Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

“No one asked if I was ok”

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I was walking along the street yesterday afternoon. A man walking towards me catcalled me (hello beautiful, sexy etc etc). I felt angry and (not very eloquently) responded with ‘shut up, wanker’. I had assumed he was alone but he then called out to his girlfriend/wife/whatever declaring that I’d called him a wanker. I kept walking and tried to get on the bus, she followed me grabbed me by the hair and then knocked me to the ground yelling ‘you f***ing slag’ at me. I stood up and went towards the bus, they both continued to yell at me, again calling me a ‘slag’ and asking why I was calling him a wanker and asserting that ‘He was giving me a compliment’ and ‘who did I think I was?’ There was an entire bus of people watching. No one asked if I was ok.

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

Educate boys and men about why catcalling is unacceptable

– Anonymous

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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USA: When Does Street Harassment Begin?

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Liz Merino, Massachusetts, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

Boston chalking for International Anti-Street Harassment Week 2015
Boston chalking for International Anti-Street Harassment Week 2015

When does street harassment begin? I asked myself this the other day. When can I remember instances throughout my life that someone has sexualized my body without my consent?

There are really too many too count.

The news does capture some of it. Blips and glances, reels of one rape case or harassment of another, slowly turning, always changing, lighting up the television screen until something more repulsing replaces it.

Between sexist school dress codes, elite school rape cases and the systematic rape-based theology of Yazidi women carried out by of ISIS soldiers; I can’t help but feel helpless.

When does the sexualization of a woman begin? When does it really end?

Street harassment occurs every day. It happens on busy sidewalk streets during the morning hours when the sun is just slinking over the horizon. It happens on poorly lit streets after a night out with friends, causing some women to wonder if they will even make it home to see their loved ones again.

It happens on public transportation, city sidewalks and country back roads. Sexual harassment happens in the hallways of our schools and in the corners of our office spaces.

Sexual harassment doesn’t need an actual street to happen. It just needs a man with a sense of entitlement that reaches far beyond a normal scope of perception.

Don’t draw attention to yourself, but be sure people know you are there and carry your keys for protection, but don’t let them jingle or they will hear that too. Pull the top of your shirt up if you don’t want the attention, but stop, not every man is looking, not everyone is a predator. But cover your drink and watch your back just in case, because if they get you it’s always your fault. But you’re probably lying anyways, right?

Street harassment hurts. It creates a world in which men believe that a woman is their property simply for being in a public space.

If men can call you a slut on the street, take upskirt pictures of you in a grocery store or ask you to suck their dick from behind a car window, what will they really do to you when they get you all alone?

Priyanka, 23, a resident of New York City recounted her first experience of street harassment:

“The first place that I can truly remember it occurring was in the Middle East in one of the nicer malls. There would always be guys standing in a row near the theatre, just staring at you walking by and whistling or following you eventually. It was creepy and I didn’t appreciate the attention. I didn’t like feeling like a piece of meat.”

Having a vagina and a set of breasts is not a welcome mat upon which to lay your comments or your opinion or your crass approval of my body.

Street harassment is not a compliment. The oversexualization of women has never been “something nice” or “just something to do.” Funny how a woman can go from “sexy “and “honey” to stark raving mad, like a feral dog, when she rebuffs a man’s advances responds with how she really feels.

A woman is not a prude, stuck up cunt just because she doesn’t want you to grope her on the subway.

Jade, 21, a California resident echoed the same sentiment as Priyanka:

“I remember driving with an older guy friend, who was like my brother. He thought it was so funny to catcall women and he said, ‘If I see something I like I want to tell them.’ I tried to explain how uncomfortable it makes girls feel and he just didn’t understand that women are not here for his viewing pleasure. I don’t understand what men think they will get out of it. I am not going to hop in your car and I’m definitely not going to give you my number because you honked at me and said I have a nice ass. You are someone that I would make sure to stay far away from.”

Compared to a lot of other things I wrote in this article, the following incident isn’t that big of a deal. Or maybe in comparison, there are other bigger, more important things happening that people should care more about.

The one incident that has been popping into my mind happened during my freshman year of high school. I was wearing a tank top and a cardigan with a pair of sweatpants. I was 15.

As I was walking to class a teacher pulled me aside, a woman at that, and told me to pull up my shirt because it was “too low” and “I shouldn’t have worn it to school.”

I was embarrassed, mortified, I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. So I pulled up my shirt and hid my barely there boobs as a 15-year-old because I was “distracting,” “improper” “not appropriate.”

I hid my body because it was not deemed to be appropriate.

That line of thinking followed me into my sophomore year of college. During a sociology class discussion of street harassment, I finally realized that my body, my visible breasts and butt, thighs and flesh, the rough patches on my elbows and the bits of my baby toes were mine. Mine.

My body was not improper, but the way people view it and think about it is.

During this class I recounted a story of how my roommate and I were spending the day in NYC. It was hot, and my roommate had worn a beautiful sequin skirt, shiny and incandescent in the sunshine. We walked along laughing and smiling, taking in the city sights on our way to the Metropolitan Museum.

Street by street though, men called out to her. “Motherf***ing gorgeous,” “legs for days,” “hey sexy, come over here.” I watched as my roommate, a tall brunette with a wide smile and a contagious kindness folded into herself, hunching over and staring at the sidewalk, embarrassed by the attention she had drawn.

Before we got to the museum, she changed into a pair of pants she had in her bag. She covered herself to shield us both from the men old enough to be her father lusting after her.

She too felt her body was inappropriate, too much, asking for it. It killed me to watch it happen, and it kills me to see it now.

The only person a body belongs to is the one who can feel its heart beating from the inside. A woman is not a walking vagina, here for your pleasure only. She has two eyes, a nose and lungs, she breathes and loves and walks and thinks just like you.

And she feels.

Street harassment is not a compliment. Sexualizing women constantly is not acceptable. We know better. We can do better.

If you don’t believe street harassment, or the plight women suffer every day is actually an issue please educate yourself. If after reading and researching the topic you still don’t see the problem, rest assured we all do for you, because you are a part of it.

Liz is a recent graduate of Hofstra University with a Bachelor of Arts Journalism degree. She is currently a staff writer for a marketing agency in Boston. Follow her on Twitter @slizmerino and Instagram @elizabethmerino93.

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“Not one damn soul on earth has the right to talk about my body the way you just did”

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Dear Man in the Blue Minivan,

Sometimes street harassment isn’t calling me ʺbaby,ʺ asking me to smile, or commenting on my outfit. Sometimes street harassment isn’t on the day when I wore a cute top and got attention, or when I am walking home late from a bar and my hair is tossed.

Sometimes, street harassment is in broad daylight, on my way to work, and not in the form of a ʺcompliment.ʺ

Today, street harassment was a man from the comfort of his car, waiting to turn on a walk signal, angrily yelling at me to ʺmove my fat ass along.ʺ

Sadly, I’ve grown fairly used to street harassment in my daily life; I’ve perfected the sunglasses-on, earbuds-in, ʺcan’t see, can’t hear youʺ technique. Granted, most of these harassers use words to get my attention disguised as a compliment, perhaps a chance to make me blush. I’ve never said anything or asked them to stop —

Sunglasses-on, earbuds-in.

But, today I wanted to say something. Not just because you degraded me with an asinine insult or because our interaction was within earshot of coworkers. Today is different because I’ve realized something. Thanks to you, I realized not one damn soul on earth has the right to talk about my body the way you just did.

Including myself.

I’ve struggled with body image issues most of my life. The words you threw at me are the same I’ve said quietly in my head, wishing my fat ass would just hurry along. I have belittled and disrespected myself in more ways than you ever could.

You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you that I hate intersection crosswalks. Seems unreasonable, right? But, I hate them. I abhor the feeling of a dozen cars lined up, fixing their gaze on the people walking through a crosswalk. I’ll get a flurry of thoughts all at once; is my skirt too short? Did I wear something too tight? Do I look too large? Can they all see me?

After years of growing stronger, learning to love myself and step broadly into the sun for all to see, you took a small sliver of that acquired love-of-self away from me. All at once, I became afraid of crosswalks again. Not because a car might hit me if I miss the light, but because your vulgar words made you feel empowered and stripped me of my confidence. I hate that I allowed you to make me feel that way and that you have managed to stain that area of the street with memories of your negligent and unnecessary pass of judgement.

To the woman on the sidewalk who said, ʺthat’s so rudeʺ and shook her head when he drove off, thank you. Your three simple words in solidarity were my saving grace and snap back to reality, that no one, not even myself, has the right to disrespect my body.

So, dear man in the blue minivan, I will use my body in the best way I know how — to share this story and inspire others to feel a little braver when they step into a crosswalk. To be what the woman on the sidewalk was to me: solidarity.

Sincerely,

Sara

Location: Washington, DC (intersection near Logan Circle)

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

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On a day of happiness, I could not escape street harassment

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Me on this day, about an hour or so before the men street harassed me.
Walking to get married, about an hour before the men street harassed me.

My partner and I have been together for more than 12 years. For a number of reasons (including same-sex marriage now being legal across the USA) we did a civil service to legally marry earlier this month in Las Vegas, Nevada, while my partner was there on business. We got our license, walked a building over for a civil service ceremony and it was all done in an hour. Easy, low-cost.

My uncle lives in Las Vegas and after our ceremony (only attended by our witness, one of my cousins), my partner and I went to a grocery store to get food for dinner at his house. I didn’t wear a “wedding dress” but I was wearing a dress I bought for $25 at TJ Max.

We got back to the car and I had forgotten hummus. I went back inside alone.

On my way out of the store alone, two men told me I looked beautiful. It felt like the lead up to harassment but I thought, give them the benefit of the doubt, “you look beautiful” on it’s own isn’t really harassment (though since men don’t hear that as they walk around, it does reinforce sexism and that women’s value is our looks)… so I smiled and I said thanks… and they immediately launched into loud sexually explicit descriptions of my body as they disappeared into the grocery store. I cringed. I felt violated and dirty. And – because internalized victim blaming is hard to overcome – I thought, why didn’t I change out of my dress before walking around in public alone?

It upsets me that even on a day of happiness with my best friend, I could not escape street harassment. There is NO escape. I’m now in my 30s. I live in the suburbs and mostly work from home and mostly drive places. Compared to a decade ago, I can go days and sometimes weeks without facing street harassment. But there is still no way to permanently escape it. That makes me feel really angry, frustrated, and sometimes defeated.

This incident also reminded me that if it’s not blatant harassment at the onset, it’s hard to know how to deal with it, especially when you have 1 second to decide and can’t formulate a super clever retort. Should I have ignored them? Told them “that’s harassment” for simply saying I was beautiful? I doubt it would have mattered how I responded.

Ultimately it wasn’t about me, it was about them. They probably could care less how I felt or responded…. just like most harassers. They just felt entitled to my attention, my space, for their own reasons. And women are often raised to be polite, so we mostly put up with it, demure, deflect, appease, and avoid, especially when it starts off with something as seemingly innocent as “you look beautiful,” “what are you reading” or “what’s your name?”

This happened more than two weeks ago. I only decided now to write about it after reading this excellent Guardian article by Daisy Buchanan, “I’m tired of being kind to creepy men in order to stay safe.” This is an excerpt:

“We’ve all been bothered by persistent guys who pester us relentlessly, believing themselves to be entitled to our company and more. We’re under pressure to be polite and manage their expectations. Ignored men are angry men, and it’s horrible to sit silently while a man shouts at a packed carriage: “She thinks she’s too good to talk to me!”

When it comes to responding to harassers, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t – and sometimes it gets to the point when dealing with entitled idiots is so exhausting that you feel safer staying at home…

[We need] to create spaces where all women feel they are safe to look their harasser in the eye and say: “Leave me alone. I do not want to talk to you.” Because I’m tired of being kind to the creeps in order to stay safe. And I don’t want to stay in.”

The full article is worth a read.

This is my message to men: Please think twice before approaching a woman you don’t know in a public space. Think twice before you open your mouth. I don’t care if you’re not a harasser. Too many of you are and every woman has been harassed before. Unless she’s in danger or dropped something, just think twice about it. We don’t owe you our attention nor should we have to be polite to you even if we’ve and you’ve been raised to think that we should.

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“I just want to go outside and feel safe for once”

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I’m a 17 year-old African-American girl, and I’ve never felt safe when in public on my own. Whether I’m on my way to work or headed downtown to hang out with friends, men feel the need to make remarks on how I look.

And it’s always older men. Men much older than me who make remarks on my appearance and call me beautiful and make me feel uncomfortable and vulnerable.

I used to think that maybe it ways the way I was dressing or how I did my hair that attracted all this unwanted attention. One day during summer, I was on my way to the public library to get some homework done. I stepped out of my house with my hair in a low pony-tail and a casual outfit, (leggings, oversized t-shirt, sneakers). Right away three men across the street had their eyes on me and watched me cross the street. One block away, an older man spotted me and said, ʺHey beautiful, how you doingʺ and on that same block another older man fixing his car looked me up and down and said, ʺHey how’s it going.ʺ As I entered the library another man yelled at me but I walked away quickly.

A few hours later, I started to head home. Crossing the street one man looked at me and told me I was a ʺblessed young ladyʺ and a construction worker got in my way just to say hello.

This is why I feel so unsafe when I go out alone. I always feel like people are watching me and I hate it. I just want to go outside and feel safe for once.

It’s not fair that at such a young age I’m scared to go out and enjoy a nice day because I’m worried about my well-being. But the sad reality is that I’m probably never going to feel safe when I’m out alone.

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

Security guards? They always make me feel safer

– Anonymous

Location: San Francisco, CA

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

Share