Chalk Walk tackles harassment for second year in a row

“Do you know where the nearest pet shop is? Because your pussy is going to be destroyed!”

Monday saw the return of Hollaback! Nottingham’s’ Chalk Walk, aiming to raise awareness against street harassment.

Students scrawled the pavement outside the City Student Union building with offensive words and phrases they had experienced.

Hollaback! works in collaboration with Nottingham Women’s Centre, NTU and Nottingham Citizens to stop street harassment and make the city safer for women and the LGBTQ community.

Facts say that between 88 and 99 per cent of women will be a victim of street harassment at some point.

Service Learner and Trent student, Maggie McDaid said: “It started at 12 and by 5 past 12 there were students everywhere. Everyone was getting involved, men and women, all writing down what they think.

“It’s amazing to see what different things are said to students. Everyone that we were talking to agreed to being a victim of some sort of street harassment, either by having something said to them or done to them in the street.”

Rose Ashurst, Hollaback! Chalk Walk organiser told The Tab: “Hollaback is a global anti-street harassment campaign with 84 sites globally. We are raising awareness against street harassment so that’s sexually explicit comments, groping, being followed home, leering, staring, to the point of a sexual assault.

“This can be based on being a woman, or gender identity, so we work with the LGBTQ community as well to ficus on that area of the community.”

Rose explained that at first nobody was sure what to write, but many people just wanted to get involved.

She added: “It was amazing, before it started raining. It was really good, we had a massive turnout, we spoke to a huge demographic of people that would never have even addressed street harassment as a problem. Everyone got involved, everyone grabbed chalk.”

“I am not a dog, don’t whistle at me” and “stop telling me to smile” were just some of the scrawls chalked across the pavement.

The event also happened last year however had a slightly different reaction.

“There’s a massive difference from last year’s event. We’ve got permission this time, so that was better. We had a lot more people coming along to specifically do the Chalk Walk, unlike before showing that we’ve raised the campaign as a whole.”

Rose hopes that the chalk walk will continue and hopefully attract other universities to get involved.