It’s International Anti-Street Harassment week (http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/our-work/meetusonthestreet), and I think it’s time for me to share this story. This is what can happen if you stand up for yourself when you are street harassed. This is what can happen, but I’m still not going to stop standing up for myself.
I was walking down the street in SoMa (a busy area in San Francisco) with three of my friends, coming back from lunch on a Tuesday in February. A group of people came up behind us; there were four of us and four of them. I could hear them saying “excuse me” louder than was necessary as they approached, and then the light for us to cross the street turned green. As one of the guys in this group pushed passed me, he grabbed my hip. He turned around to face me, and started to say something, but I cut him off by saying “Don’t touch me.” He proceeded to tell me that he didn’t touch me, but that he was going to and reached out toward me again.
His friend stepped in, and told him to “come on.” She then turned to me, and said “You need to just let it go.” Despite how incorrect her statement was, I said I would let it go, but that her and her friends needed to walk away. Up until this point, this experience was pretty typical as far as being street harassed goes. I usually get street harassed multiple times per day on my way to and from work. I’ve been groped, I’ve been yelled at, I’ve even been followed; what happened next has never happened to me.
The girl kept telling me to let it go, and continued to stand in front of me so that I couldn’t cross the street. I decided it was time to walk away from the situation on my own, because it wasn’t going anywhere. I started to cross the street, and I could hear the girl still yelling things behind me. “Little bitch needs to let it go.” Everything happened so fast that I didn’t have time to protect myself. She ran up behind me, and all of a sudden she was beside me. Her fist hit my face. I was dazed for a second. I could feel the warm, hot blood start to leak out of my nose. My three friends surrounded me as the street harasser and the girl who assaulted me continued to try to shove their way at me while I was trapped against the wall of the San Francisco Chronicle building. I put my own fists up to protect my face, hoping that my attackers wouldn’t see it as a sign that I was ready to fight back. They continued to try to shove their way through my friends for what felt like forever, but was probably only a matter of 30 seconds.
When you get street harassed, you don’t have to stand up for yourself, but I believe that you should. If nobody tells these people that their behavior is wrong and inappropriate, it will keep happening. If nobody speaks up, street harassment won’t stop. Yeah, the risk of the situation escalating is still there, but I know that isn’t going to stop me, that’s for damn sure. I’m going to keep standing up for myself, standing up against street harassment, because no one should have to tolerate it.
titsay
germansingergirl
gummygunk
dededos
theartofmadeline
jacobvanloon
blakekathryn
