Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

“I’m a grown man & you can’t tell me what to do!

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Photo taken by contributor

I’m out on my lunch break from work, and I wait to cross a light. As I continue on my way, I pass a guy who is heading in the opposite direction. At first I thought he was going to ignore me but instead he mutters a “Girl!” and he starts staring at me as if I’m a piece of meat. Gross.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” I say.

“I don’t mean anything by it,” he says, but his actions belie his words. He was staring at my chest while he was talking! I was wearing a light scarf around my neck which was covering my chest area…what did he think he was going to see?! There was going to be no boob peep show for him!

“Stop looking me up and down and look me in the eyes,” I say.

I have too much experience dealing with harassers and knew how this was going to go. (Regardless, I can’t and won’t change how I deal with harassers.) He then cops an attitude and gets offensive.

“Forget you! Go on and keep walking to where you were going! I’m a grown man and you can’t tell me what to do!” he yells.

“Well this is MY BODY and I have every right to react when someone looks at me inappropriately,” I snap back.

He continues on his way yelling junk, and I yell “That’s why I can’t stand harassers. You go around harassing women but have the nerve to get defensive when called out on your mess. Ignorant!”

I didn’t react fast enough and only caught the back of him (he’s in the navy blue shirt in this photo), but I was fuming.

People wonder why I walk around “looking mean” and having an attitude. When incidents like this happen day in and day out, you’d have an attitude too.

I’m sick of men, specifically Black men – men the same race as I am, constantly degrading me like this. What makes me invisible to harassers of other races but a constant target of men of my own race? I’m not asking to be harassed by men of other races (lord no!), but I’m tired of frequently being targeted by “my own” while they’ll call me “sista.” Don’t call me your sista unless you can respect me like one. I am not an object only good for men’s viewing pleasure. There’s more to me than that.

– Anonymous

Location: M St & Potomac St, DC

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Apology from a harasser

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I walk from the bus stop to get to my job this morning, and a homeless man was sitting outside of Starbucks on M near Wisconsin. He shakes his cup at people walking by, but with me it’s “Hey, gorgeous” and “Hey, mami.”

I walk up to him and tell him that he shouldn’t call women he doesn’t know “gorgeous” and “mami” and that he needs to refer to them as “miss” or “ma’am.” He immediately apologized, said he meant “no disrespect,” and told me to have a nice day. I wished him a nice day as well.

I rarely get apologies from harassers. Usually when they get called out on their behavior they get irate, start throwing insults and get violent. But this guy was genuinely apologetic and I appreciated that.

I wish more harassers would follow his lead.

– Anonymous

Location: Georgetown, DC

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“I don’t like to be disrespected”

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I live in NYC and this is not the first time I have experienced sexual harassment on the transit system. But this one stood out and made me feel so many emotions at once…I just had to post something to get them out.

Around 5:30 p.m on Saint Patrick’s Day, I was on the 5 train to meet up with my sister after work. The train was pretty empty but had (mostly men) around 10 people spread out, sitting down. These two boys get on, I say ‘boys’ because they seemed to be around the ages 16-19, both had hoodies on, both were African American with short black hair. They sit across from me and immediately say loudly, “Why do you have green nails for?” (my nails were painted a dark green), I ignore them and mess with my phone. This obviously pissed them off because then they start saying, “Why she wearing so much makeup? That’s too much makeup.” Well then, mascara and concealer must make me a whore. At this point, my whorish self, couldn’t take it anymore and I said, “I’m not deaf and I don’t like to be disrespected.”

This seemed to shut them up for about 10 seconds, that’s when the insults started pouring out. I was called a, “white bitch”, “racist”, “ugly bitch”, etc. I ignored these while trying to swallow my increasing anger. The one guy then thought it would be fun to rap about me and how I should, “suck big black dicks.”

They both laughed, but one of the boys got up, walked towards me and tried to touch me. Good thing I saw this coming and was able to push him away before he laid a finger on me. This was the last straw, so I took out my phone to take a picture of them. That’s when the big, tough boys showed their true colors…they cowered behind their hoodies. While doing this they proceeded to call me a ‘bitch’ and tell me to, ‘fuck off’.

I got some words in by saying, “What’s the matter? Are you scared of having your picture taken? You sure didn’t seem scared of harassing me?” Both of the boys got up, while covering their faces, to get off the train and I kept my phone pointing towards them. But, before getting off the train one of them spit at me and they both ran off. Luckily, it missed me by 10 miles.

What really upsets me about the situation is that no one on the train did or said anything. And most of the people on the train were older males. They literally just stared at me as I felt anger, sad, and humiliated. These boys didn’t know me nor did I do anything to deserve such treatment. I wanted to cry after what happened and felt so ashamed that I got off of my train so I can switch to another 5, just so the people who witnessed what happened wouldn’t see me anymore.

– K.C.

Location: New York City, NY

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Weekly Round Up March 14, 2010

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Stories:

I accept street harassment submissions from anywhere in the world. Share your story!

In the News:

Announcements:

Resource of the Week:

  • One Angry Girl has many shirts and bumper stickers with anti-street harassment slogans

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“Yes, you are my baby” Ew!

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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.

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