Hating the Haight

I was visiting my friend in San Fran for the weekend. We were walking down the Haight around 11.30 at night and stopped outside a bar in the midst of deciding what to do. This guy grabs my elbow, I turned and said "yes?" he said, "I just like to touch pretty ladies." I gave him an eye roll and a "whatever," thinking that'd be enough. To my displeasure, he grabbed my upper arm and attempted pulling me towards him. I got fiercely angry, whirred around and started screaming at him. I said, "What the f**k do you think you're doing? Who the f**ck do you think you are?" My two girlfriends were freaked out, as they did not notice this guy's "attempts" with me. They both took me in their arms and escorted me from the bar/sidewalk telling me I couldn't do that in San Fran.
I don't care who you are, you cannot touch me without my permission. I may be small but there is no way I'm going down without a fight!

Submitted by Pamela in San Francisco.

"Lot" of Harassment

There is an office next to my work where there are often a lot of different men who come there to fill out paperwork. Many of them park in the parking lot that I use, and I have to pass by them in their cars to enter my building. Aside from undressing me with their eyes, some have made lewd comments to me or to another person I am with as I walk by. Although I have been fortunate in not having an experience like the one described on the subway, its made me so uncomfortable that I dread encountering those men in the parking lot every day.

Thankfully, I now have secured parking in a garage away from that lot.

Submitted from San Jose, CA

Soapbox Harasser

This man is a San Francisco landmark. A hateful, harassing, long-standing landmark that everyone who has been downtown more than twice can probably recognize.

He is the epitomy of street harasser. He is not just preaching on his soapbox, he is calling individual women who pass by him "whores" for presumably having sex before marriage. Not only does he fail to find out if the women he calls out on the street are in fact married, or are in fact having sex, but he stares them down, yelling, "Listen to me, you are a whore for having sex."

I don't care what you beleive, and I don't care if you think women are or aren't sinners, but no one has the right to call a woman a whore for simply walking down the street and being under 30. If you are walking with a man, even worse, as he presumes you are whoring yourself out to said man and shouts it out and points at you.

He also loves to pick on anyone he deems homosexual (based solely on appearance, since he usually lectures me about sex before marriage rather than sex with women, little does he know...). He points, he shouts, he humiliates.

This is a great example of street harassment that many people want to argue is free speech, but slander is not free speech, and pointing out women on the street and calling them whores is not free speech. The cops will never arrest this man, they will never even bother him. He has sat on that corner every week for years and years humiliating and degrading women.

I have friends who yell back at him, and maybe if everyone did, he might shut his fat, slanderous mouth and stop calling women whores on the street.

I'm sure his prime location on Powell & Market Sts. really makes visitors appreciate our fair city. (note the sarcasm).

Submitted from San Francisco

Encounters

The following 3 encounters are just the most brutal/obscene of daily street
experiences, the cumulative effects of which have turned me into one of
those angry/blank-faced women you pass on the streets. The sad thing is I'm
not angry or blank! I'm kind and loyal and enthusiastic, but if my intended
soul-mate were to bump into me on the street he would likely pass my by
because the thick skin I've grown out of necessity keeps creeps as well as
would-be-friends at bay.

1st: San Fran (Market & 9th) 2003: Crossing 9th towards my building with a
flock of business people, wearing a knee-length camel-hair skirt - a man
crossing the street towards me suddenly stoops and runs his hand up the
inside of my leg before I know what is happening. And then he's gone, we're
on opposite sides of the street and not a single fellow-street-crosser
stopped or noticed.

2nd: Berkeley, 2002, AC transit bus #15: Semi-full bus, plenty seats
available, and I hadn't yet learned to ALWAYS sit on the isle seat. A
disheveled man sits next to me on a bench seat effectively trapping
me in the window seat. Out of the corner of my eye I notice a furitive
motion in the man's lap. In horror I realize he's jerking off. Not eager to
have to squeeze over his lap in order to escape, I sat there shame-faced
until he left the bus.

3rd: Berkeley 2004, AC transit bus #15: VERY full bus, but this time I'm older
and wiser. Man in tattered sweats sitting in one of the side
bench seats begins masturbating - not at me in particular but at the riders
in general. No one does anything. Everyone scoffs, blushes, gasps and
otherwise looks away. I walked up to the driver informed her that a man was
masturbating on the bus, exited the bus and ran like hell.

I can't wait to add pics to this site. This is empowering.

Submitted by Erica in San Francisco

Don't Be Shy

About a year ago I went to Nations in downtown Oakland with a couple of friends at about 2:30 in the morning. I was sitting down waiting for my food when I heard someone say, "Hey thong, hey thong." I reached around and realized that my underwear was showing. I pulled up my pants without turning around, and he said, "Don't be shy. You weren't shy when you put them on this morning." I couldn't believe it! I turned around and he said, "Is it okay if I call you thong?" I said, "No way!" "Well, Can I get yo number, girl? "No!!" I said sternly "Well then f**k you, bi**h," he yelled.

I just turned around stunned and asked my friends if they heard what he said. I couldn't believe it but I didn't know what to say. He kind of scared me.

No one should have to put up with nastiness like that. We all deserve to be treated with respect unless we give someone a reason not to.


Submitted by Zephira in Oakland.