This is my second time writing in a story on your blog and would like to thank you again for all the work that you do on the various issues of street, sexual harassment, gender issues, etc. While my story is not exactly one of street or sexual harassment this time (or at least what you would normally see on this blog), it does have a disturbing link to the recently popular topic of bullying.

Last week the world was made aware of the horrible bullying and harassment of school bus monitor, Karen Klein. My story is similar to her story, except that it involved all adults and people actually standing up for the ‘little guy’.

I and my male friend were on a New Jersey transit bus going into the city through Lincoln Tunnel a couple of days ago. The traffic was horrible, to the point where no vehicles were moving for at least 30 minutes. When the bus finally exists the tunnel, it stops once again as well as every other vehicles in the area. At this time a 19-21 year old girl gets up to ask the bus driver to open the doors. The driver explains that he cannot let anyone out if there are no bus stops present because it is against company safety rules.

She goes back to the middle of the bus where a heavy-set guy, who appears around the same age, storms up to the driver and first asks him to do him a favor of opening the doors. The driver repeats that he cannot and that he can lose his job over this.

The guy goes into a rant saying: 1) The driver is lying because he doesn’t see a rule like that written anywhere (he says this multiple times and proceeds to call the driver a ‘sheep’), 2) Threatens to push the door open, 3) Starts threatening to call the cops because they are being held ‘hostage’, 4) Threatens the driver physically by getting into his face and squeezing/dominating the driver’s physical space with his body.

During this whole time the driver repeats the policy, says they are free to call customer care to confirm the rule, and repeats that he can lose his job. At this point I speak up and say, “The driver has been very patient with you, pleading to keep his job. All of your actions will be caught on camera.” at that point he tells me he doesn’t care if he’s caught on camera so I say, “That’s nice that you don’t care. Instead of wasting everyone’s time with your ranting you can call customer care or you can nicely ask him to call his supervisor to explain the situation.”

After this another passenger, who is an older male with an athletic body, basically tells the guy to ‘sit down and shut up’ because he is bothering everyone and that everyone has somewhere important to go too. Looking away at the guy, he says, “No,”while almost pouting like a child. However, the male passenger actually quiets the guy down for a couple of minutes and he says nothing after that. He and the girl he is with start up again but to each other, saying that everyone is a sheep, the rules are ‘retarded’, the bus driver is an idiot, there is a conspiracy that all buses go into Port Authority so that customers buy stuff, that they are being held captive against their will, and other irrational stuff that makes it seem like they are victims of a crime.

The bus only moves a little this whole time and the girl starts threatening to call customer care, so I point to the phone number and without dialing, she puts the phone up to her ear (F.Y.I: she puts down the phone after 5 minutes claiming no one answered). Finally, the driver’s supervisor calls in to say that all bus drivers can let passengers off wherever due to the heavy traffic and that the police have been made aware of this.

My male friend and I are almost running to where we have to go (we were 45 minutes late) and then suddenly I see the guy rush in front of me with the girl and they look back at us a couple of times. I say nothing but know that he is going to try to scream at me from afar, which he does. He yells, “You’re welcome.” and I ask him, “For what? You didn’t do anything but harass a driver.”

The girl tries to get in my face as I’m speed walking down the block and tells me the supervisor called because of them. I just laugh because the driver never informed the supervisor of their existence. Then the guy yells at me (while almost running away from me, mind you), that I was hostile. I laugh again at the absurdity of this and say, “No I wasn’t hostile, look at yourself and the way you harassed that bus driver and now me.” He goes on ranting at least 15 feet away from me that I was hostile to him and he knows that the driver was lying while the girl tries to keep up with me and get in front of me. I told the girl if I was so hostile she should call the cops, I informed her of the phone number for 911, then offer my phone so she can call them. Her face twists in one of confusion but it seems she ignored what I said and repeats that I was hostile again.

Finally, I’ve had enough and said, “You know I think I’ll call the cops now and let them know of two people who are following and harassing me.” As I reach for my phone they both run across the street, yelling something at me, and I just curse at them before they disappeared down another block. As we wait for a light, another female passenger comes up to me, says the couple was crazy and that what they did to the driver was wrong then wishes us safe travels.

As I said earlier, while this is not a typical story that one will see on this site or any other sites about street harassment, I believe that street harassment and bullying are very similar. Like street harassment, the couple threatened the bus driver with various insults and threats, as well as trying to physically dominate him. The major difference of this situation compared to the usual stories on this blog, is that the bus driver was a male and there was no sexual harassment/threats to the driver. The couple ganged up on someone they perceived ‘lower’ than them (the bus driver) and choose me (a woman) to continue their harassment on instead of the other male passenger (with the athletic body) who also spoke up to them. The couple never made an attempt to say anything to that male passenger, probably because he was not considered an easy target (the male passenger was more fit and taller than the couple). Even though I was with a man, my male friend never said anything and they actually ignored him to focus on me. Usually, street harassment does happen because the victim is perceived as ‘lower’ and ‘weaker’ or an ‘easy target’. Due to my male friend not saying anything and the other male passenger being physically stronger, they probably considered me an easier target.

I was mad that my male friend never spoke up for me but we did discuss it and I know why he did not say anything. Part of it was not knowing what to say, which really should be a clue to everyone that they should support and, perhaps, educate males to be allies in different situations. For anyone who is wondering, I did contact NJ Transit, they confirmed that the rule the bus driver stated is true and I submitted a report of the incident to them as well so that drivers can be made aware of this couple.

– Anonymous

Location: New York City

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I was in a nightclub, enjoying myself, minding my own business, watching the act, when a drunk guy comes up and starts talking to me, asking if I like the music (why else would I be there?), saying he’s from England (I think that was supposed to be impressive), etc. I was nice at first- nodded but didn’t really acknowledge him. So then he decided to go with a different approach- “Nice tits.”

I’ve never actually been so blatantly disrespected before, and certainly not to my face like that. I was in shock, but somehow managed to turn to him, look him right in the eyes, and say, “Yours are pretty nice too.”

He didn’t understand at first, but as I watched the meaning of my words make their way into his thick skull his face changed into one of surprise, and he stumbled away. He left very shortly after.

– Anonymous

Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

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Walking home from doing charity work the other night, within a block, three people harassed me: someone honked, another whistled (several times because I ignored him), and another yelling “pussy.”

Until recently this was a decent area to walk.

But the following day between Elm Street and Crystal Park area, four more people harassed me while I was riding my bike. Two referenced my “pussy” (do they think they are going to be able to pick up someone that way? Felt like keying his shiny red truck), and two others yelled/honked.

I do not know what to do. Whether you ignore them or say something back, it just gets worse. I have reported it before when it happened on the bus, but nothing was done about it. I was told, “They do not mean any harm”…but don’t they???

Male friends have been with me when this stuff happens, and they claim they do not hear it, or that they did not notice it (if it was someone sizing me up).

I would like to set up a stand at the Farmer’s Market distributing information for stopstreetharrassment.com, but without the funds what can I do besides leave materials on bulletin boards?

– Anonymous

Location: 101 E Main St, Urbana, IL

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It’s not often that I get a sense of compete self-satisfaction and empowerment while attempting to tackle street harassment. The other week, however, my friend and I did.

The two of us were planning the best route to a mutual friend’s flat for a get-together that would allow us to travel as a pair. Funnily enough, this was an attempt to avoid any form of street harassment that we were almost expecting to encounter if travelling separately. Unfortunately, my friend had to get two buses on her own in order to meet me half-way, and guess what?

Hello street harassment!

She had decided to sit on the bottom deck of the bus and had chosen a window seat. Apparently this was an invitation for a creep to choose the empty seat next to her. He then proceeded to move in closer to her, squashing her against the side of the bus. If this was not uncomfortable enough for my friend, he then began verbally intruding on her,

‘Hey? Hey? Hey? Why didn’t you call me back?’

Of course, my friend ignored him. She had never met this man before and made it patently obvious she was uncomfortable through her body language and by not responding to his peculiar questions. This man may have been on drugs due to his odd behaviour, but he had still taken the decision to bother my friend over everyone else on the bus.

My friend carried on ignoring him when he finally said, ‘Have you had the baby yet, you slut?’

And nobody on the bus bothered to step in and defend my friend. Not one bystander told this man to back off. As you can imagine, my friend was incensed. This complete stranger had threatened her sense of safety in public and publicly humiliated her. Her sense of safety is already threatened simply because the notion that as a woman, her choice to be in public will most probably result in some form of normalised and socially accepted gender-based street harassment*. This disgusting creep kindly reinforced that notion for her.

Thankfully, the next bus my friend had to catch was creep-free and I met her on it further along the line.

When we reached our bus stop destination, we began to walk down the street towards our friend’s flat.

Lo-and-behold, there was my friend’s harasser on that very same street. He matched her physical description of him and it made sense he would be in the same area as us due to the bus service my friend had first encountered him on. The most telling sign was that he began verbally accosting her again.

Now I have a very low tolerance for bulls**t, and street harassment bulls**t is one kind of bulls**t I will DEFINITELY NOT tolerate.

I turned round to this utter creep and I told him that was he was doing was street harassment. I told him not to harass women. And I pointed my finger at him like he was a naughty child and managed to keep my voice steady despite wanting to freak out.

And it was a success!

He stopped what he was doing through the shock of being tackled for his inappropriate behaviour and my friend and I walked away.

We checked behind us once more to see if the creep as following us but I spotted him in the same place he was standing where I told him off. The shock must have frozen him! I turned to my friend and said, “I suppose this is what real female empowerment feels like.”

* This also counts for LGBQT individuals.

– Franny

Location: Edinburgh

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