By Sara Schwartzkopf, Colorado, USA, SSH Correspondent

Like most women my age, I’ve experienced my fair share of street harassment. I remember the first time being when I was 14, as I was walking back to my school after lunch break. While I was waiting to cross the street, a man pulled up in a truck, rolled down the window and proceeded to make it perfectly clear that he was leering at my chest. He didn’t say a word, just gave me a suggestive eyebrow raise and a creepy smile before driving off. I remember shuddering, walking back into school and mentioning it to friends who seemed to think it a positive that an older man had “complimented” me.

I remember that instance, not so much because it was extraordinary, but because it was the first time I had a perfect stranger make clear to me that he felt entitled to make his opinion about my body known. It was also the first time that I wondered if this really was a compliment, or if my initial reaction was right that there was something deeply wrong about that encounter.

Since then I’ve had plenty of different interactions with strangers in public places. I’ve heard and witnessed people’s unsolicited opinions on my body when I was overweight, when I was a teenager, when I was out running, when I was with my mother, traveling, hiking, kayaking, walking, shopping, riding public transit, driving in my car, or simply out with friends in public. It’s a very rare occasion indeed when I count these interactions as a positive. It’s also very rare that these comments happen when I’m with a man, and I’ve noticed many of the men in my life are unfamiliar with what street harassment is.

Now both of those things are worth unpacking. As women, we’re frequently told that we are our bodies. Our self-worth becomes inherently tied to how attractive our bodies are. So when a stranger voices their opinion on our looks, it’s implied that we should take that as a compliment (or in some cases as valid criticism). The thing is we are a lot more than our bodies. We don’t need, or particularly want, random people’s opinions on how we look when we’re trying to get any myriad of things done.

The other part of not finding these interactions to be positive is that they frequently don’t come across as compliments so much as demands for attention. Ignoring a harasser on the street at night is often followed by the fear and sometimes reality of being followed. Telling someone to leave you alone sometimes escalates to insults and outright threats. I’ve heard thoughts that men who harass are just at a loss of how else to approach without getting rejected. I don’t think I buy this. I can’t believe how inept a man would have to be to think that yelling, “Nice ass!” at a passerby would net him a better response than, well, almost anything else.

The other thing is why I don’t get harassed if I’m around a man. I can only guess this: men don’t fear what I will do when they shout things at me in public. I am a woman, which means ideally I will smile when they tell me to and say thank you when a comment is offered. Regardless of whether I need or want this validation, I’m expected to take it and move on. Yet if I’m with a man it’s considered disrespectful to him, to address me. There’s a fear and a boundary line there that other men don’t cross. I think this goes a long way to explaining why most of the men I know say they’ve never seen street harassment, or even understand what it is. To them it’s an invisible problem.

Sara is a recent graduate of the University of Denver where she majored in Sociology, International Studies, and minored in Japanese. She has previously written on issues relevant to the Native American community at Le Prestige Du Monde, pulling heavily on her experiences as a mixed-race Kiowa and Chickasaw.

By Angela Della Porta, SSH Correspondent

I live in a small town. It goes without saying that I see many of the same people over and over again. I also work at a convenience store for the summer, which certainly has its downsides. (I could write a book about the drags of working customer service, but now isn’t the time.)

I experience street harassment every time I’m walking down the street. Despite the bigoted assumptions people often make about where and by whom street harassment is perpetrated, I am often greeted with harassing comments by “family men” in the rural, racially homogenous area in which I live. Being in a small town, there are very few places to shop, and I’m constantly faced with the situation of forcing myself to be friendly, helpful, and polite to men who harassed me hours before. More often than not, their harassment doesn’t stop there – I get lewd comments on a regular basis, ones I have to accept jovially with a smile for fear of being scolded by my boss. While it’s never fun to paint on a smile for customers when you don’t really feel like it, it’s somewhat different to be forced to smile and accept sexually harassing comments from people you know you’ll see every day. If I had a dollar for every time a man made a comment about my appearance, told me he’d “show me a good time” when buying alcohol, or told me he’d like to buy me (people have actually said that) when asked how he can be helped, I’d double my wages. I’ve actually been told that I should be friendlier to these men and laugh because they’re just joking.

Now, as a community of people against street harassment, we’ve decided that saying something to your harassers is an excellent tactic to put them in their place. However, that’s not always easy – or even possible. When I’m harassed among my friends, I often feel hesitant about shouting back because I don’t want to embarrass or upset them. When I’m with my family, I know saying something to a harasser will seem like an overreaction and potentially cause a scene. If I feel as if I might be putting myself in danger by saying something, I won’t speak up. There are many reasons why the decision whether to speak up against street harassment may be ambiguous or difficult to make. However, until now, I had never had that decision taken away from me: I cannot respond to my harassers or I will lose my job.

While speaking up personally against harassment can be a huge tool for anyone who is constantly bombarded with comments and gestures, it’s not enough. We’ll have to continue to fight against misogyny and patriarchy to really change hearts and minds. That’s why the work that Stop Street Harassment does is so important, and why getting involved can really make a difference. Share your stories. Write, tweet, Facebook, submit your stories here! Until we’ve created a culture in which it is inappropriate to harass women, men will continue to do it whenever and wherever they can. So, make your voice heard whenever you can.

Because at the moment, I can’t.

Angela Della Porta is a recent graduate of Clark University in Worcester, MA. She will join with Teach for America in Detroit in the fall. Until then, she’s spending her time in rural Maine. Follow her on Twitter: @angelassoapbox

By Britnae Purdy, SSH Correspondent

I have a thing for coincidences. The very same day that I accepted this role as a correspondent for SSH, my local newspaper posted a Facebook status asking for commentary from women who have experienced street harassment in the Fredericksburg, VA, area, to be used for an upcoming story. I was excited – until I read the quickly-accumulating comments below the status. The most-repeated sentiment was, “Don’t we have more important things to worry about than catcalling?” closely followed by “Why can’t women stop being so uptight and just take it as a compliment?”

It upset me, especially because equal amounts of these comments were coming from women as from men. I admit to being an overly sensitive person at times, and these comments bothered me, to the point where I briefly considered re-thinking this whole feminist-writing thing and staying in bed all day instead –I was having a bad hair day already, after all (thank you, Virginia humidity). But I couldn’t help thinking it through a little.

Start. Don’t we have more important to things to worry about than cat-calling? Let’s see – violent crime, corrupt governance, prime time television…Yes, it would appear that we, the collective, faceless “we” that make up our sense of modern society, do indeed have bigger things to worry about.

But let me ask you this – do I have bigger things to worry about than my own personal safety and well-being? No. I do not. As an individual being, keeping myself safe is my own top priority, and that is what is threatened when I am yelled at, followed by, or touched by strangers in a public place.

Expand. As an active member of my community, I am similarly concerned with the safety and well-being of my friends, family members, coworkers, and the super-friendly Starbucks barista who made my much-needed latte this morning. And as a contributing (financially and otherwise) member of my community, I expect my safety, health, and concerns to be just as respected and adequately addressed of those of my non-harassed male counterparts.

As for “taking it as a compliment” and “not being so uptight?” If you, as a self-assured, intelligent, confident woman can take a whistle or sexually-explicit comment and use it as fuel to brighten your day, then all the more power to you. I cannot. There are times when a “compliment” is actually the indicator of more aggressive behavior to come, and I need to be scared in order to stay safe – if I act a little too “uptight” about a whistle, it is because I am remembering that time I was followed home at night.

Regardless of threat level, a lewd, unwelcome comment is indicative of a patriarchal society that grants men verbal, visual, and physical access to my body with or without my consent. I fear that saying anything you want about a woman’s body with no consequences is only a few steps away from feeling like you can do whatever you want with a woman’s body. A society that does not equally value the safety of its women cannot be trusted to ensure the safety of any of its members that are not white, privileged, heterosexual males. Cue violent crime. Cue corruption and lack of morals. Cue media that perpetuates the image of women as weak, sexualized commodities meant for consumption.

Conclusion. We don’t have bigger problems because the mentality behind street harassment provides the basis for most of society’s “bigger” problems. I cannot just take it as a compliment because that would mean accepting a second-class version of myself, and even on the worst of bad hair days, that is not something I can bring myself to do.

Britnae is a graduate student at George Mason University, in Virginia, where she is pursuing a Master of Arts in Global Affairs with a specialization in Security and Conflict Studies. She also writes for First Peoples Worldwide and you can read more of her writing on their blog and follow her on Twitter.

By Natasha Vianna, Jan. – June 2013 SSH Blog Correspondents

For a chunk of my adolescence, I genuinely believed that sexual and street harassment were the ultimate forms of flattery. If a guy was willing to whistle, call out nicknames, or harass me, then hey… that must mean I am attractive. And heck, for most of my life, I was told to always appreciate a compliment; so I did.

At the time, part of me enjoyed the harassment because it meant I was sexy or pretty to someone else. In high school, there was an overwhelming pressure to look good, dress well, and “bring all the boys to my yard.”  There was jealousy, bitterness, lust, innocence, naivety, and tons of harassment. In fact, by the time I finished my freshmen year of high school, I already believed that if I wasn’t getting attention in the hallways of my school, I was boring and unattractive and needed to do something about it.

The guys in my school were so easily predictable. I knew that if I wore tighter pants or a shorter skirt, I may get a compliment here and there or a stare from the hot football player from across the room. It all seemed like a fun game and I liked having that type of power.

It wasn’t until the harassment quickly shifted from “Hey, you look cute in that shirt” to “You have a fat ass” to “Hey, come and suck my dick bitch,” that I realized I wasn’t enjoying this game anymore. The harassment began to escalate, quickly, and I began to hate walking through the hallways of my high school.

The hot football player would approach me regularly now to see if I wanted to have sex with him. And just like that, he would ask. I’d uncomfortably say no, but it didn’t matter anymore. “So why have you been eyef***ing me from across the room in that short skirt?”

Instead of standing up and shouting, “Because I can wear whatever the f***I want and stare at whomever the f*** I want without wanting to ever f***.” like I would today, I adopted this false belief that what I wear, how I behave, and what I say ultimately determines the treatment I deserve from men. And for years, I worshipped this idealogy.

School became uncomfortable but there was nothing I felt I could do about it anymore. Sexual harassment is rarely addressed in schools the right way. Instead of telling boys to keep their hands to themselves and respect women, girls were told to wear longer skirts and looser clothing. We were blamed when we were mistreated. We were asking for it or just begging for attention.

Here’s an example: My teacher once sent me to the office because my middrift was slightly showing and it was a distraction to the boys in the class. Pissed, I pulled my shirt down and walked down the hallway to meet with the principal. Standing uncomfortably in front of the male principal, who was now looking up and down at me, told to put on a sweater from my locker. For the rest of the day, I covered my 15 year old body in school so the boys could focus on their schoolwork.

When I graduated high school and walked away from those horrible hallways, it didn’t end. The voices of, “Hey baby” and echoes of whistling followed me down many streets… literally. But based on what I endured and learned in high school, I believed this was just normal treatment and how women were supposed to be treated. I trekked on and just tolerated the street harassment never once thinking I was a victim but believing that this is how I would eventually meet my husband.

Thanks to friends and social networking, I was able to talk about (and blog) about my experiences to people who could really help me understand the complexities of harassment. It was an eye-opening, and sometimes painful, experience but one that has changed my life for the better.

Natasha Vianna, a fearless activist and young feminist, is a freelance writer and blogger based out of Boston, MA. Follow her on twitter!