Women Unite Against Street Harassment With Hashtag #nowomanever

[Photo: madeinsouthitaly]

Every vagina possessing human gets catcalled. It’s just one of those things.

It’s just one of those things.

That’s the kind of attitude street harassment is dealt with, partly because it’s a problem women handle with on the daily. Women. Not men. In general, men seem to be oblivious to this kind of pestering. They don’t experience it first hand and we women don’t really make it a conversation topic.

My own boyfriend was shocked when I recounted one of my personal favourite stories of street harassment. I was cycling down the road when out of nowhere a guy shrieked “lucky saddle” at me. I admit, it’s not one I’d heard before. I pedaled away crying with astonished laughter, skin crawling, wind whipping the tears into my hair, mental wiper blades back and forth on high speed working to erase the intense image of fannies mashed against bike seats.

Truth be told I like to call those guys out on their sh*t. If I get a “smile love,” a breezy, “Oh, hey! I didn’t see you there. Are you having a nice day?” usually shuts them up. It’s unexpected, it throws them and it’s my refusal to be oppressed and objectified by a complete stranger. But I’m tense inside, it’s an uncomfortable act of defiance.

It doesn’t always happen and it’s making a sweeping generalisation of men to say otherwise but this is how conditioned women have become. Globally. As soon as we grow breasts we learn to anticipate this kind of unwelcome attention from men. We brace ourselves for it, especially in the summer when our bodies are not completely covered.

But the coverage of street harassment has started to gather momentum largely thanks to Hollaback’s viral video featuring a modestly dressed woman enduring ten hours of harassment while walking the streets of New York.

The video inspired other women to share their experiences of street harassment, opening up a dialogue challenging the laissez-faire or just downright ignorant attitude to a violating, intimidating issue they had previously been quietly battling.

Most recently the discussion has been alive on Twitter with the hashtag #nowomanever in which women mock the very idea that they encourage or enjoy comments from strangers. The wry posts point out just how in opposition this kind of attention is to anything romantic, flattering or validating.

Here are some of our faves, starting with the one that kicked off the trend.

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