I went on vacation to Italy with my mom. It was a dream, we went to multiple cities and we fell in love with the country. On our last day in Florence we decided to visit one of its most renown galleries. Around an hour in we noticed this young man…he was in every room we entered and we started getting suspicious. My mom told me he’s following us and I thought there’s no way. She was right, though. This man was in each and every gallery that we were in. He went out before us and magically reappeared in the next area.

We thought maybe he wanted to rob us, but that didn’t take away the fact that we felt harassed as we have never felt before. We decided to wait for 5 minutes seated, and again he was seated two galleries down waiting for us. We talked to an employee and she said if he doesn’t touch or rob you we can’t do anything.

Our last resort was to wait inside the gallery for 30 minutes, but not to our surprise he was there when we finally decided to leave the gallery. When we came back, the man at the door said he couldn’t do anything, just go out and find the police. We decided to find a group of tourist with at least one man that spoke English so we could explain our situation. We found a couple with their mom, they were extremely nice to us and escorted us out of the gallery. The young man was still seated there, outside waiting for us. But he did not look up or even dare to follow us anymore.

This experience really made our trip a bit sour. I was so nervous I was shaking. We lost the rest of our day. We bought something to eat and ate it at the hotel. During our way back I couldn’t stop looking back and making sure we were not being follow. That happened two weeks ago and I still can’t shake off the feeling of impotence.

– Anonymous

Location: Florence, Italy

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See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more idea.

I was walking home in the middle of the afternoon, on the edge of my neighborhood. From across the street, a man was walking in the opposite direction, and I heard the words, “Oooh blonde chick, I’d like to put a stick right up your ass.”

There was no one else in sight, and since I wasn’t even on the same side of the street, I don’t think he even wanted me to have the opportunity to defend myself. He just wanted me to hear it, wanted the satisfaction of knowing he infected my thoughts, that he had control over a single moment in my life, enough to ruin it with ugliness.

– Anonymous

Location: 18th and Walnut, Boulder, CO

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See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more idea.

This incident happened about four years ago. I was living in South Philadelphia back then. I would ride the Broad Street subway to and from work. A few weeks prior to the incident, a young woman had been stabbed by some man on that same line that I rode because she ignored his advances.

I rode the subway everyday and rode home after work during peak hours. This meant full to capacity trains. I was starting to get nervous riding the subway alone, but I didn’t like to drive into the city, parking was expensive! After hearing the story of this young woman I bought a taser.

One night after work, I’m riding the train, usually I keep my headphones in. I had been harassed before and I just made it a habit to wear the headphones so maybe men wouldn’t approach me. I get off at my stop and begin walking home. It was about a ten minute walk. Not too bad. It wasn’t dark so I wasn’t too worried. It was summertime though, and in my neighborhood it seemed like groups of men just sat on their steps, got drunk and hollered at the passing women all day. I tried to always be careful, be aware of my surroundings, keep my music low enough to hear anyone approaching, cross the street just in case the group of men was too large.

Well this night, it was only about 6:30 p.m., I’m walking past these men. I just got off of work and I worked in an office so I had on slacks and a button up blouse. One man started whistling. The kind of whistling you do to call a dog. I was pissed. I wanted so badly to say something but there were about six of them so I keep going. He whistles again, maybe three times. When I get by him he blocks my path, so I tried to cross the street.

Upset that I didn’t react to his “advances”, he decides to grab my arm. He screams, “Yo Bitch, I’m talking to you!” I yank my arm away, but by this time he decides to grab the back of my neck. He whispers to me, “I got something for mean Bitches like you.”

His “crew” were all like man what are you doing? When he turns his head to respond to them, I dig my taser out of my bag, I always kept it within reach and tased him right in the chest. He let go and went down. I stood right there and called 911. Crazy thing was, when the cops got there, they took our statements but I got in trouble because the voltage on my taser was too high. Nothing was done to him, NOTHING! the officers just kept saying, “BUT YOU TASED HIM” I was so angry. It took me a long time to recover. I started driving to work after that.

Optional: What’s one way you think we can make public places safer for everyone?

Although, I got in trouble for mine, I would recommend a taser. Maybe research if they’re legal where you live first. I don’t want to think about what might have happened if he would have taken me inside the house that night. I’ll gladly take a ticket for defending my life, then who knows what….defend yourselves stand up for yourselves. Don’t let anyone get away with disrespecting you.

– SP

Location: South Philly, PA

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See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more idea.

I was at Target with three of my friends (all girls) and one of them wanted to get coffee from the Starbucks that was inside the Target. So the four of us went over and waited in line and it was moving pretty slowly and after a while this guy came up to us. He had a big cart and kindly asked us to let him through and as he was passing us he stopped. He stood really close to us and said, “Did you know that, in my past life, I was hanged for killing young intelligent women like you? I ran them over in a place just like this but of course it wasn’t called Target back then.” We all just stared at him. We were so creeped out. He continued, “Haha I’m just joking. Thank you pretty ladies for taking the time to let me joke with you today.”

None of us were amused or thought he was joking.

Fast-forward about 10 minutes. We had discussed creepy man and one of my friends said he reeked of alcohol and we had seen him talking to another group of people from our school (we were 14/15 at the time) and he touched one of their shoulders so when we had our drinks we got the hell out of there. We were trying to leave before he saw us again and just avoid him all together but that didn’t work so well. He abandoned his cart and followed the four of us for almost five blocks. He even took shortcuts to catch up to us and we sprinted away because we were so terrified.

We were so focused on getting away from him that we forgot about the police station right across the street that everyone said we should have gone to.

Optional: Do you have any suggestions for dealing with harassers and/or ending street harassment in general?

Educate people Educate people about how it is actually offensive and creepy, not a compliment.about how it is actually offensive and creepy, not a compliment.

– Anonymous

Location: Minneapolis, MN

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See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more idea.

I was 14 years old and I was heading to the swimming pool on the 4th floor of the building. It was in the winter so I wore a lot of clothes.

As I entered the elevator, three drunk men followed. During the elevator ride, one of them tried to hug me by my shoulder (it was obvious. It couldn’t have been an accident). I silently moved away, feeling absolutely disgusted. Then another one of them said in a repulsive tone, “Don’t harass such a little girl” (he said that in a way that made it sound so light and that it wasn’t a big deal at all).

The one who tried to harass me added, “Ewwwwww. I didn’t. How could I have my eyes on someone as unattractive as her.”

And then they reached their floor and left, leaving me alone in the elevator. I started crying not only because they completely ruined my evening and tried to harass me, but also because they left such a harsh comment on me. I was at a sensitive age and they action destroyed me.

Now I am 19 and the trauma is still here.

(the dialogue was originally in Chinese.)

– LL

Location: Shanghai, China

Share your street harassment story for the blog.
See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for more idea.