I Am Desensitized To Public Sexual Harassment. I Shouldn’t Be.

I am desensitized to public sexual harassment. I shouldn’t be.

I was eleven years old when I started being harassed in the street by men. It happened not long after I started secondary school as if the changing of my uniform - from primary to secondary - gave strangers on the street the green light to harass me. I’m seventeen now, and have received a wide variety of unsolicited comments over the years, from men aged fifteen to fifty; the most recent experience I had was four days ago when a boy called me a “slut” as I was walking my dog. Completely out of the blue. Other memorable encounters include five men in their twenties whistling at me from their car when I was fourteen, a man yelling at me “show us your tits love” from across the road, the time a friend and I were walking home from school when we were thirteen, and a group of boys persistently yelled at us, telling us that one of their friends wants to “fuck us”, and two men trying to chat me up and refusing to leave me alone whilst I was at by myself at a concert, it wasn’t until two girls behind me realized what was going on that they started to back off.

When this started happening, I didn’t know what to do. I felt paralyzed. Yet, at the same time, I didn’t want to let these men know that they were getting to me, I didn’t want to give them the power they so desperately craved. I rarely told anyone what had happened. I just wanted to forget it. Now, it is more expected. I am no longer surprised when I start getting unsolicited comments made at me as I walk down the street. I tense up when I walk past a group of guys because I just believe that I will be harassed, it has become that normalized. The words yelled at me by men just wash over me now, like a wave of aggression. I have even been told by men that this is something I just have to “put up with”. As if the blame is on me, for simply being born a woman, because how could it ever be the man’s fault?

Now before people start saying “but not all men”. Yes of course it is not all men. However, it’s enough men that I can’t relax when I walk past a group of guys, it’s enough men that my friend and I have taken the longer route home from school because we were scared, it’s enough men that my mum told me to shout “fire” instead of “help” or “rape” because people will take my cries more seriously, it’s enough men that I would walk home with my keys in between my fingers just in case. It’s enough men for this to be a serious problem.

I would mostly experience this harassment as I was walking home from school. For five years my (female) friend and I would walk home together, but her house was just before mine, so I would end up walking alone for the last five minutes. Occasionally, we’d get guys harassing us when we walked together, and as I said, sometimes we’d take a longer route because there would be a group of intimidating guys down the shortcut we’d take. However, for me, the majority of the time I was harassed was when I was walking alone when I was vulnerable, and they knew it. Since starting the sixth form we’ve made a new (male) friend who walks those five minutes with me because my house is before his. I can’t think of a time I have been harassed during those five minutes since walking with him. His presence is deemed to have more worth than my own, and it feels as if my body either belongs to the public or a man, but it never belongs to me. It takes the presence of another man to stop men from harassing me because apparently my thoughts and feelings do not matter.

Even during the Coronavirus lockdown sexual harassment hasn’t stopped. When we were initially only allowed out once for a daily walk, every time I went out on my own I was whistled/yelled/honked at. Part of me was in disbelief, even during one of the most unprecedented times in human history men still have time to harass women. I rarely went outside without another member of my family, because I was scared. I even remember my mum and I walk to the shops and as I waited outside for no more than two minutes, two men in a car drove past, wolf-whistled at me, and laughed as they drove away. I felt humiliated. It was all I thought about for the rest of the day.

I think part of me was desensitized to sexual harassment before I even experienced it. I, like many young girls, was constantly fed the lines “boys will be boys” and “girls mature faster” as some sort of weak excuse for men's behavior. As if we just have to let them do it because they can’t control themselves. I always read about the “but what was she wearing?” argument. Countless times I have heard boys in lessons spitting that one out, on the rare occasion where we discussed harassment in school. Or, when it was a young boy doing it, there’s the argument that they are “too young to understand their actions”. So you’re telling me that they’re too young to understand, but girls are never too young to be sexualized?

Here’s an idea, instead of finding ways to excuse boys actions, instead of telling girls we must “put up with it”, instead of blaming clothes or a man’s age, why don’t we just hold men fucking accountable?