Little rapes

You've heard us talk about the spectrum of sexual violence before. Check out the following two references for even more about where street harassment is on this continuum:

"Categories of male violence against women and children are not distinct: beating a wife or girlfriend is not distinct from raping or murdering strangers, not distinct from molesting a niece or nephew. A guy who slaps his wife around is along the same continuum as rape and incest and murder, which are merely situations farther along this spectrum. Street harassment is on this same continuum. Pioneering feminists in the early seventies had a name for such hectoring as wolf whistles and animals noises. They called them 'little rapes'. My body knew this all along, the primal fear I felt in my early twenties when I heard hissing on the street--like a rattlesnake in the grass."

- Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz

And listen in to last week's Brian Lehrer show on WNYC to hear War Zone creator Maggie Hadleigh-West and Brooklyn teens Latosha Belton and Ashley Lewis talk about Taking Back the Streets.