‘We need to create real change’: The co-founder of OurStreetsNow speaks to Notts students

CW: Sexual Harassment, Assault, Rape

Cambridge graduate and co-founder of the charity OurStreetsNow, Maya Tutton, spoke to Nottingham students about her works as an ambassador against Public Sexual Harassment in the UK.

Public Sexual Harassment is the term used at OurStreetsNow to refer to street harassment. Maya emphasised that she “doesn’t want to minimise behaviours” and that Public Sexual Harassment refers to anything in public space that is unwanted, from intrusive staring and leering to sexual harassment.

Maya founded the charity with her younger sister, three years ago, hoping to achieve cultural and legislative change in terms of sexual harassment. It begun when her sister, who was fourteen at the time, told her about how she was badly harassed in a public space, while in her school uniform.

Her account of her self-blame spoke to Maya, and to myself, as women we learn to internalise these experiences. We often change our own behaviour and habits to try and minimise the threat of harassment, which projects the issue and blame onto women rather than the perpetrators; they should be the ones changing. Maya took a stand against the normality of harassment, and started the conversation with Our Streets Now about Public Sexual Harassment.

It started as an Instagram petition, but it quickly snowballed, with lots of women and girls sharing testimonies. These testimonies highlighted the other aspects of oppression that we must consider alongside feminism, such as ableism, Islamophobia and racism when looking at harassment, as we do not have the same access to public space based on this.

During the pandemic, Maya expanded the campaign away from solely Instagram and legal campaigns. She says it is important to recognise that the police can not be the solution when it comes to this.

Instead, she started her educational campaign, going into schools and teaching young people about harassment, and training teachers how to support their students to avoid them being re-victimised by teachers projecting victim blaming narratives.

According to Maya, 42 percent of girls don’t tell anybody about their experience, alluding to the importance that a change is needed within the education sector.

In addition to this, they have a Higher Education campaign. The University of Nottingham has seven ambassadors, all striving to end Public Sexual Harassment in Nottingham.

Maya highlighted the importance of education and prevention in order to make society a safer place for women and marginalised genders. Although structural changes such as better lighting, CCTV and charging ports on public transport can help women to feel safer, she says they ignore the wider issue that male violence is to blame for this. She says urban design is used as a scapegoat to not properly invest in education and fundamental change that will prevent these attacks from occurring in the first place.

As well as this, she highlighted last year’s tragic case where Sarah Everard was murdered by a man who was, at the time, a serving Met Police officer.

Universities can also do more to make women feel safer. Maya suggested consent lessons delivered by well trained individuals, which are currently mandatory at Nottingham Trent University, but not at the University of Nottingham, which offers an optional module to educate students.

Maya spoke of the ways that we can get involved in campaigning and activism as students, and emphasised that different methods work for different people. Local change is important, not everything has to be on a large scale, for instance things like calling out friends on inappropriate jokes and behaviour.

It is important to stop thinking that someone else is going to intervene. We all have a role in this. When people ignore things, the problem escalates.

Organising activities such as book clubs that discuss feminist literature, or small scale protests within your institution are also ways that you can help, there is not just one way to achieve change.

Emily Garton, one of the Higher Education Ambassadors for Our Streets Now and UoN’s women’s officer, spoke to Maya about the work that she and her team have achieved at Nottingham.

The No Place for Hate campaign advocates for zero tolerance for hate on campus. As part of this campaign, they collected testimonies of Public Sexual Harassment from Nottingham students, discussing the impact that it has on student’s mental health and not feeling safe on and around campus.

By sharing these testimonies, Emily found that female and non-binary students were able to find comfort in knowing that they were not alone in their experiences, and they could support each other. It also serves as a way of educating others about Public Sexual Harassment.

Public Sexual Harassment is never a compliment.

If you or someone you know has been affected by this story contact Refuge on their free 24/7 helpline 0808 2000 247 or contact Rape Crisis online for a free confidential chat helpline.

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