Stop Telling Women to Smile: Stories of Street Harassment and How We're Taking Back Our Power

by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh

Overview

The debut book from a celebrated artist on the urgent topic of street harassment

Every day, all over the world, women are catcalled and denigrated simply for walking down the street. Boys will be boys, women have been told for generations, ignore it, shrug it off, take it as a compliment. But the harassment has real consequences for women: in the fear it instills and the shame they are made to feel.

In Stop Telling Women to Smile, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh uses her arresting street art portraits to explore how women experience hostility in communities that are supposed to be homes. She addresses the pervasiveness of street harassment, its effects, and the kinds of activism that can serve to counter it. The result is a cathartic reckoning with the aggression women endure, and an examination of what equality truly entails.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781580058483
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	02/04/2020
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	133,864
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh is a classically trained oil painter and street artist, a Forbes "30 Under 30" recipient, and one of Brooklyn Magazine's "Most Influential People." Her street art series, Stop Telling Women to Smile, has been covered by Time, NPR, MSNBC, Oxygen Network, and others. Fazlalizadeh lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Editorial Reviews

"Tatyana's art does what all great art does: tells the truth about our times. Her portraits of women are not only beautiful, they give women a space to have their truths heard. She is formidable and strong in her art, and our society is better for it."—Spike Lee, -

"Tatyana Fazlalizadeh has done what so many artists wish to accomplish. She has combined her tremendous talent for producing beautiful images with a forthright critique of the world she inhabits. Stop Telling Women to Smile is the most consequential street art campaign of the last decade, and we owe that to Tatyana's honesty, intelligence, hustle, and unmatched artistic talents. Her commitment to this project has challenged the way we discuss women and women's bodies in public space, and we are better for it."
—Mychal Denzel Smith, New York Times bestselling author of Invisible Man: Got the Whole World Watching

"Tatyana Fazlalizadeh's work wrestles the knot between cultural codes and the bodies of women with spectacular artistry. Her intersectional feminism lights the fire we need to see a way forward. She is unflinching and glorious."
—Lidia Yuknavitch, bestselling author of The Book of Joan


"Tatyana Fazlalizadeh's work makes me smile. Provocation brings joy and Fazlalizadeh's images startle and prod with their delicate ferocity, reminding us that women are human. She treats us to what is seldom seen: woman as subject, woman as agent, woman as free human being."—Myriam Gurba, author of Mean


"Tatyana Fazlalizadeh is the political artist of our time. Her walls burn, laying plain oppressions both buried and overt with beauty, power, and courage."—Molly Crabapple, author of Drawing Blood

From the Publisher

03/13/2020

In 2012, portrait artist Fazlalizadeh created a street art series of posters in Brooklyn called "Stop Telling Women To Smile," depicting drawings of women responding to street harassment. Fazlalizadeh centered her work on the experiences of women of color, who, she explains, are often left out of the conversation of harassment in mainstream media. Powerful and effective, the project quickly grew, as people shared images of the artworks on social media and journalists began covering the story. Part 1 of this book profiles the women depicted in Fazlalizadeh's art. Part 2 delves into the reasons she decided to turn her art into activism, featuring a clear message to men about the crucial role they play in addressing this ingrained and pervasive problem. Fazlalizadeh concludes with a hopeful vision of a better future; her affecting and empowering artwork appearing throughout. VERDICT An important addition to women's studies, art history, and political collections that will also be valuable in more general public library holdings.—Venessa Hughes, Denver

Library Journal

2019-11-18
Anger fuels an artist's project to publicize the prevalence of street harassment.

Painter and street artist Fazlalizadeh makes a compelling book debut that expands her public art series "Stop Telling Women to Smile." The series began when she mounted three posters she drew of women's faces—her own and two friends'—each captioned with a single sentence in protest of street harassment: "My Name is Not Baby, Sweetie, Sweetheart, Shorty, Sexy, Honey, Pretty, Boo, Ma" and "Women Are Not Seeking Your Validation." As the posters gained attention, the project grew into interviews with—and portraits of—many women who talked about their experiences with vulnerability, fear, and mental, emotional, and physical exhaustion. "Street harassment," writes the author, "is not an isolated issue" but rather part of "a long history of aggressive sexualization" that includes domestic abuse and sexual assault. Fazlalizadeh cites research showing that between 40% and 60% of women attest to having experienced street harassment in the Middle East and North Africa; 65% in the U.S.; 79% in India; 86% in Thailand and Brazil. She cautions against viewing men's comments as evidence of sexual attraction; harassment, she writes, "is ultimately about power and dominance." Most of the 10 women portrayed in this book recall being harassed even as children, often by adult men. "It's always shocking how young we were," one Asian American woman reveals. "When I was young," a queer, gender-nonconforming Latinx reveals, harassment felt like "the cornering of a younger body into a very sexualized being." Asian women and women of color often encounter stereotyped sexualization. "Not Your Asian Fetish, China Doll, Geisha," one woman's poster reads. Several interviewees identify as queer and one as trans, presenting an image that seems to threaten some men. "For a couple composed of two women," street harassment "will likely be layered with homophobia." By capturing women's rage and frustration, Fazlalizadeh hopes to create empathy, "ignite actions and engage communities of people."

A graphic and often moving contribution to the important conversation about endemic sexism.

Kirkus Reviews

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