…it’s been happening too frequently to ignore. I’m not talking about “street harassment” because in my mind, harassment is verbal and annoying, but without a threat of physical violence. When a group of dudes pulls over to the side of the road when you’re walking alone at night, rolls down the window to yell “heeyyyy mami,” and then drives away laughing when you turn around afraid—it’s not harassment. When a man in a beat-up white car follows your walking route to the post office and drives around the block several times, yelling at you periodically out the window and pulling into a nearby parking lot until you walk in the other direction—it’s not harassment.

Those last two examples, they happened in the suburbs. Where I’m “safe.” Because if I just wear the most modest clothes, if I walk with confidence, if I go at the right time of day, if I stay off the wrong bus or the wrong train then I’m golden.

Guess what. I follow all the fucking rules and every time I leave the house it’s a new man in a new car that’s screaming at me or following me. Sometimes they’re not in cars; it doesn’t matter. 

I’m sick of people telling me I shouldn’t be scared when men yell at me. Do you know what it feels like to be followed in a car when you’re alone? Do you know how easy it would be to knock me out and pull me aboard and drive me away? Especially if it’s a group of men?

I’m sick of people telling me it’s because I’m pretty or because of where I go and when and how. These men do not have crushes on me and I can’t control how I look regardless. I am being persistently physically threatened and it happens wherever I go and whatever I do.

I am sick of people telling me that I’m the one that should change, I am sick of there being no word for what I’m going through, I am sick of being invisible to women who own cars and live outside of cities and to men who tell me that neighborhoods like Uptown and Humboldt Park are “fine.” There is no fine for me. There never will be again, not for as long as I live, not since I hit puberty. My body belongs to everyone. Just by walking on the street, I open myself up for public bidding and I can’t fucking stand it and there’s nothing I can do.

Do you know how fucking sick it is to feel lucky for not having been raped?