Honking and Whistling

Nearly 96 percent of the 814 female survey respondents* were honked at one or more times and 40 percent said they are honked at as frequently as monthly. Nearly 94 percent of female respondents were the target of whistling at least once and nearly 38 percent said it occurred at least monthly.

“Nothing too awful has happened to me, thank goodness, but I do get a few random annoyances. Take for example when I walk down the street, I get the occasional honks. The usual. And yeah, it's really depressing that it can be considered a usual.”
-13-19 year-old heterosexual Portuguese female in San Jose, California

“When I lived in Florida, as a teenager I would be harassed by honkers and whistlers from cars almost daily as I walked to and from my school bus stop. It was humiliating and scary.”
– 20-29 year-old heterosexual Anglo American in Jersey City, New Jersey

“Earliest thing I remember is a bunch of guys honking and shouting at me and my friends when we were walking downtown. It was creepy because we were only like 13.”
– 20-29 year-old bisexual white Canadian in Canada

“One day, a female friend and I were walking in a residential area, when the taxi drivers just kept slowing down, honking, shouting, and whistling. We tried to stay as far away from the street edges on the pavement and walked quickly. But you can't really outrun a taxi.”
– 13-19 year-old heterosexual Latina in Lima, Peru

* I conduced an online informal survey in fall 2008 to learn more about people's experiences in public, including street harassment. Nine hundred and sixteen people had useable responses and they came from a range of backgrounds and geographic locations, demonstrating the prevalence of street harassment globally. Survey-takers selected age-range categories from “13-19” through “80 and older;” they represented every major American racial group; they identified as bisexual, gay, heterosexual, lesbian, queer, “other;” and they came from 45 American states, 23 countries, and five continents.