The Artdog Image of Interest

August is a month when many students start back to school–many in new schools. I’ve enjoyed dedicating my Images of Interest to a reminder that as young girls grow into young women, whether they’re in public or private schools or in college, they often are subject to gender-based street harassment. That means catcalls, comments on their looks, etc.

The fact is that these young women do not owe you (or anyone else) their time, or conversation. No one, and especially no men whom they don’t know, have a right to demand that. They’re not put on this planet for male benefit. They don’t need harassment, but all too many experience it.

I dedicated this month’s Images of Interest to those maturing girls and young women. I mean it as a reminder: we adults in the community have a responsibility to call out harassment wherever it manifests. And I am deeply grateful to artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, whose whose work I also featured last March.

Here in the Northern Hemisphere August is usually our Back to School month. Women’s Equality Day also happens in August. I’m delighted acknowledge both, and to share more of her “Stop Telling Women to Smile” public art project.

IMAGE: Many thanks to artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh and her “Stop Telling Women to Smile” public art project. My thanks also to Katherine Brooks’s Huffington Post article, for this image.