Archives for December 2012

2012 #EndSH Successes Part 2: Creative Initiatives

December 28, 2012 By HKearl

At the end of every year, I like to look back, document and reflect on everything that has transpired in the global movement to end street harassment and assault. Yesterday I wrote about 10 of Stop Street Harassment’s achievements. Today, I’m posting a five-part series about the highlights of ALL activism that happened this year (PDF format). WHAT A YEAR!

Post 1: New anti-street harassment campaigns, new initiatives within existing campaigns, and protests.

Post 2 (this one): Creative anti-street harassment initiatives.

Post 3: Government initiatives/collaborations

Post 4: New studies, reports, and significant news articles.

Post 5: Stories from 25 people who stood up to street harassers this year.

1. Afghanistan: Young Women for Change released two short films about street harassment.

2. Afghanistan: Talalo, an Afghan graffiti band, fought street harassment by putting messages on street walls.

3. Azerbaijan: Jake Winn, a Peace Corps volunteer and a youth development facilitator in northern Azerbaijan helped his male students make an Anti-Street Harassment video. The title, “Ay Gardash! Kishi Ol!”, can be translated to, ‘Hey man, be a gentleman!” Peace Corps is working on distributing the video throughout the country, along with a lesson plan and discussion questions for other volunteers to use with their own students. Download the lesson plans: Street Harassment Lesson Plan (English) | Street Harassment Lesson Plan (Azerbaijani)

4a. Belgium: For Meet Us on the Street, Hollaback Brussels held a chalk walk where they visited places they’d been harassed and reclaimed those spots by telling their stories aloud and writing in chalk that they reclaim the area. They’ve held additional chalk walks since then.

4b. Belgium: Over the summer, college student Sofie Peeters’ documentary about street harassment went viral, launching an international discussion about the topic and leading the government of Brussels to pass legislation addressing it. View the full video with English subtitles:

5. Canada: METRAC released a free “Not Your Baby App” to provide responses you can use when experiencing harassment

6. China: After a subway company in Shanghai, China, blamed women for “causing” sexual harassment in June, two young women went to a subway station and wore a “black veil over their face, stepped into a crowded subway station with signs that read, ‘I want my coolness under the sun, but not the pervert in the subway,’ and ‘I can reveal myself, and you cannot bother me.’”

7. Egypt: Anum Khan created the Egyptian version of the video “What Men Say to Men Who Harass Women on the Streets” in Egypt.

8. Egypt: Youth in Egypt created a short movie about street harassment and verbal abuse.

9. Germany: Because soccer/football is so popular in Germany, the group ProChange decided to use the concept of “red cards” as a creative way to speak out against street harassment. In the spring, they distributed 2000 “Red Card” against sexism, “Pink Card” against homophobia, and “Purple Card” Courage. They also distributed special coasters in pubs, bar, from clubs in Dortmund, Germany.

10. India: In early 2012, male ally Dhruv Arora launched the website GotStared.At where people can post photos of the clothes they were wearing when harassed along with their story. What really went viral though were graphics with clever messages against victim-blaming, which, once posted on Facebook, were shared widely. In the fall, GotStared.At won the prestigious UN World Summit Youth Award in the category Power 2 Women!

11. India: Mumbai Boss asks, “What’s the best way to deal with eve-teasers? A full body wax, one tight slap and flour grinding are some of the many punishments suggested in this video survey of Mumbai women.”

12. Israel: In response to ultra-Orthodox Jewish men who called an 8-year-old a whore as she walked to school in Israel, in January, a group of 250 women from Bet Shemesh held a Flashmob dance in the city square, protesting women’s exclusion from the public domain and the harassment of women and girls who do go in public.

13. Istanbul: When Hollaback Istanbul launched the Hollaback! Green Dot Bystander Campaign, they created a companion video with male allies letting harassed persons know they “have their back.”

14. Lebanon: The Adventures of Salwa Campaign released a video about Salwa taking on harassers at a club. She also reports the harasser to the police and then has to stop the police officer who harassed her!

15. Pakistan: In Karachi this spring, students at university SZABIST hosted a “How to respond to harassment” session, a self defense class, and they created a PSA about harassment.

16. Pakistan: Naveen Naqvi created a powerful PSA video about street harassment for gawaahi.org.

17. South Africa: Filmmaker Pascale Neuschäfer created a powerful short film about street harassment in her community last year and in January, she created a new PSA against street harassment. It was filmed during the SlutWalk in Capetown last year.

18. UK: Those Pesky Dames posted this video: “Look at the legs on that” – street harassment needs to stop

19. UK: Isobel Williams created an amazing design project to address street harassment for school. She designed a booklet about the issue that includes a card which women can carry and give to a harassing man as a decoy. The card lists a website and if they visit the site, they can view a short film offering them a chance to gain a reality check on their actions.

20. UK: Hollaback Edinburgh created a humorous, “Said No One Ever” Tumblr. Read an interview with the creator.

21. USA: Bix Gabriel and Joe Samalin are part of the NYC team that created the viral video “Shit Men Say to Men who Say Shit to Women on the Street” for International Anti-Street Harassment Week. In September, the video won the US government’s “Seeing My World through a Safer Lens Video Contest“

23. USA: One woman launched a Tumblr where she records everything men say to her on her way to the train.

24. USA: Aqueelah Grant wrote a practical book about how to deal with crimes on the street, including street harassment called HoodRules. Here’s an interview with her.

25. USA: There’s a new tumblr called Street Harassment Fashion that challenges victim-blaming. Read an interview with the founder.

26. USA: Tatyana Fazlalizadeh is an oil painter/illustrator whose work focuses on portraiture and social/political themes. She’s the artist behind popular anti-street harassment fliers found in Philadelphia, New York City, and Washington, DC. Read an interview with her.

27. USA: Earth Angel created a petition to tell Planet Fitness Gym to deal with harassers at their facility after they ignored her complaints about harassment.

28. USA: Jennifer Phan made a video about street harassment for a sociology class assignment.

29. USA: HappRat is posting her street harassment experiences on a map to show all of the places and times she’s harassed. Read an interview with her.

30. USA: In June, Queerocracy, a New York City-based grassroots organization, presented QRASH Course: Queers Resisting All Street Harassment, an afternoon-long training event for people who witness and experience street harassment in the NYC area.

31. USA: The FX show Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell covered street harassment!

32. USA: In April, Mary wrote a summer street harassment poem.

33. USA: Collective Action for Safe Spaces & Voices of Men rode the Washington, DC, Metro and collaborated to perform a skit about harassment to bring attention to the issue. They performed it several times on several cars and received positive feedback.

34. USA: You can now view the full anti-street harassment documentary “War Zone” online.

35. USA: During the spring semester, San Jose State University’s Women’s Resource Center did a lot to address gender violence. They created a mural, they put on a production of the Vagina Monologues, created a Tunnel of Oppression (800 people walked through it) and they made several videos about street harassment.

36. USA: Council Member Julissa Ferreras and Hollaback! led an historic community safety audit on Saturday, May 5th in Queens, New York.

37. USA: Denice Frohman, Poet, performs “Dear Straight People” and takes on people who harass lesbians.

38. USA: FAAN Mail and Hollaback Philly created a video where teenage girls “draw from personal experience and testimony to illuminate what gender-based street harassment sounds like.”

39. USA: High school students in Chicago created a 30-second anti-street harassment PSA through Free Spirit Media

40. USA: Hollaback Bmore talked about street harassment with the girls from St. Francis Community Center and helped them relieve their frustration with street harassers with….a water balloon fight!

41. USA: Ines Ixierda in the Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project created a film about street harassment through the stories of Woman of Color and their strategies for self-defense and self-determination.

42. USA: CATCALLED is a collection of women’s stories about street harassment in New York City. For two weeks this August, eleven women in the city kept a log of their harassment experiences, and how the presence (or absence) of catcallers affected their actions.

43. USA: A woman in the USA has recorded more than 50 of her experiences of street harassment over the past few months.

44. USA: SlamPow! Production use humor + anti-street harassment messaging in their creative video “Meat.”

45. USA: Students made this video for their college class HONS201: “Feminism, New Media and Health.”

46. USA: Watch Chescaleigh talk catcalls.

47. Yemen: The Safe Streets campaign released a video about street harassment.

48. I am Not an Object Tumblr’s founder developed a series of 600 “catcalling cards.” They are tiny letterpress cards with a fake number that women who are being followed / aggressively harassed by catcallers can give away so the perp will leave them alone. Once the perpetrator calls the number, he will hear a recording of women telling their harassers exactly what they think of them.

2012 #EndSH Successes Part 1: Campaigns & Protests

December 28, 2012 By HKearl

Post 1 (this one): New anti-street harassment campaigns, new initiatives within existing campaigns, and protests.

Post 2: Creative anti-street harassment initiatives.

Post 3: Government initiatives/collaborations

Post 4: New studies, reports, and significant news articles.

Post 5 : Stories from 25 people who stood up to street harassers this year.

a long walk home — Girls from A Long Walk Home in Chicago organized a march around their high school.

1. Global: In March, Stop Street Harassment organized more than 100 groups in more than 20 countries (on five continents) and tens of thousands of people to collectively speak out against street harassment during Meet Us on the Street: International Anti-Street Harassment Week. This is what happened, including rallies, marches, sidewalk chalk messaging, workshops, film screenings, viral videos, safety audits, report releases, street theater, passing out fliers, art exhibits, and more.

2. Global: Hollaback! now has chapters in 60 cities worldwide, and this year they launched an “I’ve Got Your Back” Bystander Campaign in partnership with Green Dot to show bystanders who to intervene, educate them about their options, and allow them to document their successes online. Green dots on the Hollaback! maps show intervention stories. (Read their State of the Streets 2012 report for more information.)

3. Australia: People Against Street Harassment launched in December. Their mission is “confronting street harassment in Sydney via stickering, leafleting, social media and other such sweet guerilla action.”

4. Australia: Cat Calls: Called Out is another new Sydney-based anti-street harassment campaign that works to bring attention to the issue and spread ideas for stopping it.

5. Belgium: In the fall, ELLE launched a Touche Pas à Ma Pote! (Don’t Touch my Girl friend) campaign with the support of local government agencies in Brussels and it includes signs plastered on trams for the next six months.

6. Canada: Women in Cities International is part-way through a multi-year project to conduct a Blueprint project on the theme of “preventing violence against women and girls and improving their security in Canadian cities.” This year, they worked with adolescent girls in the greater Montréal area and held workshops, focus group discussions and training sessions with them. Participants also conducted women’s safety audit walks and they had the opportunity to creatively illustrate their findings and recommendations.

7. Egypt: HarassMap collects street harassment stories on its online map. During 2012, they organized more than 500 HarassMap volunteers who went outside once per month to talk to shop owners, police, doormen and others with a presence in the street about street harassment and to let them know they need to not harass and to stand up if they see harassment happening.

8. Egypt: On June 13, activists in Egypt led a day of online action to speak out against street harassment and sexual violence using the hashtag #EndSH.

9. Egypt: After several mass sexual assaults of women at Tahrir Square and after a woman was murdered by a street harasser, there were numerous protests in the summer and fall (and one protest ended because men swarmed, attacking the protesters).

Tahrir Bodyguards — Photo by Yumna Al-Arashi.

10. Egypt: There were many campaigns against street harassment in Egypt ahead of the Eid holidays. In August, volunteers organized by the Imprint Movement patrolled the streets and subway stations, watching out for harassers and helped police arrest several. In October there was a “Catch a Harasser” initiative, men spray painting harassers, and special harassment reporting hotlines.

11. Egypt: Because there are so many instances of sexual harassment and sexual assault during political protests in Tahrir Square, during political protests in November and December, people volunteered their time to serve as patrollers, working to make the area safe for women. One of the groups is called Tahrir Bodyguard.

12. India: College students in Mumbai organized a Chal Hatt Tharki campaign asking women to raise their voices against sexual harassment and street harassment.

13. India: In April, thousands of women in Kannur, a district in Kerala, gathered in the city center to ask for the right to travel safely at night and in October in Chandigarh, college students and staff of Government College Sec 42 took to streets to protest street harassment and sexual violence.

14. India: In December, the Patiala-based organization Punjab Today Foundation launched a major awareness movement against what it called the “collective guilt of society” against girls and women called SMASH (Society’s Movement Against Street Harassment).

15. India: The organization Breakthrough launched a bystander campaign for the holiday Diwali in November, because everyone deserves a safe Diwali.

16. India: In July, Blank Noise curated a series of stories about people’s first recollection of experiencing street harassment called Recall. In December, they launched the #SafeCityPledge campaign.

#DelhiGangRape — Image from I Stand for Safe Delhi

17. India: After a 23-year-old college woman was brutally gang rape and nearly murdered by six men on a bus (and her male friend was also beaten up by them) in mid-December, tens of thousands of people in Delhi have protested and marched daily, calling for an end to street harassment, rape, and all forms of sexual violence. For a time, they clashed with police who forbad people from gathering in groups larger than five people.

18. Jordan: In July, youth in Jordan formed a human chain from Al Hussein Sports City to the Interior Ministry Circle to protest various gender-based crimes, including street harassment, the practice of forcing rape survivors to marry their rapist, and honor killings.

19. Lebanon: Hundreds of people rallied in Beirut, Lebanon, in January to protest rape and sexual harassment and the weak laws against such crimes. The rally was organized by Nasawiya, a feminist collective that also runs The Adventures of Salwa campaign against street and sexual harassment.

20. Myanmar: In February, a new anti-harassment campaign launched called “whistle for help.” As part of the campaign 150 volunteers distributed whistles and pamphlets to women at eight busy bus stops in Yangon each Tuesday morning that month and they’ve continued to do so for nine months. The pamphlets tell women to blow the whistle when they experience sexual harassment on the bus and advises them to help other women when they blow the whistle.

21. Malawi: Women’s groups organized a protest in January, demanding the right to wear pants and mini-skirts and to demanding an end to sexual violence. Their actions were prompted by a series of attacks from gangs of men who targeted women wearing pants and short skirts.

22. Nepal: In April, 500 youth participated in a Walk for Respect against street harassment/sexual harassment in Kathmandu.

23. Nepal: After a 2011 ActionAid Report showed that street harassment is a big problem in Nepal, numerous groups came together to launch the Safe City Nepal campaign. It includes a public transportation component. Already, they have conducted a safety audit (evidence collection), held forums, and are now working on policy advocacy initiatives.

24. Peru: In February, university faculty and students launched the anti-street harassment initiative el Observatorio Virtual contra el Acoso Sexual Callejero. They have 20 volunteers who conduct interview and research on the topic, share information on their website and social media, meet with government officials, engage in awareness campaigns, and speak out against groups/people who dismiss street harassment (e.g. in September a radio show talked about street harassment as compliments and they protested it, issued a statement, etc).

25. Russia: This year the feminist group RosNahal tackled street harassment. They made a video about it (it has over two million views) and engaged in lobbying and activism that has led the Russian government to take notice.

26. Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka Unites organized the “S.H.O.W You Care” project. After receiving training, hundreds of young men boarded more than 1000 buses across a week and, according to a previously formulated strategic plan, apologized to women in the buses for any harassment they encountered in the past and provided them with information on legal recourse available to them. They also told men to take responsibility and not harass.

27. South Africa: After two teenagers wearing miniskirts were harassed and groped by a group of 50-60 men at a taxi rank, around 3,000 South Africans marched through Johannesburg in protest. The ruling African National Congress Women’s League organized the march to emphasize “that women had the right wear whatever they wanted without fear of victimization.”

28. South Africa: A new campaign against street harassment in Cape Town launched this year.

29. UK: Laura Bates launched the Everyday Sexism Project in the spring, in part because of her own street harassment experiences and other ways she faces daily sexism. In September she wrote, “The project is an ever-increasing collection of thousands of stories of sexism experienced by women around the world. In just over 5 months, the project has received nearly 6500 entries, with the last 5000 flooding in in just the last month as the momentum has gathered and word has spread.”

30. USA: Halloween in Isla Vista, the college town where University of California Santa Barbara is located, is a huge party every year. Unfortunately, some people use this as an excuse to street harass and assault people. In October, two student groups teamed up to organize a campaign against street harassment.

31. USA: Members of Penn State’s TRIOTA, the Women’s Studies Honor’s Society, held an anti-street harassment demonstration on a busy Friday afternoon in downtown State College in October. They held signs proclaiming their anti-harassment message, and even included specific remarks that had been yelled at them during their time at PSU.

32. USA: In March, Sarah Harper launched the Little Bird project to raise awareness about street harassment through the arts in San Francisco, California.

33. USA: Since January 1, 2012, at least 63 transgender individuals have been hatefully murdered, often by strangers in the streets, and many of the recent murders have been in Washington, DC. In September the DC Office of Human Rights launched a groundbreaking Transgender and Gender Identity Respect Campaign to improve the treatment of transgender and gender non-conforming people.

34. Yemen: This year, the Safe Streets campaign has encouraged women to report their stories to their website and highlighted the issue through social media and articles like this one, published on Open Democracy.

2012: Stop Street Harassment’s Top 10 Achievements

December 27, 2012 By HKearl

As 2012 comes to a close, I am proud of everything that Stop Street Harassment (SSH) achieved this year, especially because, as many SSH blog readers may know, I have a full-time job and do my street harassment activism during my lunch breaks, in the evenings, on the weekends, and over my vacation days.

Not only am I proud, I am also extremely grateful. I am grateful for the support of my partner, my parents, my day job co-workers, my friends and family, all of my activist allies, everyone who organized action for Meet Us on the Street 2012, my new social media volunteers, and my new board members who each helped make the following 10 achievements possible. So, a big THANK YOU to them, and a special thank you to the organization Collective Action for Safe Spaces, my co-collaborator for several projects.

1. New Metro Campaign: After unsuccessfully trying to meet with the transit authority in Washington, DC, to discuss sexual harassment on their system, I joined a small group of people and testified about the problem before the Washington, DC City Council in February (we were organized by Collective Action for Safe Spaces). Then I wrote articles and gave media interviews about harassment on the Metro. The result? Helping successfully pressure the DC transportation authority to address sexual harassment in several ways, including by changing how they track and respond to harassment complaints, creating an online reporting form, and launching a poster campaign over the summer.

2. Anti-Street Harassment Week: Organized more than 100 groups in over 20 countries and tens of thousands of people to speak out during Meet Us on the Street: International Anti-Street Harassment Week in March. The United Nations recognized the week on their calendar! Read the wrap-up report.

3. Petition Victory: Created and led the Change.org petition campaign that forced a New Jersey Mall to take down an offensive, pro-harassment construction sign. It also resulted in tons of media coverage, especially after the Associated Press ran a story about the victory, bringing more public attention to the issue.

4. Organized Local Events: Organized three events about street harassment internationally and locally, including an art exhibit in March that included art from countries like Trinidad and Tobago and Yemen (co-organized with the Deaf Abused Women’s Network) as well as cities in the USA; another March event about harassment in Egypt, Iran, and the USA (co-organized with the YWCA-NCA); and an event in June about street harassment in Afghanistan and the USA (co-organized with Collective Action for Safe Spaces).

5. Egypt: Used vacation days from work and traveled to Cairo, Egypt, and attended the weekly meeting of the anti-harassment group HarassMap, perused an art exhibit about street harassment, and attended/spoke at an open mic event about sexual violence, including street harassment. I wrote about the art exhibit/open mic event for the Women’s Media Center.

6. South Dakota: Used vacation days again and traveled to Pine Ridge Reservation and Rapid City in South Dakota to conduct the first-ever focus groups about street harassment with Native Americans. The findings garnered media attention, including an Associated Press article and a South Dakota Public Broadcasting segment. I also wrote about the focus groups for the Women’s Media Center.

7. Talks: Gave 21 talks and presentations about street harassment on campuses, in high schools and to community groups (campuses included Stanford, UC Berkeley, Dickinson College, Jefferson Community College, George Mason University, Shenandoah University, and Portland State University), and spoke about street harassment at national conferences, including the National Organization for Women and the National Sexual Assault Conference.

8. Rallies: Spoke at or tabled at women’s rights rallies and events, including the We Are Woman Rally and Slutwalk DC. Also was part of a team organized by Collective Action for Safe Spaces that performed a skit about sexual harassment on the Washington, DC Metro one Sunday afternoon in August.

9. Interviews: Gave nearly 50 media interviews, including for CNN.com, USA Today, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Jerusalem Post, ABC News, Cosmo Magazine, Ebony Magazine, Jezebel, and also gave interviews for more than a dozen college students who wrote papers and dissertations on street harassment.

10. Nonprofit, Paperback, & Volunteers: Gained 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, formed a board of directors, and recruited social media volunteers. Also, bought the paperback rights to my book Stop Street Harassment: Making Public Places Safe and Welcoming for Women and published it in paperback in April for the affordable price of $15! (Compared with $45 in hardcover.)

Everything SSH did in 2012 happened without donations or grants (and was nearly all financed by my paycheck from my day job or by my speaking honorariums), but you can help SSH achieve even more in 2013 by donating today. Donations are tax deductible and an anonymous donor will match all donations made in December. See my 2013 plans for SSH if I raise enough money.

A final note: There are four more days in 2012, come back each day to read success stories and learn about the major accomplishments and milestones that occurred worldwide to stop street harassment this year.

Swaziland Police Blame Women for Rape

December 26, 2012 By HKearl

Last month, women in Swaziland marched to protest rape and to ask for protection.

In response, instead of addressing why so many men are raping women or examining reporting/enforcement of laws, police decided to place the blame on women. They have now banned women from wearing miniskirts, shirts revealing their midriff, and low cut jeans. “The act of the rapist is made easy, because it would be easy to remove the half-cloth worn by the women,” police spokeswoman Wendy Hleta said.

That response and the ban are completely ridiculous. Clothing does not cause rape nor do certain clothes “make it easier” to rape. They need to focus on the perpetrators, not the survivors!

Pakistan: “Yet Another Harassment Story”

December 26, 2012 By Contributor

This is cross posted with permission from Saniya M. Ali’s blog.

I’ve had to face street harassment on a regular basis since the age of 11. The lewd stares, the cat calls, the whistling, a gang of whispering men turning around and smirking at me, a group of boys coming up to my parked car to drop their number, the not-so-accidental graze a sweaty man would make against me in a crowded market…

I thought I’d seen it all. I thought that this was as bad as it would get for me. Begrudgingly, I had even come to accept it as a collateral damage to my outings. Every time it would annoy me, every time I would ignore it and carry on. So it struck me with surprise that I could come across something that I wasn’t able to brush off.

So here we are, my three girlfriends and I at our favourite burger place for dinner near my university. Our orders arrive and we are busy burying ourselves into food after an entire day of starving. The place is filled with people and I am halfway done with my food when I notice a man sitting in the opposite booth staring at me. He is accompanied by a friend; they must be in their early to mid-thirties. I feel uncomfortable with the way he’s looking at me and I use one of my friends, who is sitting opposite to me with her back to the Staring Man, to shift out of his line of sight. I tell her about the Staring Man and instruct her not to move from her place.

Barely 10 seconds later, he slides to the other end of the booth to continue his leering. I shift again to avoid being ogled at. This is when it starts to annoy me.

A**hole.

I curse him silently, wishing I had the guts to go up to him and tell him to stop. I remembered reading online that asking the harasser to end his behaviour by spelling it out to him may help put a stop to it.

But this is Pakistan. I’m not supposed to talk to a strange man! Will it work? Or will he interpret it in the opposite way? What if it gets worse than just staring?

I don’t have long with my thoughts. Staring Man stands up and gives me a long stare with that eerie smirk of his. I immediately bow my head to cover my face with my open hair. I feel like I must shield myself. I must prove an obstacle to his game. He walks away to get drinks and comes back. I keep my head down.

My friend asks if I want to switch places so that my back is towards him. I say no. The truth is, I don’t want to get any closer to Staring Man. My friends move closer together, though, so his view is completely blocked. They are now uncomfortable as well. The mood is heavy and we’re silent.

I scan the restaurant. There are plenty of non-staring males. There’s one who seems my age having dinner with a couple of his female friends.

Should I ask him for help? But what will I tell him? He’ll just scoff at me for overreacting. Forget it.

Staring Man whispers something to his friend who then gets up, turns around, and takes his time staring at me before he goes to get his drinks.

What the hell is their problem?

When he returns, he slinks to the other end of the booth, turns around again and then stares at me. I catch him staring but he doesn’t look away. He simply keeps on looking with an indescribably unnerving stare, with a sneer on his face.

Rage boils inside of me. I’ve had enough. Why can’t I have a nice night out with my friends and eat in peace? Am I some kind of an animal in a zoo? I want to go up to them and yell at them. I want to plant a slap on their faces. I want to tell them to give me some respect. But I do none of those.

I jump out of my seat and run out of the restaurant. I can’t stand to be in their sight for a second longer. I run away from those two men, hating them for ruining my nice dinner, hating myself for not doing something about it. I blink away tears of anger, before anyone notices.

One of my friends follows me and we seek refuge in a shop next door. The shop has a glass front so I climb the first floor and hide in the back corner so that they don’t see us, if they happen to follow us. I’m scared and in a really bad mood.

They don’t come.

Thank God.

Fifteen minutes later, my other two friends join me and informed that Staring Man and Sidekick left as soon as I did. That’s when I remember that they had no food on their table. Why were they still sitting then? Nevertheless, I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that they didn’t follow me into the shop. Maybe they left. Slowly, I return to my good mood and we spend a good 40 minutes in the shop. We laugh, we shop, we take a few pictures and then we leave to find a rickshaw back to university.

We exit the shop and have only walked a few paces that a car drives by near us and stops. Out comes the Staring Man, his friend sitting behind the wheel.

Oh my God, I thought they left!

We panic and run to the nearest security guard we can find.

“Uncle, aap humein please rickshaw la dein gay? (Uncle, can you please get a hold of a rickshaw for us?),” I ask.
“Aap main road pay jaein gi tou aap ko mil jaey ga. (You’ll find one if you go on the main road.)”
“Asal mein humaray peechay koi aa raha hai. (Actually, there’s someone following us).”

He is much more cooperative now and asks us to wait right there. He leaves us with a couple of other security guards. I am allowed to feel safe barely for a moment before paranoia hits us all.

“What do they want from us?”

“Were they waiting outside all this time?”

“Should we tell the police?”

“What’s the police going to do?”

“Are they going to follow us?”

“What if they stop our rickshaw as we’re on our way back?”

“STOP IT!”

We fall silent, each of us now privately thinking of worst case scenarios.

I wish I’d brought something that could be used as a weapon. Why didn’t I bring my scissors? (I have taken them a couple of times as safety measures.)

Staring Man is standing a few feet away from us, lurking in the shadows. He’s still looking at us with that frightening stare of his. I just want to go back and reach safely.

Finally, we get our rickshaw and we tell the driver to take us from the main road – no shortcuts. We want to be surrounded by people and stay in the light so someone can help us if things get to their worst. Maybe it will deter them in the first place from doing anything of the sort. I don’t want to think what sort. I just need to get back.

The car comes in front of our rickshaw and tries to stop it while we’re on a narrow road.

Please, don’t let this happen!

Fortunately, we slip through a gap. But we’re not fortunate enough for long.

Staring Man brings up his car adjacent to our rickshaw and rolls down his window to talk to the driver. Our rickshaw slows down.

“Yeh larkiyan aisay he ghabra rahi hain. Inko yeh kaghaz day dein. (These girls are getting scared for no reason. Give them this paper.)”

Our terror bursts forth.

“Rickshaw mat rokein! (Don’t stop the rickshaw!)”

“Uncle, aap chaltay rahein! (Uncle, keep moving!)”

“Day dein yeh kaghaz unhein, day dein! (Give them this paper, give it!),” Staring Man screams.

“Kaghaz mat lein! (Don’t take the paper!)”

But he has already taken it. One of my friends grabs the paper and throws it back at Staring Man, outside the rickshaw. They speed off, cackling, pleased with themselves.

We arrive back at our university. Our nice night ruined. We went out for dinner, and came back terrorised. I narrated the entire story to one of my male friends and the conversation ended a little like this:

“Tum aisay baal khol k gai hui thi? (You went with your hair open like this?)”

I had gotten a haircut earlier the day the harassment happened.

“Umm…haan. (Yes.)” I said, puzzled.

“Tou phir tou peechay parna he tha us nay. (Then it’s obvious he would have followed you).”

I am flabbergasted. It was my open hair that provoked him? It’s my fault that he stalked and terrorised my friends and I? Is the man himself to no blame? The fact that he harassed me while I was doing nothing but simply having dinner with my friends is my fault. I am to blame for his misdoings. He is not wrong for being the harasser, but I am guilty of the crime of simply being there.

This was a wake up call to me regarding the extent to which people have internalised the notion of victim blaming. I have read about it, I have argued against it, but never have I had to face it like this before. My own friend was blaming me! I suddenly thought of other women who have faced sexual harassment, who have been raped, and how they must be blamed by society for bringing it onto themselves. I cannot begin to imagine what they must feel.

I wish I could end this on a more optimistic note, but I cannot. I keep imagining scenarios where I face my harasser and heroically save myself and other women from his harassment. I wonder how that must feel, but I’m suppressed by my own fears. Nonetheless, I know what I must do.

I must not stay silent.

The rest I’ll figure out on the road.

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