A racist measure? Negotiating the risk of stigmatisation in the verbalisation of street harassment

Over the last few years, several countries have introduced legislation aiming to penalize “street harassment.” In France, these attempts are framed through an explicitly feminist perspective, defining street harassment as the first degree of a continuum of violence against women. In the Netherlands, however, they have been promoted by right-wing parties. From this perspective, street harassment is presented as a disruption of law and order by young men of color. Despite these differences, French and Dutch lawmakers face a similar line of criticism, expressed by left-wing politicians, feminists, and anti-racist activists: the risk that these laws disproportionately criminalise racialised and working-class men. This article traces how the concern about stigmatisation influences the implementation of criminal law, by analyzing how certain actors come to conceive a law as “racist” or “selective,” and the efforts of lawmakers in both countries to deal with and overcome this criticism.