“I used to pass by this one particular corner to get to the bus stop. There were young men who'd hang out on the corner and make all kinds of comments to women who passed by. I admit to changing bus stops in order to avoid them.” - 30-39 year-old heterosexual African American woman in Minneapolis, Minnesota

“Before I had a car, I was always angry and a little scared when I had to use public transit because men harassed me on an almost daily basis. I was angry because there was nothing I could do to stop it overall. There would always be another guy the next day. I was angry that these men felt they had the right to intrude in my personal space and ask me personal questions and that they felt that I owed them attention. I carried pepper spray in my hand whenever I walked home.” - 20-29 year-old heterosexual Latina in San Diego, California

“An old man started masturbating through his pants on the train while looking at me and my partner, moving closer and closer to us. We changed cars and he even had the nerve to follow us to the other car! No one else even seemed to notice how filthy the man was behaving.” - 20-29 year-old bisexual/queer white woman in New York City, New York

“I had an incident where late at night when I was alone and walking to my car a guy yelled out to me that I was beautiful. Not knowing who he was I ignored him. He caught up with me and got in my face and started yelling and swearing at me, pretty much telling me he thought I was conceited. I stood there and simply stared him in the eye. I'm not sure what he was trying to do, but finally he got tired and just walked away. It was pretty scary, but I'm glad I held my own.” - 30-39 year-old heterosexual Asian American woman in Chicago, Illinois

Have you ever been whistled or honked at, commented on in a sexual way (positively or negatively), leered at, groped, masturbated in front of, followed, or assaulted while in public? If so, please share your story and it will be added to the Stop Street Harassment blog.

In addition to stories on the Stop Street Harassment blog, there are heart-breaking, shocking, and horrific street harassment stories on the following websites:

• Hollaback Arkansas
• Hollaback Australia
• HollaBack Boston
• HollaBack Chicago
• HollaBack DC!
• Holla Back New York
• HollaBack San Francisco
• Street Harassment Project

• Feministing's post on catcalling
• Jezebel's post on sexual harassment in the spring
• Racialicious' post on catcalling
• Shakesville's post about the right to go out
  
• The F Word's post about street harassment
• What About Our Daughters' post on the restricted freedom of movement of black women

Note: In public, we are all susceptible to verbal, physical, and sexual attacks from complete strangers. People who are "different" or less "powerful" are particularly vulnerable to attacks by strangers. However, this site focuses primarily on the experiences of women being harassed in public by men.

In a society where politics and business are still male-dominated, men make more money than women, and women are depicted in the media and advertisements simply as sexual objects, women as a category are less powerful than men as a category. Because of this overall power difference, the dynamics of men harassing women on the street has a different underlying meaning than if a man harasses another man, a woman harasses another woman or a woman harasses a man. The underlying meaning is further complicated by how women have historically been men's legal and sexual property. Within my own lifetime, husbands were legally allowed to rape their wives.