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!

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.

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.

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.

“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?

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.

A couple of years ago, I was coming back to South London, after seeing friends in North London. It was a week night — and it was fairly late, so maybe around 11.30pm. I took the Jubilee line and changed at Canada Water to get the London Overground line south towards Croydon. I was pretty tired because it had been a long day. I wasn’t drunk but had been drinking which made me feel even more sleepy. The platform was packed with people — typical at this time of night since there are relatively few trains heading south on this line at that time.

I was standing at the back of the platform checking my phone, surrounded by other people waiting for the train and had just failed to stifle a massive yawn when I realised that a man, who had been vaguely buzzing around in my peripheral vision, had stopped and was looking right at me. A bit embarrassed to be caught in the act of yawning I looked away and went back to my phone, thinking he would jog on. The man lingered, and then came and positioned himself right next to me. Too close for comfort — the platform wasn’t *that packed*. I decided to move to shake him off. It was irritating — and presumably he was drunk or something but whatever. When I’d glanced at him, he looked short-sighted and rather nerdy so I figured all it would take to discourage him was a wordless but pointed move to another part of the platform. After performing my mini shuffle, putting a dense but small group of people between me and him so he was no longer in my field of vision, I went back to my phone. But, after a few seconds, he arrived in my peripheral vision again. Coincidence, I thought. He’s just wandering around the platform, waiting for the train. But he came and stood right next to me again. At this point my heart started beating faster — adrenaline was being injected through my alertness valves as a precautionary measure.

I looked up from my phone, found him looking right at me again, so I gave him a pointed ‘leave me alone look’ — and then shifted again, deliberately rather than casually and further this time. But he followed me again, putting himself right next to me *again*. Now my heart was properly thudding. Time to confront the stalking nerd, I thought — so I looked right at him and said — loudly, so all the other people on the platform could bear witness — “can you stop following me please?” — then stomped off right down the platform — pretty much as far as I could go without ending up at the quiet end where there were fewer people (which obviously didn’t appeal at this point). But again, he followed me. At this point I started shaking, really shaking. I shouted “leave me alone!” and moved again. He followed, again. Now I was really panicking. I couldn’t phone anyone because I was underground so there was no mobile signal. I looked around for a LU employee but of course there weren’t any at that late hour. No one else on the platform seemed ready to come to my rescue either. But then my train began to pull in and so I didn’t want to waste time by missing it — I briefly contemplated getting on then off the train at the last minute but being left alone on a platform with him was too much of a risk. So I walked right down the platform then looped back on myself jogging to get on the train further up, and far away from where I’d last encountered him. Unfortunately the trains on this line don’t have carriage divisions so aren’t compartmentalised — so there was no way of putting a door or two between us. But by doubling back I figured I could at least gain time and find a seat between two other people so he couldn’t sit right next to me.

Fortunately I managed to locate just the seat in the nick of time and sat down immediately between two strangers. Just as the train doors were about to close he walked into the carriage, using the same doors that I had entered. He turned right, as I had done, and headed for where I was sitting. At this point I can safely say I was terrified. And he didn’t even look scary — he was just a bespectacled, nerdy looking Mr Average (see photo). Not the sort of guy you cross the street to avoid — and certainly not the stereotypical kind of guy who wolf whistles or voices crude sexual innuendo when you walk past. That just made his behaviour more creepy though. I got the distinct impression he was predatory — that this episode might be a regular thing for him, preying on lone, petite woman out late at night who he probably figured were drunk and thus an easy target. Anyway, he couldn’t sit by me, so he walked past and stood looking right at me for a bit (which is when I snapped a photo). I made a show of taking a photo of him on my phone — trying to put another protective barrier between him and me. I still have this photo on my old phone (see picture). After a few stops, someone got off, freeing up a seat near where he was standing so he sat down next to another woman who clearly got his attention. After a short time struck up a conversation with her by telling her that her hair was “very beautiful”. I don’t know if this woman was drunk but she seemed happy to chatter away to a complete stranger who — seen through my now hyper-sober, adrenaline-soaked lens — was obviously being creepy (“I hope you don’t mind me saying but you’re a very attractive woman…”.. “I love women with long hair” etc etc). He talked to her the whole way back to my station (which was also where she was getting off, fortunately, but was not his station) — telling her he had a beautiful Spanish wife and other obviously made-up nonsense.

A few stations after Canada Water this Underground line becomes an overground line so I had been able to call my boyfriend to get him to meet me at the station, so I calmed down a bit and was able to sit tight and wait to get off, and that was that (the guy stayed on the train. My boyfriend and I considered confronting him but mostly I just wanted to get away). What did this experience do to me? When I go home I was furious — absolutely LIVID that someone had made me feel so terrified just because they could.