Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

“If It Will Traumatize You”

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I experienced it a lot of times and in different places. Honestly, I don’t wear revealing clothes. I grew up in a conservative family. I don’t wear shorts, above the knee dresses and skirts, sleeveless, tube, etc. But no matter how unrevealing the clothes I am wearing, I am not safe from street harassment.

No matter what you wear, no matter how you walk, no matter how you act, they will do it to you and they don’t care if it could hurt you, or worse, if it will traumatized you.

* While waiting for a public transport in a bus stop, the drivers and even their passengers (vehicles that were passing by) were catcalling me.

* There was one time that I was walking from school to our home, there were a group of boys laughing and slurring something to me.

* Inside the grocery store, there were men (around the ages of 20 to 26, I guess) stalking me and were leering.

* Inside a bus, I was about to come out but still waiting in line because a lot of us were coming out, when suddenly, someone was touching my waist and he’s acting like it was all accidental when in fact he did it thrice.

* I was walking home, when a motorcycle came by (a driver & a passenger, both are men) and touched my breasts then, they drove so fast that I couldn’t see their faces.

* Another time this happened when I was also walking home. There were two boys riding a bike when they passed by me, suddenly one of them touched my thigh. Everything happened so fast that I froze and I just cried.

Honestly, as of now, I am still in trauma about the street harassment that I had experienced. I cry a lot of times every time I remember those incidents. Some of those happened a couple of months ago, and one of those happened hours ago. I searched in google about street harassment and it led me to this website. I don’t know if I already need to seek for help from a psychiatrist or someone that could help me. I no longer feel safe and everything that has happened to me is really hurtful.

– CL

Location: The Philippines

Need support? Call the toll-free National Street Harassment hotline: 855-897-5910

Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for ideas.

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“It terrifies me to think what could have happened”

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This just happened less than two hours ago. First of all, I am a student. At approximately 11:30 AM I decided to walk to campus (right next to where I live) to get some work done for a project. After one hour (at 12:20 AM), I was done and was walking to my apartment building. As I approached the main building door, I saw a guy walking past me (facing me) so he was walking the other direction.

Anyways I continued to approach the building door and opened it then walked up the stairs and stood in front of my apartment door looking for the keys in my pocket. Mind you that there was absolutely no one around except him and I in the street. While getting my keys I suddenly heard the building door open and heard heavy and fast footsteps climbing up the stairs. I don’t know why but I did not get a good feeling and I panicked, I managed to quickly unlock my door and go inside and immediately locked the door behind me.

I looked straight through the door eye hole and found the same guy who just passed me, he just missed me by a second. He walked through the hallway and then went downstairs again and left. I do not think this was a coincidence. He does not live in our building, and he was originally walking in the other direction. It terrifies me to think what could have happened if I had not closed the door on time before he could come upstairs. I seriously wish our apartment building had surveillance cameras or at least only allowed tenants to access the building.

– Anonymous

Need support? Call the toll-free National Street Harassment hotline: 855-897-5910

Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for ideas.

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“Stop yelling at random girls.”

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I went to prom as a sophomore. It was at the Wax Museum on Hollywood Boulevard. I was leaving at the end of the night with my boyfriend and his parents and a man who was either drunk or on drugs started yelling to me about how beautiful I looked, he called me princess and “Belle.” (My dress was yellow) I was flattered for a second and then he kept yelling and it got uncomfortable. I was kinda confused about why he was yelling at me. My boyfriend’s mom went into “mama bear” mode and said, “Have a good night sir,” to finally make him stop.

Optional: What’s one way you think we can make public places safer for everyone?

Stop yelling at random girls.

– AMC

Location: Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA

Need support? Call the toll-free National Street Harassment hotline: 855-897-5910

Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for ideas.

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“Don’t be scared, get in.”

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Last night, I went to the movies with a friend of mine who’s also a female. It was pretty late and we had to go home on foot. It wasn’t the first we did that so we didn’t really see any problem at first.

Of course, every time we walked home, there would be car honks here and there, and sometimes three in a row. One time, there was a man on a bike who slowed down to talk to us saying he was looking for a wife. We were only 18 and we were just trying to walk home. We tried to answer as little as possible to his questions and he kept talking to us for 20 minutes before he finally left.

But last night, as we walked home, two men who were in their car slowed down and catcalled us. We didn’t understand a thing they were saying and we didn’t really care. We tried to ignore them the best we could and they finally drove away. But two minutes later, they came back on the other side of the road and catcalled us again. They turned around just to do that.

Once they were gone, we relaxed again. We were now just a few minutes away from our home when another car, a truck, stopped on the side of the road next to us. Then we started to freak out. The car was going our way and we couldn’t prevent them from coming out of their car. The driver got out and started to ask us if we wanted a ride home. We declined as politely as we could, but we insisted, and then the man from the passenger seat was opening his door too. We were so scared, we didn’t know what to do. The guy kept saying and asking us to drop us off but we declined. He noticed we were scared and instead of just understanding the message he said, “Don’t be scared, get in.”

After a while he finally gave up, I was ready to run away. We finally got home. This experienced just ruined our night. More than that.

Optional: What’s one way you think we can make public places safer for everyone?

Honestly, I don’t even know considering it could happen anywhere in the world. I do feel very unsafe and going out slowly becomes a mental torture for me. I can’t stop thinking about what happened and what could have happened. I use to love to go out with my friend, now it is something I try to avoid just for that reason.

Location: France

Need support? Call the toll-free National Street Harassment hotline: 855-897-5910

Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for ideas.

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16 Days – Day 11: Creating Feminist Graphics

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Each day across the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, we will highlight a 2018 activism effort undertaken to stop street harassment or a personal story about stopping harassers!

Day 11: Creating Feminist Graphics

Shehzil Malik began producing feminist graphics in response to gender inequality, including street harassment, that she saw and experienced in her country of Pakistan.

Via CNN:

“Her vibrant, subversive images, which include hijabi bikers, tattooed women and a brown-skinned Wonder Woman, were a defiant kind of therapy….Her first series, which was about “the anxiety of stepping outside,” was unflinching in its critique of the status quo. One of the comic-style illustrations, which drips in satire, depicts the preparation required for women to become “socially acceptable” — necklines, hemlines, shawls, hair, makeup, embellishments. Another graphic shows a collection of floating eyeballs looming over a lone woman.

Walking the streets is “not what Pakistani girls do,” said Malik, whose own predilection for public space inspired the series.
“Everyday without fail,” she has written of her daily walks, “I’d be followed, heckled, sung to and stared at. I’ve been groped more times than I can remember.”…
By creating aspirational graphics for women and girls, Malik hopes to undercut popular, patriarchal consciousness. She was prepared for a misogynist backlash, but she didn’t anticipate just how popular the images would become. The series and its accompanying hashtag, #womeninpublicspaces, went viral, sparking long-awaited conversations about women’s attire, street harassment and sexual assault. Malik’s social media following shot into the thousands, while messages of support and solidarity flooded in.”
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