emily may

Emily May is an award-winning leader in the anti-street-harassment movement. In 2005, at the age of 24, she co-founded Hollaback! (iHollaback.org) in New York City, and in 2010 she became the first full-time executive director. Hollaback!’s mission is to give women and LGBTQ folks an empowered response to street harassment, and ultimately, to end it.

Emily brings a fresh perspective to social action in the digital age.  She believes the internet provides  opportunities to tackle discrimination, by transforming discrimination from a lonely experience into a piece of a larger, public movement.  Hollaback! gives women, girls, and LGBTQ individuals an empowered, real-time response to street harassment that will build public awareness on why street harassment matters, and how it hurts. Emily, who hold a Master’s Degree from the London School of Economics in Social Policy, argues that a crowd-sourced movement is the key to changing policy and minds, and ultimately, creating a world where everyone has the right to feel safe and confident.

Prior to running Hollaback!, Emily worked in the anti-poverty world as a case manager, political action coordinator, director of development, and most recently, a one-woman research and development team.  She has also worked on four political campaigns.

Emily is a winner of the 2008 Stonewall Women’s Award, was a 2009 Progressive Women’s Voices Fellow, was selected as a 2011 “21 leaders” winner by Women’s E-news, a “40 under 40″ leader by the New Leadership Council in 2011, one of thirty “Women Making History” by the Women’s Media Center, and an Ashoka “ChangemakHER,” along with Melinda Gates.