I’ve dealt with sexual harassment since the beginning of high school. I am in my last semester of college and recently, it has been more frequent and worse.

At my school, I am constantly harassed when I go out by cat calls and demeaning comments from my male classmates. I have had classmates of mine contact me via facebook to hook up and have sex. When I am out with my friends, men have grabbed my ass.

A couple of weekends ago I went to ISU to visit my friend’s sister. When we went out I was disrespected by three different men. The second said derogatory statements and called me a bitch. The third tried to shove food in my mouth and when I refused to let a stranger shove food in my face, he took the food and threw it in my face while telling me to suck his dick.

I was devastated after that weekend.

I feel uncomfortable dressing up and going out at colleges and universities. I am suffering greatly from this constant abuse . People know me to be a very strong person and it is hard to stand up for myself time after time with no support.

– Alpha

Location: ISU and SJC

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I am 20 years old. I was waiting for the train on 59th street in NYC and rubbing my eye because it was dry, when a middle aged man approached me and leered at me. He said, “Don’t cry baby,” flirtatiously, moving close. I gave him a dirty look and raised my voice, declaring, “Nobody’s crying. And don’t call me baby, I am NOT your baby.”

I moved away from him and everyone was staring at him (and at me). But at that point, I didn’t care. I had put up with stares and harrassment all my life in my own neighborhood and couldn’t even commute without the daily dose of harrassing behavior, including from a guy who sat next to me in an empty train car and told me to take my headphones off because it was “against the law” according to him, since he wished to speak to me.

I am sick of that sense of entitlement that some harrassers have towards women. I DON’T owe you anything, and you need to st op invading my space.

– SA

Location: 59th street & Lexington train station, NYC

Yes, indeed, I have a vagina, but I do not need to be constantly reminded of it.

I am a woman. I have been living in Barcelona for 10 years and nearly every day I am harassed by men. Nearly every day, as I go about my daily business, I endure leering, cat calls, whistles, honking, kisses, lewd slurping noises and sexually explicit gestures with the fingers, tongues, hands. This is all unpleasant enough if it weren’t often accompanied by sexual remarks about my body, breasts, and genitalia, offers of sex and other sexual acts, or lascivious details about what the sexual encounter would entail. Sometimes there is unsolicited physical contact, other times the harasser exposes himself or masturbates. The harassment occurs nearly anywhere and at any time of the day. The harassers are of all ages (pubescent boys to aged men) and races (white Catalan/Spanish, South American, Middle Eastern, but interestingly NEVER black). The harassers are ALWAYS male.

I am a woman and I am harassed by men on a daily basis. It never happens when I am accompanied by another male. But it does happen when I am accompanied by my young daughter.

I am a woman and I am harassed. I want it to stop. I want it to stop for me and I want it to stop for my daughter and I want it to stop for all women. We women deserve to be free to live our lives in peace.

I am a woman. I am harassed. I am tired of living a life being harassed by men.

– Anonymous

Location: Barcelona, Spain

I live on a busy high street and experience some level of sexual harassment pretty much everyday. Sometimes I find it so depressing it stops me from leaving the house. There is a butchers right next to my door, and the men who work there always like to leer and comment when I walk past.

One time I was walking on my own, in the day time, through a park nearby, and was confronted by one of these men who insisted that ‘he knew me’ and would not leave me alone. I responded, as I largely do, by ignoring him, which left me feeling frustrated and powerless. Luckily on this occassion he did not pursue me, but I still felt vulnerable and somewhat violated.

Sometimes I lose it, and have formerly told street harassers to ‘fuck off’, but that only seems to instigate some sort of self righteous or aggressive response where I get called a bitch or told that it was just a compliment.

To be honest I never really know what to do, and find myself walking on with my head down, humiliated. Recently at a party I was chatting to a man who found my stories of sexual street harassment completely incredulous, asking me in a bemused fashion ‘what? these can’t be English men…’.

I have experienced sexual harassment from every kind of man imaginable- of course including English men- alone and in groups. It is a male-wide epidemic. The lack of comprehension as to the daily experiences of so many women seems completely inaccusable to me, and I full heartedly support any endeavour that aims to not only stamp out street harassment, but educate men as to the full implications such behaviour have upon women.

– Anna

Location: London, UK

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