Sexual harassment in public space is now legally reprehensible and widely condemned by public opinion. Yet it continues to reach women from all walks of life. Testimonials and advice from those who fight it on a daily basis.
Faced with the scourge of street harassment, solutions exist and everyone can take part! Journalist Charlotte Lavocat chose to document it: in April 2020, she made a film on the subject which gives a clear overview of the situation in France. "In my documentary, I made room for actresses and actors of positive change, she explains, because I felt that we had already identified street harassment, especially with the documentary Street women by Belgian journalist Sofie Peeters and with the work of activist Anaïs Bourdet, who created the tumblr Pay Your Shnek. My question was really: “Now that we know what it is, what do we do?”. The idea was to put forward the solutions rather than to show again the problem and its makers. "
Why did you launch this project? She rightly recalls that "For a very long time, street harassment was experienced as an extremely banal violence, which had to be accepted and if possible in silence. A few years ago, activists began to talk about it, to film it, to show it ; there was Me Too who allowed a liberation of the voice of women. Thanks to all this, we realized that street harassment is experienced by all women and that it is intolerable violence that disqualifies women in public space. "
As the documentary reminds us, this phenomenon affects women everywhere they go, regardless of the neighborhood, their age or their outfit. He also chooses to give voice to people from various backgrounds, who give their testimony and analyze the phenomenon: researchers and researchers, activists, but also artists and anonymous women who have experienced this harassment. This is the case of Lotus, 25, who tells us about this desire to open the way for women. "I liked the project because Charlotte shows solutions and proves that harassment is not inevitable, that we can all change things at our level", she explains. Which requires very specific tools.
Simple self-defense techniques
Day and night, morning and night, in the street or in the metro, it is always the same pattern: women are approached in an extremely cavalier manner, ranging from whistles to lustful looks and familiar apostrophes to which we do not know what to answer. This is what Lotus confirms: “When I was first bullied at age 12, I didn't react the way I would have liked: I felt a lot of rage and frustration. I want to show women that in fact you can answer and your anger is legitimate! "
This click comes to him when on multiple occasions, unknown men allow themselves to approach him by whispering in the hollow of his ear. Lotus therefore begins to react, most of the time, by strongly calling out the authors: "We can prepare to have repartee, me there are sentences that I prepare in my head to answer tit for tat! The first time I really answered, it was in the RER, saying very loud and straight in the eye: 'Sir, stop staring at me like that, you make me really uncomfortable!'
To be able to prepare, L’Oréal Paris created StandUp, a global awareness and training program to combat street harassment, in partnership with the NGO Hollaback and the Fondation des Femmes. In the free online training, available on standup-france.com, we discover, thanks to very concrete examples and video scenarios, how to react as a witness or victim of street harassment. Stand Up offers training in the "5D" methodology, such as Distracting, Delegating, Documenting, Leading and Dialogue, five techniques that allow everyone to have a role to play in putting an end to these situations.
How to intervene if we are a witness?
Charlotte Lavocat, the director, and Lotus recall a simple advice: as a witness, do not hesitate to intervene without putting yourself in danger. "If you think there is a problem, there must be one", says Lotus. Both also adviset their favorite techniques, which can also be found in the formation Stand Up. Among them, the fact of naming, at home and in peace, the act of violence, of acting as if one held the gaze of the stalker or the aggressor then, while showing confidence, of repeating the terms qualifying the violence. "I realized that verbalizing these behaviors was extremely important. It puts a distance", Lotus remarks. Listening to yourself is essential in order to find the right methods at the moment, she says. "Whatever, do what you feel you can do, it depends on the day", she explains.
Charlotte Lavocat, for her part, offers two responses to combat street harassment, strategies that can be put in place to defuse these situations, but without risk, whether you are a victim or a witness. The first is directly inspired by the field: "If you are a witness and a woman is harassed in the street, you walk up to her and you call her with a first name that you make up, then you pretend to know her, to have a date with her , for example", she suggests. This technique is also part of the "5D" that can be found in video in the Stand Up training. The other answer, less direct, will have more of an impact on the duration: it is education. "Raise awareness from an early age on issues of sexism, gender equality and then adopt zero tolerance against all forms of sexism!", she insists. A goal within our reach, collectively.
Find all the training Stand Up on this site.