Archives for April 2014

I am 16 years old and I am from the United Kingdom. I get beeped at pretty much everyday. I get wolf whistled at. I got beeped at last week and whistled at this week. I have had ‘get your tits out’ shouted at me from guys in their cars. I had a man say to me when I was in my school uniform ‘you’re going to be gorgeous when you’re older’. I had a creepy guy try and chat me up in Starbucks, he was standing way to close to me telling me to buy him a drink and when I looked at the staff for help they didn’t acknowledge me. I had an incident with a taxi driver who would touch my arm and hand excessively and ask me if I had facebook and did I live with my parents. A lad who used to go to my primary commented on the colour of my bra and kept asking me what I was doing that night. I have had builders stare at me. A drunk guy told me he loved me. My last encounter happened the other day, I was on my way in to town as I had a two-and-a-half hour college break until my last lesson and this man said ‘How you doing, looking nice’.

I have never said anything back, I just walk along. At the beginning, if I’m honest I found it complimentary but now it’s just humiliating and makes me feel self conscious.

– Courtenay

Location: Bolton, UK

Public harassment in grocery stores has become so common. Men seem to think this is a place they can stare at your body parts while pretending to stare at the food. I was I the PCC in Edmonds WA at 4pm today. Some 60 year old man stands in the middle of the produce isle with his hands in his pockets staring right at me. Does not even pretend to be shopping. Still stood there staring when I went to the next row. I tried to tell the produce clerk but he was an asshole. Told me I should go ask the guy what his problem is. Right. I don’t even consider this to be ignorant desperate losers any longer. It’s intimidation. They hate and intimidate women around them wherever they go.

– NB

Location: PCC, Edmonds, Washington

I was walking down the street in Accra, Ghana, with a group of about ten other American’s, both males and females. It was about 9 pm, but we had made this walk about a hundred times over the course of about a year, so I wasn’t concerned for our safety. We stopped at a traffic light, waiting to cross the street, when a man grabbed my butt and asked if I “liked to be licked”. I was so horrified and humiliated, I couldn’t respond. None of my friends had seen. I just stood there and pretended like nothing had happened. Eventually, we were able to cross the street, away from that man.

– Shae B.

Location: Accra, Ghana

I’m a Transfemale sex worker doing street-based sex work and get harrassed on a regular basis, it seems to me like second nature already!!! Worse is the fact that I’m HIV positive and sometimes on my way to the clinic the police harass me saying I’m working in the day and need to get off the street! Then there’s the part of the community that does not agree with my choice of identity and will irratate me as I walk to the clinic, which sometimes makes me come late for appointments or just stay away!!!

– Miss. Leigh Davids

Location: Suburbs, Cape Town, South Africa