Hello, I just wanted to share a couple of my experiences of street harassment:

When I was younger (about 13 yrs) I was walking with my mom to a gas station nearby, while we were crossing a parking lot, a pick up truck came from behind us and drove in a circle around us a few times.They never tried to talk to us, they just circled slowly and then drove away.

Another time (I was about 16 at this point) I was walking home with a friend and my brother, we crossed the same parking lot and these guys pulled up in a car and one of them shouted “show us your tits!”

I was just shocked and ignored them, my friend yelled “f*** you!” , the guy said, “Show us your tits” again and yelled a couple of other things. (I don’t remember what), they eventually gave up and drove off.
These experiences made me feel uncomfortable and like I’m only seen as only an object instead of a human being. I really hope that all street harassment comes to an end.

Love and best wishes to all the women and men out there who know what it feels like to experience any type of harassment.

– Anonymous

Location: Parking lot

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When I walk out to do my grocery shopping I have to hear how “tasty” I look, although I dress modestly and not revealing at all to go to the market. I also hear how much “they’d be able to make a fine job with me to put a smile on my face”. Every time this happens, I hold my keys a little tighter, holding in the indignation I feel for his complete entitlement of judging if I am appealing to him or not.

I do not leave the house any longer without any kind of music playing in my ears because this is a form of aggression that ruins my whole day.

– Ana

Location: São Paulo, Brazil

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One night, I was going home on the bus, when a man about forty started talking to me, completely out of the blue. At first he told me about his life and I tried to act polite, I clearly didn’t want him to talk to me but I couldn’t really walk away. Then he began to ask me what my name was, where I lived, where I studied and so on. It completely took me by surprise, so I had to come up with a plausible lie for every question he asked me; I was really panicking on the inside, but I knew I couldn’t absolutely let it surface. At the same time, I looked around, looking for some support from the other passengers: they all looked away when our eyes met.

They saw I was young -I was 19 at the time- and rather frightened, but no one intervened, not even to try and distract him. When he began asking me whether we could go out for a coffee some time or other, there I knew I couldn’t really stay on the bus any longer: I got off three stops earlier, just to make sure that man wouldn’t follow me home or find out where I lived in any way. The fact that I now have to be very careful when I use public transportation after 10 p.m. and check who is already at the bus stop trying to figure out whether that person could be dangerous is not tragic enough; the worst part has been seeing that nobody, neither the passenger nor the driver, cared to help me in any way, even though they clearly perceived the danger; they simply acted like they didn’t notice.

I feel like women are forced to learn to be paranoid and self-conscious everywhere they go, lest they have to deal with any kind of danger or harassment.

– G.C.

Location: Not specified

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The other day I left my friends house at around 1 a.m. and I wanted to take a taxi back home. Unfortunately I found the road blocked (welcome to Egypt) and so I had to walk a bit to reach another street. The streets were empty and all of a sudden there was this car that started driving next to me and then a guy got off. There were two more in the car. He started walking next to me, talking to me in Arabic, I ignored him and told him to leave me alone. Of course he didn’t, so I decided to change the roadside, but he followed me.

He tried to grab my hand and all I thought was, “Please, you damn taxi, where are you?!”

Meanwhile his friends in the car made a U-turn and came driving towards us, all laughing and whistling. I was really scared. Finally in the last second a taxi came and stopped. I rushed inside and the guy grabbed my ass from behind. I was in total shock and fortunately my taxi driver was super helpful and realized immediately, that these were NOT my friends. He shouted something at the guys and then drove off and brought me home safely.

– Kerstin

Location: Around Behooth Metro station, Dokki, Kairo, Egypt

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