Apparently, there is no age limit on street harassment

I remember the very first time I experienced street harassment.[1] I was 12 years old and attempting to do cartwheels on the front lawn of my grandmother’s house. With abandon and a lack of self-consciousness, I focused on getting my legs high in the air. A man in a passing truck whistled loudly and yelled at me. I did not understand the words he yelled, but understood that he had seen me in a way that I did not see myself.

                Here it is more than 50 years later and I just experienced street harassment.  This morning I left my car at a body shop a couple of blocks from my house and at 4:50, I was walking briskly to make it to the shop before they closed at 5 pm. A man driving by yelled at me, “Grandma!”  -amazing how much contempt his tone conveyed in shouting that one word.

                Although I have experienced street harassment over the years, what struck me today was the similarity with my first experience over 50 years ago. In both cases, I was fully and unself-consciously in my body, taking up my space with a clear purpose in mind. In both cases, I was acting without consideration for another’s gaze or judgment.  Although I imagine that neither harasser could articulate his motivation for yelling at a stranger, I think that the glimpse of a girl/woman fully claiming her body without consideration of how she was seen by others rattled their gender binary cages.

               

               

                 

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[1] Stop Street Harassment defines such harassment as “any action or comment between strangers in public places that is disrespectful, unwelcome, threatening and/or harassing and is motivated by gender or sexual orientation or gender expression.  Street harassment is a human rights issue because it limits women’s ability to be in public as often or as comfortably as most men.”  For more, check out http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/