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“I feel as though I’m the one who was wrong”

June 13, 2017 By Contributor

Well, It was 4 days ago and was a normal day as any other but while taking a via bus this strange, old man got on. However at the time I didn’t think anything of it. He then started shouting that he needed sugar because he was a diabetic and when he got some he settled down.

I got off the bus and sat at a stop to wait for my second bus. He followed me and sat next to me and again I didn’t think anything of it. I just wanted to go home. He started talking to me and telling me that i had to talk to him or he would go into a coma, I was scared and just wanted to be at home. I then told him the bus was coming soon and if he really needed help to go into a store and tell them what was happening.

He ignored me and told me about how he had been in jail for four days and proceeded to call me sugar and kiss my bare arm. I completely froze. I didn’t know what to do and he kept touching my arms and trying to hold my hands. At this point I was terrified. I finally came to and told him I was late for work and shot up although this didn’t stop his advances as he shouted “wow” and swung his arm back at an attempt to slap my butt. I panicked and in a split second screamed no and ran.

On my way home all I wanted to do was cry. I felt disgusted with myself. I felt like an object and all I kept thinking was how I let it happen and I was the one at fault because I hadn’t stopped it sooner. I felt like it was my fault because I didn’t immediately say no. It took me a moment or two to convince myself that I didn’t do anything wrong, but it’s still something that’s hard for me to grasp. Even now as I’m writing this I feel as though I’m the one who was wrong.

– E.S.

Location: San Antonio via bus station

Need support? Call the toll-free National Street Harassment hotline: 855-897-5910

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“I am so young and I feel like I don’t deserve this”

June 4, 2017 By Contributor

So I am 13 years old and I started facing street harassment when I was 12. It scares me because the older I get, the more I hear those kind of comments. It is always about my body and when I hear those comments I get really scared and I fear saying something because I don’t know how they will react. I started watching these experiments on YouTube and now I realize how much this happens in the world. It’s the scariest when you’re such young age because you don’t know how to react, you don’t know if you should say something or not. Most of the time when I go somewhere it is with my friends or family, but when I have to go home or go to school that’s when they harass me. This is starting to become like a fear and now I’m scared that these things will happen again and I am so young and I feel like I don’t deserve this. I’m trying to find help because I don’t know what to do when these things happen.

– Kyla

Location: In the mall and in town

Need support? Call the toll-free National Street Harassment hotline: 855-897-5910

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“I feel mentally violated and disgusted.”

June 2, 2017 By Contributor

Why do men think being creepy and saying lewd things is attractive to any living woman? You don’t hear women saying such things or treating men this way. I feel mentally violated and disgusted.

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

Stop being ignorant. Women are people so treat them how you would like to be treated.

– Anonymous

Need support? Call the toll-free National Street Harassment hotline: 855-897-5910

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See the book 50 Stories about Stopping Street Harassers for idea
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End of May News Round-Ups

June 1, 2017 By HKearl

LeDajrick Cox. Image via The Grio

It’s with a heavy heart that I open this edition of the monthly news round-up with tragic news:

  • In Dallas, Texas, LeDajrick Cox, who just graduated from high school, and two male friends and a female friend were out celebrating. In a 7-11 parking lot, three men in another car started street harassing their female friend, and Cox intervened to defend her. Eventually, Cox and his friends left but the three men followed them and shot into the car. Cox and the two other young men were all injured and Cox died from his injuries. A young life is needlessly over. I applaud him for doing the right thing and am so saddened he is dead.
  • In Portland, Oregon, a white supremacist began harassing two young women on a train, using anti-Muslim slurs. One woman was wearing hijab. When three men intervened to help the young women, the man attacked, killing two of them and injuring one. Again this is just unbelievably horrific and sad. There have been many news stories about the tragedy and praise given to the three men. I glad they intervened but feel so saddened that for two of them, it cost them their lives. That never should have happened.
  • In College Park, Maryland, a white supremacist seemingly randomly stabbed and killed a recent African American college graduate near the University of Maryland campus.
  • In Manchester, UK, a suicide bomber attacked an Ariana Grande concert that was mainly attended by teenage and tween-age girls. More than 20 people died and even more were injured.

Everyone should be safe in public spaces, and clearly we have a long, long ways to go until that will occur. I hope these stories don’t deter people from speaking out and helping people facing harassment and I hope that those who have committed these crimes face consequences and that perhaps those consequences will deter others from doing the same.

Here are highlights of other news from around the world this month:

The first mandatory legal mediation in the first ever street sexual harassment case in the country took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

A woman in Adelaide, Australia, wrote about being scared to walk the streets of her own town after dark.

A study found that 23% of female commuters in Dhaka, Bangladesh, faces sexual harassment on the buses.

Men in Egypt are working with other men to discuss their role and actions as bystanders, perpetrators and victims of violence, including street harassment.

Outraged women in an eastern Parisian district of France staged demonstrations and launched an online petition over a “male den” where women are subject to harassment and sexist remarks.

A woman in Hong Kong spoke out against people who victim-blame women facing street harassment.

In India, the Alwar police formed an all-women team to crack down on people harassing women and girls on city streets.

School girls in India went on a hunger strike to protest the men who harassed them on their way to and from school and the lack of action by local officials to stop them.

In an informal survey conducted in Myanmar, more than 80% of women had faced street harassment.

Three women’s groups urged Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela Monday to sign a bill meant to prohibit and punish sexual harassment, stalking, sexism and racism in all areas.

The penalty for taking non-consensual upskirt photos increased in Thailand.

In the UK, a bar posted a sign to deter male customers from harassing the female bartender.

A new report from Harvard Graduate School of Education found that 87% of women in the U.S. have faced sexual harassment. Among 18 to 25 year olds, most said they had faced sexual harassment, including 41% saying a stranger had touched them without permission.

Prior to the Lightning in a Bottle music festival in Los Angeles (USA), there was a class offered for fans and staff about sexual harassment at festivals, “Creating Safer-Braver Spaces: Consent Culture & Social Care”.

Most U.S. cities were designed around men and it’s time for that to change.

In the U.S., Feminista Jones began responding to strange men who “complimented” her by agreeing… and then the men get mad. She said in an interview:

“For a man to be comfortable sending an unsolicited comment about your body via text or Tinder or Bumble or whatever, or to feel comfortable yelling some shit at you on the sidewalk, he has to feel — at least in some small way — like you exist for him. If you take those compliments in stride instead of blushing and cooing and being the Good Modest Woman he hopes your mother raised you to be, you’re proving you don’t exist for him at all. Your “great body” belongs to you, and of course that’s gonna piss this exact type of dude off.”

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Filed Under: News stories, race, Resources, street harassment

“What right does someone have to determine my value?”

May 22, 2017 By Contributor

Tonight I was wearing a dress and walking my dog, at around 7 pm. I walked past a certain house and I heard one man yell to me, “10 bucks.” Then I heard his friend say, “5 bucks.”

As if they were ranking my sexual attractiveness. I found this to be quite insulting. First, of all what right does someone have to determine my value? Second, by saying 10 bucks assumes that I would give them permission to touch me for that amount, or that they have a right to touch my body even without my consent. Finally, I was minding my own business and did not deserve intrusive insults about my perceived sexuality. It made me feel devalued, valued according to attractiveness, violated and emotionally upset.

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

Make laws preventing sexual harassment, end male entitlement, and the objectification of women’s bodies.

– Anonymous

Location: Canada

Need support? Call the toll-free National Street Harassment hotline: 855-897-5910

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

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Filed Under: Stories, street harassment

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