Groped on the Subway? There’s an App for That.
We have a friend who got ejaculated on while riding the subway once. Yes, this is a true story. And it wasn’t just on her arm or her jacket or even her legs—she got ejaculated on on her neck. She’d been sitting on a crowded subway, coffee in one hand, newspaper in the other, and felt something wet. She whipped around to see a man run off the train, to which a woman across from her said, calmly, “Yup, he was jerking off behind you.” Now this is when we refrain from gagging, but in true New Yorker fashion, our friend wiped herself off with a paper towel and continued on her way.
It may be one of those extra special things about living in New York, but back in the day, about the only thing a person could do about subway harassment was to knee a dude in the groin (if you could catch him before he fled) or take a long hot shower to wash away that dirty feeling. But in 2005, fed up, two New York women launched HollabackNYC, a website where women could post cell-phone photos of their harassers, along with descriptions, for the world to see. Five years later, Hollaback has expanded around the country (and globe), and coming next month, unlucky ladies will have an even easier way to shame their attackers: via instantaneous iPhone app. Says the organization’s executive director:
We found that one of the main reasons that women don’t Hollaback is because by the time they get home, they just kind of want to forget that it happened. The real fierceness of Holla-ing back is that it’s in the moment. We’re using mobile technology and launching an iPhone app at the end of June. And we’ll post the harassment online, so people can go and look. We’re also planning on bringing the maps to legislators and to use them for public-service announcements and community education.
So, ladies (and gents): what are your worst stories of street or subway harassment? Would you use an app to shame your harasser?
(Photo by Steph Goralnick for Improv Everywhere.)
