James’ Story and Male Harassment
Hollaback! Birmingham note:
While women also may harass men in public, gender inequality means that the power dynamics at play, frequency of the harassment, and the underlying threat of rape is rarely comparable. For these reasons, Hollaback! Birmingham focuses mostly on men harassing women and LGBTQ harassment. We have however included this post to show that men can also be the victim of gendered harassment – and this is not something we are unaware of or belittling . This is not to disrespect James or his experience. Internationally Hollaback! does not focus on male harassment.
Also, while public harassment motivated by racism, classism or any other types of discrimination are all deplorable forms of street harassment and which men can be the target of and sometimes women perpetrate—is recognized as socially unacceptable behaviour, men’s harassment of women motivated by gender and sexism is not. Instead it is portrayed as complimentary, a joke, or “only” a trivial annoyance. Additionally people tend to blame women for its occurrence based on what they are wearing or what time of day they are in public. These are additional reasons why Hollaback! Birmingham focuses on this type of harassment – but is an ally to all groups and people working to end every type of harassment.
James’ Story
Street harassers eh, barely a weekend goes by without some woman harassing me.
Three weeks ago was a great example (and a regular one); I was stood at the bar when three woman began backing themselves into me. The first bumped me with her behind, turned around, looked me up and down and said ‘oooh, sorry but aren’t you a hot one’ That was her perceived license to grope and stroke my arm; her friend (second woman) giggled and complemented my behind (of all things) as they encircled me a little. My initial response was to frown, shake my head at them and look back to the bar. The third woman then asked what I was buying them to drink to which I replied “do you want three shots of manners?”. They giggled as a group and the arm stroker paused for a moment; however she then said something inane to her friend and moved her hand up and down my back; I moved sideways and asked her sharply whether “she always tried massaging random people in public”.
At that point she did stop stroking my back but must have assumed as a man I wouldn’t actually be all that bothered and she immediately went back to momentarily groping/stroking my arm; by this time the third woman had ordered their drinks and had placed them on the bar; the second gave me a grin and squeezed my behind as she went to grab her sunny beverage. At this point they all had drinks and I saw this as a good opportunity to disengage from them; I angled myself away thanked them for being morons and made a strong effort to act as though I had all attention on the the barmaid.
Shouting and exclaiming my disgust could have worked but women stick together and I have attempted this in the past only to find myself ignored, ganged up on and even started on by random people. A fortnight doesn’t go by without some woman forgetting her social skills and craftily groping my ass as I pass her or she passes me, groups are the worst and grinning at me afterwards just doesn’t make it any better!
Hollaback! Birmingham Note take from Stop Street Harassment
One Response
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Thank you for posting this, James. I admit to never having considered the occurrence of this kind of harassment towards cisgendered men, and this is certainly something I’ll be on the lookout for in future, in my own behaviour and my friends.