Street Harassment

Street harassment

Lewd looks, compliments, hisses, kisses, toots, pants, obscenes gestures, sexual comments, photographies and recordings to parts you become intimate, touches, pursuit and cornering, public masturbation and exhibitionism are constituent practices of street sexual harassment, exercised daily in the public space, principally against young and teen women. These actions generate diverse types of consequences in emotional terms, of use of the spaces and of safety perception.

The most difficult thing takes root in the invisibility of this type of practices. When one tries to position a topic that is not discussed, it justifies itself in name of the culture. The difficulty is this, to fight against the tradition, to face against a naturalized conduct and to have to explain why it is a problem.

And all that provoques that the simple fact of going out to the street turns into a nightmare for thousands of women, who from early age begin to be victims of hisses, frets and touches that affect them psychologically and diminish his sensation of safety in the public space.

Natalia Jiménez

II° medio A