Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

“Was it the school uniform that made you think it was appropriate?”

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The first time I was ever harassed on the street was when I was 14. I lived a few blocks away from a close friend and she and I would walk a main street to see each other. We would always, always get whistles or honks, and unintelligible things shouted at us by passing drivers. I remember thinking, “Isn’t it creepy they’re doing this to us at THIS age?” But then it never got less creepy and jarring as I got older.

– DM

Location: These childhood incidents took place on: Green Street, Mount Hawthorn, WA 6016, Australia

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Include your location and it will be added to the Street Harassment Map.

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“I want to be your bicycle seat”

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I had locked up my bike at one of my city’s busiest intersections to go shopping. As I was unlocking it and getting ready to ride off, with people bustling all around, a man in the back of an SUV told me I looked sexy in my helmet (obviously being sarcastic and insulting). He then told me that he wished he were my bicycle seat. URGH! Disgusting. I tried to play it cool and address him directly, but all I could think of as he drove off was how I wished I had had some awesome, witty comment to shut him down. I was so amazed as how willingly some guys make complete idiots of themselves.

This made me realize that regardless of what you are wearing, or what you are doing, if you are female you are ALWAYS a potential target for street harassment. What made me even more angry was knowing that had my male partner been there, that guy would never have said anything (just like how some guy wouldn’t have tried to grab my ass on the subway escalator had I been with a male friend / partner or not alone).

I know that what I experience is nothing compared to what many women experience, and yet I still get really pissed off. Street harassment has to stop.

– FJ

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Include your location and it will be added to the Street Harassment Map.

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“I felt like a lab specimen”

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I’ve already dealt with several street harassers this week. I thought the bulk of my harassment was  over. But nope, that was only the beginning!

When I boarded the bus to go to my studio for a workout, these boys sat near me (one of them sat next to me). I tried to ignore them but they were so obnoxious. They were making commentary about the girls walking outside, and it was tacky. (I’m sure my looks got rated by them as well.) I excused myself to move away from them when I heard what sounded like the click of a camera phone. Did these clowns just take my photo?! I heard snickering and giggling after I moved.

A few moments later, a woman boarded the bus, and the boy who I was previously sitting next to started patting on the now empty seat next to him while checking this woman out. I had had it with being quiet and had to say something.

“You do not respect women,” I said. “No respect. I saw you checking out those girls outside, I saw you checking out that woman who just boarded, and I know you took a picture of me.”

These boys denied any wrong doing. The one who took the photo claimed it was a gun application on his phone.

“My phone makes that same clicking noise when it takes photos,” I said. “You’re lying.”

Then they changed their story and saied that they were taking pictures of each other. And when it came to checking out women, first they denied it, but then they said they were “grown men and had the right to check out fat [phat?] asses.” So which was it? Either you were ogling women or you weren’t.

I started taking photos of these boys (and a video that came out too poorly to post), and they got pissed.

“Yo, this bitch is taking our picture!” they yelled. (Though only two are pictured, there were actually three of them. One was sitting on the other side and out of the camera’s range.)

I felt like a hypocrite for a moment, and yes, those boys let me know that I had no right to complain about them taking my photo when I did the same thing.

They repeated it and then the bus driver yelled at me to “stop taking pictures. You can’t take pictures on this bus!”

Since these boys were full of lies, I decided to lie back. “I erased the photos,” I said. “Let it go!” (Obviously I didn’t really erase them.)

But they refused to let it go. They started making comments about me, calling me “ugly,” “bitch,” and even calling me a “faggot.” They did running commentary about what I was doing (“Ooh, look at how she’s moving her mouth!” “Look at how she’s trembling!”) and told me to “shut up, mind your business” and “Don’t you have a book to read?” What assholes.

Then other passengers jumped in. A woman on the back of the bus yelled “Bitch, that’s my man you’re messing with. If you touch him, I’ll beat your ass!” The whole bus looked at me and laughed. I felt like a lab specimen. It was a sick feeling.

The boys finally decided to stop clowning on me, but this was one stop before I got off so it wasn’t much relief. I think the boys got off at the same stop I did, but I didn’t bother to look behind me and thank god they didn’t try to get the last word or action. I’m just upset that I didn’t get the bus number or the route number (the 30-Line buses all go the same direction to Friendship Heights, and I rarely take notice of which one I board when I do).

When I got to my studio, I wanted to cry. I was so shaken up and didn’t deserve what I went through. But since most of my friends tell me the same garbage of “You should have ignored it,” “You need to get a thicker skin,” and “Why do you always have so many problems and get into so much trouble?”, I didn’t want to say anything about it. I survived my workout and those horrible feelings had left my system, but I took the train home afterward and when I got off to transfer at Metro Center, a guy waiting to get on the train looked me up and down and said “Mmm…beautiful!” All that anger came right back and I immediately called him “Ugly!” in response.

I feel like my freedom of movement is long gone. I can’t go anywhere without some man making commentary about my looks, and when I reject them, they get aggressive. And I’ve learned the hard way that no one will jump to my defense and help me when I get into a bind with harassers. The peanut gallery will either gawk, stare, laugh or turn their heads and ignore it.

I am tired of these men and the bystanders treating me like garbage. It makes me feel so worthless.

– “Tired of Being Harassed”

Location: One of the 30-Line buses going towards Friendship Heights, Washington DC

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Include your location and it will be added to the Street Harassment Map.

[Editors note: For people paying attention to the photos posted with the stories lately, mostly they have been of African American men. This does not mean men of other races do not harass women. Men tend to harass women of their own race the most and the blog contributor who has submitted the stories w/the pics is African American.]

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They like to humiliate women in the street

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l want to post about my street harassment here in New York, NY, Manhattan Uptown, Spanish population.

l have been harass[ed] for more than 5 year, from strangers in public places. A lot of men [in] this community usually attack the women verbally with verbal abuse, some mak[e] negative comments about women. honking or whistling, they like to humiliate the women in the street. They never show their faces because they are no[t] real man. They think they have the right to insult the women just because they have a prejudge or discriminate against women.

– Anonymous

Location: Uptown NYC

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Include your location and it will be added to the Street Harassment Map.

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“Hot Pussy is No Way to Say Hello” Campaign

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Image from HollaBack NYC

Imagine waking through a busy section of a city and seeing giant silhouette cutouts of men and hearing vulgar comments like “Hey girl, why don’t you come over here and ride my pony,” and “Nice pussy baby!” It’s pretty shocking, right? Would it get you thinking about street harassment, perhaps discussing it with your friends?

This past Saturday street harassment activists in New York City launched the campaign “Hot Pussy is No Way to Say Hello” in Union Square with the goals of sparking dialogue and raising awareness about street harassment. And those goals were more than met.

Sarah VanDenbergh, an art education graduate student at New York University, and Violet Kittappa, Director of Research and Development for Hollaback NYC, organized the anti-street harassment demonstration as part of Sarah’s master’s thesis on street harassment. They were kind enough to talk to me about it. I hope that learning about their activism will inspire you to think about creative ways to raise awareness about and to challenge street harassment in your community.

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Sarah is from a small town in New York and moved to New York City nearly two years ago to attend graduate school. She was upset by the street harassment she experienced on a regular basis in the city. Using her skills as an artist, she decided to create a public art installation in a busy area to generate conversations about street harassment and to direct the focus of those conversations on the men who perpetuate it instead of on the women who experience it. After all, the perpetrators are the ones who must change their behavior.

Sarah shares exactly what the demonstration entailed:

“I created six life size silhouettes of men and placed them in Union Square on Saturday from 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. Attached to the cutouts were signs that said: ‘I grope women on the train,’ ‘I objectify women’s bodies,’ ‘I masturbate on women on the train,’ ‘I make catcalls to women in the street,’ ‘I say crude comments to women on the L train,’ and ‘I expose myself to women almost everyday.’

I had sound boxes with mp3 players and portable speakers sitting in front of the silhouettes playing a loop of 109 crude things men say to women. These quotes were directly from the HollaBack NYC website and from my own experiences.

We also passed out cards that said, ‘Hot pussy is no way to say hello.” On the back of the cards it said, ‘Sexual harassment is a crime, from crude comments and threats to stalking and indecent exposure…if you see a perv holla back, take their picture and file a police report.’ Included on the card were 2 pictures of men exposing themselves in public and a woman ‘holla-ing back.’ We passed out around 1,200 cards.”

I asked Sarah and Violet about the reaction and response of passersby. They said that overall people responded very positively toward the exhibits, especially, surprisingly men (Which shows that there are lots of male allies out there. In fact, it was male friends of Sarah’s who helped her with the audio aspect of the project by reading the crude comments she recorded and played. We need to mobilize and engage more men our efforts!)

Read the full article about the campaign launch!

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