what you can do

Street harassment, violence against women, and other forms of hate have become expected, even acceptable, realities of everyday life. Changing these realities is something only we can initiate and see through. Deviate social norms, relentlessly break your silence, cancel history and stop hatred:

"Spectatorship is all too comfortable for many individuals. In accepting hate and prejudice, whether actively or passively, the members of society are typically rewarded in both a psychological and material sense. By contrast, those relatively rare individuals who choose to violate norms of seperatism, respect diversity, and fight for the rights of exploited and victimized groups are likely to suffer loses of their own" (Levin 2002:79).

Breaking your silence and speaking out "means breaking through the cultural stereotypes and political propoganda to recognize that the members of a particular group are human beings who are worth saving" (Levin 2002:80).

People who break their silence and speak out against street harassment are "the rebels, the deviants, the incredibly decent and indepedently motivated people who, even under trying circumstances, simply (or not so simply) refused to follow the dictates of legitimate authority" (Levin 2002:91).

"Thus, if even one spectator decides to break away from the inertia of the masses and become a rebel, he or she might serve as a role model for many other bystanders to imitate" (Levin 2002:91).