Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming
My sorority sister took me dancing for my birthday. The DJ played a song I really liked and I danced with a guy to the song. At the end of the night, he asked for my number. I said no. I’m married. He said you better give me your number or I’ll bite you in your back.
– KD
Location: A bar
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See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more ideas
this is for the person who has to smile
or shake their head
or walk faster
because of a follower who wants
to be
that person
who meets people
who women love
who doesn’t answer texts right away and
repeats lines from that actor and succeeds
in front of friends
in front of the street
and is recognized, validated
I’m a success,
people like me
Every day whenever I go to work and as I walk to the corner of our street to ride a jeepney, there will always be different men who will look at me and tell me “Good morning, Idol.”or “Good morning, baby.'” or “Ingat ka babe.” (Take care, babe) Sometimes they will really come right next to me to whisper those things and it makes me angry but I cannot do something.
Optional: Do you have any suggestions for dealing with harassers and/or ending street harassment in general?
I want to be able to do a flyering near at our area, do an online ad to have those people to be aware that what they are doing is wrong.
– Kat G
Location: La Loma, Quezon City, Philippines
Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more ideas
Kasumi Hirokawa, PA, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent
When I was scrolling through my Facebook feed this afternoon, I saw a photograph of a plump baby boy innocently smiling at a sock monkey. But neither the smile nor the plush monkey caught my attention first. Not even the bright green frame that matched that shirt. It was his bright green shirt (or a onesie) that made me linger on the photo. The graphics of the shirt said: Lock Up Your Daughters.
I think it was meant to be cute. It was meant to be funny. It was meant to be a corny innuendo, with a dash of age-appropriate naughtiness only his older relatives are able to chuckle at. Only that, for me, it wasn’t any of those things. I was made uncomfortable. Because I knew the woman who posted the photo has a daughter who is in elementary school.
To me, the slogan screams: this boy will grow up to be a stud; tell your girls to shut their legs while I, as a parent of the irresistibly charming boy, will do nothing to prevent him from taking away the purity of your precious princesses.
That makes me fear what the baby’s shirt may teach the little girl and the little boy about themselves, what is expected of them and how they view others around them. Will the lesson be that it is the responsibility of parents who have daughters to police their sexuality? Are girls responsible for protecting their purity? Is confining girls’ movement the only solution for them not to be bothered? Is sex something men take away from women? Is a woman’s worth dependent on how many sexual advances she refuses before marriage? If she is not properly “lock[ed] up,” does she deserve anything bad happening to her?
Of course, I’m not saying the boy’s parents were to blame for dressing him in such a shirt. Sexism is so insidious yet pervasive, it is hard to catch. The saying goes that a fish doesn’t know that it is swimming in water.
Rearing a child is no easy task, let alone raising a future feminist in the society infected with misogyny. But I hope the sock monkey-loving baby boy will grow up to be a man who stands up for his sister, not because he thinks she should be locked up but he sees her as a human being whose rights are equally important as his own.
Kasumi is a recent graduate from Penn State with a BA in journalism. Her writing has been published in Valley Magazine, City Weekend Shanghai, Penn State GeoBlog and Shanghai Daily. You can follow her on Twitter, @kasumihrkw
I take the bus every day to and from work. One day as I was waiting for the bus, this much older man that was waiting at the same stop turned to me and said, “You probably get this a lot, but you’re really beautiful.” I didn’t bother responding, because this type of thing happens a lot when I’m on or waiting for the bus, and saying anything at all only seems to encourage conversation.
Usually if I ignore the person, they stop bothering me, but not this time. The man made a few more attempts to get my attention, and then got angry, and pulled out his phone and made a call to some friend, who he very loudly complained to about “this b*tch” who was ignoring him. “This b*itch” was repeated frequently and loudly, and he would keep glancing over to see if I was paying attention to this.
I was very angry and even more concerned about who he could possibly be talking to and what that would mean for me. He was still on the phone and I was still debating the best course of action when my bus pulled up. He must have been taking a different one, as he did not get on.
– Anonymous
Location: Public Square, Cleveland, Ohio
Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more ideas