Street Harassment
It was about 3:35pm when, on my way to the university, I realized I forgot my backpack. After (incorrectly) verifying that I truly need something (in this case, pens) from the backpack in order to write my exam, I decided to go back and retrieve it.
Having turned around and started walking to collect my backpack, I watched as a second-floor window opened up. I felt echoes of amusement1 as a young man peered outside.
He began to speak from his perch. “Hey! Hi! You’ve got headphones on?” I realized that he was speaking to a young woman who was walking in front of me. “Yeah can you hear me though?” She looked up, but didn’t seem to slow. “Hey. You look very beautiful today.” She was minding to continue walking, and she did. “Yeah? Ok, bye.”
He was cornering the young woman as she walked down the street. He didn’t seem to have any precedent for making comments. They didn’t seem to know each other at all. It seemed a cut-and-dry case of street harassment. So, although my philosophy of sex & love midterm evaluation wasn’t scheduled to start until 4pm, I decided to confront him.
I stepped up beneath his window. My thoughts couldn’t keep up with reality of the situation. My skeptical state of mind became dangerously unquestioning; I was almost entirely blind to what I was about to say.2
The exact sequence escapes me now. I used the words “disgusting,” “catcalling,” and “harassment” to describe what I had just witnessed. He, perhaps characteristically, went on the offense. He framed me as socially invisible—“who is this guy;” he rejected the possibility that I could take action against him—“what, are you gonna call the police;” he was incredulous that what he’d done is wrong—“catcalling? really?”
He didn’t end up acknowledging it as harassment or catcalling. He also didn’t apologize (not that he had to apologize to me for anything—) or say that he didn’t have bad intentions.
I quickly left. My feet were cold, my exam was starting in 25 minutes, I needed my backpack, and I felt the guy needed my absence to reflect.
Having left, I was walking behind the young woman. I didn’t think to say anything to her until a young man, having walked past her facing me, did a double-take. In hindsight, this was probably because he thought she was pretty. Nevertheless, this double-take and the fact that she had appeared to speed up convinced me that she may be upset. After a brief (10 seconds or so) period of indecision, I decided to run up to her to make sure she was ok.
As I was running to her I feared that what I was about to do—reify a potentially unwanted interruption for reasons that I have personally deemed significant—amounted to street harassment. More practically, I feared that I would cause her to become upset, at least until she learned that I was stopping her to offer support. I feared this to the extent that, to prepare, I imagined, in chronological order, all the points at which she may react in this way: the moment she first saw my shadow on the sidewalk (it was 3:45PM and I was moving west;) the moment I tapped on her shoulder; the moment she realized a person caused that sensation; the moment she saw that the person was a man.
I caught up to her. Tapping on her shoulder I said “Hey,” and, as she turned to look at me, “are you ok? That guy was being a jerk.” A kind but unmoved smile quickly formed on her face, and she said “Yeah I am, thanks,” and she turned to continue on her way.
Today, on my way to a philosophy exam, I confronted someone for doing something unethical. I don’t often do this, especially not in person. It was and continues to be scary.
On one level, it’s scary because I am not certain that I made the right call. Furthermore, I’m not sure if it is appropriate to act the way I did should I have made the wrong call. How do I know his “compliment” was unwanted? Even if it wanted, should the possibility of it being unwanted still dictate that I react the way I did? Or should I not have said anything, having not seen the young woman’s face as the young man was saying these things to her? I do not know how to answer these questions, but I have acted as if I do.
Despite my role in the story, it is easy for me, as a man, to read the above dialogue and see myself as saying something exactly like that. In fact I have said such things—to friends, to strangers at a bar, to strangers on dating apps. Although it seems to be precisely the “cornering” and the complete lack of precedent that makes what I witnessed unethical, I’m scared even to publish this because of all the men who are going to read this and think “I would say this” and feel, well, cornered as being a “bad guy” with no precedent.
If you are such a man, then, having read this far, between you and me, I don’t think you would say those things in the same kind of circumstance. I don’t think you would ever tell someone what you think of them with zero precedent or indication that it is wanted. You don’t kid yourself, and you wait for real indication that people are looking forward to your comments before you give them. So when a cute person3 smiles at you, I encourage you to go tell them how it made you feel—tell them they look beautiful today, and make sure they can hear you. they didn’t smile at you in spite of both their intellect and instinct; one or the other or both are rooting for you.
Being white and male, I’m afraid that I shouldn’t have, in some sense, stepped in on the young woman’s behalf. The possibility that she appreciated his comment makes this even worse. Isn’t it paternalistic of me to judge for myself that she didn’t give him any precedent for his comments?
Finally, I’m actually quite scared that I’ll continue to be harassed by the guy. The story didn’t actually end as it did above. After I collected my backpack and was heading to school, he was still sitting at his window. I don’t remember him threatening me, but it was an uncomfortable conversation. I can’t even remember what he said. His friend was in the background looking at me and rubbing his nipples. The trouble is, of course, that I don’t know if his nerve ends at yelling down unwanted comments from his window.
However, in a sense I appreciate being afraid of him in this way. I appreciate the perspective. If my fear is anything like the fear that women experience when they’re being harassed, then I now have a small taste of what that feels like. And it sucks.
Facebook status is here.
Notes
Three weeks ago I witnessed a young man smoking out of a second-floor window. Perched alongside the window was a tacky rent company advertisement. I was amused at the semi-respectful disrespect of the semi-unprofessional professional rent companies, and I thought it would have made a great photograph.
Later that night I would come home and, deciding not to turn on any of the lights before heading to my seat at the toilet, feel afraid that something bad might be lurking in the shadows. I thought it would make a good metaphor for something.
I wish I had a genderless pronoun that starts with “g”.