According to True/Slant's Kashmir Hill, about 5-6% of Americans have been victims of stalking. But a third of the 934 professors at Indiana universities who responded to a 2007 survey said they had been stalked at some point in their careers. Almost half — 46% — of respondents who had been stalked were male. Dr. Robin Morgan, the clinical psychologist who conducted the survey, says professors face a disproportionate risk of stalking, often "with no previous sexual relationship, unlike the stalking that tends to occur in the general population." Morgan says the most common type of campus stalker is "the delusional stalker," who believes, "This faculty member really cares about me, wants to be in a relationship with me."

A big caveat: as Hill notes, people who respond to a survey on stalking are more likely to have been stalked, and it doesn't seem as though Morgan controlled for this. So Hill's warning — "Professors, be scared. Some of those students might be stalkers" — seems a little alarmist. At the same time, professors, like celebrities, have a larger "audience" than the average person. And by the nature of their job, they are often more important in the lives of their individual students than their students are in theirs (since a student has only a few professors per term, but a professor can have hundreds of students). As a result, it seems plausible that they would be vulnerable to people who imagine their relationship is closer than it really is.

Morgan says, "There's a tendency at universities to take the student's side. Many of the professors felt they had no rights in the process." That "tendency" may be due to a very real power differential that has long existed between student and teacher. Students still need to be protected against harassment and inappropriate behavior from people who have control over their grades and futures. But, as Morgan notes, students now have more control than ever over their professors' futures, through online professor-rating sites and course evaluations. One bad course evaluation probably won't derail a career, but a false allegation of a relationship might — and Internet rumors could harm professors both professionally and personally. Morgan cautions professors to avoid releasing personal information online: "Don't post photos of children, phone numbers, or personal e-mail addresses," she says. But it might be worthwhile to caution universities too, reminding them that teachers, as well as students, need to be protected.

Professors' Peril: Getting Stalked By Students [True/Slant]

Although Indian women are working an increasing number of jobs formerly forbidden to them, the ride to work remains a minefield of sorts. Men have been known to pinch and grope women on trains, shout insults or catcalls, or even just stare lecherously. According to New York Times reporter Jim Yardley, this practice is known as "eve teasing," which seems like a rather benign name for something so threatening. Yardley discusses the possible link between the social change that has lead to a greater freedom for many women and the violent backlash, characterized by a steep rise of violence against women. He writes:

Between 2003 and 2007, rape cases rose by more than 30 percent, kidnapping or abduction cases rose by more than 50 percent, while torture and molestation also jumped sharply.

Mala Bhandari, who runs an organization focused on women and children, said the influx of women into the workplace had eroded the traditional separation between public space (the workplace) and private space (the home). "Now that women have started occupying public spaces, issues will always arise," she said. "And the first issue is security."

The "Ladies Special" trains are an attempt to provide this kind of security for women. Not only do they supply a space where women can sit free of harassment, they are also generally cleaner and more comfortable than the mixed-gender trains. (The Times also has a slideshow of gorgeous images.) "It's so nice here," said a teacher and frequent rider of the "Ladies Special." "Here on this train, you can board anywhere and sit freely." But some men feel the need to protest the trains, and have been known to spray-paint the cars and dirty the bathrooms.

While sequestering women off into their own separate cars seems in many ways like a step backwards, there are times when I've wished we had female-only subway cars in the U.S. Earlier this year, Sadie shared her experiences with harassment on public transportation, and commenters quickly chimed in with stories of their own. It seems like almost every woman living in a city, and many who just visit, has a horror story about the creeps that grope, harass, molest, or otherwise frighten them. But as Dr. Ranjari Kumari, director for India's Center for Social Research, points out, separate trains can't be a long term solution. "You really need to make every train as safe as the Ladies Specials," he said.

Indian Women Find New Peace In Rain Commute [New York Times]
Indian Women Escape Harrassment on the Train [New York Times]

Related: When You're Not Sure If Someone Is Masturbating Against You In A Crowded Subway

Forty-four states have specific anti-bullying laws, which were largely created as a response to the school shootings in the 1990s, but few of the laws include any method for making sure the laws are enforced or have ever been used to stop students from harrassing others, according to the AP.

Parents are now pushing for schools to take stronger action against bullying in light of several children under the age of 12 committing suicide earlier this year, in incidents some claim involved bullying. The AP reports that in mid-April,

Sirdeaner Walker found her son Carl hanged in her Springfield, Mass., home. The 11-year-old had complained of teasing almost immediately after arriving at his new charter school, she said.

Parents in Illinois likewise pointed to bullies after three suicides there in February: a 10-year-old boy hanged himself in a restroom stall in a suburban Chicago school, an 11-year-old boy was found dead in Chatham, south of Springfield, and a father found his 11-year-old daughter hanged in a closet of their Chicago home.

Though Georgia has one of the toughest bullying laws in the country, the parents of 11-year-old Jaheem Herrera, who committed suicide in April, insist the school didn't do enough to stop him from being harassed by his peers (the state law wouldn't have applied anyway since Herrera was in fifth grade and it only applies to grades six through 12.) Other Georgia parents came forward after the boy's death alleging that they'd complained about their children being bullied but schools did nothing.

Brenda High, who started tracking anti-bulllying laws on her website Bully Police USA after her 13-year-old son committed suicide in 1998, says there should be consequences for schools that ignore bullying complaints:

"It needs to be written into the law that bullying has the same consequences as assault," she said. "The records and such need to be kept so that if the child is a chronic bully, they - after so many instances - will end up in an alternative school."

Though Georgia's law actually does say that state funding will be stripped from schools that fail to take action after three incidents involving a bully, no school has ever lost funding because the schools don't collect data on the incidents. Very few states require schools to gather or report data on bullying.

Part of the problem is that it's hard to define what constitutes bullying. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2007 nearly a third of students ages 12 to 18 said they had been bullied, meaning the problem has been getting worse in recent years. Though it's possible children are just more willing to report incidents, they say they're experiencing more teasing, spreading rumors, and threats, which are hard for schools to identify and prevent. Officials in DeKalb County, Georgia, insist they found no evidence Herrera was being bullied before he killed himself. Dale Davis, a spokesman for the school district says:

"One of the questions is how do you quantify bullying? It could even be as simple as a rolling of the eyes."

Though everyone has been teased at some point and can imagine how debilitating it is for chronic victims, research suggest people need to identify more with bullies. Last month researchers at Indiana University found that most students see people as either "bullies" or "non-bullies" and then ignore anti-harassment messages if they generally label themselves as non-bullies.

The fact that bullying is so common also makes some people treat it as an unavoidable, but fairly innocuous aspect of childhood. On Friday Laurie Taylor wrote a column for the BBC about how as a boy he and his classmates used to harass one a student named McNulty because he was a know-it-all. He concludes that it all turned out alright because McNulty went on to have a successful career as an MP and commenters were angry that Taylor was so glib about bullying. But Taylor doesn't mention any specific interaction with McNulty, and it seems he only went along with pranks like leaving library books on his desk or chuckled when everyone in the class told a new teacher his name was "McNulty."

Though obviously there are some students who habitually and severely harass a particular student, most of us have had a McNulty in our classes and stood by or even participated as they became the butt of every joke. Clearly, enforcing existing laws would help combat the most obvious forms of bullying. But putting an end to the torture that so many children experience every day would require every student to make a conscious decision to stop bullying, which is much more difficult than just cutting funding or transferring certain students to alternative schools.

AP Enterprise: Bullying Laws Give Scant Protection [Associated Press]
My Life As A Bully [BBC]

Earlier: Takes One To Know One

A study found that 83% of Egyptians and 98% of foreigners experienced harassment in Cairo. Daniel Williams of the Times interviewed a group of girls who practice karate to "keep bad people away." A monthly magazine in Cairo has been running testimonials about women's harassment experiences, including the story of a woman whose buttocks were groped when she was walking with a friend. And Madiha el-Safty, a sociology professor at the American University in Cairo, says, "Changes for women are surface improvements. There is a deeper cultural problem: male hostility toward women who want to do more than stay at home."

Safty remembers a Cairo, less than 20 years ago, in which women could wear sundresses and short skirts. Now most wear long sleeves and headscarves, but the traditional wisdom that such coverings protect them from the advances of men seems untrue. 72% of the women who reported harassment were wearing headscarves at the time.

Egypt's National Council for Women, which should by all rights be addressing these issues, is in denial. Mohamed Nasef, a spokesman for the organization, says reports are "exaggerated," but also that harassment "happens everywhere." Of course, no one would use the everyone's-doing-it argument to excuse, say, murder, but obviously public humiliation, inappropriate touching, and even rape aren't crimes that the National Council for Women takes seriously. So far only one man has been convicted of harassment in Egypt, and National Council for Women leader Suzanne Mubarak says, "Egyptian men always respect Egyptian women." Since their government won't defend them, Cairo's women and girls must defend themselves. Karate student Nada Gamal Saad says, "No one is going to touch me when I can hit them real hard."

Covered Up, and Harassed, in Cairo [New York Times]

It was rush hour, on a packed express train. I was standing against the pole, a heavy grocery bag held upright between my planted feet, when I felt what may or may not have been SMAMIACS. I was fairly sure it was; it seemed like the characteristic ridge of the erection of a SMAMIAC, but the thing is, you can never be sure! The train was crowded, the possible SMAMIAC may well have just been shoved against me by the press of the crowd. Was he deliberately, craftily moving against me with the jolt of the train, or was that simply the natural movement occasioned by the A train's speed? I could catch a glimpse of trouser legs - they're always suits - but in these situations, you also really don't want to turn around and verify whether that's an erection pressing into your back, because if it is, gross, and you don't want to give him the satisfaction, and, if it's not - if it's by some chance the edge of a bag or something else completely innocent -well, why are you going to great lengths to stare at someone's crotch? (Impossible to do with any subtlety on the kind of crowded train that allows for SMAMIAc-ing in the first place.)

After the fact, somehow, you're always pretty sure. But at the time, there's just enough doubt to make one's course of action debatable. It's not like being flashed, or getting stuck alone in a car with some guy jerking off which, while horrible, is pretty straightforward. SMAMIACS get off on a cowardly, stealth exhibitionism that would confound the garden-variety urban perv in its subtlety and guile.

The first time this ever happened to me - and it's happened to every woman I know, although men are always completely shocked that such things go on - I was about 14, coming back from some innocent foray into the city, alert not to miss the Grand Central stop so I could catch my train back to Westchester. The SMAMIAC - who was probably extra-depraved, given that at 14 I looked a frumpy 8-year-old - must have been pretty obvious, since I was far from wise in the ways of erections and yet knew exactly what was going on. I remember being paralyzed with shock and horror, and jumping off the train two stops early to escape him. When I got into the car where my mother was waiting to collect me an hour later, I burst into tears. She held me as I choked out the tale, almost too horrible to repeat, and then nodded knowingly.

"What you have to do," she said sagely. "Is publicly shame them. They're excited by the secrecy of it, so you have to expose them. Next time it happens, scream 'PERVERT! PERVERT!' as loudly as you can."

I daresay it was sound advice, but you'd better be pretty sure - or my mom, who's never averse to humiliating anyone. My passive-aggressive approach is, if I suspect SMAMIAC-ing, to grind my (always high) heel as hard as I can into his instep, leaning my full weight on that one shoe - with the movement of the train, of course. Maybe a mistake, right? Just like the erection being rubbed against me! One runs the risk, of course, of maiming an innocent man, but the fact that the SMAMIACing always stops after my misstep? Makes me think not. The one time I did call someone out started routinely enough - without enough evidence to convict. After I pulled the heel thing, though, I noticed the creep move across the car towards a very young girl and position himself behind her. I had to act, and my mother's long-ago words rang in my head.

"Pervert!" I screamed. "Pervert! No, not you -" to the alarmed-looking old man next to me. "Him! He's molesting that girl! Does anyone have a camera?!" We'd pulled up at a station, and the perv, along with half the car, exited. I made my way over to the girl. "Are you okay?" I asked quietly.

She looked at me blankly. "What are you talking about?" she said.

"That guy..." I said. "He was...maybe...trying to masturbate against you on a crowded subway!"

She put on headphones and turned away. And, like Meryl Streep, I was left with only Doubt.

Fifth-grader ZeAndre Orr, the double dutch champion, has had a rough time: he was mocked and beaten up in his Brooklyn neighborhood, and even his mother tried to dissuade him from a hobby that brought him so much negative attention. Of course, the rest is history: he persevered and triumphed. And when you consider the actual physical challenges of double dutch (and check out this video!) it's a particularly arbitrary gender division.

The story reads like a real-life Billy Elliott, the story of a young boy from a coal-mining community who defies his father and his friends to pursue his passion for ballet. Billy Elliott is now a musical on Broadway, scored by Elton John, and is winning acclaim not just for its story of unlikely triumph, but for the rotating cast of young boys who dance the lead, with a backing cast of little-girl dancers. Onstage, of course, everything is resolved neatly within a few hours: Billy wins the respect of his unemotional father and dances off into the sunset. And, oh yeah, he's not gay.

Says Cara at Feministe, "as feminists, it’s understandable that we generally focus on girls and women who break down gender barriers, rather than boys and men who do the same." But let's not be disingenuous: these boys are not beaten up just for jumping double-dutch or dancing with girls; it's naive to think that a fairy tale like Billy Elliott can make the everyday life of a young boy in a bad neighborhood much easier. In fact, one question this makes me ask is, are people pleased at the idea of barriers coming down and gender roles becoming less defined, or only to the extent that the plucky outsider triumphs over adversity? Is the specialness of the story what appeals— the cuteness factor of a fish-out-of-water — or the larger implication? Are people as tied to the idea of the "other" as the nominal idea of "equality?" Maybe it doesn't matter, and one can't exist without the other, but it's worth considering.

Where Ballet Is A Boy Thing [NY Times]
Boys Who Do Double Dutch [NY Times via Feministe]

The other day I was talking with a friend who said she had a problem. "Not a big problem, but it's bothering me." She explained that she frequents a 24-hour market near her apartment and that lately the guy who works there has been making her uncomfortable. "I think I was just too friendly," she said. She added that she felt guilty. "He's nice; it's not threatening; I even think he's married - it's just a lot of 'I've missed your pretty smile,' and 'you haven't been in this week' — and I kind of dread going in there!" I knew exactly what she meant. But when I tried to explain the situation to a male friend, he looked at me blankly. "Does he insult her?" No. "Is he inappropriate?" Not exactly. "He's just being friendly? What's the problem." The 'problem' of course, is that as women we're vulnerable in ways guys can't appreciate. Sure, they can comprehend that catcalling is offensive and that pervs rubbing against you on the subway is disgusting. But they can't understand the smaller things you need to guard against, day in and day out, that you can't be too friendly, because it just leaves you...open.

My friend's situation with the shop owner is a case in point. It can be hard to explain the complexity of a dynamic in which you just feel slightly intruded upon: in a word, uncomfortable. I've stopped going to delis and stores because of things like this; once or twice I even asked a male friend to go in with me which, sadly, always seems to put an end to it. In none of these cases was the guy in question rude or vulgar or even predatory — it's not like having to brush off a creep at a bar or something — but there was always an excessive interest and a certain lack of boundaries probably only women are aware of. An insinuating look, an overly-long glance, a significant smile can be enough to make a trip to the store a daily ordeal.

When you're a naturally friendly person, learning these lessons can be hard. Another friend said she made the mistake of trying out her Russian on a neighbor who lives downstairs and now she feels they have an uncomfortable rapport. In the same situations where my brother can laugh and joke and flirt, I need to stay reserved and controlled — pleasant, of course, but always a little bit remote. He might enjoy the attention; for the most part, as a woman, I'd rather fly under the radar. I'd like to say this is a function of urban living, but sadly it can be true anywhere. And, no, as problems go, it's not a huge one —certainly not on a level with real harassment or danger. But it is a hard-to-explain reality of being a woman that men can't understand and we can't avoid.

[Image via Flickr.]

Wax writes:

Violence against women is the fastest-growing crime in India, a recent study concluded. Every 26 minutes a woman is molested, every 34 minutes a rape takes place, and every 43 minutes a woman is kidnapped, according to the Home Ministry's National Crime Records Bureau.

Women's groups claim only a small percentage of rapes are reported. Interestingly enough, as India celebrates 60 years of independence, Time magazine takes a look at some of the people who are leading the country into its next six decades. And naturally, some of them are women: Mayawati, the politician from the "untouchable" caste; Sunita Narain, an environmentalist; Sonia Gandhi, a popular, Italian-born Catholic who married into a famous family; and Aishwarya Rai, the biggest Bollywood star.

Do successful women in the public eye make it easier or harder for "ordinary" women like Gitanjali Chaudhry (who wants to finish school and be a lawyer, but sometimes stays home when the harassment gets too bad) to find success? Will the male backlash create an atmosphere in which women just give up? And how many males in India are like 21-year-old Raja Kumar, who says, in the Post: "I was never really taught how to act around a girl. I thought teasing was the way to get them to notice me."

In India, New Opportunities for Women Draw Anger and Abuse From Men [Washington Post]
India's Most Influential [Time]

Earlier: Big Deals
Indian Woman Producing Change And Controversy In Equal Amounts

The laws in Virgina, Maryland and Washington, D.C. consider sexual offenses by schoolchildren to be "improper physical contact against a student that is offensive, undesirable, and/or unwanted as determined by the victim." There's no debate that unwanted touching is an offense. But the schools are enforcing a zero-tolerance policy that involves the authorities: The police were contacted after Randy Castro's playground spank. (Since the episode in November, Randy has been calling himself a "bad boy," his mother says.) The girl's mother, Margarita DeLeon, was also contacted by the school, and says her daughter admitted that she didn't like being hit but quickly forgot about it. "[Randy] didn't mean anything by it. I'm upset with the school," DeLeon says.

It would be easy to blame hip-hop videos, Bratz and reality TV for these kids turning into "sexual harassers." But isn't exploring boundaries and figuring out what's a "no-no" just something kids do? (Whom among us never touched a classmate or played doctor?) Human development is about testing, learning, trying things out. Says psychologist Ted Feinberg: "Kids can be exploratory in behavior, they can mimic what they see on TV." Does that mean that they should have the "sexual harasser" label forever in their school files?

For Little Children, Grown-Up Labels As Sexual Harassers, Harassment Under the Law [Washington Post]
Earlier: Two Colorado 5-Year-Olds "Investigated" For Sexual Harassment