Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Archives for June 2010

The pleasantness of no street harassment!

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Since moving from Edmonton to Vancouver, I am astounded by how polite strangers are here. I have been here almost a year and have only experienced street harassment twice, both very mild incidents. Often, I will be walking down the street and I’ll see a group of young men approach. I will feel wary, because I’m used to harassment from groups of young men. As they pass me on the street, one of them will say ‘hi’ and then they keep walking.

Before I moved here, I had become desensitized to street harassment. I had given up on telling people about my weekly, often daily, experiences with harassment, because they’d always make it sound like my fault. “What were you wearing?” “What did you expect to happen?” “You’re so flirtatious, of course they felt they could say that to you.” “Why were you walking alone after dark?”

When I moved here, I experienced for the first time since puberty, how nice it is to walk around alone in public with nobody bothering me. That was when I started to feel really angry about street harassment. Every woman deserves to be respected in public and we should never settle for anything less.

– Margaret

Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

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“You looked so pretty reading”

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A block from home, I’m alone on a corner, reading a book, waiting for the light to change and some douche tries to strike up a conversation with me. He asks me what I’m doing. It’s an awkward question, and he’s obviously leering at me and trying to get my attention. I answer as shortly and politely as possible and go back to reading. Nothing in my speech or body language says “Talk to me!” but none the less he continues to try.

“I was just asking cause you looked so pretty reading.”

Did I ask for your opinion? Does my business casual outfit make me look like a hooker or something? Seriously dude, WTF?

All I could think to say was “Sorry” as I turned towards home, but in retrospect I wish I’d told him to fuck off.

Feeling flustered, uncomfortable, and slightly violated, I finally got home, locked all the doors, and made sure my roommates were home. I felt gross for the rest of the day. I just wanted to finish my goddamn book, ass hole.

– anonymous

Location: Redmond, WA

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An appropriate way to say hello to a woman exercising

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I thought I’d send something in that was a refreshing change. Today I was on my daily walk, a 3.5km loop by my house. I was on my way home, walking down the giant hill I’d already trekked up. I wear crop pants and a sports bra/tank top thing. Not revealing, but tight fitting. I was watching the cars go up the hill and a young guy in his car saw that I was looking over and he politely waved. Maybe he was just being friendly. Maybe he was looking. I am not interested in making “looking” illegal. It’s the leering and other inappropriate behaviours that are the problem.

It is refreshing to have experiences like this.

– Not Guilty

Location: Ontario

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Harassment in India begins at the airport

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There is no respect for women in India, especially if they Indian women who were born and raised in the U.S or another country. The excuse of these men is that us women born and raised in another country are exotic and must be sluts. As soon as you get to the airport in India, you will be slapped on the butt and groped. Men will automatically start with the gawking and grinning and surrounding you no matter where you go. Even the driver you have, will turn and stare at you when he thinks you are asleep instead of watching the road in front of him, I caught him doing this three times, I did not want a repeat of being groped, so I stayed awake until everyone else woke up.

The men there will keep oggling you and grinning at you and surround you and then look at how they take off when they see someone coming back that should not have told you to stay put in the first place and left you alone. They will oggle you nonstop, in the buses they will sit in front of you, keep their face turned towards you for the whole three hour ride. It is like they are violating you. Relatives will excuses for their so called oggling, and deny all the other things being done. Plus these men have a way of not getting caught and only making it obvious that they victim will be affected. It is hard to ignore this when there are seven or more men harassing you and then they take off when they see someone coming towards you.

These men will come up to you and keep oggling you like you are a piece of meat the whole time you are there. They will grope you, their hands will reach your breasts, they will slap you on the butt, get on the bus you get in even if they are not even getting off at any of the stops, try to break into the bathroom when you are on a train, rub up against you on streets, stalk you in the streets, shops, sit in groups in front of you in restaurants and oggle you for twenty minutes.

They laugh when you yell, get loud and if you ignore them, they will grope- actually they will grope you either way. They will stalk you, even at places of religious worship. I was there for two and a half months and my family did nto really care about what was happening. Their response was: you are just a kid, why would anyone do anything to you? We didn’t see anything. What do you think you are, some kind of a queen? They kept making me sit in random spots while they took off somewhere whether to buy a ticket or buy food.

I tried to get away from the men, they just followed. They will get in front of you and surround you at busstands, on the train, train stations and they will get in your face and keep gawking and grinning. They will know a woman from another country is there even if she is 5 miles away, it is like they all report to each other that a woman from another country is here. Look at they run when they see a person you were with coming in your direction. They will know the exact spot you are in, who is with you and when they have left. Disgusting.

I took this for two months and my brother recently tried to force me to go to India even though it is know what I went through and how they don’t spare you. I also don’t see a reason for one guy to grab the back of my shirt when I was on the bus when he thought I was asleep, he was grabbing the would be bra strap area. A person comes back from there horribly tramautized, constant nightmares, it is like a woman is not able to talk to or feel comfortable around men. It is especially worse when the family does not care because they don’t want their country to look bad. It feels horrible to suffer constant sexual harassment and have your own family dismiss your feelings or outright yell at you in front of the men even though you didn’t do anything. When I was there, my relatives with me didn’t care, when I tried to report a guy to them, this relative outright pushed my arm away from them and the guy just grinned and took off. I can’t tell you about the trauma.

The men most of the times make a run for it before anyone with you can come back to you and yes my family made me sit by myself and would take off to go get something, I was alone in a restaurant for twenty minutes or more and the men there came out of nowhere and started the harassment and then ran when they saw my family coming. They drive you crazy and make others think you are crazy.

These men don’t spare you. It is disgusting. And yes, I am always covered from head to toe- always. Yes, I was wearing the Indian garb. (I am also always covered from head to toe in the U.S)

– SS

Location: India

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“Want some chocolate milk on the side?”

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I have had to deal with harassment of all sorts ranging from leers to unwanted touching ever since I was a teenager and now at age 31 that has not changed. I used to have to take public transit and I was an intern at the hospital…I had to change my route from the hospital to the bus station due to this autoshop on the street where a bunch of guys would holler and say all sorts of rude and degrading things to me as I walked by. I can’t walk anywhere without having a car honk at me and some loser hanging out the passenger side asking me for my number. One memorable experience was when a guy asked me if I was married. When I replied in the affirmative he went on to ask me if I was married to a white or a black man. When I didn’t answer he said “Must be a white man…want some chocolate milk on the side?”

I even had one guy come and grab me roughly on the arm, demanding my name as I was getting into the car when my husband was picking me up! The nerve!

Recently I ran across that game that has been making the rounds at http://www.heybabygame.com and the feedback I have been seeing especially from the majority of males is very predictable. “Oh noes, how dare we find a woman attractive and compliment her!”

There is a difference between nice polite compliments and outright leering and making a woman uncomfortable. A big difference. It is a thin line to be sure, and too many men cross it.

It is about time that guys learn that this type of stuff is NOT okay. It is not welcome, it is not flattering. It is uncomfortable, degrading, and in many cases downright scary.

Thank you for this website.

– Tracy

Location: Albany, GA

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Include your location and it will be added to the Street Harassment Map.

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