Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming
I got off the railway station at 10.30 at night and I was walking towards my home which is hardly 2 minutes from the railway station. A group of young men on the road made me feel very unsafe and scared because they made a vulgar gesture at me and tried to block my path with a bike. There were not many people around and i panicked, but I just walked past with a confidence i didn’t feel inside, ignoring the cigarette smoke that they blew into my face.
-Anonymous
I got off the railway station at 10.30 at night and I was walking towards my home which is hardly 2 minutes from the railway station. A group of young men on the road made me feel very unsafe and scared because they made a vulgar gesture at me and tried to block my path with a bike. There were not many people around and i panicked, but I just walked past with a confidence i didn’t feel inside, ignoring the cigarette smoke that they blew into my face.
-Anonymous
There is a problem in the Hispanic Male community. I don’t want this to sound racist, and I apologize if it does. I moved recently from Lincoln Square (North side of Chicago) to Albany Park (2 miles west) and am now in a neighborhood that is a large percentage Hispanic. I want to point out that most of the people are very friendly and I like them. However, since it has gotten warm outside, I have been catcalled, harassed, and followed by men in cars at least once a week.
This has never happened to me before in my life and I am 32 years old and have lived on the North Side of Chicago for over 10 years. The men are always Latino. There is no other explanation other than culture for why this has started happening all of the sudden to me.
To those in the Hispanic/Latino community who care about this issue – PLEASE, teach your boys that it is NOT ok to harass women like they’re meat on the street? There is something wrong with a culture that teaches men that is acceptable.
-Laura
Location: Albany Park, Chicago, Illinois
(Submit your stories here)
[Editor’s note: While I have a policy against racism, I chose to post her submission as she sent it because I did not feel her experiences or opinions were voiced in a malicious or hateful way. Race does play a role in much of gender-based public harassment, especially in the U.S. where race means many things to different people, and so I think it’s important to have dialogue on the issue if it’s done with the purpose of learning and addressing the problem and not being racist. Please see my related post on “piropos” for more about street harassment in Hispanic culture.
But I will note, men of all races harass women of all races and really, American culture teaches men this is acceptable just as much as any other. Just read comments from American men and some women when mainstream news or blogs cover catcalling or more benign forms of street harassment. Inevitably some of the commenters declare the behavior is flattering and men’s right and women ask for it by the way they dress and women overreact and blah blah blah.]
The road close to my street in London is a constant location for harassment. Men hang out in the cafes on the road and leer at passing women in a sometimes threatening, always horrible way. My housemate understandably refuses to walk down the road, I refuse not to.
On Friday night I was walking home at 1 a.m and I was pursued by a man who kept calling out to me. He then started shouting abusively when I became nervous and sped off home, somehow he was offended that a woman walking home late alone would become nervous when pursued by a random stranger. On Sunday, returning from the shops a couple of guys harassed me and turned verbally abusive when I told them where to get off. Action really needs to be taken about this, I’ve considered complaining to my local council. Otherwise I might end up flykicking a stranger in the street!
-anonymous
Location: North London, England
(Submit your stories here)
I was walking down the street in the Bronx to go catch the 6 train. As I’m walking, a man begins to follow me. He began talking to me and started saying things like “what are you? conceited or ugly?” after I had kept walking and not paying attention to him. Since he evidently was becoming annoyed when calling me ugly did not work. I guess he was expecting me to stop and turn around to prove that I’m not ugly nor conceited. He continued on to follow me and explain to me that it is his day off and he can follow me all day. I guess he thought that threatening to stalk a woman is a good way to get her to stop and give him attention. After trying to ignore, I could no longer handle it and was beginning to become frightened, feeling like he really was going to follow me and not leave me alone. Out of nerves, I dialed my friend on my cell phone and asked if she wanted her sweater, since it was left in my house, after she said yes, I did a U-turn and walked across the street back to my house. Thankfully he did not follow.
– Lisa
Location: Bronx, New York
(Submit your stories here)