This is part of the Monday series “Street Respect. “Street respect” is the term for respectful, polite, and consensual interactions that happen between strangers in public spaces. It’s the opposite of “street harassment.” Share your street respect story and show the kind of interactions you’d like to have in public in place of street harassment.
I am so used to harassment by males on the streets of NYC that when a man last winter kept calling after I had passed him, “Miss, Miss,” I walked on angry that once again I can’t walk on the streets without a male starting up a conversation with me, a stranger. This persistent man finally caught up to me and handed me my own glove said, “You dropped this.”
I felt horrible and grateful at the same time. It was a nice reminder that not every male on the street who approaches me sees me as a piece of beef to drool over.
– Beckie
Location: New York City, USA
Concealed Weapon says
Once when riding my bike back from a bar, someone in a car pulled over next to me and gave me my glove that I dropped. I guessed that that’s why he pulled over because I knew I dropped a glove.
Other times when I’m on a bike, sometimes at night and sometimes during the day, people in cars have drove by yelling things at me that I couldn’t understand. Whenever this happens at night, it scares me to think of what they would do if I was a woman.