Young Feminist Streets

Wow! First thing in the morning, great provocative speakers as Boaventura de Sousa Santos (‘Ecology of knowledges’), Yakin Erturk (‘Human rights approach as a contested culture itself’) and Victoria Tauli-Corpuz (‘Indigenous indicators of well-being instead of GDP approach’): who needs coffee to wake up here?!

 Then a great  session about gender on the street, organised by young feminists from Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon and Yemen. In Arabic, French and English, these young women shared their experiences and inspiring projects in a crowded room of young and older women (and some men). Street harassment was one of the focuses, as a daily reality for the women in the panel. The Yemeni ‘Kefaia’ (‘enough’ in Arabic) project was initiated after a conducted research among Yemeni women and sexual harassment on their streets. Outcome: 89 % of the women experience harassment on the streets. As they women in the panel pointed out: this behaviour is justified by arguments as ‘these women should not be outside, they walked by their selves, they were out late’ or they were harassed ‘because of their hair, their dress’.. In other words: many different arguments are used, but none of them makes sense! 

The young Kefaia group decided to challenge this behaviour and the underlying perspectives on women within their society. They decided to speak up and no longer tolerate the street harassments. An online harass map was created that indicates the harassment ‘hotspots’. Not to spread the message of areas where girls and women should not go, but to make the hotspots visible and to define the street harassment as a public problem. Ironically, during the uprisings in Yemen, the streets were experienced as a safe space where women and men fought together.

 In Egypt, the harass map was supported by a open source website and all victims of harassment are asked to send text messages from the places where they were harassed. In Cairo, 16 NGO’s worked together to offer support to the victims, by sending a text message back to them with contact information of organisations that offer help. Next to this, community outreach programs were set up and by now 300 young volunteers from all over Egypt engage in dialogue with people living in their neighbourhoods.

 ‘We claimed the streets during the revolution and this changed my relationship with my own street as well. This harassment is happening in my street.’

 The panellist of the Tunisian organisation for justice and equality shared her worries on the Tunisian Civil Code that might disappear, while it has been an important legal document that ensured gender equality (on paper). Her organisation works on LGTB rights and on creating space for diversity within society. A difficult and dangerous project when homosexuality can be sentenced by capital punishment.. Also she pointed to the contrasting roles granted to women during the uprising and afterwards. As mentioned before in various sessions, as the women joined the struggle for change, now they are blamed for the unemployment in the country and fear a backlash of their rights and spaces. The road these women walk on, is a bumpy one. As the Lebanese panellist underlines, feminist and women’s organisations that demand equality during their demonstrations are considered crazy and very controversial. Their stories portray very dualistic ‘criteria’ for women set by society, but as they stated: ‘We are not waiting for a law, we want to improve our daily lives!’.     

Esther Goedendorp