morgan Rollins explains how a career-ending injury sidelined her from soccer — and helped her find a passion for helping other people facing major loss.
FROM DREXEL UNIVERSITY: Armon Owlia says recent lawsuit threatening to reclaim the Phanatic presents a good opportunity to retire the mascot.
Are you a student at a local campus with opinions to share with the Inquirer? Email commentary pieces on newsworthy issues to oped@inquirer.com for consideration.
It’s going to take more than posters of Gritty around Philadelphia to start deconstructing the prominence of street harassment around the city.
In April, Billy Penn reported that the local activist group Pussy Division plastered Gritty posters stating PLEASE! Only you can prevent street harassment in Philadelphia #helpgritty around the city for International Anti-Street Harassment Week. This is one of the few recent attempts to bring attention to this issue. State Rep. Mary Isaacson (D., Phila.) partnered with educators from Women Organized Against Rape (WOAR) to host a July training session specifically for responding to street harassment.
Though these steps are needed, I believe one-off training and an orange, fuzzy mascot should be just the start to a bigger conversation.
With only 24 states and the District of Columbia mandating basic sexual education, it comes as no surprise that the specific topic of harassment goes unaddressed in curricula around the nation. Pennsylvania state law does not require schools to provide sex education. It wasn’t until I took a human sexuality course my first semester of college that I was able to process the effect years of street harassment, and the lack of dialogue around it, had on shaping my body image while growing up in Philly, and my perspective on sex and sexuality.
It’s an issue a lot of girls confront at a young age. According to a large-scale research survey conducted by Hollaback!, an anti-street harassment organization, and Cornell University, 85% of U.S. women report experiencing street harassment before the age of 17, with 11.6% of respondents reporting their first harassment occurring before age 11. This points to street harassment as a silent issue that builds a culture of shame among women starting early in life.
Stories surfacing in the news about female students being dubbed “distractions” in a learning environment -- like that of a 9-year-old girl in New York told she can’t expose her shoulders because it distracts boys -- points to our failure to create a culture of consent. In a culture of consent, women would be treated with respect no matter how they are dressed, people on the street – usually men – would not feel empowered to comment on women without any respect for their own desires and boundaries, and most important, women would not be shamed for the harassment they receive.
The training session and Gritty posters reflect the nature of our society’s instinctual response to street harassment: teaching responses, rather than offering preemptive measures.
A conversation about street harassment is also incomplete if it neglects to address that women of color and queer folks are disproportionately affected by this issue. The Human Rights Campaign reported there were at least 26 violence-related deaths of transgender people in the U.S. last year, the majority black transgender women. In Philadelphia, Michelle Washington, a trans woman of color, was shot to death on May 19, 2019, according to Philadelphia Gay News. Beyond consent, sexual health education must include an LGBTQIA+ curriculum to facilitate discussions around these issues.
I’ve had nasty questions screamed at me, comments made about my body and clothes; I’ve had my hair pulled, I’ve been stalked home — all incidents occurring before the age of 18. Something that has never happened before is someone helping me. We can no longer chalk these instances up to everyday occurrences. Combating rape culture must begin with more thorough sex education for our youth.
Alesia Bani is a sophomore journalism major at Temple University who is interested in solutions journalism. Her focus on street harassment began with her monologue “He is Everyone," featured in the Philadelphia Young Playwrights’ 2018 Mouthful Monologue Festival.