PITTSFIELD — In the fall of 2012, artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh took to the streets — leaving her Brooklyn-based studio behind — in order to get to the bottom of a particularly troubling issue for women worldwide: street harassment. Fazlalizadeh, known largely for her work as an oil painter, embarked on a public art series of posters called Stop Telling Women To Smile (STWTS) that addresses gender-based street harassment.
“I wanted to talk about my experiences with street harassment; it was my way of speaking back to my harassers, guys who say things to me on the street that are unwelcome, that are unwanted, that are aggressive and assertive, and that really make [me] feel uncomfortable,” the artist shared in this video by Dean Peterson about the project. These drawn portraits of women, composed with captions that speak directly to offenders, have made their way to the Berkshires this April in recognition of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. The unified presence stretches from City Hall in North Adams and Park Square in Pittsfield to downtown Great Barrington, symbolic of the locales where women encounter harassment, in other words: anywhere and everywhere.
“I thought it was important to talk about street harassment where it actually happens, in the environment,” Fazlalizadeh explains of her decision to take her art outside. She began speaking with women and uncovering their stories, then drew their portraits before returning these images and words back to the streets.
“I am putting a face to these words … [the viewer] actually gets to see this person’s face, this woman’s face, who goes through this daily … and what she wants to say about it,” Fazlalizadeh explains. Examples range from “Women are not outside for your entertainment” and “You are not entitled to my body” to “I am not your Geisha, China Doll, Asian Fetish” and “No me llamo mamacita, chiquita, preciosa, cht cht.”
According to a 2015 study by Cornell University, 80-90 percent of women globally report being sexually harassed while out in public. Unlike most other forms of assault on women, street harassment is perpetrated primarily by strangers. Studies have also shown that, in the United States, most women who report experiencing street harassment say that no one intervened on their behalf or otherwise offered them assistance.
Women who are also members of other marginalized groups experience this form of abuse at extremely high rates. Lorena Dus of the Berkshire Immigrant Center said this data is not surprising. “Women of color are exposed to staggering rates of street harassment from a very young age. Almost all Latinas experience this, often as young as 12,” Dus said. “When coupled with a lack of immigration status, this can cause great danger physically and emotionally. To repair the wrongs done to these women, we need to diligently educate, inform, and support our community.”
This year, the Berkshire Domestic and Sexual Violence Task Force is spotlighting activist-artist Fazlalizadeh, whose book “Stop Telling Women to Smile: Stories of Street Harassment and How We’re Taking Back Our Power,” will be the focus of the second annual One Book, One Community read, an event in which two dozen local groups and organizations will participate. Among them is the Rites of Passage and Empowerment Program (ROPE), designed to support middle and high school girls — and girls of color in particular — to find their inner voice, strengthen their resilience, and equip them with life skills. Founder Shirley Edgerton points to issues such as those discussed by Fazlalizadeh as being especially important for the young women of ROPE.
“Globally and locally, girls and women continue to experience degradation and inequities, from the streets to the boardrooms. The participation of the ROPE scholars in the reading of [Fazlalizadeh’s book] is in keeping with our mission to increase our scholars’ awareness and courage to become strong and independent adults,” Edgerton said.
“‘In Stop Telling Women to Smile,’ Tatyana Fazlalizadeh challenges the normalization of street harassment of women,” Susan Birns, of the Berkshire Domestic and Sexual Violence Task Force said. “Last year’s community read (Rachel Louise Snyder’s, “No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us”) called for changes in our systemic response to domestic violence. Fazlalizadeh calls for basic changes in the culture.”
On Thursday, April 29, Fazlalizadeh will discuss her work in a webinar that is free and open to the public. Following the artist’s slideshow presentation, there will be an opportunity for questions. The webinar, which will be held from 7-8:30 p.m., will feature closed captioning, ASL interpretation, and simultaneous Spanish interpretation. To register for the event, click here.
“Fazlalizadeh offers necessary perspectives and a call-to-action,” Birns said, noting that the book was chosen in the hopes of sparking discussion ranging from exploration of how racism and sexism intersect to generate abuse experienced by women of varied racial and ethnic identities; how this form of gender-based violence relates to other forms of abuse; the ways in which women in the Berkshires are impacted by harassment; and actions that can be taken by others to stand up to harassment when they witness it.
“It’s really crazy, some of the things that I hear,” one subject from the aforementioned documentary shared.
“It’s an everyday thing, and not just daily but throughout the day,” another woman said.
The pervasive message about street harassment being this (as stated by another of the film’s female participants): “The entitlement that people feel, if they are complimenting you — in the way that they feel is complimentary — they feel like you owe them something … and I don’t know to what extent someone will go as to what they think that I owe.”
