Gender and Social Networking, Part 7b

from The New York Times
Keeping Women Safe Through Social Networking

By JOE SHARKEY Published: February 28, 2011

EVERY female business traveler I know concedes that she has experienced at least some kind of sexual harassment on the road. Usually it’s verbal, though sometimes it’s physical.

But rarely is it reported — not to the authorities and not at the office, where a woman who talks about harassment on a business trip may worry about being marked as a problem traveler.

Now, though, something new and aggressive is being done to publicly address street harassment of women. It’s a movement driven by young women in the United States and abroad who are using social networking and crowd sourcing to shine a light on the issue and organize support for doing something about it.

Street harassment of women has been around “probably since the advent of streets,” said Emily May, 29, the co-founder of Ihollaback.org, a Web site that encourages women to share stories and provide data about harassment so they can map locations where it occurred.  READ MORE