“Can I have a Crunchie?” “You’re sexy, do you have a boyfriend?” oh Texaco..
New submission from Kim
Last night after a couple of wines with friends I was on my way home, which was a 5 minute bike journey, when I decided I wanted some chocolate. It was just after 11.30pm when I popped into the local Texaco. As the doors were shut, I approached the attendant through the window and asked for a Crunchie bar and a bar of Dairy Milk. I was in good spirits and a tad tipsy.
The attendants response was “you’re sexy” at first I chose to ignore his inappropriate comment and repeated my request for the two chocolate bars. I was then asked if I had a boyfriend.
At this point I lost my patience, and my good spirited mood, informed him I would be laying a formal complaint and walked out, pissed off and chocolate-less!
When I got home I googled an email address for Texaco and wrote them a complaint, asking for the staff member’s name and what action would be taken.
I wonder if it will be taken seriously, or if I’ll even get a response. I’m so sick of being treated this way by men, especially those stupid enough to do it at work. I’m ready to start fighting back!
One of these companies employs a harasser…
New submission from Jen Beaty-Love
This afternoon, Friday 4 May, at approximately 5:25pm, I was headed home from grocery shopping, walking down St. John Street to get to my house next to St. Bart’s Hospital in Smithfield. I make this walk almost every day, and while the neighbourhood is generally civil and courteous, I am almost always made to feel uneasy when walking past this particular office.
There are usually at least two or three men outside smoking who stop their conversation and stare when someone walks past. Today however, one of them, a white man in his early to mid twenties with close-cropped, possibly slightly gelled/spiked strawberry blonde hair decided to make a loud comment along the lines of “Wow, would you look at that!” which ignored after making a disgusted face and kept walking. Not content to let that slide, he got louder and more vulgar, then started whistling and shouting, stepping out of the alcove to make sure I heard as I continued to walk. I stuck my middle finger in the air behind me and he shouted about how I must REALLY want it, then started following me while his buddy snickered. I tried to take a picture of him, only to have my phone battery die at that exact moment.
In frustration, I shouted for him to fuck off, hoping to startle him and attract attention…the sidewalk was not very crowded at the moment and I don’t think anyone had much chance to notice anything. I went back a little later and snapped that photo of the building itself. I wish I knew which company he works for. I’m thinking of going back after the weekend and asking to speak with someone in security.
Maybe there is CCTV footage. Any advice would be much appreciated.
“Now I even get comments from Deptford library staff about me being a slut.”
New submission from Beth
My experience has been going on for a long time.
About a year ago a female student, called out, as I walked by “There’s the whore!” Well, needless to say, I am nothing of the sort but this kind of comment, from Goldsmiths University, New Cross, has become part of my daily life. I live not far from the college.
Some nights the students stand outside my flat talking loudly about me being a whore.
This has being going on for so long now and I strongly believe that they just decided to pick on me and ruin my life. Now I even get comments from Deptford library staff about me being a slut.
I have decided to fight back by returning the abuser an insult when they shout things like that about me.
My life has been ruined. I am often scared to leave the house as I am so sick of the situation.
‘I was alarmed and scared as it was so strange- and I got up and moved away to the front of the bus, saying nothing.’
A man sat behind me on a bus I was travelling on at 8am in May 2011.
He was leaning forward- which I could tell out of the corner of my eye, but i though he was doing up his shoe laces.
I gradually felt more uncomfortable, and could feel something on my side at bum level- like a thread.
I then realised he was very lightly stroking my side- and had been doing so, on and off,for some minutes.
I was alarmed and scared as it was so strange- and I got up and moved away to the front of the bus, saying nothing.
He then got off and I went down and told the driver. He didn’t sound like he was going to do anything, and didnt radio or take any details down. When I got to work I called TFL to report it. I was really shaken up.
Will anything happen?- Will any cameras be looked at/ any similar incidents be tied to this, to stop his behaviour escalating? I doubt it very much.
‘He forgot to turn his flash off first’
I was on the train on my way home from a night out, and this guy sitting opposite me took a picture of my legs – he just forgot to turn his flash off first. it was really humiliating and i didn’t know what to say because I didn’t want to create a scene. he just sat there smirking so i decided to take a picture back of him, and also to move seats. still, i felt pretty powerless. i don’t know why men think it’s their right.
News – On Wolf Whistling, Media Blitz & Sensationalism
We have had quite a busy month here at HollabackLDN. Along with the Government finally signing up to the European convention on domestic violence, came the most recent flurry of media interest in HollabackLDN, as increasing mentions of outlawing wolf-whistling drew more and more attention from the sensationalists.
While the media were overwhelmingly concerned with what they see as the more ‘petty’ symptoms of street harassment, namely wolf-whistling, coverage was wide, and that can be no bad thing. In the space of a few days we appeared in four national newspapers, The Guardian, The Sun, The Daily Mail and The Sunday Telegraph and on a number of radio stations including BBC Radio 5live, BBC Wales, BBC Birmingham, SPIN Southwest and SPIN Dublin in Ireland, and Talk Radio Europe in Spain. The theme that rose again and again was the perceived threat to (predominantly male) freedom of speech, and the right to wolf-whistle. What we talk about is that wolf-whistling is part of a spectrum of behaviours that create certain environments or dictate patterns of behaviour for women, that are not acceptable. Think about the times you may have changed what you wear in order to try and avoid male attention, for example. We are not pro-censorship, we believe strongly in freedom of speech, but we believe also in a woman’s right to be free from objectification, free from sexual threat, and free from public humiliation.
HollabackLDN’s co-director Julia was quoted in the Guardian as saying, “If you want to tackle it, you tackle all of it – you say no to all forms of unwanted sexual harassment, that includes wolf-whistling, comments, everything”. Should there be any need for clarification; we are talking about addressing these issues, talking about them, understanding the dynamics and situations in which these behaviours are used, and making those behaviours socially unacceptable. We do not believe in the criminalisation of wolf-whistling, nor do we believe that it is realistic that such behaviours can be prosecuted. It seems that our media has taken a rather giant leap from not talking about the issues of sexist behaviours to talking about criminalising them. It’s not productive to suddenly outlaw behaviours which have for so long been acceptable in our society. The point of our campaign is to generate debate and to push to make sexist behaviours socially unacceptable.
More recently, we appeared in a great Radio 4 Programme ‘My Name is Not Hey Baby’, that aired last Tuesday night (17th April) and was repeated on Sunday 22nd. It can still be found here on iplayer. Bryony was interviewed and discussions that took place at our Hollaback workshop at Queen Mary University was also featured.
It’s always great for us to get press attention of any kind; it means that these issues are being discussed in the national media, and in most cases that we are being given a voice. It was only two years ago that we were told we’d never reach The Sun. This recent media blitz really stands to show how all the hard work of all the men and women who have stood up to talk about street harassment is not falling on deaf ears. Our main objective when we started was to get people talking, and we’ve certainly done that.
We have said this before, and we’ll say it again, and again and again: We are not talking about one incident on one day perpetrated by one person received by one person. We are talking about the collective consciousness of the thousands of people who suffer this harassment every day all over the city and all over the world. We are talking about the fact that any one person can receive incidents of these behaviours, 3, 5, 12 times a day. The more we address that, the easier it will be to understand, the easier it will be to tackle it, the sooner we can eradicate it.
I ran to my front door in floods of tears
New submission from Suzy
“The words would in the right context be a compliment, but as is almost always the case with such harassment, they were uttered in the manner in which you might deliver an insult…”
Since I moved to London about 18 months ago, I’ve lost count of the examples of street harassment of which I’ve been on the receiving end. They have come from tramps and from besuited businessmen in black cabs; they have happened when I’ve been dressed up to the nines and when I’ve been putting the rubbish out; they have taken in everything from small comments or idiotic noises, to a physical assault. I’d like to highlight Bethnal Green Road as a particular hotspot for this problem.
The latter happened last summer. I was walking down Bethnal Green Road in busy broad daylight, when I noticed that a guy easily twice my size (I’m quite petite), who was coming towards me in the opposite direction, was staring at me very hard. Then, without saying a word, he lent down and around me and grabbed me very hard by the forearm. I struggled and protested; he let go his grip and walked away. I was absolutely terrified. Without causing me any physical damage, he made me feel entirely violated and disrespected. What made him think that he could so much as touch me, a perfect stranger in the street? Despite the obvious nature of the assault, nobody around me did anything to come to my aid.
What made the above incident even more disturbing to me was that, at the time, I lived on Bethnal Green Road, it was my home. And I’d really like to get off my chest another incident that took place there – or rather, three incidents in one walk back from the tube one evening. It has always stuck with me and disturbed me.
While walking, I had been speaking to my boyfriend on my mobile, and had paused to the side of the pavement, totally absorbed in the conversation I was having. Suddenly, a man came right into my personal space – right up in my face – and shouted ‘YOU’RE SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL!’ He immediately ran off towards the tube station; I shouted incoherently after him in my anger, but he was gone. His words were shouted with such aggression, such force, that they could never be passed off as a compliment. I was so shaken up that I burst into tears and put the phone down on my boyfriend, who was already very worried from hearing the noise of all this.
As I continued towards home, walking slowly, in tears and probably with quite dejected body language, I was – again, very suddenly – frightened out of my wits, this time by a car horn being honked right next to me. It made me jump violently and cry out. I turned to see a car moving very slowly at the edge of the road, full of a group of young lads laughing hysterically at me: they had clearly pulled right up alongside me just to do that. Just as the man before had scarpered, they too promptly sped off up the road.
By the time the door to my flat came into sight, I was feeling pretty full of rage and insult at being the victim of such senseless bullying. At just the wrong time, then, as I passed one of the shops a few doors down from my own, a man walking past me whispered in my ear ‘You’re very beautiful’. Again, the words would in the right context be a compliment, but as is almost always the case with such harassment, they were uttered in the manner in which you might deliver an insult: they were definitely whispered, in a leering tone, and without the man so much as pausing in his stride to address them to me. In my fury I spun around and shouted ‘What makes you think you can say that to me?!’ I was then met with a torrent of shouted abuse from a group of men in the shop (staff and/or customers, I couldn’t tell), which continued after me as I ran to my front door in floods of tears. I don’t remember too well exactly what was hurled at me then, other than ‘You need a good hard fucking!’.
My flatmate and my boyfriend encouraged me to go to the police, but I realised that I had no way of tracing these men or identifying them even if that were possible. Every incident happened so fast and they were gone so quickly. This has always added feelings of frustration and powerlessness to that of the initial insult. I guess it also means that such men can continue to harass with impunity.
Gradually, as my experiences of street harassment have mounted up, I’ve developed strategies of standing up for myself. This mainly takes the form of politely but firmly answering back and explaining why the man’s behaviour is unacceptable. Often this brings me an embarrassed apology, sometimes more abuse. Sometimes I ask why the man feels that, out of all the other strangers on the street, he feels he has the right to tell me what he thinks of me – why is he not doing it to anybody else around him?
I am sick of feeling this powerless.
New submission from Jen
It never ceases to amaze me how quickly my day can be ruined. I’d hardly stepped out the door this morning when I was subjected to the most gross, leering, look-over by a workman two doors down – we all know ‘the look’, the one that’s way more than just glancing at a passer-by. I gave him daggers and kept walking, then for the rest of my journey beat myself up about what I should have done. Evidently something about me today makes me goddamn irresistible – maybe it’s the shabby biker boots, or the jeans, or the ill-matched oversized denim shirt. Hell, maybe it’s that I’ve brushed my hair and put on a bit of make-up. Or maybe it’s just because I’m a woman with the sheer bloody-mindedness to go out of my house, go to the library, and get some work done. I clocked more than just this guy’s leery gaze this morning – by the time I’ve got to the library I feel exhausted. Exhausted from being on the defensive all the time, and from feeling like I’m an old-time carnival attraction. I want to curl up in a corner where no one can look at me. If nothing else, it’s made me come to a decision: whether or not the behaviour of a man may seem ‘innocuous’ to bystanders, in future I’ll be tackling the issue (if it’s safe to do so) instead of walking by in silence. Next time a man leers at me like that in the street, I’m going to say “Please don’t stare at me like that.” I am sick of feeling this powerless.
