Our 2019 nationally representative study shows that around 71% of women in the U.S. have experienced street harassment, as have 28% of men. It’s clearly a huge problem.
In the nearly 13 years that I have been researching, writing and speaking out about street harassment, I have noticed a common theme when women recall their early experiences with street harassment: the perpetrators were not usually boys their own age, but instead, men.
I recently created an online survey to investigate this (thank you to everyone who took it!), and I was shocked-but-not-shocked by the results.
Around 250 people (245) took the online survey, and 94% identified as female. Approximately 2.5% identified as male and 2.5% as nonbinary.
Around 59% said the first experience of street harassment occurred in the United States; 23% said it occurred in Europe; 7% said it occurred in a place in North America besides the U.S.; 6% said it occurred in Asia; 2% said it took place in South America and 2% said it took place in Australia.
RESPONDENTS’ AGE:
When asked about their age at the time of their first experience of street harassment, they were quite young.
- Almost 70% said they were 13 years old or younger. Of those women, 51% said they were 11-13 years old, 18% said 10 years or younger.
- Another 24% percent said they were 14 to 16 years old.
- The remaining 7% were older than 16.
HARASSER/S:
Among the respondents, most said the person/s who first harassed them were male: 59 percent said it was committed by one man and 38 percent said it was committed by two or more men.
AGE OF HARASSER/S:
When asked about the age of these men, the age difference was alarming; 55% said the men were in their 30s or older. Specifically:
- 8% said the men were in their 50s
- 20% said the men were in their 40s
- 27% said the men were in their 30s
- 22% said the men were in their 20s
- 12% said the boys were in their teens, but older than them
- 7% said the boys were their same age
The remaining 4% of respondents said the harassers were either younger than them or older than 50s. Again, to reiterate, most girls were elementary or middle school age and nearly all of them were high school age or younger at the time.
When asked about the age of the people who usually harassed them during their first few years that they experienced street harassment, 91% of people said they were older than them, while 6% said they weren’t sure and 3% said they were the same age or younger.
THOUGHTS ON THE AGE DIFFERENCE:
In an open-ended section of the survey, people could opt to share how the age difference made them feel. While a few said they were creeped out or upset no matter the age of the harasser, most said the when the harasser was an older man, it was different. Here are examples:
“It felt more threatening, inappropriate, and sexualizing.”
“It is instantly more predatory and plays even more on power dynamics.”
“If the harasser is closer to my age, I will see it as a harmless way to flirt but when the person is 30 years my senior, it becomes alarming due to the predatory nature this scenario then takes on.”
“I knew they knew more than me, had more experience than me, and could easily overpower me, being men, and not boys. I also know they had more means to do harm. Access to drugs, cars, guns, things I knew I probably couldn’t imagine. They had way more power.”
“There is more of a power differential, and as a young person I didn’t have a full context for what was happening, which felt more unsettling.”
“When I first started encountering street harassment from ages 14-15, I was mostly confused. Something about being catcalled by grown men felt wrong and creepy, but I also felt like I was supposed to be grateful for the attention, or like it meant I was fulfilling the adult female idea of attractiveness. I was conflicted between my gut feelings and my ideas about what women were supposed to be.”
“They knew I was underage and seemed to relish that fact. Plus, they usually were in cars and I live in a place with high rated of sex trafficking and am a black woman. All of those factors together, and I was terrified.”
“I was creeped out when I was 9 and 35 year olds were hitting on me.”
“being harassed by boys the same age was bad but did not feel as scary or obscene.”
“it is absolutely disgusting when a 50-year-old man comments on your 12 year old boobs.”
“i feel scared, and i feel like I’m not in charge of my own body.”
“Yes, because I’m 14, so if the harasser is much older than me, I find it disgusting that an older man would sexualize a kid.”
HOW IT AFFECTED RESPONDENTS:
Their first experience of street harassment significantly affected most of the people.
- Around 80% said this first incident of street harassment caused them to feel less safe in the world.
- 75% said it changed how they felt about being in public spaces. y 54% said it caused them to change their life in some way.
- 58% said it changed how they felt about themselves.
- 53% said it caused them to alter their life in some way.
WHAT HAPPENED:
In an open-ended section, people could opt to share what happened in their first street harassment incident, when most of them were 16 years old or younger and most harassers were in their 30s or older. You can read the full list of responses, and here are five examples.
“I was 8 or 9 in a 7-11 with my mother. A man, maybe 50 or 60 came up to me and said something around the lines of ‘you’re looking real pretty in that little skirt, maybe you wanna let me see under it?’ I didn’t understand what it meant at the time, but when my mother came over to yell at the man she explained it to me and I was horrified.”
“He walked along a public street with us three little girls as we walked to school. He took his erect penis out of his pants, said it was a banana and asked us to touch it.”
“Around 9 p.m. a man in his thirties pulled his car up and rolled down the window and asked if he would give me 100 dollars if I would come in his car and have sex with him (I was 13 and he was around 30).”
“I was on my way to my middle school, in Queens. It was a group of about three or four guys around their late 30s and early 40s. They catcalled, then shouted sexual things out to me.”
“A grown man yelled at me that he would ‘rather like’ to have sex with me. I was 12.”
OTHER THOUGHTS:
In another open-ended question, people could share any additional information they wanted. Here are the responses, with a few examples following:
“Street harassment is debilitating, and I feel the effects from it every day.”
“I wish my mother had prepared me in some way for this. It got worse with age as more men harassed me in increasingly more vulgar and aggressive ways.”
“My parents consistently blamed women for “asking for it” with what they wear so I never had a trustworthy adult to support me.”
“I’ve been harassed more times than I could ever imagine being able to count. I’m now 24, at one point harassment from men on my way to work or university was every time I left the house, I didn’t leave the house for 2 weeks at one point, when I did it was to buy food and I was harassed by a man in the supermarket car park, then followed into the store by him. Every time I mention street harassment I’m met with a smirk as though I’m making a big deal out of nothing, it can be so lonely.”
“More recently, my boyfriend and I were walking around after going to the movies. Where we were walking was by a busy street. A small car with two guys who looked around 19-20 (we are in high school) rolled down the window of their car and proceeded to poke fun at my boy friend’s appearance. They commented on his acne, long legs, glasses and hair. I started crying as soon as they drove off. I swore to him that we wouldn’t ever walk down that street again. Just proof that verbal/street harassment can happen to anyone! Everyone needs to be aware of this problem, no matter what your gender may be.”
