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.