SALON

Wednesday, Nov 24, 2010 10:49 PM UTC

What we learned from the subway flasher

The perpetrator from the viral video has been charged, but are we doing enough to stop these crimes?

By

Topics: Violence Against Women, Broadsheet, Love and Sex,

What we learned from the subway flasherStills from a video of a woman confronting a subway flasher

News came today that Mario Valdivia, the subway flasher caught on film getting reamed out by his victim, was arrested and charged with forcible touching, public lewdness and sex abuse. I would call this a “happy ending,” but it seems tasteless given the context. Also: There’s the fact that the 51-year-old has reportedly faced similar charges in the past. It kind of makes you wonder about whether we’re adequately addressing the issue of subway harassment.

In New York state, groping can result in punishment of up to one year in jail; and public indecency can bring a fine of up to $500, three months in jail and, if the judge thinks it’s appropriate, registration under Megan’s Law. Repeat flashers can face a year behind bars, three years of probation and a $1,000 fine. Those are some steep punishments. The problem, however, is that by most estimations these crimes are hugely underreported. Holly Kearl, author of “Stop Street Harassment: Making Public Places Safe and Welcoming for Women,” wrote her graduate thesis on the subject and found that “few women looked to the law or police” after such incidents: ”Only two percent of posters on anti-street harassment websites mentioned having reported the incident of street harassment to the police while less than one percent reported threatening to call the police.” 

Websites like Hollaback — which publishes photos and videos of harassers, including this latest one — and organizations like New Yorkers for Safe Transit (NYST) are agitating for women to speak out about gropers and flashers. Of course, it’s hard to say just how well those campaigns are working, since data is so hard to come by. Anecdotally, says Kearl, “I’ve seen many more arrests in the news from cellphone photos and videos. So, it’s very hard to say accurately if the reports are on the rise but I have to imagine and hope that they are, at least in the areas where women are encouraged to do that, especially NYC.” In the last few years, many cities have rolled out anti-harassment PSAs on public transportation, the idea being that it will raise awareness and lead to more reporting; and Kearl is putting pressure on these transit agencies to release information on the impact.

Women’s resistance to reporting harassment is far from the only hurdle here: A quick perusal of the NYST blog reveals plenty of stories of women who have found that police shrug off reports of flashers and gropers. Not helping the matter any, “the NYPD only tracks assaults that fall into the felony range, which often doesn’t include [cases where] victims are ogled, groped, flashed, harassed or witness any other types of lewd acts.” This summer, New York Assemblyman James Brennan tried to change all that by introducing a measure that would require police to track groping and other sexual abuse on each subway and bus line. Kearl hopes to see things go even further. From the available evidence — which, again, is scant — she says it appears that “many men who street harass are repeat offenders.” The next step, she says, is studying men like Valdivia to determine why they do it, and how to prevent them from doing it again.

Tracy Clark-Flory

Tracy Clark-Flory is a staff writer at Salon. Follow @tracyclarkflory on Twitter and Facebook. More Tracy Clark-Flory.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 23 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations