A takeout guy on a bicycle kept looking at me inappropriately, then tried to get my attention me as I passed him. “Hola,” he said. I walked faster.

“HOLA!” he cried harder, as if I would stop because he said it louder. I almost ran across the street in my rush to escape him.

At the train station right after, I was followed by a creepy middle-aged man who kept trying to whisper in my ear. I tried to walk away to different parts of the train station, to get away from him and blend in more with the crowd. He followed me wherever I went.

I finally yelled, “Leave me alone!” He tried to act all innocently and say, “Who me?” with a smug smirk on his face. I stared back at him and said, “Yes, you.” He finally stopped following me, since he had been humiliated in front a crowd of people.

Some days, the harassment in my neighborhood is so invasive and frequent it’s like a bubble I constantly try to escape from. I have had a middle-aged man follow me to the library. One time, a guy was handing out pamphlets and asked whether or not I spoke English just because I chose to ignore his pestering me by saying “you’re beautiful, what are you 18?”

Another time, a guy rudely asserted that I shouldn’t wear headphones on the train, as he sat down right next to me in an empty train car, because I should listen to him say good morning. Um, no thank you.

Screw street harassment. Screw the foolish, rude, disgusting, ugly on the inside at the very least, street harassers. I hope one day they learn to respect women and not treat them as if they’re entitled to their attention. When you harass, even if you gaze intensely, you become an ugly pathetic version of yourself. I hope they realize that one day.

– SpeakOut

I haven’t been harassed for quite some time but I will mention something that happened the other day which annoyed me.

I had to go to a meeting and I didn’t have my coat to wear because it was in the wash. So I just had to put up with the cold weather. I was wearing a halter neck jumper [sweater] (one which sort of bares your chest) but not your breasts! Though just a little bit of cleavage was showing. As I was waiting for the bus, a man in a car stared at my chest as he drove past.

Then after the meeting, I had just missed my bus by a few seconds. My next one was in 15 minutes. I waited miserably in the freezing wind silently cussing the bus I had just missed. I was clutching some leaflets in my hands and I decided to read them and as I was a van beeped at me and a man shouted “hey”! at me. I didn’t know him.

I was already ticked off that I had missed the bus and was cold but that idiot in the van just made it that little bit worse for me…. can’t a woman just go about her way in peace?

– Clarice

Location: South Wales, UK

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Not so much on the street. But I was singing karaoke in a bar one night, drinking water, alone with my BFF. While attempting to go to the bathroom some random woman reaches out to feel my breasts and was slurring some kind of “compliment.”

I threw up my hands in defense, warded her off and she sulkily replied she was just so fascinated by my “tiny little boobies” (her words) and wanted to feel if they were real (I have very small breasts, and have never enjoyed strangers making remarks about my body).

Although I successfully warded off her hands the incident ruined the rest of my night. I went home in a foul mood and was crying quite a bit after I got to bed and hugged my stuffed monkey.

– KAR

Location: In a neighborhood bar accessible by tourists. Las Vegas, NV USA

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