I was a bystander to an incident of harassment yesterday.
I had popped to my local town to do a spot of shopping. When I was on the bus going home, some girls and boys got on the bus. The girls sat at the back and the boys sat in the front. The girls were no older than 13 and the boys were a year or two older.
So everything was normal until about halfway through my journey. After most passengers had got off, the boys decided to sit in front of the girls and start chatting them up. Ok fair enough right? Wrong. It wouldn’t have been such a problem if the conversation hadn’t turned into a sexual one. The boys were asking the girls personal questions and it was clear the girls were uncomfortable. The boys kept on firing questions at them and were being really pushy. “Come on, don’t be shy” the boys kept saying. Then one boy said to the girls, “You must be lesbians.”
Another boy boosted that he had slept with 15 girls. Whilst this was going on, I said nothing but couldn’t help giving them a few looks. It was impossible to ignore it because they were so loud and I was only sitting two seats in front of them. I was tempted to say something (I know how it feels to be harassed) but I was nervous.
One of the girls said something about giving oral (I’m guessing to shut the boys up) and suddenly the conversation took a turn. One of the boys sat in between two of the girls and swayed side to side. He then started lecturing them about how disgusting they were to be doing stuff at their age and called them sluts.
At this point, I started to feel angry. How dare they speak to those girls that way?! I gave them a filthy look and the boy looked at me and said, “Sorry about this but don’t you think they are disgusting?” I replied that I don’t think they had a right to judge those girls. I went on to tell them that they shouldn’t call girls “sluts.”
“Ok I won’t call them sluts,” he answered. Then he turned to the girls and yelled, “SLAGS.” I was now ready to get off so I couldn’t say much more.
As I got up, a boy asked if I had any children. Another piped up saying, “Does she look like she’s had children?” I told the bus driver as I was getting off. He got out of his seat to have a word with them. I don’t know what was said.
This incident left me feeling very upset and helpless. I felt sorry for those girls because they were young and didn’t know how to handle the situation. I wish I could have done more 🙁
– Clarice
Location: no 63 bus, Bridgend, Wales
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ClareB says
Clarice, Well done in intervening – for all you feel like you wish you could have done more, you did what you could and you got involved very sensibly and rationally – I would probably have lost my temper with them 🙁
I am impressed with how you handled this, and it will have sent a very important message to those boys and those girls – both have seen than you found it wrong for them to speak that way to the girls, and felt it important enough to say so.
It was sad that the boys then tried to harass you for threatening their assumed power.
Thanks for posting, I always find it very uplifting to hear that there are people who are prepared to step in, even when they aren’t directly in the firing line.
Sue Henderson says
Clarice, you did help, believe me. You made those girls feel supported and you set the bus driver onto the boys. An authority figure telling the boys to behave would again make the girls feel supported and make it clear to the boys that harassment is unacceptable. Even if it didn’t make the boys change their behaviour, it’s still a message that may eventually get through to them. Having seen a woman fighting back may prompt the girls to do so too another time.
You took on a tough situation and handled it really well.