A takeout guy on a bicycle kept looking at me inappropriately, then tried to get my attention me as I passed him. “Hola,” he said. I walked faster.

“HOLA!” he cried harder, as if I would stop because he said it louder. I almost ran across the street in my rush to escape him.

At the train station right after, I was followed by a creepy middle-aged man who kept trying to whisper in my ear. I tried to walk away to different parts of the train station, to get away from him and blend in more with the crowd. He followed me wherever I went.

I finally yelled, “Leave me alone!” He tried to act all innocently and say, “Who me?” with a smug smirk on his face. I stared back at him and said, “Yes, you.” He finally stopped following me, since he had been humiliated in front a crowd of people.

Some days, the harassment in my neighborhood is so invasive and frequent it’s like a bubble I constantly try to escape from. I have had a middle-aged man follow me to the library. One time, a guy was handing out pamphlets and asked whether or not I spoke English just because I chose to ignore his pestering me by saying “you’re beautiful, what are you 18?”

Another time, a guy rudely asserted that I shouldn’t wear headphones on the train, as he sat down right next to me in an empty train car, because I should listen to him say good morning. Um, no thank you.

Screw street harassment. Screw the foolish, rude, disgusting, ugly on the inside at the very least, street harassers. I hope one day they learn to respect women and not treat them as if they’re entitled to their attention. When you harass, even if you gaze intensely, you become an ugly pathetic version of yourself. I hope they realize that one day.

– SpeakOut

I haven’t been harassed for quite some time but I will mention something that happened the other day which annoyed me.

I had to go to a meeting and I didn’t have my coat to wear because it was in the wash. So I just had to put up with the cold weather. I was wearing a halter neck jumper [sweater] (one which sort of bares your chest) but not your breasts! Though just a little bit of cleavage was showing. As I was waiting for the bus, a man in a car stared at my chest as he drove past.

Then after the meeting, I had just missed my bus by a few seconds. My next one was in 15 minutes. I waited miserably in the freezing wind silently cussing the bus I had just missed. I was clutching some leaflets in my hands and I decided to read them and as I was a van beeped at me and a man shouted “hey”! at me. I didn’t know him.

I was already ticked off that I had missed the bus and was cold but that idiot in the van just made it that little bit worse for me…. can’t a woman just go about her way in peace?

– Clarice

Location: South Wales, UK

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Not so much on the street. But I was singing karaoke in a bar one night, drinking water, alone with my BFF. While attempting to go to the bathroom some random woman reaches out to feel my breasts and was slurring some kind of “compliment.”

I threw up my hands in defense, warded her off and she sulkily replied she was just so fascinated by my “tiny little boobies” (her words) and wanted to feel if they were real (I have very small breasts, and have never enjoyed strangers making remarks about my body).

Although I successfully warded off her hands the incident ruined the rest of my night. I went home in a foul mood and was crying quite a bit after I got to bed and hugged my stuffed monkey.

– KAR

Location: In a neighborhood bar accessible by tourists. Las Vegas, NV USA

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I was talking a walk down the street with a girlfriend one afternoon and a truck with two men slowed down beside us. The passenger yelled out of the window, “Hey baby! Where are you going! Want to come with us?”

We ignored the men and kept walking. After about 30 seconds from when they initially accosted us, the passenger threw a glass bottle at us from the vehicle and shouted expletives before racing away.

Another time, on the metro in DC coming home from high school, I made the mistake of dozing in my seat. I awoke gradually to the feeling of the man sitting next to me groping my leg beneath my school uniform skirt. The train was extremely crowded and I wasn’t able change seats or even move to another area of the car. I was so scared and I didn’t know what to do. He got off the train several minutes later.

– Anonymous

Location: 10th St and Pennsylvania Ave SE, Washington, DC

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I went to London for New Year’s Eve, and it was on the Tube going back to my friend’s student accommodation that I had my first street harassment experience of the year.

It was very busy, so we were all standing up and in close quarters to each other. I had seen a man to my left but I had ignored him in favour of taking my rucksack [backpack] off and holding onto the pole in the carriage to keep myself from falling over. I heard a voice from that area saying, “Happy New Year,” repeatedly, and I gave a non committal hum before ignoring him and facing my friend.

The talking at me continued, until he felt it was perfectly acceptable to rest his head on my shoulder while the train was moving. He kept on trying to get my attention by asking which stop I was getting off at, and I kept on ignoring him, as this is my preferred method of dealing with idiots trying to harass me.

As the train pulled into the next station, he upped his technique by grabbing my upper arm and squeezing it repeatedly and saying, “Hey, hey, look at me, where are you going? Where are you getting off?”

Honestly, it scared me. It was a very packed train, but no one could hear him as he was being so quiet. My heart pounded and my grip on my bag tightened, I was ready to swing it at him if he persisted, and I turned to him and replied with

“Home. Now leave me alone.”

He opened his mouth to say more, before my friend wheeled round and told him to back off before she punched him in the face. He stopped and we left the Tube two stations early in order to avoid travelling with him further.

I spent the rest of the trip home shaken and outraged, but also frightened in case he had followed us. He hadn’t appeared drunk like so many other revelers. Things could have been very different; instead of backing off he could have followed us. Fortunately he didn’t, but you always go through the “What if?” scenarios in your head.

– Anonymous

Location: London, England

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