As a woman in the world, I’ve been harassed in public many times. Called a cunt by my next door neighbour, followed into shops, touched on public transport, you name it.
Perhaps the worst time I was street harassed was when I was jogging early one summer morning to escape the heat that would surface later in the day. I was residing with my mum at the time who lived near a lake. As I was rounding the imaginary finish line in my mind I encountered a flock of ducks waddling across the road. Further ahead, I also passed a motorhead who revved his gears (at 6am? Seriously dude, people are still sleeping.) and sped up when he saw me bounding along. Remembering the duck family moments before, I glanced back to make sure the driver saw them. Of course he a) didn’t and b) thought I was looking back at him, impressed by his hooliganism, and sped up even more… right into the flock!
Wanting to make sure the birds escaped unscathed, I jogged back to the scene of the crime where I saw that one of the ducks’ numbers had been up that day with its innards spread across the road, having bottomed out of its feathery body on impact.
And that’s the worst time I was street harassed.
Related: The Year of the Stalker.
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Those poor ducks! Something similar to this situation happened a few months ago where I live, but it was an impatient man in a truck gunning down on some ducks crossing the 3 lane road. In this scenario, a man on a motorcycle actually stopped to help get the carcasses off the road.
People are the worst/best.