I had just pulled up to a red light at an intersection, alone in my car, with one couple in their car behind me. A car pulled up to my left, waiting to turn left. I saw from the corner of my eye that a young-ish white man with dark hair and facial hair was gesturing at me and saying things through the window of the car he was a passenger in. He kept doing this for over a minute, and I completely ignored him, looking at the lights and waiting for them to change to green.
I saw out of the corner of my eye that he seemed to be giving up, and he seemed to turn away for a moment to say something to the driver of the car he was in. At that moment, the lights started changing and I slowly pulled forward to go straight, as they pulled forward to turn left; at that moment, I flicked the middle finger at this person and looked over to make sure the disgusting individual saw this; he did, and he seemed very happy with this sudden attention being payed to his pathetic and disrespectful behaviour.
This individual’s behavior made me disappointed, and made me feel insulted; it is unfortunate that this person chose to try to foist an uninvited interaction upon another, and also that this person did not demonstrate respect. I find that although this individual is obviously a symptom of a larger societal problem with treating women properly, the individual themselves is also entirely responsible for their pathetic and unbecoming actions.
I think my response was great, because I 1) ignored the fool for the entire minute because that behaviour is pathetic and useless, and 2) responded with a calm, cool, collected, strong, brief, and self-confident rejection of the person, while remaining in my car. I kept driving straight and that car turned left, driving off.
I do hope I do not see that person again, as my mother upon hearing this story, got very worried that it could escalate into a fight or something. (I also considered photographing the individual, but did not try because I don’t have room on my phone for pics at the moment.)
Guess what? That kid is lucky I had somewhere to be and couldn’t spend more time than I did; otherwise I would have been tempted to turn my car off, get out, and knock on that car’s window to ask what was the matter, and if nothing was wrong then to encourage him to cease the disrespectful gesturing.
As a side note, I have been taught (mostly by my mother) that women cannot defend themselves. I have seen, however, thankfully that this is not true; women are oppressed, of course, but we can stand up for ourselves and every instance in which our allies do the same, I do think will bring us all closer to a world we can be proud of, and a society we don’t have to be embarrassed to bequeath to our children. Keep standing up for your rights, friends.
Optional: What’s one way you think we can make public places safer for everyone?
This is a very good question, how we can make public places safe– I do not know how we can make intersections at night safe for everyone. It really would be great to figure out a way; I think there’s even a traffic video-camera mounted on one of the traffic lights, but I’m not sure it would catch this. In any event, video can only deter so much, and then all it becomes is evidence once the harm is done; so that’s not really ideal. I’ll keep thinking; anyone reading this, please keep brainstorming, as well!
– Anonymous
Location: Illinois, street intersection while in my car.
Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more idea.
