I am a 29-year-old woman from Argentina. I have lived in different countries but I have never suffered street harassment as much as during my teenage years in my hometown. The following is a list of situations I experienced since I started commuting and using public transportation on my own, at age eleven:
– Men showed me their genitals.
– Men touched and grabbed my ass.
– Men yelled, talked and whispered the most disgusting and imaginative sexual and offensive words one could ever imagine. Honestly, how can they invent such phrases?
– While sitting in the aisle seat of the bus, “I felt something on my shoulder”. But the bus was crowded, so “I wasn’t sure”. So, I didn’t say anything.
– While sitting in the window seat of the bus, men sitting beside me touched my leg. But it was very subtle, so “I wasn’t sure”. So, I didn’t say anything.
– Men followed me in the street.
– I have been afraid of walking by any group of men, because they have always said something, or stared at me, and made me uncomfortable. But I didn’t want them to say anything. I wanted them to disappear.
Most of this things happened for the first time before I had ever kissed a boy. And I would go home crying. And I would not do specific things in order to avoid these kind of situations. But, even though I know almost all of the women I know have experienced some if not all of these types of street harassment, what scared me the most was how naturalized it was in many of them. I felt I was wrong, because I was weak and too sensitive and I wasn’t able to handle something that was “normal.”
– GD
Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina
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