Video: New York woman chronicles 10 hours of street harassment

    1 of 1 2 of 1

      Earlier this year, director Rob Bliss and actress Shoshana B. Roberts teamed up to chronicle street harassment in New York City.

      For 10 hours, Roberts silently walked the streets with two microphones in her hands while Bliss walked in front of her with a hidden camera to capture the leers, cat-calls, and harassment that followed.

      Over the course of those hours, Roberts received some sort of verbal harassment no less than 100 times, in addition to various winks, whistles, and other non-verbal harassment. At one point, Bliss records a man who followed Roberts for five minutes after she did not initially respond to him.

      Roberts is also berated by several men for not smiling or responding to their harassment.

      On the website Hollaback!, which is dedicated to ending street harassment, Roberts noted, “I’m harassed when I smile and I’m harassed when I don’t. I’m harassed by white men, black men, latino men. Not a day goes by when I don’t experience this.”

      Comments

      7 Comments

      James Blatchford

      Oct 29, 2014 at 10:14am

      Cross NYC off my bucket list.

      Chris

      Oct 29, 2014 at 11:26am

      Consider the kind of men who are doing this. Look at them! Imagine if she were really beautiful.

      Mik

      Oct 29, 2014 at 12:22pm

      Great experiment! Why can't guys just respect women . . . why does it have to be a power game, always?

      Chris - no low personal comments . . . besides you are out of tune with what's considered beautiful these days. Check out some rap vids.

      Hazlit

      Oct 29, 2014 at 2:41pm

      My wife walks to work everyday alone. She's done so for nine years. She's never mentioned street harassment. (She did mention the asshole at work who tried to grab her ass, though).

      We're not like NYC

      Oct 29, 2014 at 3:39pm

      There's a BIG difference in how folks act here compared to NYC. Visited there a few years ago and there were numerous occasions of cat-calling. It's happened to me here maybe, 3x in 10 years. Even in Seattle, I have experienced it, just not here.

      So there is a bonus to everyone who complains that we're a rude, bitchy city. Less cat-calling! EXCEPT for the "smile" comments. Those happen all the time. Everywhere.

      About a year ago I was smiling as I was listening to a podcast and a guy walking by me said, "Hey! Why are you smiling, you're not supposed to be happy!" It made me laugh so hard as I understood it was all in fun. Just nice to hear the opposite of what I'm normally subjected to.

      Rod

      Oct 29, 2014 at 3:40pm

      @Hazlit

      Notice these are mostly non-white guys doing it and probably not middle class.

      Chris

      Oct 29, 2014 at 4:40pm

      @ Mik- Life is not a rap video. @ Rod was able to make the same observation as I did. Oh never mind ......