What is #NoSpaceForHarassment?
#NoSpaceForHarassment is a multi-fold project that highlights the prevalence of street harassment in Australian society. This year, our campaign coincides with International Anti-Street Harassment Week, which raises awareness about street harassment and the right to public space.
Street harassment affects all of us in different ways - but this is not something that is often recognised in the way we talk about it. If discussed at all, street harassment tends to be reduced to a mere inconvenience or something that we should all just accept and move past, failing to consider the lasting impacts these repeated instances of harassment might have on us. We think it’s time for a more complex conversation around street harassment. One that not only recognises the true effect it has on us but also acknowledges the fact that a lot more people than we realise face it daily.
Our #NoSpaceForHarassment campaign focuses on the intersectional nature of street harassment, recognising that it is often a multilayered form of harm, not only affecting individuals in terms of gender-based discrimination, but also in terms of race, class, sexuality, and ability. By sharing stories of street harassment through our campaign postcards placed in cafes, retailers and public spaces across the city, as well as social media video and audio content, #NoSpaceForHarassment aims to redefine the way we all view public spaces and recognise that, for too many of us, they are often far from neutral spaces they should be.
Embodying the key values of It’s Not A Compliment, the campaign works to combat street harassment through an intersectional, transformative, and community-led approach. We encourage all members of the community to join the conversation about street harassment by using the hashtags #NoSpaceForHarassment and #ItsNotACompliment, and be a part of the solution in creating safe streets for all.
“I was walking towards one of the entries and I’ve just parked my car, and I'm just walking and I see these two guys about 100 metres away walking in my general direction. One of them jokingly nudged his mate, said something, but one of them came towards my direction and that's when I started to feel really anxious. He approached me and made a comment which was, ‘you look like my future girlfriend’ and as he said that he put his arm out to pull me closer or hug me, i don’t even know. In that moment, I literally, it’s like fight or flight, do I hit this person, do I run away, do I scream? I said ‘I’m here to do shopping not be harassed’ and then kept walking off with my head held high.”
“One thing, this is a place where I am a frequent visitor to, it’s almost like the audacity they had. I wasn't making eye contact with them, I was just by myself doing my own thing. There's so much evidence yet people still do it, they do it without thinking and they do it without control and they do it without the thought of the ramifications. It made me feel very uncomfortable because, you know, I'm alone.”
“I was on the train had my headphone ons but there was no music so i could still hear what was going on and these two people were sitting across from me [you know in those four by four seats on the train where they’re literally a metre in front of you] and these two people were just having this conversation about whether they thought I was a girl or a boy. Just like right in front of me.”
“It was kind of awkward and I didn’t feel unsafe and I kind of enjoy it when I confuse people so it was fine for me, it was just kind of really awkward to have to continue to be in that environment. It's just not an appropriate conversation to be having on a train.”
“For me as a non-binary person and someone who tends to present quite androgynously and i kind of do that knowing people are going to have those thoughts and i kind of do it on purpose a little bit to try and break down those gender norms. But not as a public discussion. When I do those things I want people to think about them and may talk to their friends later, not in a public setting. That's not an appropriate conversation for a public setting because what you’re actually asking when you’re looking at someone who presents androgynously and you’re asking ‘is that a boy or a girl’, what you’re actually asking what’s in their pants. Because, why else does it matter.”
“In a way, in my case anyway, it kind of gives me more of an incentive to dress more androgynously so that other people can feel more comfortable doing that. But that comes from me having the energy to do that. I think in the moment, uncomfortable, but reflecting on it after, usually frustrated.”
CW: includes a slur (uncensored in audio) for Indigenous women
“I was quite young, probably about 15, and it was one of the first times I’d stayed in the city. I was on a camp for Indigenous students and a few of us were in year 8 and it was the first time we had ever been and we were all really excited to go to the market. There were Indigenous girls there of every colour, maybe 15 of us and we were walking through the Victorian Market, just looking at the clothes and the stores, because most of us had never been there before. There was a group of men, they got really close to us at one store and they were like, ‘oh look there’s g*ns’ and g*n is a really derogatory term for Indigenous women”
“At the time, I was like, ‘I have no idea what that means’ but I went home and did some research and was like ‘wow’, I didn’t realise people still used that word. People obviously don’t speak up, so do people really know what goes on. I think one word to capture how I felt would be devastated, to be exposed to that kind of racism.”
“A couple of weeks ago I was involved in an incident and I was pulling out of a shopping strip and as I’m reversing out it was quite clear then I saw this black car come, it’s a two way lanes, and I wait a little bit and a white van went around me so I knew I was sticking out and as I stayed there I hear a toot and I look around and see a truck coming. He's come right up behind me so I couldn’t reverse any more nor could I turn out so I pulled back in and he’s gotten out of his truck, and I also had my window down and as he’s come out, I’m watching him, I say ‘I’ve got a dash cam first of all, don’t talk to me, I’m scared I’m winding my window up’. He launches at me, towards the car, puts his hands and palms on the window and physically pushes my window down. He leans into my window, into my space, and reaches across, the first thing he could grab was my indicator and snaps it straight off and throws it into my lap. It was a very scary scene to be in because he basically boarded me into this car park and he was encroaching into my space and I couldn't get out of that space.”
“I’m reimagining the same scenario constantly. I'm always thinking about what I did wrong in the scenario, what could I have done better? I’m trying to find a word to describe, I guess helpless. My car was not even road worthy, and every time i turned I was so worried someone would hit me, I was very helpless. No one was with me, I was all by myself, no one helped me, so yeah. Helpless, let’s keep it at that.”
“One day, I was probably like in year 6, year 7, I went to the park with my friend, both just shooting the basketball around, and we were walking home, probably a street, two streets away from my house and this old man who was gardening out the front of his house was like ‘how’s your day going’ and we talked to him for a bit and then he was like ‘so where you from?’ and we said ‘a couple streets away, pretty close’ and he said ‘no no, where are you from?’, and we replied ‘yeah like we said a few streets away’ and he asked, ‘ no where are you from, like what country?’ and I said I was actually born here in this suburb, I’ve been here all my life. He was like ‘no, you’re not, you know, where are you from?’ and I was like ‘well, I’m Australian. Have a good day’ and I just walked off.
“My mate was like, ‘what the hell just happened, is everything okay’ and I was like, ‘it’s fine, what can you do’ but I guess when I was younger I didn’t really realise what that was and now I look back and I’m like that was awful to experience, literally two streets away from my house.”
“I guess I’d say, it was really jarring because I was so close to home. I was pretty young at that stage. Disappointed because it's something I’ve dealt with all my life, as I said I had that experience ten years ago, though after being 18 and going out and still experiencing it, it’s disappointing that it still happens. You know we’re meant to be in this new day and age where everyones more progressive and it just happens all the time still. I’m used to it so it doesn’t bother me in an angry way, but that’s why I’m disappointed because it doesn't bother me, and it should.”
You can find our postcards at the following locations:
Brimbank City Council, Sunshine
Brunswick Bound, Brunswick
Hares & Hyenas, Fitzroy
Humble Rays, Carlton
Mr Tulk, Melbourne
Neighbourhood Books, Northcote
Nuttea, Melbourne
Pink Ember Studio,Coburg
Streat, Melbourne
The Sun Theatre, Yarraville
Faced Street Harassment Before?
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