Philly Plain Dealer

The year is 2015. I am a nineteen-year-old, full-time college student, and full-time server at my first restaurant job. It’s late and the volume has died down. Two men, approximately aged 50 sit before me at a pleather red booth, gorging themselves on chicken parm and diet coke. I work on cleaning tasks and side work that I am paid $2.83 an hour for, while they finish their dinner. “Would either of you like to see a dessert menu?” I ask. “Only if you’re on it,” one replies. They laugh. I smile and say, “I’ll get your check.” I always regretted that involuntary, nervous smile. I promised myself I would try to incite deep shame, guilt, and disgust in anyone who ever harassed me again. I wish I could tell you it worked.

Several studies have been conducted around the globe to better understand the reasons for, and the implications of sexual harassment. In one study conducted by the Working Women United Institute, 78% of the sample recalled their experiences of sexual harassment having an emotional or physical effect on them. Instead of feeling angry like me, the more often these women experienced sexual harassment, the more hopeless and alone they felt.

I collected data on personal experiences from fifty female Philadelphia residents and conducted a correlational study of what I found. This was facilitated by creating a questionnaire asking women four questions: their age, the last time they experienced a form of sexual harassment, how often it happens to them, and the location(s) of where it happens.

82% of participants reported being harassed within the last month, 36% within the last week, and 14% within just the last day. 86% of participants experience street harassment, with 65% also experiencing harassment on public transportation or at work as well. 78% of participants aged under 30 years reported being harassed multiple times a month on average. Only 8% of participants reported experiencing sexual harassment “rarely ever” and a whopping 0% reported their last time experiencing harassment being over a year ago.

What do I do with this information? I thought. Philadelphia is supposed to be a loving city, and in many ways it is! However, harassment is never loving; it is never complimentary, flattering, or otherwise fun to deal with. By definition, it is unwanted and non-consensual. It is rarely reciprocated, and when women defend themselves against it or simply say “I’m not interested,” it is often met with an insult, or worse, physical violence.

When I asked some women who took part in the survey to give me some thoughts on the topic, here are some comments that were given: “I found responding with fear is what made [men] feel powerful, so for me and every woman who may ever be in my position, I started being loud and publicly calling them out on their weird behavior, 1) because strength comes in numbers, but 2) so that my community would publicly make note of the faces of these freaks and protect the vulnerable.”

“[It happens so often] I rarely tell anyone about it. If I always told someone about it, I would never have any time to talk about anything else.”

“I think the question you ask in every instance is the same. Am I alone? Not to mean Am I the only one who feels this? Among women, that is understood. The question is bigger – did you see it? Did you feel it? Do you care that I did? Will you help me? Will you believe me? We are often alone in a room full of people in varying positions of power who protect their interests over us. And that is the scariest part.”

We lived through the viral #MeToo movement at the same time a sexual predator who bragged about reveling in his own privilege to “grab them by the pussy” was elected president. I imagined there would be a new wave of feminism happening in a major way by now, eight years later. In the words of Catharine A. MacKinnon her book Sexual Harassment of Working Women, “Trivialization of sexual harassment has been a major means through which its invisibility is enforced.”

This piece is dedicated to Kada Scott and Ellen Greenberg, who were senselessly forced to pay the ultimate price for male violence within a system that failed them. May their souls rest peacefully and may their families get justice.