My classics from the college years…
I worked for a concert promoter and one night I was waiting outside a rock club to pass out fliers to the people exiting. It was cold, like it is in Chicago. So I had on a big coat. The bouncer let me come into the foyer to get out of the cold, where I took off my coat and he felt it appropriate to say, “I thought you were cute before, but after you took off your coat, I thought, damn, you’ve got a bangin’ bod!”
Walking down the stairs of the L train station in my neighborhood, I heard someone behind me yell, “Hey! Nice ass! NICE ASS!” I hoped against hope that it wasn’t directed at me. I didn’t look back to see. After I exited the station, a man came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder. He said, “Hey, back there when someone yelled ‘nice ass’ at you… that was me! THAT WAS ME!” I was really surprised by his excitement at telling me that he was, in fact, the grotesque man cat-calling me. Until, of course, he explained to me that you are supposed to say ‘thank you’ when someone gives you a compliment. Where were my manners? Then he asked if he could walk me home, to which I declined.
Standing on the corner of Western and Addison, in the winter, snow on the ground, puffy winter coat down to my knees, a man in an SUV made a left turn onto Addison and rolled down his window in the middle of the intersection to yell at me, “That’s a nice pussy!”
None of this made me feel beautiful or special. But it definitely made me uncomfortable and I wanted to hang out at different clubs, move to a new neighborhood, and find a different route to work. I should not be forced to change my life to avoid harassment. I deserve to walk down the streets of my city in peace.
– Jayme
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Find suggestions for what YOU can do about this human rights issue
Golden Silence says
The “nice ass” guy is a sorry individual if he thinks telling a woman he doesn’t know she has a “nice ass” earns him a gold star and a pat on the back.
Margaret says
That’s awful! What a foolish idiot.
alan says
It never ceases to amaze me at the variety of people, from so many different places who tell a similar story.
As a male, I can’t imagine a guy really thinking it is a compliment (I mean really, as in deep down inside himself, after he has thought it through) to women to let them know that they “have a nice ass” or “a nice whatever”!
We have to keep whittling away at the problem and in the mean time we have to hope women don’t give up on attempting to live normal lives, in public, feeling confident of what they want to accomplish and going where they need to go to accomplish it!