'HEY BABY.’
Standing up against street harassment
‘Hey baby.’
Those two words make my skin crawl. That is because they have usually been uttered by a stranger who says it while leering or worse. Street harassment – I’m sure every woman you know has experienced it at some point. It could be whist walking down the street, sitting on the metro, going to work or picking the kids up from school. From the lewd comments and wolf-whistles to flashing and even groping, it amounts to the same thing. It is a form of sexual harassment, something that women are forced to confront on a daily basis, something that is too often put up with because ‘it’s just the way things are’. Simply being a woman out in public makes you fair game for this kind of objectification.
Laurie Anderson confronted this with her 1973 photographic project, Fully Automated Nikon (Object/Objection/Objectivity). Angered by strangers’ sexist comments, she went out around her local New York neighbourhood armed with her Nikon camera. When a passer by muttered a crude comment she aimed her camera and photographed him, later placing white strips over his eyes like a criminal. Unsurprisingly, she built up quite a collection.
It is almost forty years since Anderson took these photos, yet unfortunately they are still just as relevant today. And that’s why Ladyfest Paris is important. Everybody has the right to walk down the street without feeling intimidated. Women are not there to be leered at. Ladyfest Paris is about empowerment and equality, it’s about raising awareness and sharing experiences. Because if nothing is done to fight this kind of abuse, nothing will ever change.
- Jenna Mason
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