Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

When going to the drug store means preparing for battle

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I attended college in Chicago, IL. Being harassed on the street was a daily occurrence. It got to the point where I avoided going outside, unless it was absolutely necessary.

I remember one day I had just really had it with all the harassment, but I really needed to go to the drug store, so I made a quick trip. I put together a game plan before departure.

I dressed in super baggy clothing, with a hood, and put on sun glasses, so that maybe I would be left alone. I walked with my head down across the street to the drug store. I quickly grabbed what I needed and headed back towards home. I thought I was home free when a man tried to talk to me on the street. I decided just to ignore him and keep walking. He got upset and started yelling at me. He got his friend and told him that I thought I was better than everybody. And they both continued to yell at me as I hurried away– all because I didn’t accept his advances.

– Harper S.

Location: Chicago, Illinois

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“No woman should be blamed for encouraging men to act in this way”

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I am a 22 year old British woman and I have never really had many bad experiences in the UK – maybe the odd wolf whistle or comment but I have rarely felt intimidated.

When I moved to the south of France last year, I experienced street harassment on a regular basis. A car drove along, stopped and reversed, which was very intimidating. My friend (also British) and I were walking along the street and some men heard us speaking English and started to harass us. Then they grabbed us and as we walked faster and ignored them, they threw a glass bottle at us. We had glass thrown at us in the middle of the day once before. Luckily, it did not land too near us.

Men have gotten in my face and shouted at me. It would be expected to be groped in a night club.

Never before have I ever felt so intimidated.

When I asked people why men felt it appropriate to do this, I would hear the response that it’s cultural. We, the Brits, encourage it somehow by wearing provocative clothing. I did not wear provocative clothing for this very reason, yet it still happened and besides, that way of thinking is frankly absurd in today’s society.

Women everywhere should feel safe to walk down the street without that feeling of intimidation and the fear as you get hotter and your heart beats faster. No woman should be blamed for encouraging men to act in this way.

– Anonymous

Location: Aix/Marseille, France

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Forty years of street harassment…

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I am a 55 year old woman and I have experienced this kind of harassment since my early teens and still do today. My daughter is 21 and has experienced this kind of harassment since she was 12 years old. We want to know why? What gives certain males the right to tell us what they feel about us as we innocently walk the public highway? I have two sisters, aged 50 and 45 respectively and they too have experienced harrassment from early ages.

The list of types of harassment experienced by just this one family group are as follows:

  1. Being followed whilst walking along – either by a single male i.e around a supermarket in Spain – trying to ‘rub up against’ me from behind as I walked around with my family (I was 14 years old)
  2. As a 16 year old – I was waiting outside my grandma’s house a car pulled up with a single older male inside who asked if I was available for ‘business’ and to get into his car – I was a schoolgirl.
  3. My sisters aged 14 and 9 years were approached as they walked up to my grandma’s house by a group of men in a car and told to ‘get in’ and one even tried to grab my youngest sis to pull her inside.
  4. My daughter, whether she wears skirts, long coats, trousers jeans whatever with or without make-up gets cat called, wolf whistled and jeered whilst walking or waiting at a bus stop. It has come to a point where she is becoming agoraphobic because of this and refuses to go anywhere alone.
  5. I walk home at 9pm most nights and have been subject to shouting from cars packed with young men, being followed twice by two men who stopped me and asked where I was going and even a man in a motorised wheelchair, followed me almost to my street, calling out to me.

It is absolutely unbelievable and only now is there a forum for us to shout about this totally unnerving and bullying offensive behaviour – and I’m sorry but only women understand about this because 99% of the time it is only women who experience this intimidating and invasive behaviour from men.

– S HAY

Location: Happens everywhere in all situations (United Kingdom, Spain)

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“We were told we should not be out at that time of night”

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My Girlfriend and I (we’re lesbian) were walking down the street at midnight in Swansea on a Saturday evening, a male in a car propositions us for sex and makes comments about my legs. in the end I tell him to F**CK off, he then follows us into a car park where my car was park. He only retreats when he sees and hears me call the police.

The police were not one bit interested. In fact we were told we should not be out at that time of night as if it was OUR fault! knowing a bit about how to defend myself as well as my rights, as well as what the police should really be doing I challenged him, he then backtracked and claimed that was his personal opinion.

After complaints to the police, who were still not interested, my persistence and help from my AM Edwina Hart the offender was finally given a warning.

A few weeks later we saw two police officers in a van around about the same location leering at us.. Male police officers are as bad as anyone. Just check out the number of warnings and arrests for prostitution and then the number of men warned or prosecuted for soliciting women for sex… tells you all you want to know about South Wales Police.

– Anonymous

Location: Swansea High Street, South Wales, United Kingdom

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Foul mouth on the train in Scotland and no one did anything

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I was sitting on a train, minding my own business, when a young kid (age about 14/15) got on and sat on the luggage rack beside me.

He was quiet for a while but I knew he was looking at me, up and down, and I became a bit uncomfortable. He then started talking to me, I ignored him, and the words which came out of his mouth were foul. He said things like, “I wonder how soft your p* is” and things which were very very very sexually explicit. I was actually mortified and almost shaking.

There were people on the train, seats in front of me, two women, seat a few up, young healthy business-like men, and I am 100% sure they all heard him. No-one did anything. Not a single person stood up and told him to F Off.. so I endured what seemed like hours (but were in fact a few minutes) of total verbal abuse. I had it in my head that if he tried to touch me I’d stick my pen through his eyeball. But that wasn’t his game.

Eventually we pulled into a station and a guard – who had been sitting 8 seats away – stood up and put ‘the lad’ off the train, all nicey nicey, gently gently. I had no idea he was even there. It was a ‘come on now laddie.. off you go’… touchy feely thing and the boy just grinned..

The ‘guard’ never once spoke to me, never intervened, before, during or after – zilch. When I got off the train I was still shaking. I actually – at 9 am in the morning – walked into a shop and bought a bottle of wine and plastic cups, went into the toilets at work and poured myself a large glass.

I think you’re just not expecting to be assaulted so publically and for no-one to do anything about it. As this site says – I am someones sister, mother, aunty & girlfriend and if communities can’t or won’t do anything to protect their own, who will?

p.s. I was on my way to help with a charity which helps vulnerable adults in the community – sick isn’t it??

– AM

Location: Stirling Train, Scotland, United Kingdom

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