Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Care to join me?

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The first time that someone harassed me I was 16 and the offender in around 80 years old. I was waiting on my buss listening to music and suddenly this old man is asking me something. I take out one of my headphone and listen what he got to ask. “Is this where the bus to … leaves” (I don’t know where he had to be anymore), so I answer and want to go back to my music, but he starts talking about the second world war and all his friends he has lost. I didn’t want to be rude so listen. I thought: “This is just a lonely old man who needs someone to listen to him once and a while.”

Suddenly his hand is on my leg and I start to feel uncomfortable, but didn’t knew how to react. This was the first time this happened to me. So I move away from him. He pretends it didn’t happen and goes further with his story. After a while his bus arrives and he says: “Oh well. That’s my bus. Care to join me?”

I tell him I didn’t. He keeps repeating his question a couple of times and tries to touch my leg again. I keep saying no. After a while I get sick of it and just leave. This happened 5 years ago and I still feel disgusted by it.

– anonymous

Location: Ghent, Belgium

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They like to get us young

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The first time I was ever made to feel frightened of a man in a public place was when I was 4 years old. We were at West Edmonton Mall and I was walking a little bit behind my mother. A group of guys surrounded me and one picked me up and pretended to carry me away. I screamed and kicked and they put me down. They walked off laughing about the incident.

– Sarah

Location: West Edmonton Mall, Edmonton, Canada

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A small, good thing

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The sun is shining on London’s suburbs. A funfair is in town. People are wandering into the park to take in the atmosphere, try their luck on the coconut shy, or brave the ghost train. The cool lads are hanging about by the park gates, pretending not to care. But secretly they feel like running over to the scariest looking ride and jumping on like the kids they still are. Two girls approach from across the road, heading towards the candyfloss and sawdust, the thrill and dingy sexiness of the fair. One of the boys, he seems like a ringleader of the group, he’s taller and louder than the others. He turns and looks the girls up and down, deliberately resting his eyes on their chests, the bare skin of their bellies where their tops don’t quite reach. ‘OH yes.’ he says, for the benefit of his mates. ‘You are VERY sexy. Hot.’ He doesn’t go so far to block the girls’ way into the park, but he thinks about it. They faulter a little in their step. They know he could do whatever he wanted. But they walk on by, trying to ignore the whistles and catcalls that follow them.

I have witnessed this scene or versions of it, a thousand times before. Sometimes I am one of the girls, other times I am just present, maybe a few feet away, but within earshot and full sight of what is being said and done. I have never intervened in such casual, seemingly ‘innocent’ banter. It is just what boys do isn’t it?

But this time the story didn’t end there. One of the lads, quieter than his friend, looked at his friend and said in a clearly disapproving tone: ‘don’t be stupid. You don’t even know them’. Then he turned away from the agression he’d perceived from his mate, and walked down the street, a couple of the other boys following him.

It wasn’t much. A girl was harassed on her way to the fair. A boy challenged his friend, showing he opposed this harassment, of girls, who the boys didn’t even know to say hello to. It didn’t change the world. But it made me stop in my tracks. I had never seen a man speak out against the sexist behaviour of his friends before, let alone such a young man. It was a small, good thing, and it made me proud.

– @quietriot_girl (cross-posted from her blog)

Location: London, UK

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“It’s not okay to say things like that to strangers”

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I was swiping my card to exit the U Street metro in DC, and a guy standing at the turnstile says, “Hey, why don’t you smile beautiful?” I kept walking but turned around to look at him as I walked away. I was speechless but I wanted him to know that I was watching him. It’s not okay to say things like that to strangers. This is why I wear sunglasses in public–I don’t want their attention!!

– SD

Location: U Street Metro,  Washington, DC

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Constant harassment in San Francisco

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I’ve been living in San Francisco, CA, for a couple of years. I’ve been harassed a few times and I have heard a lot of stories from female friends who have been harassed on the streets of SF.

The first two times, I was visiting SF. I was harassed twice a few days apart. The creeps must have seen that I was a tourist, and figured that I was easy prey. The first guy was standing next to me at a stop light and said he liked my outfit. I said “thank you” and then I ignored him. Next he said that my outfit was “sexy” and when I got peeved he said that I “must want to be looked or I wouldn’t dress like that” and that “I should go hang out with the rest of the whores”.

Afterwards, I felt both shocked and vulnerable and I never wore the same outfit again, even though it wasn’t revealing at all.

The next time, some creep asked me if I needed directions and when I replied, “No, thanks. I’m fine,” he got really irritated and began mocking me.

The third time, a guy saw me reading a map and he was very adamant about giving me a ride in his car to where he was going. He seemed very friendly, but thankfully, I had the common sense of saying no.

The train can be scary, because you can’t easily get away from a guy who, for e.g., says you look good in your leggings or whatever and then gets peeved when you give him the cold shoulder.

Once, on the train, a guy was standing right next to me, it was very crowded, and I had to pretend the whole time that I couldn’t hear him talking to his friend about what my “p***y” must look like.

Another time the train was extremely crowded, and the guy behind me was “bouncing” more than the train was, and I felt something hard on my thigh.

Countless times, I have been hollared at on the street and stared at very inappropriately.

I wish there was something to do, besides ignore these guys, but I feel like there is a long way to go before women can feel safe and respected on the streets here, regardless of their age, looks, outfit etc.

– K.

Location: San Francisco, CA

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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