Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Harassment starts so young

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I grew up in Manhattan. One day in 6th or 7th grade, my friends and I got out of school kind of late because of an after-school program. When we left the building there was this homeless guy sitting outside and we didn’t pay him any attention, but were standing around trying to figure out what to do now that we were out for the day. He started mumbling something at us and we started feeling uncomfortable so we started to walk up the street and away from him. Finally, I guess he got mad that we ignored him and he says “Hey! Girl with the yellow back pack!” (I had a bright yellow Jansport,) “I wanna stick my d*ck up your a*s!”

I’ve never been so humiliated and horrified in my life! We all took off running up the street and I just remember looking back at some point and seeing him walking after us. We ducked into a convenience store and luckily it was crowded because he actually followed us in there! I saw him looking over people’s heads to see if he could find us but we stayed low and eventually he went away. Usually I took the train the opposite direction of all my friends to go home, but I was so scared I went home with one of them so I didn’t have to be alone. I was so scared he was going to find me.

My mom was really upset that I had went to my friend’s house without telling her. I remember being so angry that she didn’t understand how scared I was to take the train alone that day after what had happened…

-Ashley JC

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"I wanna watch it bounce"

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When I was living in Cincinnati, OH, I frequently walked or biked everywhere. On several occasions I was harassed, hollored at, whistled at, and at times grabbed. On one particular occasion, a young man yelled at me as I was walking by. I ignored him. The he yelled, ” Damn baby- You thick. Mmm” I guess this was his eloquent way of expressing he was impressed by my curves. I turned, looked at him, shook my head with disgust, and started to walk away again. He followed me and continued his harassment. “Keep walking baby, I wana watch it bounce.” I was so embarrassed, and so angry that I told him, “If you ever speak to me like that again, I will BOUNCE YOU into that telephone pole!” His response, “Oh, baby, be cool, I just wana get to know you.” My response, ” Well, I don’t want to know you.” And I kept walking. As I walked away he yelled, “You’se just a dumb white ho, any damn way.” I felt so angry, and hurt. In hind sight, I probably shouldnt have threatened him, but I felt scared when he kept following me. I just felt dirty and violated.

-Angela

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“I wanna watch it bounce”

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When I was living in Cincinnati, OH, I frequently walked or biked everywhere. On several occasions I was harassed, hollored at, whistled at, and at times grabbed. On one particular occasion, a young man yelled at me as I was walking by. I ignored him. The he yelled, ” Damn baby- You thick. Mmm” I guess this was his eloquent way of expressing he was impressed by my curves. I turned, looked at him, shook my head with disgust, and started to walk away again. He followed me and continued his harassment. “Keep walking baby, I wana watch it bounce.” I was so embarrassed, and so angry that I told him, “If you ever speak to me like that again, I will BOUNCE YOU into that telephone pole!” His response, “Oh, baby, be cool, I just wana get to know you.” My response, ” Well, I don’t want to know you.” And I kept walking. As I walked away he yelled, “You’se just a dumb white ho, any damn way.” I felt so angry, and hurt. In hind sight, I probably shouldnt have threatened him, but I felt scared when he kept following me. I just felt dirty and violated.

-Angela

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Street Harassment while Pregnant

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My name is Shay and I live in southern Indiana. I have experienced street harassment since I was at least 12 years old. I’m 22 years old. I have many situations to share but I have one experience I found quite odd. While I was 8 months pregnant with my daughter I was shopping at the mall. My pregnancy was very obvious. My belly was huge, round, and I had my little pregnancy waddle. I had on a T-shirt and sweat pants. I guess the fact I was carrying a child inside of me didn’t bother this particular guy. While I was waiting for my boyfriend to come out of a store I noticed a guy looking me up and down from a distance and I didn’t pay any mind. I went over to a bench area to sit down for a while and this guy followed me over there. “Aye shawty cum hurreee….. cum on over here… aye, aye, AYE!.” I decided to walk over to another part of the mall to sit, but low and behold this guy followed me there too. I kept ignoring him. “Aye sexy lemme holla atcha” “You gotta man???” I really wanted to cuss him out, but I was so disgusted that I decided to just go into the store my boyfriend was at. We both came out looking to confront him, but the dude was no where to be found. I don’t know if this guy was trying to holla at me as a joke or not, but I felt pretty disturbed by the whole thing.

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I let myself down

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I haven’t been street harassed in a while but I got harassed a few times this past week and I let myself down in how I reacted.

Last Sunday I was on vacation in Utah with my family. My partner was flying in that evening from a conference to spend the last few days of the vacation with us. I had been wearing running clothes the whole time but thought I’d wear some nicer clothes to get him at the airport and maybe they accentuated my “lady parts.” Before going to the airport, I stopped at a gas station to fill up the gas tank and clean the car an uncle was letting me borrow. My credit card wasn’t working at the pump so I had to go inside to see the cashier. You would have thought I walked in there naked or something – all these men inside stopped what they were doing and leered at me. I felt sooo uncomfortable. Then when I was vacuuming the car, a car full of guys at a red light near by were hooting and hollaring out of their windows at me. When I looked up they got louder and I quickly looked away and walked to the other side of the car. I later cried about these instances because I felt so humiliated and also so mad at myself for not doing anything – even though I’ve read, written, talked, blogged about street harassment so many times and know plenty of ways I could have reacted. I also hated that in the back of my mind I was thinking how if I had stayed wearing my running clothes maybe I wouldn’t have gotten harassed even though in the past I’ve gotten harassed the most while running in running clothes.

Then yesterday I got harassed when I was walking from my office to the metro on my way home from work. A couple of guys were sitting together in a park I had to pass and one of them said, “Hey, smile, you’re beautiful” and then when I didn’t make eye contact or say anything, he said, “okay, frown then.” Of course this is pretty benign, but it’s still an invasion of my space and a way to mark me out as a sexual object. Again I did nothing and was just fuming when I got to the metro at the men and again at myself. And again, I thought, geez, I wear a tight shirt to work and look what happens. Even after all I’ve learned about street harassment, that still went through my brain!!

Anyway, I’ve resolved to create my own business cards to hand out to harassing men because confrontations are so hard for me but I think I could be brave enough to hand them a card that says don’t harass women and maybe in time I can get up the courage to tell them.

– holly

Location: Salt Lake City, UT and Washington, DC

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