Stories of Sexual Harassment in Minneapolis
"I was on the light rail with my friend and there were some kids who were being very loud and obnoxious. They were a group of about 5 kids and they came up to me and my friend and started to talk and one of the kids started to ask if I was even a girl. When I said yes he then proceeded to reach for my boobs and groped them. I was mad but I couldn't do anything because there were 5 of them and only 2 of us. I felt violated and disgusted especially since there wasn't anyone there to try and help prevent it like some of the adults on the train could have done."
-Anonymous Female, Age 14
-Anonymous Female, Age 14
"So it was 7:30ish AM and I was walking down Lake Street to school. While I was walking a man (dressed in scrappy clothing, probably 2 or 3 times my age) peeing in the middle of a side street with his pants down, his body was facing Lake so that anyone who looked could see him and his dick. I walked faster to get past him but he yelled "Ayyyy you!" And waved his dick in my general direction. I ignored him and he yelled "Yoooo!"in an obviously drunken state (in some messed up attempt to get my attention). He was close enough that I was afraid if I said anything or flipped him off he'd get angry and try to follow me or grab me. So I stayed walking in silence. Overall, terrifying experience that made me want to throw up afterwards."
-Anonymous Female, Age 15
-Anonymous Female, Age 15
"I was on my way home from a summer program at my school. I was sitting down waiting for my train to come. A man tried asking about my bag but he didn't speak English only Spanish. I was obviously uncomfortable. He followed me on the train. When I sat down he sat down next to my and started grabbing my hand. He kept saying bonita bonita. He started shoving his phone at me to get me to put my number in it. I didn't know what to do and no one on the train was saying anything. When my stop finally came I got off as fast as i could."
- Age 13
- Age 13
"I was walking down the hallway in school. Some boy grabbed my arm forcefully and said hey what's your name. I yanked my arm away and kept walking. I heard him behind me yell whatever ugly b*tch. It disgusts me that girls get harassed in school. I didn't even see his face."
-Female Age 14
-Female Age 14
Dara:
I get it all the time—whenever I'm on the street, and even on Saturday mornings when I'm one of very few people on the street, which makes it scary. I wish there was a simple way to report it so the city could track it—a 411 thing, or a text code—and then when they see a pattern they could have more cops or DID folks around. The way it is now, I don't like to call 911 unless things are dramatic. It could work maybe like a cell-phone powered shot spotter!
Elizabeth:
I worked at a law firm downtown for three years and took the bus every day to and from work. I was harassed at least three times a week, but no incident was worse than the time that a man came up to me and started talking to me using sexually explicit words and touching my arms, shoulders, and back without my permission. I told him to stop and go away over and over, and he eventually did after about ten minutes-- I was in tears by that point. I note that I was standing just outside one of the Nicollet bus shelters and there were about five or six people-- male and female-- standing and watching uncomfortably-- who did and said nothing.
Molly:
In just two years working downtown, I've witnessed and been subjected to countless instances of street harassment:
While waiting for public transit, men would frequently make unwanted comments about my body and the fit of my clothing, loudly speculating about the proportions of my breasts and hips. This behavior caused me considerable discomfort, sometimes to the extent that I would take an alternate bus route home.
Men have followed me down the sidewalk at a close distance for multiple blocks, and were deterred only when I entered a women's retail store.
I witnessed a man touch a woman's breast on a crowded bus and, when she objected, pretend it was an accident.
Men have shouted harassments at me from their cars, as I've hurried across a crosswalk.
Groups of men have made sexual comments about me while walking behind me on the sidewalk.
A man walked up behind me and stood less than a foot away while I bent to lock up my bike.
Salena:
I wanted to email you about being street harassed in DT Minneapolis.
I lived alone in DT Minneapolis for two years during law school. I walked to school everyday and it was just about a 7 minute walk, but despite the shirt time I spent walking I experienced street harassment on a weekly basis. There was a particular spot on my walk, under a greenway overpass, that was a "hotspot," so to speak, for harassment and I hated walking through it. I was usually alone on my walks so it made me feel very unsafe. I sometimes would take a longer route that was more populated in hopes of avoiding it or having "witnesses" nearby if something happened. It also impacted my ability to stay at school as long as I wanted for studying because I always worried about staying too much past dark out of fear of my walk home. I would sometimes plan a ride home with someone in my study group, but they always thought it was a silly request because I lived so close.
There was one incident with two men in bicycles that started shouting sexual comments at me. When I ignored them they started riding towards me and I ended up having to run to school. That was probably the scariest incident.
I hated feeling like I couldn't even walk out my own door without fear of harassment, I would have moved, but my apartment was perfect in all other respects; rent, proximity to school, size, etc were all exactly what I needed so moving would have added a lot of economic burdens I couldn't afford on my full time student budget.
Maria:
I had many incidents like this when I lived in downtown MPLS and used walking and public transportation to get around. One evening in the fall (I only remember because it was getting dark at around 5pm) a large man followed behind/next to me for a while and when I turned and looked at him he said in a menacing voice "you're too cute and little to be walking here all alone, someone might just reach out and GRAB YOU" i just averted eye contact and walked faster. Nothing happened but it certainly wasn't designed to make me feel safe.
Amanda Rose:
Living in Minneapolis I dreaded warm weather. Dressing comfortably means being hollered at and humiliated multiple times a day, constantly feeling self-conscious and even fearful of potential aggression. If I tell you it makes me uncomfortable, you may lash out, so instead I fight my nature as a strong and articulate woman, shrink into my skin and become smaller, weaker, controlled by your outburst. I left the city.
Julie:
I've lived in downtown mpls for 10+ years. EVERY summer I get harassed multiple times a day on Nicollet, sometimes Loring Park. It's part of why I love winter so much, I can cover myself up and know I won't have to deal with it (as much.)
It makes me feel like I have to take extra precautions with what I wear, (long sleeves in Summer??) but even that doesn't really help.
I ALWAYS go out with a pair of headphones I can stick in my ears so I can safely ignore the men.
I feel helpless, angry about it. Like they are taking something from me.
I feel like I can't connect with my environment (i.e. if I make eye contact with anyone accidentally, I know I'll get unwanted attention.) so I keep eyes to ground..
Katie:
I used to work the last shift (ending at 10:45ish) at the downtown Target over the summer during college. I took the 16 to and from downtown, and then walked the several blocks from the bus stop to work. I quickly learned not to change back into the dresses that I wore to work, lest I receive unwanted attention and remarks. Even in work clothes, I still received it, but slightly less frequently.
One night in particular sticks out to me. I got done at my usual time a little before 11pm, and as I was walking to the bus a man came and linked arms with me and walked with me for a while. I didn't want to make assumptions, so I went with it cautiously, I don't mind meeting new people. It was fine until he started making sexual innuendos and I became uncomfortable. Soon another man came and linked arms with me on my other side, I was grateful because I thought he had come to save me from this weird older man hitting on me. NOPE, I don't think they knew each other, but he also wanted a piece of me. I started to panic when I tried to say goodbye a few times and they kept following me and saying uncomfortable things. Eventually I made my getaway by sprinting across traffic to a police officer on the other side, but fortunately the men didn't follow me. I didn't say anything to the cop, just kept going as fast as I could to my bus stop and made it home safe.
Alex:
I'm a 26 year old white female, and my name's Alex.
About a year ago I moved north of the river and now take the bus in the mornings, so things have been a bit better (an unpleasant interaction every month or so, these days) but before the move I used to walk from Franklin to the middle of Downtown every weekday at 3:30 am, and it was terrible. I'd usually only pass one or two people the whole way, but every week, sometimes daily, someone would get in my personal space or yell across the street. Sometimes there were implicit or explicit threats of violence.
I struggle a lot with anxiety, and this definitely exacerbates it. I rarely go outside for anything besides work or groceries, I don't date, and I've been seeing friends less and less.
I know feeling unsafe outside is only one part of the equation, but it's certainly a large contributing factor. I think the most direct effect I've noticed is in how I interact with strangers in general. I'm suspicious of everyone I don't know, and recently found myself projecting bad interactions that I didn't even consciously remember onto a presumably innocent person, which really alarmed me.
In the last years I've become much colder. I've always been afraid, it's just my nature, but now I'm also angry. Not in an empowered way, I just have unexpressed rage simmering just beneath the surface, and it revolts me to see that in myself.
I've learned to be very good at shutting everything down long before anything has had a chance to start, which makes me safer, but isolated. In a desperate need to feel safe in this culture, I actually do a pretty damn thorough job following all of the suggestions for "preventing rape." And from personal experience, I can confirm that it is every bit as unreasonable and dysfunctional as it sounds. When I hear people talking about what you should do to not be a victim I think, "I am the change you want to see in the world. And it is a lonely, misanthropic, completely sexless and largely joyless world."
Hope this doesn't come across as overly morose. I greatly admire the work you do, so thanks for all of it.
Lilly:
Hey, saw your Twitter post.
I was waiting for the lightrail, reading a book with earbuds in. A guy started yapping at me about how "the movie was better," and silly me I smiled politely. So then he started saying "hey take your earbuds out hey hey I'm talking to you hey." I moved a few feet further down the platform next to another woman and he followed me still trying to ask me where I was going and so on. She says "oh he's on you now huh?" And LEFT THE PLATFORM so then I was feeling super unsafe and said something like "uh I'm just trying to read and wait for the train, man."
it turned into all this stuff about how I'm probably some college girl who is too smart for him and he's just trying to talk to me cuz he's read the same book c'mon can't I just talk to you about this book?
And it was just fear. Fear! I wish I had been more angry or cared less or said "ok fuck off seriously" but I was embarrassed and scared and felt guilty ugh cuz maybe I was being a bitch?
Anyway the train came, we both got on, I moved to the other end of the car and hopped off before the train left the station and took a cab home instead.
Also once I got cornered and grabbed in downtown on the bus AFTER asking for help, but that's a whole other thing.
SIGH thank you for the work you do!!
Brenda:
I recall vividly being on my way to a show in Minneapolis and being harassed while I waited to cross the street. A man asked me if I had a light, to which I replied that I didn't smoke, and I kept walking, thinking that was the end of it. The man followed me to the crosswalk, came right up behind me, and kept trying to get my attention. I could sense him he was standing so close. I was terrified and tried not to show it. Another man came up to wait for the cross walk, and he witnessed the scene. I finally told the first man to please leave me alone (as I continued to stare straight ahead and not look at him), and he left. Only then did the second man speak up, saying "I though you knew him." "Nope," I replied, fighting not to cry. I felt so vulnerable and afraid and angry that doing something I normally loved was tainted by this horrible experience.
Stacey:
I lived in Phillips near downtown Minneapolis in 2008. Among other really horrible things that happened, a man would quietly creep onto my porch and peek in the space between the blinds and the wall of my living room. He'd masturbate and suddenly make a commotion when he 'finished.' It scared the hell outta me. There were gross gelatinous streaks on my windows. When I'd sit on the porch with girlfriends, we'd sometimes see him whipping it out in the alley across the street.
I called the cops several times and was like, hey, so here's literally teaspoons full of DNA here, can you maybe try to get this asshole?
The Minneapolis Police response? I should be flattered by the attention.
Brenda:
I recall vividly being on my way to a show in Minneapolis and being harassed while I waited to cross the street. A man asked me if I had a light, to which I replied that I didn't smoke, and I kept walking, thinking that was the end of it. The man followed me to the crosswalk, came right up behind me, and kept trying to get my attention. I could sense him he was standing so close. I was terrified and tried not to show it. Another man came up to wait for the cross walk, and he witnessed the scene. I finally told the first man to please leave me alone (as I continued to stare straight ahead and not look at him), and he left. Only then did the second man speak up, saying "I though you knew him." "Nope," I replied, fighting not to cry. I felt so vulnerable and afraid and angry that doing something I normally loved was tainted by this horrible experience.
Sarah:
Not MPLS, but last spring as I was walking into the Ramsey County Courthouse appropriately dressed for a city council committee meeting a man made super aggressive rooster noises behind me for a block, and then (in case I'd missed the point...) spent the second block hollering about how I should want to meet his big cock. You know, in case I'd missed his subtle innuendo...
It was truly frightening and while I *really* wanted to run I maintained my walking pace and was just so relieved to see those officers right inside the courthouse doors.
Brit:
Often one "argument" I hear is that someone deserves or should expect or is somehow asking for street harassment if they are dressed a certain way. You know what I'm talking about- the people who think a dress or a skirt or a low-cut shirt mean it's ok to follow me and make crude comments. Well, living in Minnesota has taught me how false that argument is, because it's almost never actually warm enough to wear those clothes. If I am in fact wearing a skintight dress, it's under a hoodie and a parka and a couple scarves. I've been catcalled buried in enough layers to survive the Arctic. I've been followed and harassed about how "damn fine" I look while wearing jeans and a hockey jersey. It almost makes you admire their dedication: I'm practically running from building to building because I'm so cold my ears are about to fall off, but they'll stand in -20 degree weather to let me know I'm a bitch for not smiling at them. It makes me feel unsafe, gross, inhuman, like I might be the next woman they want to take home to put on a shelf like a trophy, just because they can. It especially gets me because of the arguments I hear so often that women somehow invite harassment based on our behavior--it's not about looks, it's about power. And if someone doesn't believe me, I invite them to come take a walk with me downtown in January sometime.
Kelsey:
I am not on Twitter but a friend who is forwarded your call for harassment experiences in Minneapolis. Oh boy, you've opened a floodgate! :-)
I am in my 30s and I've been catcalled, called a bitch + other colorful words for not responding... and stuck up because he " was just saying hi!" Though I bet you notice these guys don't go OUT OF THEIR WAY to say "hi" to other men, or to older women. (I've yet to see these guys be so friendly to a postmenopausal mother wearing sweats and dirty sneakers, let's just say.) So I call them on that, but they find other excuses, natch.
It doesn't happen as much as in my twenties, but often enough. It's infuriating because I can't just be me. It's like these guys are trying to force me to be what they want. I've become kind of a vigilante. I am always thinking of ways to address it with them, and to prepare myself for when it inevitably happens. I've gotten really paranoid and on edge being in downtown.
I think there are subliminal effects too-- in the way I'll opt to stay in because I just don't want to deal with it, or go down a different block. Or maybe not dress up or use makeup even though I want to.
I've actually started telling these guys that I'm just going about my business and I know THEY wouldn't like it if random guys kept vying for their attention. They accuse me of being racist (I'm white, ) and I shut that whole argument down with "nope,I don't care what color you are, I am purely addressing the really stupid and sexist comments you made to me." I don't even validate them with the race thing because they just use it to derail me from calling them out on their behavior. No matter what they say or excuses they make, I don't engage them. I keep bringing the focus back to them and their actions. It's worked pretty well in my experience.
I refuse to let it go though, I think the more women who confront them when it happens the more visible the problem will be to others, and these guys will maybe think it's not worth the effort if they're going to get so much grief .
Elizabeth:
I haven't had any scary stuff, I just feel like there's a generally gross attitude downtown sometimes. I also see it sometimes when I work out at the downtown YMCA. If I wear something bright men will comment on it, and they'll stare at me and other women. last year a friend and I were lifting downtown, and a guy stopped what he was doing to watch us. I was so annoyed and he was so obvious that I actually said "What?!" He didn't respond, just kept staring for a few seconds and walked away.
I get it all the time—whenever I'm on the street, and even on Saturday mornings when I'm one of very few people on the street, which makes it scary. I wish there was a simple way to report it so the city could track it—a 411 thing, or a text code—and then when they see a pattern they could have more cops or DID folks around. The way it is now, I don't like to call 911 unless things are dramatic. It could work maybe like a cell-phone powered shot spotter!
Elizabeth:
I worked at a law firm downtown for three years and took the bus every day to and from work. I was harassed at least three times a week, but no incident was worse than the time that a man came up to me and started talking to me using sexually explicit words and touching my arms, shoulders, and back without my permission. I told him to stop and go away over and over, and he eventually did after about ten minutes-- I was in tears by that point. I note that I was standing just outside one of the Nicollet bus shelters and there were about five or six people-- male and female-- standing and watching uncomfortably-- who did and said nothing.
Molly:
In just two years working downtown, I've witnessed and been subjected to countless instances of street harassment:
While waiting for public transit, men would frequently make unwanted comments about my body and the fit of my clothing, loudly speculating about the proportions of my breasts and hips. This behavior caused me considerable discomfort, sometimes to the extent that I would take an alternate bus route home.
Men have followed me down the sidewalk at a close distance for multiple blocks, and were deterred only when I entered a women's retail store.
I witnessed a man touch a woman's breast on a crowded bus and, when she objected, pretend it was an accident.
Men have shouted harassments at me from their cars, as I've hurried across a crosswalk.
Groups of men have made sexual comments about me while walking behind me on the sidewalk.
A man walked up behind me and stood less than a foot away while I bent to lock up my bike.
Salena:
I wanted to email you about being street harassed in DT Minneapolis.
I lived alone in DT Minneapolis for two years during law school. I walked to school everyday and it was just about a 7 minute walk, but despite the shirt time I spent walking I experienced street harassment on a weekly basis. There was a particular spot on my walk, under a greenway overpass, that was a "hotspot," so to speak, for harassment and I hated walking through it. I was usually alone on my walks so it made me feel very unsafe. I sometimes would take a longer route that was more populated in hopes of avoiding it or having "witnesses" nearby if something happened. It also impacted my ability to stay at school as long as I wanted for studying because I always worried about staying too much past dark out of fear of my walk home. I would sometimes plan a ride home with someone in my study group, but they always thought it was a silly request because I lived so close.
There was one incident with two men in bicycles that started shouting sexual comments at me. When I ignored them they started riding towards me and I ended up having to run to school. That was probably the scariest incident.
I hated feeling like I couldn't even walk out my own door without fear of harassment, I would have moved, but my apartment was perfect in all other respects; rent, proximity to school, size, etc were all exactly what I needed so moving would have added a lot of economic burdens I couldn't afford on my full time student budget.
Maria:
I had many incidents like this when I lived in downtown MPLS and used walking and public transportation to get around. One evening in the fall (I only remember because it was getting dark at around 5pm) a large man followed behind/next to me for a while and when I turned and looked at him he said in a menacing voice "you're too cute and little to be walking here all alone, someone might just reach out and GRAB YOU" i just averted eye contact and walked faster. Nothing happened but it certainly wasn't designed to make me feel safe.
Amanda Rose:
Living in Minneapolis I dreaded warm weather. Dressing comfortably means being hollered at and humiliated multiple times a day, constantly feeling self-conscious and even fearful of potential aggression. If I tell you it makes me uncomfortable, you may lash out, so instead I fight my nature as a strong and articulate woman, shrink into my skin and become smaller, weaker, controlled by your outburst. I left the city.
Julie:
I've lived in downtown mpls for 10+ years. EVERY summer I get harassed multiple times a day on Nicollet, sometimes Loring Park. It's part of why I love winter so much, I can cover myself up and know I won't have to deal with it (as much.)
It makes me feel like I have to take extra precautions with what I wear, (long sleeves in Summer??) but even that doesn't really help.
I ALWAYS go out with a pair of headphones I can stick in my ears so I can safely ignore the men.
I feel helpless, angry about it. Like they are taking something from me.
I feel like I can't connect with my environment (i.e. if I make eye contact with anyone accidentally, I know I'll get unwanted attention.) so I keep eyes to ground..
Katie:
I used to work the last shift (ending at 10:45ish) at the downtown Target over the summer during college. I took the 16 to and from downtown, and then walked the several blocks from the bus stop to work. I quickly learned not to change back into the dresses that I wore to work, lest I receive unwanted attention and remarks. Even in work clothes, I still received it, but slightly less frequently.
One night in particular sticks out to me. I got done at my usual time a little before 11pm, and as I was walking to the bus a man came and linked arms with me and walked with me for a while. I didn't want to make assumptions, so I went with it cautiously, I don't mind meeting new people. It was fine until he started making sexual innuendos and I became uncomfortable. Soon another man came and linked arms with me on my other side, I was grateful because I thought he had come to save me from this weird older man hitting on me. NOPE, I don't think they knew each other, but he also wanted a piece of me. I started to panic when I tried to say goodbye a few times and they kept following me and saying uncomfortable things. Eventually I made my getaway by sprinting across traffic to a police officer on the other side, but fortunately the men didn't follow me. I didn't say anything to the cop, just kept going as fast as I could to my bus stop and made it home safe.
Alex:
I'm a 26 year old white female, and my name's Alex.
About a year ago I moved north of the river and now take the bus in the mornings, so things have been a bit better (an unpleasant interaction every month or so, these days) but before the move I used to walk from Franklin to the middle of Downtown every weekday at 3:30 am, and it was terrible. I'd usually only pass one or two people the whole way, but every week, sometimes daily, someone would get in my personal space or yell across the street. Sometimes there were implicit or explicit threats of violence.
I struggle a lot with anxiety, and this definitely exacerbates it. I rarely go outside for anything besides work or groceries, I don't date, and I've been seeing friends less and less.
I know feeling unsafe outside is only one part of the equation, but it's certainly a large contributing factor. I think the most direct effect I've noticed is in how I interact with strangers in general. I'm suspicious of everyone I don't know, and recently found myself projecting bad interactions that I didn't even consciously remember onto a presumably innocent person, which really alarmed me.
In the last years I've become much colder. I've always been afraid, it's just my nature, but now I'm also angry. Not in an empowered way, I just have unexpressed rage simmering just beneath the surface, and it revolts me to see that in myself.
I've learned to be very good at shutting everything down long before anything has had a chance to start, which makes me safer, but isolated. In a desperate need to feel safe in this culture, I actually do a pretty damn thorough job following all of the suggestions for "preventing rape." And from personal experience, I can confirm that it is every bit as unreasonable and dysfunctional as it sounds. When I hear people talking about what you should do to not be a victim I think, "I am the change you want to see in the world. And it is a lonely, misanthropic, completely sexless and largely joyless world."
Hope this doesn't come across as overly morose. I greatly admire the work you do, so thanks for all of it.
Lilly:
Hey, saw your Twitter post.
I was waiting for the lightrail, reading a book with earbuds in. A guy started yapping at me about how "the movie was better," and silly me I smiled politely. So then he started saying "hey take your earbuds out hey hey I'm talking to you hey." I moved a few feet further down the platform next to another woman and he followed me still trying to ask me where I was going and so on. She says "oh he's on you now huh?" And LEFT THE PLATFORM so then I was feeling super unsafe and said something like "uh I'm just trying to read and wait for the train, man."
it turned into all this stuff about how I'm probably some college girl who is too smart for him and he's just trying to talk to me cuz he's read the same book c'mon can't I just talk to you about this book?
And it was just fear. Fear! I wish I had been more angry or cared less or said "ok fuck off seriously" but I was embarrassed and scared and felt guilty ugh cuz maybe I was being a bitch?
Anyway the train came, we both got on, I moved to the other end of the car and hopped off before the train left the station and took a cab home instead.
Also once I got cornered and grabbed in downtown on the bus AFTER asking for help, but that's a whole other thing.
SIGH thank you for the work you do!!
Brenda:
I recall vividly being on my way to a show in Minneapolis and being harassed while I waited to cross the street. A man asked me if I had a light, to which I replied that I didn't smoke, and I kept walking, thinking that was the end of it. The man followed me to the crosswalk, came right up behind me, and kept trying to get my attention. I could sense him he was standing so close. I was terrified and tried not to show it. Another man came up to wait for the cross walk, and he witnessed the scene. I finally told the first man to please leave me alone (as I continued to stare straight ahead and not look at him), and he left. Only then did the second man speak up, saying "I though you knew him." "Nope," I replied, fighting not to cry. I felt so vulnerable and afraid and angry that doing something I normally loved was tainted by this horrible experience.
Stacey:
I lived in Phillips near downtown Minneapolis in 2008. Among other really horrible things that happened, a man would quietly creep onto my porch and peek in the space between the blinds and the wall of my living room. He'd masturbate and suddenly make a commotion when he 'finished.' It scared the hell outta me. There were gross gelatinous streaks on my windows. When I'd sit on the porch with girlfriends, we'd sometimes see him whipping it out in the alley across the street.
I called the cops several times and was like, hey, so here's literally teaspoons full of DNA here, can you maybe try to get this asshole?
The Minneapolis Police response? I should be flattered by the attention.
Brenda:
I recall vividly being on my way to a show in Minneapolis and being harassed while I waited to cross the street. A man asked me if I had a light, to which I replied that I didn't smoke, and I kept walking, thinking that was the end of it. The man followed me to the crosswalk, came right up behind me, and kept trying to get my attention. I could sense him he was standing so close. I was terrified and tried not to show it. Another man came up to wait for the cross walk, and he witnessed the scene. I finally told the first man to please leave me alone (as I continued to stare straight ahead and not look at him), and he left. Only then did the second man speak up, saying "I though you knew him." "Nope," I replied, fighting not to cry. I felt so vulnerable and afraid and angry that doing something I normally loved was tainted by this horrible experience.
Sarah:
Not MPLS, but last spring as I was walking into the Ramsey County Courthouse appropriately dressed for a city council committee meeting a man made super aggressive rooster noises behind me for a block, and then (in case I'd missed the point...) spent the second block hollering about how I should want to meet his big cock. You know, in case I'd missed his subtle innuendo...
It was truly frightening and while I *really* wanted to run I maintained my walking pace and was just so relieved to see those officers right inside the courthouse doors.
Brit:
Often one "argument" I hear is that someone deserves or should expect or is somehow asking for street harassment if they are dressed a certain way. You know what I'm talking about- the people who think a dress or a skirt or a low-cut shirt mean it's ok to follow me and make crude comments. Well, living in Minnesota has taught me how false that argument is, because it's almost never actually warm enough to wear those clothes. If I am in fact wearing a skintight dress, it's under a hoodie and a parka and a couple scarves. I've been catcalled buried in enough layers to survive the Arctic. I've been followed and harassed about how "damn fine" I look while wearing jeans and a hockey jersey. It almost makes you admire their dedication: I'm practically running from building to building because I'm so cold my ears are about to fall off, but they'll stand in -20 degree weather to let me know I'm a bitch for not smiling at them. It makes me feel unsafe, gross, inhuman, like I might be the next woman they want to take home to put on a shelf like a trophy, just because they can. It especially gets me because of the arguments I hear so often that women somehow invite harassment based on our behavior--it's not about looks, it's about power. And if someone doesn't believe me, I invite them to come take a walk with me downtown in January sometime.
Kelsey:
I am not on Twitter but a friend who is forwarded your call for harassment experiences in Minneapolis. Oh boy, you've opened a floodgate! :-)
I am in my 30s and I've been catcalled, called a bitch + other colorful words for not responding... and stuck up because he " was just saying hi!" Though I bet you notice these guys don't go OUT OF THEIR WAY to say "hi" to other men, or to older women. (I've yet to see these guys be so friendly to a postmenopausal mother wearing sweats and dirty sneakers, let's just say.) So I call them on that, but they find other excuses, natch.
It doesn't happen as much as in my twenties, but often enough. It's infuriating because I can't just be me. It's like these guys are trying to force me to be what they want. I've become kind of a vigilante. I am always thinking of ways to address it with them, and to prepare myself for when it inevitably happens. I've gotten really paranoid and on edge being in downtown.
I think there are subliminal effects too-- in the way I'll opt to stay in because I just don't want to deal with it, or go down a different block. Or maybe not dress up or use makeup even though I want to.
I've actually started telling these guys that I'm just going about my business and I know THEY wouldn't like it if random guys kept vying for their attention. They accuse me of being racist (I'm white, ) and I shut that whole argument down with "nope,I don't care what color you are, I am purely addressing the really stupid and sexist comments you made to me." I don't even validate them with the race thing because they just use it to derail me from calling them out on their behavior. No matter what they say or excuses they make, I don't engage them. I keep bringing the focus back to them and their actions. It's worked pretty well in my experience.
I refuse to let it go though, I think the more women who confront them when it happens the more visible the problem will be to others, and these guys will maybe think it's not worth the effort if they're going to get so much grief .
Elizabeth:
I haven't had any scary stuff, I just feel like there's a generally gross attitude downtown sometimes. I also see it sometimes when I work out at the downtown YMCA. If I wear something bright men will comment on it, and they'll stare at me and other women. last year a friend and I were lifting downtown, and a guy stopped what he was doing to watch us. I was so annoyed and he was so obvious that I actually said "What?!" He didn't respond, just kept staring for a few seconds and walked away.