Instagram group takes aim at harassment
Community members in Toronto’s west end trying not to depend on police
For the past three weeks, a newly formed Toronto community group has been using Instagram to collect and share reports of men — often in SUVs or vans — following and harassing women in neighbourhoods west of downtown.
The reports describe women being followed, yelled at, spat at, grabbed at, assaulted or being exposed to men masturbating. Some say the men have tried to get them to get into their car. In response, community members have been developing safety measures — self-defence classes and walk-safe groups — and are planning a Take Back the Night march. A key feature in the response is not relying on increased police patrols or more police involvement, a recognition of a summer of protests including calls to defund the police and fund social supports instead.
In a community meeting at the end of July organized by the TO West End Community Forum, the question of whether there should be more of a police presence in the area was met with a clear no, said one of the group founders Kathleen Barrett.
“There are a lot of people who are either recently disenfranchised with the police or have been their whole lives, so that’s one of the driving factors of this initiative, is figuring out how we can be more preventative than the police are and figure out a system within the community that keeps us safe,” she said.
“It’s a good opportunity to find out what that looks like and kind of move away from depending on the police.”
At least some of the incidents have been reported, leading to police investigations.
At the end of July, after four women and a man reported assaults in the area of Roncesvalles and Howard Park avenues, police arrested a man on four counts of assault and two counts of assault with a weapon.
Police meanwhile continue to investigate three eerily similar incidents in July and early August in which a man in a vehicle asked a woman for directions and, after she agreed to show him the location on his phone, passed her the phone playing a pornographic video as he committed what the police called an “indecent act.” The incidents took place around Queen Street West and Dovercourt Road, King Street West and Sudbury Street, and Dundas Street West and Bathurst Street.
In a public safety alert, police described the man as brown, 30 to 35, five-feet-five, about 150 pounds with a slim build, dark hair, brown eyes and stubble. In the first two incidents, the man was driving an older model black Honda Civic. In the last incident, he was driving a white SUV.
An investigation is also ongoing after police say a man followed a woman home in the Dupont and Ossington area in the early hours of Aug. 7 before breaking into her home and sexually assaulting her.
But other incidents have not been reported to police. Instead, they’ve been shared on social media to spread awareness, sometimes with photographs of the alleged perpetrator’s car, including partial or full licence plate details, or photos of a similar car.
It’s not an entirely new phenomenon — individual posts are sometimes shared among circles of friends and in neighbourhood groups, occasionally going viral — but collected in one place as they are on the Ins tag ram stories of TOwestend community forum, thereports offer a disturbing picture of near-daily experiences of gender-based street harassment and sexual violence.
It’s hard to know from the incidents if the reports reflect something new going on in the area — especially the reports about men in cars — or whether these things have always been happening without coming to public attention, said Barrett.
“We’ve put ourselves out there as a resource for sharing these incidents. Based on the incident reports we are getting, there are certain cars that seem to be popping up more than once,” she said. Barrett said they are looking into how much information they can publicly share from the incident reports — as opposed to shared another person’s social media post — including photos taken by the person submitting the report. For now, they are wary of posting photos submitted directly with an incident report, but do share partial or full licence plate numbers when that information is provided.
The social media sharing is helpful in trying to make people aware of what is going on, but Barrett is hopeful that it will also lead to more actions, like walk-home groups and ultimately increased community connectedness. Another community group led by survivors of sexual violence, the Dandelion Initiative, has offered safety planning tips and advice on how to intervene as a bystander.
Barrett said the community response has been heartening, with people wanting to find ways to contribute. She said they are being mindful around avoiding any kind of vigilante justice and are ensuring all initiatives are led by women.
Farrah Khan, the manager of Consent Comes First at Ryerson University, said community responses to sexual harassment and sexual violence have long existed for women, LGBTQ and racialized people — from learning self-defence to learning how to check in with each other to make sure they’re OK. The need for this has in part stemmed from a lack of trust in police, based on previous discriminatory and negative experiences, including being disbelieved or further traumatized, she said.
“People can experience daily street harassment. It’s so commonplace,” she said. “I think it’s great to have community conversations about it so we can build our resiliency and our skills to intervene when these things happen … when people harass us in our communities, they are also members of our community. So how are we going to talk to members of our community about how we want to be seen and treated.”
Khan stresses that community safety measures are not a long-term solution and that there needs to be investment in prevention through education, as well as funding for victim resources like rape crisis centres.
“It would make a huge difference if the work to address and prevent sexual violence and harassment was sustainably funded. Then we could have comprehensive street harassment programs, community programming and support for people who have been harmed,” Khan said.
Khan noted that it is important to remember that while the incident reports are being collected for west-end Toronto neighbourhoods including Roncesvalles, Parkdale and Trinity-Bellwoods, similar incidents occur across the city. She cautions against stigmatizing a certain neighbourhood because community members in the area are speaking up.
She is also wary of harassment or user-reported crime maps which have in the past been met with criticism when reports appear to be directed at homeless, mentally ill, racialized or otherwise marginalized people.
Samantha Bitty, a sexual health and consent educator who lives in the area and has seen many of the posts, says social media is amplifying the information-sharing that has already been going on within social circles and communities.
There are some issues, she notes. Sometimes the posts don’t include a date or location, sometimes they are shared as second- or third-hand information that may not be accurate. Having the posts on Instagram or shared among friend groups automatically limits the reach of the posts to certain groups of people, which means many of the people who might find the information useful but are not tech-savvy, have a language barrier or are not connected to these circles never see it. It can also mean those who don’t feel directly impacted can avoid the conversations about it.
“We need to break down these silos,” Bitty said. “How do we invite more people into the conversation?”
A Toronto police spokesperson said the police are aware of the social media posts and urged people to make police reports so that they can be investigated.
Options for reporting include calling the police non-emergency line or going to the local police station, she said.
A Take Back the Night march has been organized for Saturday. Co-organizer Madeleine Ritts said she felt it was important to have a way to build community cohesion and connection amid both the isolation of the pandemic and the many reported incidents on social media, including the break-in and sexual assault on Aug. 7.
“I’ve had a lot difficulty sleeping since I read about that,” she said, noting there had been a break-in attempt at her home about a month ago.
“This is what I felt I needed to transform my fear into anger and to feel brave and less afraid.”
Ritts said that while the constant new reports of experiences that are often not publicly shared do contribute to increasing fear and anxiety, it also shows how much work still needs to be done to address sexual violence.
“People having a platform to share their rage works to subvert the myth that this is something that has to be natural fact of life,” she said.
“People can experience daily street harassment. It’s so commonplace.” FARRAH KHAN MANAGER OF CONSENT COMES FIRST AT RYERSON UNIVERSITY