success story Archives | Stop Street Harassment

Note: This is cross-posted from author Julia Price’s Facebook page.

I was on my usual running path when I heard an older man yelling loudly enough for me to hear through my headphones. “Sexy lady, hey hey hey sexy lady!” He kept screaming it and I decided to just ignore him and keep running.

This ignoring seemed to piss him off so he lashed out and said “eff you, dumb B****!” Now let’s keep in mind he was well-dressed and appeared to be on his lunch break from an office job.

That was my trigger point. The B word. I ripped off my headphones prepared to stand up for myself when this little boy who was walking alongside his mother and little sister in a stroller looked at the guy and said, “Hey. That is not nice to say to her and she didn’t like you yelling at her. You shouldn’t do that because she is a nice girl and I don’t let anyone say mean things to people. She’s a girl like my sister and I will protect her.”

The man was immediately embarrassed and started gathering his lunch to leave. I asked the mother if I could hug the little boy (his name is James) and I told him how grateful I was for him. He just shrugged and said “Well I just wanted to make sure your heart was okay.”

According to his mother, this is a typical day in the life of James. Thank you so much to the mothers and fathers who are raising the next generation to be brave and courageous, and to be little earth angels for all. I am so touched.

I work as a dog walker in NYC, and one afternoon I was walking one of my dogs and waiting at the corner of an intersection for a light to change. As I stood there, a truck for a very well-known delivery company drove by. The driver of the truck turned to ogle me (as he drove) and then made a disgusting, lewd kissing face / noise at me. I was horrified.

Fortunately, though he’d driven too fast for me to catch his license plate number, I recorded the exact time and location that the incident took place. That night, I e-mailed the company and notified them of the incident.

The company responded within 2 – 3 hours (not during normal business hours, either… I got an e-mail at 11 p.m.!). The person who wrote me was incredibly apologetic and informed me that he personally would find out who the driver was and attend to the situation himself. He gave me his direct number and asked if I could give a physical description of the driver, which I did.

A day later he e-mailed me again to let me know that the driver had been removed from the day’s schedule and sent home, and would have to attend meetings with an HR representative and the Director of Operations. It was great to feel like I could actually take action against street harassment and have my concerns taken seriously.

– Anonymous

Location: New York City, New York

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