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Hey Baby - The Boston Globe

Harassment is a serious matter - Boston Globe letter to editor

Catcallers beware! Women "holla back" at street harassment

WMBR 88.1 FM Cambridge What's Left 8/6/2006
Click here to download the show!

Getting Touched on the T - The Northeastern News

Ms. Magazine: Shooting Harassers With Cell Phones

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Suspected Subway Pleasurer Arrested

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Tuesday, October 31, 2006

PSSST!





Man, do not HISS at me when I walk by!

What does that even mean?!?!

Keep your teeth and your tongue and your sick shit to yourself.


- b

Friday, October 27, 2006

Where the Boys Aren't

I'm getting in the car with my friend at Brigham Circle when this trio walks by. Right as I notice them, the one in the white cap grabs his crotch and as I look up, probably shocked, I see his sickening smirk.

And you know what my first thought is? Screw the fact that this never happens in front of other men. Why can't this shit EVER happen when they are around so they can witness it too?

- J.T.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Don't touch me! Or them!

This idiot mofo on the C line decided he would touch every single woman within his reach, asking a variety of questions about money and the time. I saw him reaching my way - around the back of the woman sitting between us - and I tried to dodge but he still caught me. "Don't touch me!" How hard is that? After he seemed to have exhausted his options on our car, he got off to try another green line train. Asshole.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Just one weekend

All the places I found myself without my cell phone this past weekend:

Scene One: On Tremont Street in Chinatown. Creep eyes me up and down as I pass.

Scene Two: The corner of Berkeley Street and Columbus Avenue. A passerby states, "how's it going, baby." I respond under my breath, "I'm not your baby."

Scene Three: On Mass Ave, right at Central Square. Passing man exclaims, "What's happening, mami."

I'm a piece of meat, a baby, and a mami.

I can't keep up!


And I'm sick and tired of feeling like I have no recourse and I'm back to being a victim again if I don't have a camera on me!

- Steph

Monday, October 23, 2006

Philly says go home!

you: jerking off your limp dick in your car next to me
me: ready with my camera phone on my bike

go back to your hole.

- CL Philly

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Home alone

So last night, I had my bedroom windows open to let in some fresh air. When I was about to go to bed (fully clothes and bundled up), I decided to close them - it was getting a little bit cold. I raised the shades and closed one window, and three guys on the street heard it. Instead of being normal and just moving along, these three guys took the opportunity to look at me and start yelling things - you know, sweet nothings like, "ooh what you doing?" or "hey, what's up baby?" I gave them a disgusted look and closed the shades and went back to closing the other window and locking my apartment like Fort Knox. You know, when a dude harrasses me on the street, I am at least comforted by the idea that I can scoot into a store if need be - I can get away from him somehow. But when I am in my apartment, by myself - where do I go then? What bastards - now I feel on edge in my own house by my own windows.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Rantin' to Craig

A holla yanked from the Best Of section, CraigsList Portland:

You thought you were looking pretty smooth this afternoon as you strutted your stuff down 5th avenue, repeatedly looking behind you and eyeing the innocent young girl that was trying to mind her own business. After about six or seven times of stopping and turning around to stare, you pulled a fast one and decided to let her pass you, allowing yourself the convenience of staring at her ass as you made your way down the sidewalk. There you walked, breathing heavily like a creepy pervert with asthma, getting your fill of an ass so young it could easily be your daughter's. You didn't notice the quickness in the girl's pace as you began hitting on her (while her heels once made a soft click...click on the pavement, they were now at a more persistent click-click-click, as she attempted to avoid you. You have no idea how hard it is to speedwalk in heels!).

You asked the girl if she knew where the nearest leather shop was. You've got some boots that need work. You know, motorcycle boots. You have a motorcycle. You like to ride motorcycles. Does she?

Your efforts were thwarted as your victim darted sideways into an office building, escaping further harassment by mere seconds.

- Dose of Reality

Friday, October 13, 2006

Fighting back

I grew up in Boston, worked in Boston, and have had run-ins with these sick bastards. I wish I had done what my Mom's friend did. They worked at Tuft's Medical Center when the Combat Zone was in full swing. They went up towards Filene's for lunch break, and some perv pinched her friend's rear. That little five-footer turned, round-housed him in the face, and cussed him out.

- Terry

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Bulls Eye

I was alone, waiting for the train. Next to me, there was a man visibly stroking his pants, what was obviously the shaft of his penis. I asked him what he was doing, and he continued to stroke. And then I said, "Why are you masturbating in front of me?"

He said, "All you people think all of my people are bad, but I'm not whacking off, I'm just adjusting my weapon."

I had made NO reference to his race. He looked at me, made an assumption about my race, then used the tactic of assuming I was racist, in order to justify masturbating in front of me in public.

And then he said, "What? You want to see me masturbate?" And I said, "NO" and got on the train.

Funny that he referred to his penis as a weapon. That is exactly the way that I felt.

-Larken

Monday, October 09, 2006

Takes a lickin'...

Coolidge Corner, late Saturday, fellas standin in the back of their black truck in front of JP Licks - why would you stand in your truck bed on a main street in the middle of the night...? Whatever. As we drive past and stare at their strange antics, one throws up a peace sign - and then STICKS HIS TOUNGE BETWEEN HIS FINGERS. No thank you, fucker!!!! ARGH!!!!!

- from A. Rock Cit-ay

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Training Day

Watched some dude in a red and white shirt check this girl OUT as she walked by him at the St. Mary's T stop. His whole head turned and his smirk followed her as she plodded along, listening to headphones, probably unaware that she was being scammed on. I tried to get his pic but the trains kept pulling up and getting in the way. Wish these fuckers would leave us alone.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Doggy style

I live at Mass Ave and Beacon and on my way to Simmons College, where I go to school, the construction workers are usually pretty quiet. But some electrical worker (I think?) at East Charlesgate and Comm Ave, right before the ramp I walk up to get to class, insists on infantalizing me with: "Morning sweetie" with this dirty wink. Gross. Address me as a human being and not the daughter you imagine molesting when you're by yourself at home. I told him in a firm, 'no NO' voice I used with dogs who need training: "Don't call me sweetie."

-Alexis R.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Thank you

...for making me hate myself.

I'll admit it: when I was a teen, I used to wish I had big boobs. My Barbie had had them, my best friend had them, models and actresses had them, heck, even my mom had them. They were an intrinsic part of what made a girl pretty and, like any other normal teenage girl in America, I wanted that. Eventually, genes (thanks, Mom) and some late-college weight gain kicked in, and now I have them. And all I want now is to give them back!

Walking up Tremont Thursday afternoon in a red A-tank and *sweatshirt* (not at all revealing thankyouverymuch), a "man" (sorry, I have trouble attributing "manliness" to this joke of a specimen) walking his tiny dog in the approaching direction slowed practically to a stop to have a conversation with my chest. I don't know what he was saying to it, I just know that my face was not involved. I'm pretty certain my chest made no reply to him, but I know for a fact that my mouth said "Fuck you." By that point (it took me a moment to get over some shock before I responded), he had moved on.

As I continued up Tremont, around and down where it turns into Cambridge, I passed another man who decided to leer at my chest. As he turned his head toward my chest (not me--my chest), he slowed down in his gait, not enough as that first guy, but definitely enough to give me the creeps. He made ME feel dirty! Just for existing!!!

I started wishing that I had never developed; I began fantasizing about binding my chest just so my boobs wouldn't be so *present*. More and more, I've found myself hating my body because it's bringing me unwanted attention, attention that makes me feel as if perhaps I'm the dirty one, not these sick perverts I keep encountering on the street.

And then I realized that I shouldn't hate what God and nature gave me. I shouldn't hate my body: it's part of who I am, whether I like it or not...or whether these perverts want to make me somehow ashamed of it or not. It's a difficult task to reverse an attitude that's slowly been ingrained in me for years and years. In the meantime, I hope I'm quicker to tell these jerks to "fuck off!"

-robyn

Monday, October 02, 2006

Not Lost In Translation: It's Sexual Harassment

I was standing in line to get food at a takeout place in Porter, and as I am trying to place my order, the words "May I please have a regular...." barely make it out of my mouth before I'm interrupted by the man who is supposed to be helping me. He starts saying, "Oh, I haven't seen you before, do you live nearby?" At first, I just laughed nervously and shrugged it off, said politely that I didn't speak a lot of Spanish (that isn't exactly true, and he could tell since I said it in Spanish, but I was hoping he'd take the hint: I speak the same language, I know what you're saying, so don't mess with me!). I continued to try to order. No luck, though, the man wouldn't quit.

He keeps talking in this sleazy tone, saying things under his breath that I wish I hadn't understood, while he repeatedly looks me up and down.

Then he says to me, "What's your name?" I'm frustrated, so I say back firmly and loudly, "I don't have a name." And the man says, "Oh! No name!? But you must have a name, muchachita (little girl)."

I'm in my mid-twenties. I'm not a little girl. At this point, both the cashier and the previous customer (another man, standing right next to me), both look blankly at me and him, and yet say absolutely nothing. Then they look down at the floor when I try to give them a look that says: "I'm being harassed, here, and you both know it."

I refused to answer anything else, and I tried to stop listening to what he was saying about me, and to think about something else instead. I just wanted to get my stupid food and get out of there as fast as possible. I will not be going back again.

-Anne

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