#3 ACTIONS ARE LOUDER THAN WORDS.
Making words matter, what counts as harassment + more updates on our latest goings-on.
Welcome to Visible Platform's newsletter, The Platform.
This newsletter was created as we thought it was important to keep you updated on our journey and share resources to help you recognise, cope with and heal from incidents of public harassment.
If you like what we’re doing, subscribe and share with your friends 📣
November Reflections:
Words: “The safety of women and girls is an absolute priority for TfL.”
Actions: a leaflet 🤦♀️ 😤
Visible Platform’s mission is to reduce the harassment of women and non-binary people on public transport. And at the core of our values are accessibility and meaningful actions. So when we heard about the new TfL campaign we were in equal parts hopeful and skeptical.
Of course we are happy to see recognition and acknowledgement finally being given to the severity of this issue, BUT beyond a lick of paint and new graphics, how is this campaign helping women?
This is something we explore in today’s newsletter.
We’ve also created a new tool & resource talking through what counts as harassment in UK. We recognise that harassment can take many forms, and its motivation may be intersectional. However, this is not typically how the law works. We’ve created this guide to detangle some of the most relevant pieces of legislation. If you do decide to report your experience to the police, we hope this may support you in building your case.
Visible Platform Team
Platform Updates:
Press, podcasts and features:
🗞 Did you see us on the BBC? Not once, not twice, but thrice! A big thank you to Meghan and Helen for making sure we were involved any time anyone mentioned public transport 🚆🚆🚆
Let’s talk actions 👊
Last month Transport for London in partnership with the Rail Delivery Group, British Transport Police, Metropolitan Police Service, and women's safety groups launched a new campaign to tackle sexual harassment on the transport network.
This is great news, claps for TfL 👏👏
However, let’s talk actions.
It doesn’t matter if you have posters saying “Leering isn’t ok”, if all your staff aren’t effectively trained to deal with all forms of harassment against women then you’re not driving that message home. Not only are you letting individuals down but you are also silencing women collectively.
Georgie has 715k followers, her image was liked over 55k times. It was shared and forwarded widely. It’s so important for the authorities and policy makers to understand that one women’s experiences often reaches far beyond their own life. The fact that such a large number of women don’t report their experiences of gendered violence isn’t because they’ve done so previously and didn’t feel supported, but rather that they know their odds. They’ve heard the stories, they’ve watched it unfold, and they don’t fancy going through the experience themselves.
The fact that Georgie had such a horrible experience won’t just affect her future journeys and decisions, it will affect the journeys and decisions of all those women who saw the post. Let’s fix that. Let’s make sure our actions are always louder than our words.
The Platform Recommends:
📝 Action of the month: Sign the petition to Extend Glasgow Subway opening hours beyond COP26.
“Not only will this be a huge benefit for the city, increasing the modernisation of the subway, but it will also help to ensure the safety of people in Glasgow, especially women. The transport links are poor enough, with no night buses, no train links to areas such as the West End. These current subway hours mean more people driving into the city centre on a Sunday, and women living in areas with poor transport links are being forced to walk home or pay the extortionate taxi prices.”
👀 Check out this: A life saving hand signal to let others know you need help. Let’s make this common knowledge!
Visible Platform is all about creating a community, so if you want to talk to us please email us on: info@visibleplatform.org
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