Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming
Walking to the supermarket in Perry Barr, West Midlands, England, the verbal harassment was constant, maybe 10 instances.
– Rhian
Location: Perry Barr, West Midlands, UK
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.
Around the world, street harassment is not taken seriously by politicians, governments, and society at large. But that finally may be changing.
Vicky Simister, founder of the London Anti-Street Harassment Campaign, has been pushing politicians in London to acknowledge and address street harassment. In the few months since she launched the campaign, she’s received political support from local London politicians Diane Abbott and Keith Angus. This good news gets even better.
Today Simister announced that Oona King, a London mayoral candidate for 2012, has promised to make street harassment one of her campaign issues. Simister wrote that King, “will commission police reports on street harassment, ensure local authorities recognize it as a form if violence against women, establish police ‘best practices’, coordinate a poster campaign and more!” (Read the full statement)
This is truly amazing and completely unprecedented! Thank you, thank you, thank you, Simister and King for taking real measures to make London free from street harassment and for raising awareness around the globe that this is a serious issue that deserves serious attention.
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I read this blog regularly and I often notice posts in which a black woman has experienced harassment by black males and that there is a power dynamic of some sort at work there which they can see very clearly. After walking home today, I wondered what white women’s experiences are of this and if/how/why they differ: I have a 5-minute walk home in London from my tube station, through generally quiet suburban streets. It’s very much a multicultural area but I find myself experiencing a disproportionate amount of harassment from young black men.
Today, walking home, I see a guy walking towards me on the same side of the street and I can tell, even before I get near him, that he’s going to say/do something. Right on cue, he moves right over to my side of the pavement [sidewalk], taking up all the space so I can’t get past. I’ve had a good day until this point and am so annoyed I shove into his arm with my bag to get past. He doesn’t do anything, just keep walking, not even that shocked – maybe it happens all the time. Then, turn onto the next street and there’s another guy walking towards me, giving me that same attitude with eyes up and down my body, leering, swaggering. I don’t need this on my 5 minute walk home.
Both these guys were black and I would guess in their late 20s to early 30s, and both had the same attitude towards me which I’ve encountered countless times in London. I don’t know – I’m willing to accept the suggestion that it’s a coincidence. Maybe I ‘project’ something that makes me a likelier target for harassment? And maybe this is exactly what they do to anyone, regardless of race, and it feels ‘racially-oriented’ whether you’re black/white etc. It just feels – call it feminine intuition or whatever you will – that this is a specific, somehow different, attitude to me as a white woman.
I don’t like saying that. It feels like I can’t say that I experience this because it’s me being ‘discriminatory’ in some way. It really feels like this is a taboo subject but it seems to happen so often to me that I am, in some awful way, starting to distrust young black men generally, which is horrible. Has anyone else felt this? Maybe it’s just an attitude that comes from a small group of young guys, influenced by whatever, who are more visible in their harassment because it is so aggressive? I don’t know – I just feel frustrated that I’m not enjoying living where I live because of these incidents….
– Anonymous
Location: North London
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.
I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and I’ve been repeatedly harassed by a panhandler for almost two years. This man has been around for several years, but the first time he really singled me out was in November 2008. He was standing in front of Borders, supposedly collecting for a food drive. I have since heard from various sources that his food drive is bogus. To everyone else, he was saying, “Would you like to donate to the homeless food drive?” But as soon as he saw me, he started shouting insults and foul language. I went into Borders and told the manager, and she called the police. Meanwhile, she went outside to talk to him, and he insulted her as well. He disappeared before the police showed up.
A few months later, this same man bothered me again in front of Borders, calling me “retarded-looking”, among other insults. Ever since then, I’ve tried to avoid him. But then, on April 14, 2010, he singled me out again. This was on my birthday, and I was going to a restaurant where I had a dinner reservation when I saw him sitting on a bench in front of a textbook and supply store in the same part of town as Borders. I crossed the street as soon as I saw him, but he shouted across the street at me, “Retarded-ass woman!” I was so upset that I wanted to call the police right then, but I didn’t want to be late for my birthday dinner (even though I couldn’t enjoy it very much).
After that, I’ve continued to try to avoid this man whenever I could, often walking way out of my way when I happen to spot him. My most recent encounter with him happened last Thursday, when I was eating at a pizza restaurant and he sat down at an outdoor table and stared at me. I told the person who was working at the cash register, and he went outside to tell him to go away. The panhandler left, but I saw him stick out his tongue at me. I asked the man at the restaurant whether anyone else has had trouble with this man, and he said he’s never bothered anyone in the store, but he’s “sort of crazy”. People at Borders have told me that I’m not the only one he bothers, though.
I have written two letters to the Ann Arbor City Council about this man, one right after my birthday and another two months later, but I have not received as much as an acknowledgment in response. I also know that Ann Arbor has a law against panhandling within twelve feet of the entrance to a store, and he constantly violates this law, but the City Council won’t do anything about it.
– Anonymous
Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan
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.