This is cross posted with permission from Saniya M. Ali’s blog.

I’ve had to face street harassment on a regular basis since the age of 11. The lewd stares, the cat calls, the whistling, a gang of whispering men turning around and smirking at me, a group of  boys coming up to my parked car to drop their number, the not-so-accidental graze a sweaty man would make against me in a crowded market…

I thought I’d seen it all. I thought that this was as bad as it would get for me. Begrudgingly, I had even come to accept it as a collateral damage to my outings. Every time it would annoy me, every time I would ignore it and carry on. So it struck me with surprise that I could come across something that I wasn’t able to brush off.

So here we are, my three girlfriends and I at our favourite burger place for dinner near my university. Our orders arrive and we are busy burying ourselves into food after an entire day of starving. The place is filled with people and I am halfway done with my food when I notice a man sitting in the opposite booth staring at me. He is accompanied by a friend; they must be in their early to mid-thirties. I feel uncomfortable with the way he’s looking at me and I use one of my friends, who is sitting opposite to me with her back to the Staring Man, to shift out of his line of sight. I tell her about the Staring Man and instruct her not to move from her place.

Barely 10 seconds later, he slides to the other end of the booth to continue his leering. I shift again to avoid being ogled at. This is when it starts to annoy me.

A**hole.

I curse him silently, wishing I had the guts to go up to him and tell him to stop. I remembered reading online that asking the harasser to end his behaviour by spelling it out to him may help put a stop to it.

But this is Pakistan. I’m not supposed to talk to a strange man! Will it work? Or will he interpret it in the opposite way? What if it gets worse than just staring?

I don’t have long with my thoughts. Staring Man stands up and gives me a long stare with that eerie smirk of his. I immediately bow my head to cover my face with my open hair. I feel like I must shield myself. I must prove an obstacle to his game. He walks away to get drinks and comes back. I keep my head down.

My friend asks if I want to switch places so that my back is towards him. I say no. The truth is, I don’t want to get any closer to Staring Man. My friends move closer together, though, so his view is completely blocked. They are now uncomfortable as well. The mood is heavy and we’re silent.

I scan the restaurant. There are plenty of non-staring males. There’s one who seems my age having dinner with a couple of his female friends.

Should I ask him for help? But what will I tell him? He’ll just scoff at me for overreacting. Forget it.

Staring Man whispers something to his friend who then gets up, turns around, and takes his time staring at me before he goes to get his drinks.

What the hell is their problem?

When he returns, he slinks to the other end of the booth, turns around again and then stares at me. I catch him staring but he doesn’t look away. He simply keeps on looking with an indescribably unnerving stare, with a sneer on his face.

Rage boils inside of me. I’ve had enough. Why can’t I have a nice night out with my friends and eat in peace? Am I some kind of an animal in a zoo? I want to go up to them and yell at them. I want to plant a slap on their faces. I want to tell them to give me some respect. But I do none of those.

I jump out of my seat and run out of the restaurant. I can’t stand to be in their sight for a second longer. I run away from those two men, hating them for ruining my nice dinner, hating myself for not doing something about it. I blink away tears of anger, before anyone notices.

One of my friends follows me and we seek refuge in a shop next door. The shop has a glass front so I climb the first floor and hide in the back corner so that they don’t see us, if they happen to follow us. I’m scared and in a really bad mood.

They don’t come.

Thank God.

Fifteen minutes later, my other two friends join me and informed that Staring Man and Sidekick left as soon as I did. That’s when I remember that they had no food on their table. Why were they still sitting then? Nevertheless, I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that they didn’t follow me into the shop. Maybe they left. Slowly, I return to my good mood and we spend a good 40 minutes in the shop. We laugh, we shop, we take a few pictures and then we leave to find a rickshaw back to university.

We exit the shop and have only walked a few paces that a car drives by near us and stops. Out comes the Staring Man, his friend sitting behind the wheel.

Oh my God, I thought they left!

We panic and run to the nearest security guard we can find.

“Uncle, aap humein please rickshaw la dein gay? (Uncle, can you please get a hold of a rickshaw for us?),” I ask.
“Aap main road pay jaein gi tou aap ko mil jaey ga. (You’ll find one if you go on the main road.)”
“Asal mein humaray peechay koi aa raha hai. (Actually, there’s someone following us).”

Each day I learn increasingly how dangerous it is to be a female on this planet.

I only recently returned, just before 2am, from the most terrifying experience of my life. On my commute home, I ended up at a relatively desolate subway station. A guy apparently took interest in me and started (literally) doing ninja kicks by my head as I sat, petrified, on a bench wondering what the fuck was going on. I moved away and he pursued, following me wherever I walked in the station.

I sought solace by the only other people there at that moment, only to again be regarded as a piece of meat and catcalled by the two shitfaces. The psycho guy was oblivious to my intentions of ignoring him, my dirty looks, hanging around the emergency call button and wearing headphones. I was so tempted to push that button, but I was afraid he’d beat me to a bloody pulp in the time it took the cops to get that far underground to the station.

I knew he would follow me onto my train and my prediction was correct, as he boarded the same car as me and made sure to stand a few feet away from me. I swung my umbrella around and clenched my pepperspray in my coat pocket. It was collectively the most horrifying 20 minutes of my life. He pretty much chased me out of the station and I almost passed out due to running and having a simultaneous panic attack.

Hollywood Boulevard was almost empty, but I saw a mall security guard (as I’d hoped to) and ran to him, relaying my story. The psycho followed me into the open air mall, only to continue walking up the steps when he saw me with security. I was literally shaking and out of breath. Another guard was called to escort me to my street, which is right behind the mall. He couldn’t believe what had happened. We approached the exit of the mall, which joins up with a parking garage for the hotel and also my street. Who was walking down the driveway from the parking garage? The psycho!

I bolted back towards the mall until the guard received a call that the guy had left the area. The guard then walked me to my street and I said I was okay to get to my apartment, which was a few buildings down and waved to him when I was outside my door. I am so grateful to them for helping me and as sad as it is, I know it could have been much, much worse, as it is for so many people in this scenario.

I don’t think it’s stretching beyond the imagination to say that guy would have attacked and raped me, then killed me, had we been alone. It’s like I can’t even live my life with these people around, all because I am a girl.

– Ela

Location: Wilshire & Vermont, Los Angeles, CA

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