Doing my shopping after work in Little Five Points. I still had on my work uniform, and it was incredibly hot. I have to walk from the train station to the district, and by the time I finally reached the store I wanted to go to, I was sweating bullets.

As I’m approaching the doors to this shop, two men are standing on the street. The sidewalk is narrow, and while these men don’t block my path, they will be fairly close to me as I pass by. I walk past, completely in my own world, until the bald-headed one yells at me, and I’ll quote, “Stop frowning, smile goddamnit!” His partner started laughing.

And I tried not to let that get to me. I left the store 30 minutes after finding a great pair of jeans and the men were gone, I got a great studded purse after leaving the district…but every time I think about this, I get a hot spasm of anger.

Second story submitted to this map, but yeah.

– Jaleesa

Location: Atlanta (Little Five Points), GA

My very good female friend lives just two doors down from me and I was leaving her flat tonight – we stood on the steps together and were laughing raucously as we said goodbye. A guy walking past started to shout something up at us, which we couldn’t hear, but he kept at it and was determined to interrupt our laughter.

I left my friends to enter the front door to my flat – which is opposite a bus stop – and was carrying a pizza box. Some guy standing at the bus stop waited until I was just going through the door (coward!) and shouted ‘You want someone to share that pizza with?’ (Er, yeah – I just shared it with my friends. You know, friends, not seedy older men who shout at women in the street…)

So a nice double whammy for me there. What I find very interesting about this harassment is that in the first instance my friend and I were laughing very loudly, and in doing so were noisy and in ownership of the street were we live. I think the man walking past just couldn’t bear to let that go unchallenged. He had to remind us that the street was male space – and only ‘manslaughter’ should be heard, not the laughter of women.

The second instance was just the usual, but I think there was an inference of ‘you shouldn’t be eating a whole pizza by yourself, you should be starving yourself for the sake of making yourself tiny and skeletal so men will find you attractive’. I don’t think he seriously expected me to invite him in for pizza, so the only motivation for him to shout was to intimidate and weirdly ‘guilt-trip’ me.

– CB

Location: Newcastle upon Tyne, England UK