Today in New York is was about ninety degrees out. Like any other girl in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on such a hot day, I was wearing short shorts on my way out to start the day. I would say this outfit isn’t any more revealing than any other girl’s outfit, but because I’m curvy I guess it just magically looks more lewd on me. I seldom let this fact sensor my sense of style though.

The first guy to harass me was dressed like a construction worker and just sat on a stoop, smoking a cigarette. He started making graphic and disgusting noises and motions at me and said something about my legs. I told him, “That’s disgusting. Keep it to yourself.”

Not even a full block later, a skinny crack head with no shirt begging for money stopped his charade completely in order to say some grotesque and graphic things about what he’d like to do to my body. Infuriated, I again told him, “You disgust me. Keep it to yourself!”

Well, as the platitude dictates, three is a charm: on my way back home, ice cream cone in hand, another man–in fact, he may have been the first man again–started making kissy noises at me while he was on the damn phone with one of his “homies” and told me to “watch out, baby,” which to me sounds like a threat. So I turned around and yelled, “Don’t you EVER sexually harass me or any other woman again, you pig! I can tell sexually harassing people like a CRIMINAL has gotten you real far in life, huh?!” I don’t even remember what else I yelled at him, and all he did was break eye contact and look really annoyed and embarrassed. I hope what I said stuck with him. He’s lucky–last time the third guy harassed me in such a short span of time, I creamed him in the face with a piece of vegan jerky. Damn, my aim is good.

– Kendalle Fiasco

Location: Brooklyn, New York, USA

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem.
Find suggestions for what YOU can do about this human rights issue.

I was in a shop at the counter waiting to pay when a man’s voice hissed in my ear, “Gorgeous.”

I thought I’d been mistaken, looked around, and no-one was close or gave me eye contact, so I shrugged it off.

I left the shop and a man left with me, followed me down the high street, and I started to get a bit panicked, scared. Across the road I saw a friend and walked over to her. Safety.

He hesitated then crossed the road after me, walked over towards us and grabbed my arse on his way passed. My friend didn’t even notice and she was right in front of me.

This happened at around 2 p.m. on a busy Saturday afternoon in a small town in the UK, I’m 45 years old, he was in his twenties. I was scared during and afterwards. I didn’t tell anyone, I felt stupid.

– Anonymous

Location: Leamington Spa, UK

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem.
Find suggestions for what YOU can do about this human rights issue.

When I started walking places alone at about 12 years old, they honked at me. I hated it. They’d yell shit out of their cars. I used to go buy sodas at a restaurant nearby, and it wasn’t uncommon to be scared into dropping it.

The worst part was how people reacted when I told them it made me uncomfortable.

“Oh, it just means that they think you’re pretty.”

No. Yelling “bitch, get in the car” doesn’t mean that they think I’m pretty.

More recently, family says that it’s just high school boys being stupid. That doesn’t help, and that isn’t true.

I don’t feel safe walking. And certain family members continue to insist that I should do so, and that I’m just making this up to get rides.

No. I’ve been in tears and cried while explaining what’s going on! That’s not faking it, and it isn’t unreasonable.

– Anonymous

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem.
Find suggestions for what YOU can do about this human rights issue.

As a 9 year-old-girl my way was blocked by a group of boys, I was terrified. People don’t understand, they think it’s a compliment and I should be grateful.

– Anonymous

Location: Oakland, CA

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem.
Find suggestions for what YOU can do about this human rights issue.

Yesterday I was walking around Bed, Bath, and Beyond to look at things for the house my boyfriend and I are going to move into in a week – I just relocated after a stressful year of being hundreds of miles away from him. I was stopped in the middle of an aisle when I felt something brush my leg – I look down and there was a man crouched behind me. My first reaction was to ignore it as someone who accidentally bumped into me while looking at items on the bottom shelf, but then I realized that it was my inner thigh that had been bumped. All at once the image of his cellphone shot into my head and I realized what had happened – he had been taking a picture or a video of me up my dress.

By this point he was walking away from me quickly and I started walking towards him and I called out loudly and angrily, “Excuse me!” He didn’t even flinch and just kept walking faster.

On the floor next to me an employee was crouched and I told her, “I think that man just took a picture up my dress!” She looked alarmed and went to the front of the store, where she picked up a phone.

I stood in place for a moment, and the shock set in. A million questions went through my head, the most important one being, “What do I do now?” My first instinct was to call my boyfriend, but I decided to walk up to the front to see what was going on. I assumed that someone was calling security.

I will stop my story to say that I realize now this moment is what caused the majority of my pain. I needed to call 911 right then, not rely on someone else to do it for me. But I didn’t.

A few minutes passed of the employees up front looking at me woefully and some skeptically. Then the woman who had seen him rush away from me pointed him out – “That’s the guy. That’s the guy, isn’t it? He’s going out the entrance.”

It was the guy, and I got a better look at him now. He was tall and older, about 60, with light brown skin and a long, ugly, cold face. He made a point of not making eye contact with anyone and walked straight out of the door.

I felt my panic increase – he was getting away! No one was doing anything! -I- wasn’t doing anything!

I just shook and tried not to cry. At some point, a manager approached me. What he said to me is a slur of “we can’t help you.” He was nice, but not in any way helpful. I prodded at them for a while because I felt like something needed to happen, but nothing did.
I walked a few paces away from them, outside of the store, and sat down to call my boyfriend.

“Something really creepy just happened to me.”

A day later, I feel angry at myself for not acting, and angry at the people around me for not acting. I feel disgusted with that man’s very existence, I can’t believe that someone is possibly currently getting off on my humiliation, and has a relic to remember it by. I eventually called the police, but have little hope that they will be able to do anything. All they have is a tape. I realize, too, that all he has is a tape. I am thankful that he didn’t physically assault me. But what he did was painful – he made me feel duped, he made me feel powerless, he made me feel disgusting and made my vagina feel disgusting.

I don’t really know what to do now. I guess I just get on with my life an accept that it was not that big of a deal, but I feel so hopeless.

– Anonymous

Location: Bed, Bath, & Beyond in Charlottesville, VA

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem.
Find suggestions for what YOU can do about this human rights issue.