Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

“These particular occurrences stuck with me’

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I have two distinct separate stories that stood out to me more than all the other incidents of harassment that I’ve dealt with.

The first one happened around the end of July of last year. I was walking to the shop on my dinner break from work whilst on my phone (literally tending to my own business) and this, I would say, 20 y/o guy in a car drove to a traffic light ignorantly playing his music way too loudly. I turned to look at the commotion briefly and then looked back at my phone. The next minute I heard the loudest wolf whistle at my direction (apart from a few maybe 10 y/o boys running past me and an old couple sat on a bench I was the only one there so I knew it was directed at me), I looked back at the guy with a blank expression, clearly with lack of interest and again tended to my own business.

The second story occurred quite recently. I was in Ibiza and stood in the terminal of an airport waiting to board my plane back to the UK and I was looking at nothing in particular when I glanced at this guy who was looking at me. I looked away thinking we had just awkwardly made eye contact and left it at that, five minutes later I caught the guy again, just looking me, and he made absolutely no effort to look away and he continued to just gawk at me for a good and heavy thirty to forty minutes or so. It just baffled me as to how, according to him, it was completely okay to just f*****g look at me up and down with a small grin, like as if he was enjoying it.

I know these stories aren’t that big of a deal compared to other bigger harassment incidents that happen, but these particular occurrences stuck with me more for whatever reason.

– Anonymous

Location: UK and Ibiza airport

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

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“Come here gorgeous”

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I was walking home from a friends house when I was about 13 and I was in my school uniform; shirt, trousers and blazer, when two middle-aged white men came up behind me and started talking about my arse. They started getting closer to me until they were right behind me and they were trying to touch me. Needless to say, at 13 I was terrified, having never dealt with this before, and not in an area where I was familiar, and so I started walking faster, turning every time I could, but they continued to follow me.

I then ran down the street and ended up knocking into a lady walking home with her shopping bags and asked her for directions back to my school so that I would know where I was going to get home. This made the men behind me drop back and eventually I got away from them.

I then arrived on the road opposite my school and as I was walking down (it was a dual carriage way) a man in a van started yelling at me from his window and leaning half of his body out of it, trying to grab at me saying, “Come here gorgeous”.

That was the first time I was ever harassed on the street, but from the age of 11, men I didn’t know catcalled me.

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

It depends on how you feel at the time. At first I was too scared to do anything and so I ran away, but when it was boys from my school doing it, I reported it to my head of year. The next time it happened on the street I kicked the man and ran away because he had his head in my boobs. After a while you get used to having to deal with it, but the best you can do is to report it to someone who can actually do something about it.

– SKA

Location: London, UK

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

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Watch: “I Smile Politely”

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Newly released this week, check out Ness Lyon’s spoken word piece “I Smile Politely,” performed by actress April Hughes. Director of Photography & Editor: Luke Bartlett.

Ness wrote about the back story for The Pool, here is an excerpt:

“I’d been harassed in the street personally as a young woman, and professionally I’d handled sexual harassment cases as an employment solicitor, but it wasn’t until I experienced street harassment in my role as a mother that I felt compelled to publicly speak out.

Last year, on a family holiday in Southeast Asia, the part of the world I grew up in and which I adore, a man in the street made a sexual remark to my 10-year-old daughter that left her feeling terrified. I asked her how she reacted to the man’s comment and she answered, ‘I just smiled politely and quickly walked away.’ I felt a surge of anger: how dare that man make my child feel she had to respond to being sexualised with a polite smile. I told her that if someone made her feel uncomfortable, she shouldn’t feel she had to smile. But then I hesitated, remembering the times in my teens and twenties when I’d been subjected to humiliating, provocative and threatening comments by strangers. Sure, sometimes I’d sworn or glared in response. And on one memorable occasion, merely responded with a look of pure disbelief when a man shouted at me to “smile love for God’s sake, it might never happen’…. when I was in a hospital. ON CRUTCHES.  But a lot of the time, I too had simply smiled politely, not wanting to offend….

I wanted to explore this issue the best way I knew how: by writing about it. I started by having lots of conversations with a diverse group of women, hearing about the various ways they all ‘smile politely’.

I wrote a spoken word piece about it, performed by actress April Hughes (at WOW Festival and in a video to mark Anti-Street Harassment Week)….

My daughter’s phrase of ‘I smiled politely’ was a refrain echoed by nearly every woman I spoke to about street harassment. I want us to change that conversation: why, when we talk about politeness in these situations, is the word usually in relation to the woman in the scenario, and not the man? Instead of expecting us to simply smile, men need to learn to ‘speak politely’.

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Because I wore a skirt that day

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Image by Jill Santos

I still get a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach at gas stations when I’m alone. I would pull over constantly months after the occurrence while driving, in fear I was being followed again. I stopped wearing dresses and skirts for a while, my favorite things to wear. I was blamed for what had happened to me…

A man watched me at a gas station. I paid no attention, pumped gas in my car, and left as quickly as possible. I thought I was being my usual worry-wart self when I sensed he was following me. Through stoplights, unexpected turns, and neighborhood streets all the way to my then college campus I could see that man in his car in my mirror still lingering behind. After calling 911 and luckily having a faculty member help me, he sped away. Once when recounting this experience, it was suggested to me that this occurred because I was wearing a skirt that day and that is why he followed me after spotting me at the gas station.

So when I am out running in jogging pants and a sweater, I am getting whistled at because of what I am wearing? When I am in the grocery store parking lot in winter clothes and a scarf and getting inappropriate comments yelled my way, it is because of what I am wearing? When friends and I are hollered at when walking in the dark, it is because of what we are wearing?

He harassed me that day because of a skirt?

Street harassment is a learned behavior. How can it be addressed when we are focusing on the victim instead of the harasser?

Street harassment continues its prevalence towards anyone, wearing anything, anywhere. I cannot count the number of times I have been catcalled in my 21 years and it is disgusting at how frequent this occurs to myself and those around me. Hearing “smile, beautiful” or a whistle or “it was a compliment” just makes me cringe. Street harassment has become a social norm among cultures where this behavior is considered tolerable. Victims are the ones left to alter their actions and behaviors expecting these interactions to occur.

Although I think back often to that experience any time I feel anxiety creeping up or may feel even the slightest hesitation leaving the house in a skirt, I know now that I was the victim. I know I am not alone in the world with people experiencing street harassment daily. It may be difficult to think about your experience, let alone write it for others to read- but someone who reads it could relate it to their own experience and think “there’s nothing I could have done to prevent it from happening, it wasn’t my fault, and it wasn’t because of the way I was dressed.” At least I try to remind myself that and sharing your story could remind others too.

Jill Santos is a 21-year-old college senior, a califoregon girl. Follow her on Instagram @jiillionaire

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