Check out my Huffington Post op-ed about how public sexual harassment/street harassment should be illegal.
Thanks Op-Ed Project and my mentor-editor for all the help!
In the Huffington Post
“Yes, you are my baby” Ew!
Damn! This is my third harassment submission this week. The warmer weather has brought the fools out full force.
Right when I get off the bus to head to work this morning, this scrub leans into me and says “Good morning, baby.” I respond with “I’m not your baby!”
Then he says “Yes, you are my baby!” Ew!
Frustrated, I pull out my phone in an attempt to snap his photo, and he yells “Aw, shit!” and starts running, but not without yelling “Bye, bitch!” as he turns left off of M and onto Wisconsin Avenue, thinking he was going to get away.
“Ignorant!” I snapped. “I am not a bitch!”
Though I refused to run, I followed him. He continued running down Wisconsin, heading south towards K Street.
He makes a left turn into some alley, and unfortunately I lost him. I make a left turn into where I thought he went, which was near a place I believe was called the Georgetown Ministry. I believe this was a homeless shelter. I asked the people waiting in front of it if they’d seen him, giving a description of him (middle-aged Black male, average height, above-average build, wearing a red hockey jersey that said “blazers” in white on the back), but unfortunately they hadn’t.
“Are we supposed to be looking out for him?” one man asked. I didn’t know what to say.
“Uh, he’s just someone who’s no good,” I said. I thanked them and walked off.
I’m so upset right now I just don’t know what to do. I was originally upset that I wouldn’t have time to run for my morning coffee. Then I was upset that this idiot ruined my day by calling me his “baby” then calling me a “bitch.” I was also upset that I couldn’t get his photo and he got away with demeaning me. To top that off, I was late for work and my boss doesn’t like me, she being one who completely ignores me and looks at her feet anytime I come her way (even if I try to be pleasant and talk to her), and when she did that to me this morning, I nearly lost it.
I stopped talking to family and friends about my harassment because they tell me to “accept a compliment,” ignore them and not to react. They’re going to say “you shouldn’t have followed him” and stuff like that. How the hell are they going to tell me how to feel and react when they don’t go what I go through?
I feel that today’s harassment incident was a domino effect of negative events, and not a great way to start the beginning of what was such a warm and beautiful morning.
– anonymous
Location: Georgetown, Washington, DC
Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Include your location and it will be added to the Street Harassment Map.
Ogling like a cartoon character
My story today did not happen on the street, but at work. I was getting ready to get out of the elevator when the elevator door opened and in stepped a man. He immediately began to ask how my day was, and I noticed that his eyes were constantly glancing up and down my body. As I walked out of the elevator, I heard the man whisper “wow”.
I turned around to catch him sticking his head out of the window almost cartoon-like, staring at my butt. He mumbled a quick “sorry” and the door closed, but it is not enough. I’m so mad about this. I can’t be safe from anyone’s nasty thoughts in even the most secluded, quiet workplace. I’m furious and feel disgusted.
– LJ
Location: Danvers, MA
Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Include your location and it will be added to the Street Harassment Map.
“That’s what I’m talking about”
I was cutting through the courtyard of the building I work at this morning, and from the outdoor elevator tower I hear “Mmm-mmm-mmm!” and “That’s what I’m talking about.”
I look in the direction of where it was coming from and see an older man, old enough to be my father, peeking from one side of the tower, dressed in the blue uniform of the workers that service our building.
I look again and then he’s peeking from the other side of the tower. Then he says “Hello.” Instead of returning his “hello,” I called him “strange.”
Since I believe he’s one of the workers that do maintenance for my office building, I think he’d be fairly easy to track down and report. I hope so.
– anonymous
Location: Georgetown area, Washington, DC
Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Include your location and it will be added to the Street Harassment Map.
The person you said ‘Hey Baby’ to is a lesbian
Yesterday I was excited to read about the first same-sex couple marrying in Washington, DC. Equal rights for all! What I didn’t notice in the Washington Post article I read was the mention of street harassment until my partner pointed it out.
“A man [Angelisa] Young sees almost every day, who normally greets her with a jokingly flirtatious ‘Hey, baby!’ was conspicuously silent when she saw him the day after the courthouse. She wanted to tell him, ‘Believe it or not, the person you said ‘Hey, baby’ to on March 2 was also a lesbian with a partner.”
I’m really glad she mentioned this (and that my partner pointed it out). The differing impact street harassment has on LBQT women compared to heterosexual ciswomen is an important topic that is rarely talked about.
Men still proposition and sexually harass women who appear to be heterosexual, even if they are not. This is the epitome of heterosexual male privilege: assuming every woman he sees on the street is single, heterosexual or bisexual, and interested in his attention. This assumption wholly denies the sexual identity of women who are not. While many, even most, heterosexual and bisexual women want nothing to do with the men who approach them on the street, women who have no sexual interest in men especially do not. Male harassers do not give women that choice.
Scholar Tiffanie Heben wrote in her article “A Radical Reshaping of the Law: Interpreting and Remedying Street Harassment” how street harassment by a man who interprets a woman to be heterosexual can function to deny the woman of her sexual identity. His actions remind her that her true sexual identity is a “deviance” from the sexual orientation norm he is projecting onto her. She may also be frightened because she fears that if he finds out her sexual orientation he will become violent.
Meanwhile, women who do not appear to be heterosexual or who do not conform to their birth sex (such as transwomen) can be harassed for that reason, often with hateful violence and threats. Gary David Comstock, a professor of religion at Wesleyan University, studied violence against lesbian and gay people and found that 86 percent of the openly lesbian women he surveyed had been the victims of anti-lesbian verbal harassment as a result of their sexual orientation. More women of color than white women reported such harassment.
I cover this topic more in my forthcoming book.
Thoughts or stories from readers about how sexual orientation and gender expression impacts gender-based street harassment?