Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Blocking the view of oglers

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This happened in Delhi. Yesterday evening, I was at a take away place and I had ordered something and was waiting for my order to come through. This young girl about 13 or so walks in and orders some take away food at the counter and stands back waiting for her order to be ready. There’s this group of men in their early thirties were waiting there too. This kid is hardly 13 and has no breasts to speak of and she’s wearing jeans and a long shirt below her hips with an open collar. This dirty group of young men stared openly at the kid’s chest. Made me feel creepy. Think about it, she’s just a kid! It made me very angry, but I couldn’t do much, so I moved myself and positioned myself in front of the kid so the other guys couldn’t ogle at her, as in I came in their line of vision. I cannot go all around town slapping people. That was the best I could do at that moment. What is the world coming to? Everybody has kids who are 12 or 13 at one point of time in life! Sickening!

– Tbg

Location: Delhi, India

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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45-year-old man leers at 14-year-old girl

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This happened yesterday. I’m a guy in my mid thirties from Delhi. I was standing in a store, waiting for the counter boys to be free from the earlier customers awaiting my turn. This young girl aged about 14 was standing in front of me. She was dressed in dark shorts, which weren’t too short and a red tee which covered everything.

This middle aged man walks in, and while he’s standing in the store he looks the little girl up and down again and again. I felt like giving that old man a tight slap across his face, but did not want to create a scene in the store. After a while they left, but the incident left a very bad taste in my mouth.

That man was about 45 plus and the girl not a day over 14. Now I wish I had slapped that old man!

– Tbg

Location: Delhi, India

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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Confronting harassers (in comic form!)

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I recently discovered the Men’s Anti-Violence Council blog (they’re a group at the University of Iowa) and I signed up to receive their posts via e-mail.  I loved the ones from yesterday and today so I’m sharing them.

As part of their quest to make their community safer for everyone, they created two street harassment-related comics for residence hall bulletin boards this fall. Awesome! Here they are:

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“Even as a man, I cringe at street harassment”

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Even as a man, I cringe at street harassment. I can’t help but hear kissing noises or whoops or vocalized honks. There was one time years ago when I heard some street harassment going on, but my response was to turn to the harassers and make flirtatious gestures at them as if they were calling out to me. I think that was enough to silence them, at least for a moment.

– Mr. MRS

Location: New York, NY

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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“Guys, catcalls are never cool”

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Micah Toub wrote a thoughtful, great article on street harassment for Toronto’s The Globe and Mail called “Guys, catcalls are never cool.” He discusses how women feel about street harassment and some of the reasons why men do it. His conclusion for how men can flirt without being a harasser:

“The thing I was thinking after these conversations, is that a smile – even if underneath it lies a more carnivorous urge – can at least be interpreted by its receiver any way she wants. Or ignored. So in the same way that women have attempted to take back the street, I’d suggest that the good men out there take back the street flirt, by starting again from square one.

When it comes to expressing springtime desires, less is definitely more.”

Image from Globe & Mail

I chatted with Micah last week and was very pleased by the quotes he included from me. A few times in the past I’ve been misquoted in articles and was not in this one. I also love the quotes from Dr. Michael Kimmel. I find that he always has interesting information on masculinity issues.

What are your thoughts? What constitutes acceptable flirting and unacceptable harassment?

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