Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

He “only” wanted to follow her

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I was walking back home one night, in my lovely neighborhood in central Paris, it was around 8 or 9 PM. I felt a guy walking towards me and got tense. What effort would I have to produce to make him leave me alone in an efficient way?

The guy began talking to me, the regular bullshit. He was not aggressive but very insistent. I remained calm, didn’t make eye contact but still told him in a polite way I didn’t want anything from him and wanted to be left alone.

The guy literally walked me home – I was almost there when he first approached me. He was just a few meters away from me so I figured I would have time to open the door of my building and quickly get in. I rushed and panicked because I realized he had put his foot in the door. I lived in what used to be the superintendant’s apartment so I had no other locked door to cross, only mine.

The guy came right after me and as I was opening my own door, he kind of rushed and we both fell on the ground of my little apartment. He fell over me, to tell the truth. It was all dark and I was so scared I began peeing on myself – all kinds of visions went through my mind: “So it’s happening to me, now, the door is going to close back on us, the guy is going to rape me and nobody will hear me or even try to come to help.”

It all went very fast. The guy stood up and kind of backed off, I didn’t exactly pushed him or fought or anything like this. He looked a little puzzled and as he was standing there, already out the door, I told him he was crazy and he had to go. He said he was sorry, that he had thought I had entered a staircase and not my own home and that he “only” wanted to follow me (like it’s more honorable, or something.) He finally left in a very neutral manner, like nothing had happened. I was in shock.

I think, at a certain point, he got scared by the whole situation. Maybe he didn’t want to go that far and scare me that much. I don’t think he really knew what he was doing but still, all I really know is that, as is true of many men, he couldn’t take “no” for an answer.

– E. B.

Location: Paris, France

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.

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Don't Women Lose Too?

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anti-harcellement-banniere1As discussed before, a survey conducted by the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights last year found that 83 percent of Egyptian women had been street harassed and about 98 percent of foreign women reported this experience while in Egypt.

In a French newspaper The Observers, Julie Marquet, a French graduate student in history who has backpacked across dozens of European, Asian, and South American countries wrote about her experiences in Cairo. Here is an excerpt:

“I travelled to Egypt with a girlfriend of mine for two weeks in the summer of 2003. We were both 19. It’s my worst travel memory ever: Egypt is not a place you can travel to individually, especially not for two young girls!

Everywhere we went there was some hand groping us, in the street, in buses or trains… They weren’t even shy about it: they grabbed our butts, sometimes even went under our shirts! This happened even if we were careful to wear long-sleeved shirts and pants, even when it was 40°C out! We were told by Franco-Egyptian friends that women weren’t supposed to be too exuberant in public, not to laugh, not to talk loudly, not be noticeable in any way. We tried to be as discreet and invisible as possible, but that didn’t change anything.  If we lashed out angrily at them it didn’t help at all: they would just laugh and never took us seriously.”

Traveling has so many benefits, including the chance to expand one’s horizon and understanding of the human race and world, and it’s a shame women can’t have the same freedom of mobility to go to new places (or old/familiar places for that matter) as men.

Egypt is addressing the high rate of street harassment of female foreigners with a new ad, which The Observers included in their article. The video clip, “shows a typical scène of a vendor harassing a European visitor in a market. At the end, a man’s voice says: ‘If you harass visitors, you’re not the only one who loses. The whole country has to lose.'”

Hmmm. Don’t the women who are harassed lose too, if not significantly more than the men who do the harassing? Like Julie, they have lost the right to be in public without being harassed or fearing harassment even if they try to be invisible…

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Don’t Women Lose Too?

By

anti-harcellement-banniere1As discussed before, a survey conducted by the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights last year found that 83 percent of Egyptian women had been street harassed and about 98 percent of foreign women reported this experience while in Egypt.

In a French newspaper The Observers, Julie Marquet, a French graduate student in history who has backpacked across dozens of European, Asian, and South American countries wrote about her experiences in Cairo. Here is an excerpt:

“I travelled to Egypt with a girlfriend of mine for two weeks in the summer of 2003. We were both 19. It’s my worst travel memory ever: Egypt is not a place you can travel to individually, especially not for two young girls!

Everywhere we went there was some hand groping us, in the street, in buses or trains… They weren’t even shy about it: they grabbed our butts, sometimes even went under our shirts! This happened even if we were careful to wear long-sleeved shirts and pants, even when it was 40°C out! We were told by Franco-Egyptian friends that women weren’t supposed to be too exuberant in public, not to laugh, not to talk loudly, not be noticeable in any way. We tried to be as discreet and invisible as possible, but that didn’t change anything.  If we lashed out angrily at them it didn’t help at all: they would just laugh and never took us seriously.”

Traveling has so many benefits, including the chance to expand one’s horizon and understanding of the human race and world, and it’s a shame women can’t have the same freedom of mobility to go to new places (or old/familiar places for that matter) as men.

Egypt is addressing the high rate of street harassment of female foreigners with a new ad, which The Observers included in their article. The video clip, “shows a typical scène of a vendor harassing a European visitor in a market. At the end, a man’s voice says: ‘If you harass visitors, you’re not the only one who loses. The whole country has to lose.'”

Hmmm. Don’t the women who are harassed lose too, if not significantly more than the men who do the harassing? Like Julie, they have lost the right to be in public without being harassed or fearing harassment even if they try to be invisible…

Share