Written submission from a member of the public (SPP0077)
- My name is [name]. I am [35-44] years old, live in [location] and am writing in a personal capacity.
- Street sexual harassment has had a substantial impact on my life since my mid-teens. I have been shouted at, tooted at, wolf whistled at, followed, masturbated at. In particular: I was masturbated at by a man in a park at age [under 18], and have been masturbated at by men in the street or other public places every 12 to 18 months thereafter. This was so normal that I did not understand I could report it.
- As I got older and moved to [location], I got harassed less. I assumed that street harassment had just become less common, until I took up running.
- The extent of the street sexual harassment I receive when running is astonishing. I’ve started to collate it here in part because I don’t know whether the Committee’s spam filters would welcome the language: [web link with identifying details]
- Impact: I no longer run freely round the city I live in. I run in the gym and on a clearly defined, busy running route. I have music or radio loud to blot out harassment (my other half worries that increases my chance of getting run over- he's probably right). I'm hyper-aware of men when running, particularly when I’m on a street with no-one else around.
- I ruminate on the harassment- I work with statistics and so try to find patterns in the harassment. The pattern for me goes something like this:
Early mornings have fewer people, and so fewer harassers. But the early morning harassment (masturbation, threats, following) has been of a more alarming and focused type. One pre-sunrise shouted threat stopped me running in [location] for months. Evenings have fewer lone men. And it’s busier, but harassing men in groups of 2 or more seem to favour getting into my path and blocking my way, along with wordless heckling. I'll run into the road to get around them. And I’ve been masturbated at in the evening too. In the daytime it seems more unpredictable: more shouting from van or car windows, more tooting, some truly bloodcurdling harassment. Some daytime heckling comes from building site workers, but I don’t know where they work or who to phone and complain to.
- Even though I try to find patterns, if a man starts to pay me attention in the street, I don’t know if he will shout a 'light’ sexual comment (“nice t---“), a more explicit sexual comment (I'd like to f--- you”), if he will continue to shout at me if I ignore him (“hey you, HEY YOU”), if he will start to masturbate. I assume the worst for all.
- There’s no commonality to the men who harass me - they could be anyone.
- If I do run freely round [location], I’ve estimated I’ll be harassed a quarter to a third of the times I run. Sometimes I’ll be enthusiastically harassed by a man, and then again, by a different man, on a different street, 3 minutes later. I can’t say whether harassment is getting more or less frequent as I have changed my behaviour to try and minimise it. I’ve only been successful in reducing it through spending significantly less time running outside alone. Other women I speak to do similar: running in parks or in running clubs.
- I still don’t really know how much of this is criminal, if much of it. I like to think none of it should be acceptable, but I'd always assumed there's no point in reporting any of it, even the more serious harassment. I would find it helpful for there to be a clear and widely publicised policy on reporting of public sexual harassment. What can I report? Who can I report it to? What will be their response? And: is there a level of public sexual harassment that women and girls should expect to put up with?
March 2018