• About Us
    • What Is Street Harassment?
    • Why Stopping Street Harassment Matters
    • Meet the Team
      • Board of Directors
      • Past Board Members
    • In The Media
  • Our Work
    • National Street Harassment Hotline
    • International Anti-Street Harassment Week
    • Blog Correspondents
      • Past SSH Correspondents
    • Safe Public Spaces Mentoring Program
    • Publications
    • National Studies
    • Campaigns against Companies
    • Washington, D.C. Activism
  • Our Books
  • Donate
  • Store

Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Home
  • Blog
    • Harassment Stories
    • Blog Correspondents
    • Street Respect Stories
  • Help & Advice
    • National Street Harassment Hotline
    • Dealing With Harassers
      • Assertive Responses
      • Reporting Harassers
      • Bystander Responses
      • Creative Responses
    • What to Do Before or After Harassment
    • Street Harassment and the Law
  • Resources
    • Definitions
    • Statistics
    • Articles & Books
    • Anti-Harassment Groups & Campaigns
    • Male Allies
      • Educating Boys & Men
      • How to Talk to Women
      • Bystander Tips
    • Video Clips
    • Images & Flyers
  • Take Community Action
  • Contact

“Live up to the bravery you find inside you”

April 11, 2016 By BPurdy

Britnae Purdy, Past SSH Blog Correspondent and Anti-Street Harassment Week Manager

Switzerland, Image from the author
Switzerland. Image via the author

This past summer, at age 23, I experienced complete freedom of movement for the first time. I have been driving for eight years, living out of the family home for six – but because I am a woman my ability to move freely though the world on my own time schedule is often limited by either overt threats or an internalized sense of fear. You’ve heard them – get home before dark. Don’t wear that skirt downtown. Text a friend when you arrive home so they know you’re safe. Don’t walk alone. Not exactly conducive to a busy schedule.

I didn’t entirely know what to expect when I moved to Switzerland to pursue an internship opportunity at the World Health Organization. I applied on a whim – I was newly graduated and terminally unemployed. In no realm of reality did I expect to actually land it, and when I did I surprised myself even more by accepting immediately. The next couple weeks were a tizzy of navigating the visa system, booking flights, finding housing, and shoving as much French into my brain as I could.

I was nervous the entire time. Could I actually do this? Was it safe? All the travel materials I read assured me that Geneva was a safe place – but of course, my US hometown is supposed to be as well. In today’s world, safety seems more and more subjective. I’m not a daring person – why on earth would I think I could do this?

The first time I rode public transportation in Geneva, two days after arriving, was to a work function that ended up keeping me out long past dark. I was literally shaking the entire ride home, though the city’s busiest stops, where I briefly got lost switching lines, and to my apartment on the far, far side of town. I would never do this on the Washington DC Metro.

Not a single person bothered me that night. Nor the next night. In fact, throughout the three months I spent in Geneva I was not verbally or physically harassed once.

Slowly, I realized that the fears I learned in the United States were not necessarily universal. In the US, and indeed many places of the world, public spaces are  often not welcoming of certain genders, races, and other identities. It’s difficult to reconcile this against the image of America that I love and am proud of – but undoubtedly, some of these fears and experiences had become ingrained in my mind.

My new sense of freedom was a delicious thing. I took the usual precautions of course – assault and other crimes do happen everywhere, after all, but I never felt particularly in danger because of my gender. If I needed something from a store across town, I went. If I stayed late at work and missed the bus, I walked. If I wanted to visit a tourist site across town on my day off, I didn’t feel the need to drag a friend along. When temperatures climbed to 100 F I wore a mini-skirt and went out anyway.

Eventually my new bravery led me to take trips outside of the country by myself, as well as solo train trips to all four regions of Switzerland. Where I once was a timid traveler who often avoided social situations due to extreme anxiety, I now relished the process of picking, planning, and enjoying a trip all by myself. My confidence at work flourished. My French improved; my German went from nonexistent to…well, barely existent. If I ran across a problem I felt emboldened and competent to sort it out on my own. I felt more at home in the world.

Switzerland. Image via the author
Switzerland. Image via the author

I’m not saying this to tout Switzerland as the best country in the world, or start some kind of comparison between countries. What I do know is that my time in Switzerland shook up my deeply engrained sense of how I could travel and move as a woman. I now firmly believe that solo travel – whether domestically or abroad, long or short – can open up so many possibilities and lessons you might not even see coming.  If I hadn’t pushed through my fears of traveling alone, I might never have known that such a freedom was possible. I’m ten times less timid than I was before I took a chance and jumped on that plane.

In today’s world, travel can be scary – even more so if you’re a solo female traveler. Be smart, be informed, be precautious, be nervous – but go anyway.

Soak it in. Bring back what you learn. Grow in ways you didn’t think you could. Demand the world acknowledge you as a full human being despite any differences you may have from the status quo. Live up to the bravery you find inside you.

Britnae Purdy is a health professional and freelance writer currently in Durham, NC. Her travel blog, Nerding Abroad, focuses on promoting pragmatic, feminist, and yes, nerdy travel.

Share

Filed Under: anti-street harassment week, Stories, Street Respect Tagged With: switzerland, travel

The Netherlands: Female Hitchhikers Defy Highway Harassment (Part 1)

May 21, 2015 By Correspondent

Julka Szymańska, the Netherlands, SSH Blog Correspondent

Hitchhiking: it’s as old as the road itself, but not everyone feels comfortable with the idea of hopping into a stranger’s vehicle for a ride. This may especially be true for women who are warned about the possibility of harassment or assault while hitchhiking. Yet hitchhiking still has its popularity and plenty of women are hitting the road with their thumb or a sign. So who are these women and why are they getting into a car with complete strangers?

Paulina.

Paulina is a brave 21 year old, born in Poland and currently living in Denmark. Two years ago she embarked on her first hitchhiking journey and ever since that first trip she has used most of her time off school to travel, contributing to her 20.000 kilometers on the road with her thumb. She wanted to see more of Europe’s many different cultures, but didn’t have much money, so hitchhiking was the perfect solution for this desire to explore.

Out of many positive experiences, she did encountered one negative situation: while hitchhiking with her friend in Georgia she was groped by a man after accepting his apparent hospitality. Fortunately they could get away by excusing themselves.

“Hitchhiking is more dangerous for women, women aren’t as physically strong and we risk rape too of course”, Paulina explains. “But i have pepper spray to keep myself safe and I use the ring my grandmother gave me as a fake engagement ring to communicate that I’m not looking for sex. ”She takes pride in being a rule breaker and doesn’t think too deeply about harassment: “If I start worrying about this, I could as well just stop hitchhiking and I don’t want that.”

Paulina’s golden tip for hitchhiking as a woman: “Be careful, but don’t stop traveling. Take a friend with you and you’ll gather memories you will never forget.”

Marjan.

Founder of Dutch hitchhiking foundation Nederland Lift, 36 year old Marjan is a mother of two and hitchhikes to work every Wednesday. She writes about these weekly 15-minute trips on her Dutch-language blog LiftGeluk.nl. After 124 rides in one and a half years Marjan is still hopelessly addicted to hitchhiking and the spontaneous, fun, and sometimes touching encounters she has along the way.

Marjan has never personally encountered any harassment during hitchhiking, but attributes this to the time of day and the short drive to her destination. She also acknowledges that there’s a world of difference between a confident 36 year old woman with plenty of experience and –for example– an unprepared 18 year old.

“An interesting aspect of hitchhiking is the anonymous, yet very real contact you make with people who you would otherwise not have a conversation with, this is unique,” Marjan proclaims. “Hitchhiking negates prejudice: you share a car with people of all walks of life. I believe this brings people closer together.”

Marjan speaks out against the bad reputation hitchhiking has due to harassment by explaining that people often blame hitchhiking, but not trains or buses, where it happens too. The harasser is responsible, not the method of transportation.

“Hitchhiking is a lot like life itself: you never know what comes your way, but it sure is beautiful”, is her motto.

Elisa.

Spanish Audio-Visual Communication student, feminist and acting aficionado Elisa just returned from traveling around the USA by finding rides through word of mouth networking and the Internet. This 23 year old, armed with her camera, overcame her insecurity of traveling alone by deciding to ‘just do it’ and isn’t planning on stopping any time soon.

Elisa is very clear in her convictions: “I believe that discouraging women to travel alone for fear of harassment can lead to victim-blaming. We live in a sexist society where women are told that we cannot do the same things a man can do without hearing ‘I told you so’ if something bad happens.” She wants to disprove that point by doing exactly what people say she can’t do: hitchhike and travel alone, regardless of harassment. “We should do something about harassment and empower women to not be stopped by fear, because otherwise it will paralyze us. I think the solution is to put tools (such as feminism) in the hands of both women and men to prevent harassment.”

Harassment happens in your own neighbourhood too, Elisa calls this ‘the enemy at home’, an enemy women are less prepared for when crossing their own street. “Being scared all the time is no way to live, but during hitchhiking it is something you have more control over.” Elisa carefully selects who to accept a ride from and writes down license plates: she’s aware of the risks and has trust in herself and others.

Stay tuned for the second part of this series next month.

Julka is a 25-year-old feminist activist and soon-to-be Cultural Science student with a generous amount of life experiences -including street harassment – and even more passion for social justice.

Share

Filed Under: correspondents, Stories, street harassment Tagged With: hitchhiking, travel

Don't Women Lose Too?

April 14, 2009 By HKearl

anti-harcellement-banniere1As discussed before, a survey conducted by the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights last year found that 83 percent of Egyptian women had been street harassed and about 98 percent of foreign women reported this experience while in Egypt.

In a French newspaper The Observers, Julie Marquet, a French graduate student in history who has backpacked across dozens of European, Asian, and South American countries wrote about her experiences in Cairo. Here is an excerpt:

“I travelled to Egypt with a girlfriend of mine for two weeks in the summer of 2003. We were both 19. It’s my worst travel memory ever: Egypt is not a place you can travel to individually, especially not for two young girls!

Everywhere we went there was some hand groping us, in the street, in buses or trains… They weren’t even shy about it: they grabbed our butts, sometimes even went under our shirts! This happened even if we were careful to wear long-sleeved shirts and pants, even when it was 40°C out! We were told by Franco-Egyptian friends that women weren’t supposed to be too exuberant in public, not to laugh, not to talk loudly, not be noticeable in any way. We tried to be as discreet and invisible as possible, but that didn’t change anything.  If we lashed out angrily at them it didn’t help at all: they would just laugh and never took us seriously.”

Traveling has so many benefits, including the chance to expand one’s horizon and understanding of the human race and world, and it’s a shame women can’t have the same freedom of mobility to go to new places (or old/familiar places for that matter) as men.

Egypt is addressing the high rate of street harassment of female foreigners with a new ad, which The Observers included in their article. The video clip, “shows a typical scène of a vendor harassing a European visitor in a market. At the end, a man’s voice says: ‘If you harass visitors, you’re not the only one who loses. The whole country has to lose.'”

Hmmm. Don’t the women who are harassed lose too, if not significantly more than the men who do the harassing? Like Julie, they have lost the right to be in public without being harassed or fearing harassment even if they try to be invisible…

Share

Filed Under: Administrator, News stories Tagged With: backpacking, Cairo, Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights, foreign harassment, france, julie marquet, sexual harassment, travel

Don’t Women Lose Too?

April 14, 2009 By HKearl

anti-harcellement-banniere1As discussed before, a survey conducted by the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights last year found that 83 percent of Egyptian women had been street harassed and about 98 percent of foreign women reported this experience while in Egypt.

In a French newspaper The Observers, Julie Marquet, a French graduate student in history who has backpacked across dozens of European, Asian, and South American countries wrote about her experiences in Cairo. Here is an excerpt:

“I travelled to Egypt with a girlfriend of mine for two weeks in the summer of 2003. We were both 19. It’s my worst travel memory ever: Egypt is not a place you can travel to individually, especially not for two young girls!

Everywhere we went there was some hand groping us, in the street, in buses or trains… They weren’t even shy about it: they grabbed our butts, sometimes even went under our shirts! This happened even if we were careful to wear long-sleeved shirts and pants, even when it was 40°C out! We were told by Franco-Egyptian friends that women weren’t supposed to be too exuberant in public, not to laugh, not to talk loudly, not be noticeable in any way. We tried to be as discreet and invisible as possible, but that didn’t change anything.  If we lashed out angrily at them it didn’t help at all: they would just laugh and never took us seriously.”

Traveling has so many benefits, including the chance to expand one’s horizon and understanding of the human race and world, and it’s a shame women can’t have the same freedom of mobility to go to new places (or old/familiar places for that matter) as men.

Egypt is addressing the high rate of street harassment of female foreigners with a new ad, which The Observers included in their article. The video clip, “shows a typical scène of a vendor harassing a European visitor in a market. At the end, a man’s voice says: ‘If you harass visitors, you’re not the only one who loses. The whole country has to lose.'”

Hmmm. Don’t the women who are harassed lose too, if not significantly more than the men who do the harassing? Like Julie, they have lost the right to be in public without being harassed or fearing harassment even if they try to be invisible…

Share

Filed Under: Administrator, News stories Tagged With: backpacking, Cairo, Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights, foreign harassment, france, julie marquet, sexual harassment, travel

Share Your Story

Share your street harassment story for the blog. Donate Now

From the Blog

  • #MeToo 2024 Study Released Today
  • Join International Anti-Street Harassment Week 2022
  • Giving Tuesday – Fund the Hotline
  • Thank You – International Anti-Street Harassment Week 2021
  • Share Your Story – Safecity and Catcalls Collaboration

Buy the Book

  • Contact
  • Events
  • Join Us
  • Donate
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Copyright © 2025 Stop Street Harassment · Website Design by Sarah Marie Lacy