Hey, Shorty!: A Guide to Combating Sexual Harassment and Violence in Schools and on the Streets
Forty years after Title IX was passed by the federal government to end to gender discrimination in public schools, sexual harassment continues to plague the lives of young women and LGBTQ youth. Research shows the effects bullying has on school children can range from poor grades to suicide, yet many dismiss this kind of gender-based violence as a rite of passage for adolescents. Hey, Shorty! captures the story of a group of young women and adult allies at Girls for Gender Equity as they struggle to make the New York City schools safer for all students.
Co-authored by activists Joanne N. Smith, Mandy Van Deven, and Meghan Huppuch, Hey, Shorty! provides a detailed narrative of the achievements and setbacks of a youth-led grassroots organizing campaign and participatory action research project that uncovered stark truths about the ubiquity of sexual harassment in young people’s lives. It offers an accessible guide for young women and adult allies to combat unwanted sexual attention in educational environments and public space and demonstrates that young women can successfully demand accountability while cultivating the ability to live self-determined lives.
Geared toward students, parents, teachers, policymakers, and activists, Hey, Shorty! is an excellent tool for building awareness and creating change in any community.
Praise for Hey, Shorty!
While this book would serve as an excellent resource for researchers, community organizers, and feminists alike, I plan to use it the next time I teach Psychology of Women and Gender or Introduction to Women’s Studies in order to demonstrate to students how principles of feminism, community organizing, and data collection can be applied on the ground, in community with real live girls. – Dr. Corrine Bertram, Sex Roles: A Journal of Research
“Hey, Shorty! offers a detailed blueprint for how to make the streets and schools safer for our girls (and everyone else) – by empowering young people to take leadership on this issue and supporting them to develop effective strategies. These girls’ work is a potent example of youth activism: they successfully raised awareness about an issue that has too often gone ignored.” - Elizabeth Mendez Berry, journalist
“This book is full of great ideas for youth organizing and coalition work. What’s most impressive is how GGE encouraged girls to articulate their issues and goals, and then worked with them to learn the skills they needed to achieve their goals. The result? A whole new generation of smart, knowledgeable, articulate and empowered young women. Women who will change the world.” – Carrie Baker, Ms. Magazine
“It was really nice to read the accounts of young women coming to terms with and then learning various methodologies of confronting sexual harassment and violence. Conversations turned into actions turned into surveys, turned into research, turned into self-advocacy.” – Maegan la Mala Ortiz, VivirLatino
“Beyond being a ‘guide’, Hey, Shorty! is really a manifesto for community-based solutions and enlightened social change at the intersections of race, gender, class, ability etc. Whether it’s reading Joanne N. Smith’s tale of how she started Girls for Gender Equity (GGE), back in 2001, or understanding how Mandy Van Deven facilitated a group of girls that went on to make their own award-winning documentary film on street harassment, you end up witnessing the way change actually gets made.” – Courtney E. Martin, Feministing
“The book provides a model for action through the example of Girls for Gender Equity’s work, in particular the model of prioritizing youth leadership on issues that relate to youth because, as Joanne N. Smith notes, they are the experts on these issues and they are the main stakeholders.” - Holly Kearl, Stop Street Harassment
Mandy Van Deven
