A Rant Against Street Harassers and Cat Callers

I feel strongly about street harassment. It’s something that has really changed the way I got about my life. It’s carved out spaces in the world that feel safe to me and spaces that do not. It’s in large part the reason I started volunteering as a sexual assault response worker, and the reason I’m working at a women’s centre now.

It’s not fair that I feel threatened when walking alone at night. Those streets are as much mine as they are anyone else’s. I hate being cat called from porches, cars, from across the street. I hate being asked if I want a ride. I hate being called any number of names that aren’t mine (hey “baby”, “sexy”, “girl”). I hate that I’m often hedging my bets and asking myself questions like “should I cross the street?” and “can I outrun this guy?” I hate having to pre-plan how I’m going to get home at night, from a place that’s just a 10 minute walk from where I live.

I hated it when I was harassed while walking down Earl St., Johnston St. and Princess St. in Kingston. I hated it when I was harassed while walking down Fort St. in Victoria. And now I hate it when I’m harassed while walking down 100 St. in Fort St. John.

Last night while walking home in the dark, a man in a vehicle followed me half a block and asked if I wanted a ride. I said “no thanks”. He kept following and asked me if I was sure. I said “yes”. During this short exchange I frantically took stock of the number of people inside the car, whether he showed signs of getting out, whether I thought I’d be able to outrun him, who else was around, what businesses were still open nearby, which houses still had lights on, what side streets I had available. He drove away. I walked home, and felt more threatened with every car I passed on the way.

When I got home, I took a moment to think about how unsafe I had felt. I decided to call the non-emergency police line to let them know. I described what had happened and they said that without a licence plate number, there was nothing they could really do. I told them that I didn’t expect anything different, but that I wanted to let them know about my experience anyway. For a moment I felt stupid for not looking at the license plate number. And then I realized that that was ridiculous – it’s not my fault that I was thinking about seven other things because some asshole threatened me on the street.

In any case, I’ve decided to commit to reporting every case of street harassment I experience from now on. Regardless of whether I have a license plate number or a good description, I feel that it’s worth reporting every time.

Because if people were fined for street harassment half as much as what I’ve been fined for parking in Victoria, the world would be a better place.

Sharon

One thing a day that scares you

I'm a firm believer in doing one thing a day that scares you. Unfortunately, today I've got two:

1) I got my first whole case today. I'll be helping a client apply for a landlord/ tenancy dispute resolution hearing and then conducting the hearing. I was so flustered I had to fill her consent form 3 times because I kept spelling her name wrong. Then I spelled my name wrong.

2) I'm playing on a women's soccer team tonight. I have no idea how to play soccer. I literally looked up "soccer for beginners" on Youtube. And I have one foot still recovering from a funny sprain that I think I got while modern dancing. I'm bad at field sports in general, but since I accidentally brought my soccer cleats instead of my heels to Fort St. John, I figured I might as well (especially since I had to buy heels here to prevent all my dress pants from dragging on the floor).

WISH ME LUCK. More for 2) than 1), I can figure out the first with a few hours of research. Two's going to be a lot more embarrassing ...

This is more or less what I'm going to look like

Blown Away

Fort St. John is ridiculously windy in the spring. By the time I walk from my car to the office, my hair is a tangled mess stuck pointing one direction and I have dirt in my eyebrows. It's also not very warm, so the two together give me the impression that my usual summertime favourites (ex. going to the beach) are going to need a bit of tweaking. I'm hoping to find some hiking around town and I'm on the lookout for outdoorsy people to befriend! Something that is pretty cool/ jarring though is that the amount of light in a day - the other night I left the pub and it was still so bright out!

I've just finished my first week, and I am finding a great fit with my job, and a funny fit with the town.

Here are some highlights!

1. There is a really alive and active poverty law community online. I've joined emailing lists which are full of other poverty law advocates (usually with various community groups in different towns, just like us) with a wealth of knowledge. It's heartening to see so many people doing this kind of work. The disheartening part, though, is that very few of them are lawyers. Most are like my direct supervisor who has a background in something related (social work, criminology) but who learned everything on the job. Both of us are supervised by a lawyer in town who signs off on everything we write and any full representation we do, but unfortunately there just isn't much funding for full time lawyers in poverty law. Only really exceptional/ egregious cases or charter challenges end up being forwarded to the lawyers at organizations like TRAC or CLAS (who, incidentally, were at the UVic wine and cheese!).

2. There's a fine line between advocacy and dependency. We see all kinds of people walk through the door (men and women). Some are first time clients, some are long time users and have a long history with the centre. The other day I had a long time client ask me if I could type something up for them, because they weren't good at putting words on paper. When I suggested that they could try writing a draft that I could then edit, I met a lot of resistance. When I really refused to write it, I got yelled at and (according to my supervisor) super close to getting punched in the face. Legal advocates are not lawyers though - advocates help with legal issues but are really meant to help people through their own process. They're meant to build agency, but that's not always what happens. Sometimes clients who come in are so familiar with victimization that they become comfortable with other people fixing their situation. The last thing we want to do, though, is to enable further dependency. I've been asked to think about setting up a way to collect information on what our clients have gained through the legal advocacy experience - whether at the end of it they're better informed and knew why they went through the process they did. This is something that the Law Foundation would really like - any thoughts? We're thinking some sort of exit survey or meeting.

3. Often we have to work with other professionals - social workers, mental health workers, doctors. The other day we spent 2 hours putting sticky notes on a report because the doctor didn't fill it out properly. And I get why - the forms are long, repetitive, tedious, and take a lot of time out of their really busy day. Many of the doctors in town are great about it, but there are some who repeated lead to denied claims. I've been asked to come up with a workshop which can (hopefully) attract health care workers and teach them how to fill out the forms (for things like disability assessment for pensions or welfare) - this would hopefully reduce the time it takes them, and it would decrease the number of appeals we have to do. Thoughts?

4. Before moving here, this town was described to me as "redneck country" where "people shoot deer out their window". It's conservative. Really conservative. The men who work in the oilfields have a tight knit organization and they have a big presence this town. And I'm pretty awkward - my car is really conspicuous among the giant trucks everywhere. I've managed to find yoga, but even at the orientation for the Mother's Day 5k run/walk that I'm volunteering at tomorrow, it's mostly men in the oil and gas industry who are volunteering/organizing. Granted, they're pretty well suited for it (they have all these construction signs that they're using to mark the route) but I stick out for sure!

Overall, I could really use a weekend's rest! While on the one hand it makes me wonder what I should do with myself in a place where I don't know many people (ahhhh), on the other I've been napping, watching New Girl (featuring Zooey Deschanel - it's awesome) and loving it. Tomorrow morning it's up bright and early so I can go hold a stop sign at an intersection for the 5k race! I've been informed I have no legal authority to make anyone stop, but that I can try to be persuasive. Hahaha ...

Cheers,
Sharon

Anticipatory Anxiety

New cities terrify me. When I first moved to Victoria, I dragged all my bags up three flights of stairs, looked down at the few belongings I had in the middle of an empty apartment on a rainy day in a city where I knew no one, and then cried. I called my friend Brian and told him I wanted to go home - and I meant it! I'm a creature of habit and I feel lost easily without familiar faces.

And now I find myself in Fort St. John, BC - the farthest north I've ever been! I drove in last night and started working today, and surprisingly enough I'm already starting to feel the edge of new-place-anxiety wear off. Maybe I'm getting better at adapting to change - it helps that two weeks into living in Victoria I made some amazing friends (these Law Kids!). Reading Meg's post below also gave me a feeling of great calm and comfort - I'm not up here alone.

Fort St. John is the largest city in BC north of Prince George, and like Fort McMurray (which is about the same latitude) it's an oil and gas town. It makes for a very interesting dynamic - it's a very young city with new wealth and a very large income disparity. Fresh out of high school, someone might earn anywhere from $25,000 working a minimum wage service job to $120,000 in the oil field. Along with this comes a predominantly conservative view of family roles - as I found out today - which really colours the kind of work I'll be doing.

I'm working at the women's resource centre, which provides a shelter for women and their children, an outreach centre with donated food, clothing and household items, and a poverty law and housing program. My role will be primarily dealing with poverty law - mostly cases involving landlord/ tenancy issues, employment, social welfare, disability benefits, and child custody. Since I'm funded as a law student outside of the poverty law program, though, I have a bit more flexibility to take on civil case work, so it'll be interesting to see what comes through the door. And I mean literally come through the door! Women come in all throughout the day to ask about what they can do about a situation. Sometimes they come in seeking legal action, sometimes they're in to use the outreach centre and just mention a challenge they're having in casual conversation on their way out. And from there, it seems that my role is to listen actively, to tease out the legislation involved, and to use my legal knowledge to get clients where they need to be. WILD!

Overall I really enjoyed my first day. I felt a level of candidness that I didn't expect from someone doing legal work and it felt great - I guess feminists are feminists wherever they go! Here are two take home messages from the day:
1) Law school teaches you things after all! When asked "what do you know about family law" all I could think about was my property law prof advising us to bring lawyers and accountants on dates. As the day went by though, I nodded at words like "partition", "survivorship" and "security of the person", comforted by the fact that I half knew what was going on and could probably look it up later
2) In poverty law, part of a lawyer's work is a lot like counselling. I think there's a lot of active listening, empathy, non-judgment, and resilience in the face of really devastating cases needed in this kind of work

Overall, a great first day. Let's see what tomorrow brings!

Sharon

On the drive up from Vancouver - the land becomes a lot flatter and more prairie like by Fort St. John