As I am, a woman and I live in a big city (1.1 million inhabitants) I am more than regularly bothered in the street, whether it is to go to high school, walking alone, or with girlfriends.
Because, too often, people do not believe me when I explain that there is not a week that goes by without someone, I know neither from Eve nor Adam, commenting on my outfit or my appearance, I wanted to address the subject of street harassment.
Before all the macho men get angry here is an exact definition of street harassment. The following behaviors are considered street harassment:
- Walk close to a person insistently following a refusal to discuss
- Follow a person
- Whistle someone
- Launch from a distance a rhetorical remark on the appearance of a person
- Establish non-incidental physical contact, without the person’s consent
- Insult or verbally assault (a fortiori physically) someone because of his or her refusal to engage with you
- Touching yourself suggestively while looking at someone in a public place
- Giving them a nickname suggesting proximity then non-existent (my beautiful, my darling…)
- Impose on a person who does not know you and who has not asked for a barrage of questions concerning them
