Women are sharing on Twitter their infuriating experiences with street harassment using the brilliant hashtag #NoWomanEver.
It all started when a woman named CJ from Atlanta tweeted this Saturday morning:
The 37-year-old, who declined to give her last name for privacy reasons, told BuzzFeed News that she felt that a lot of men on her Twitter timeline “were being woefully obtuse about street harassment.”
She said these men would tweet her things like, “If we don’t approach you guys on the street, how are we supposed to meet?” and suggest that women were misreading their intentions as disrespectful.
“It just really made me feel like we’ve had this conversation so many times, they should know to either leave people alone or not engage in the conversation,” she said.
CJ added that after seeing younger women, particularly black women, being upset by those Twitter conversations, she decided to start the hashtag as a way to mitigate the tension.
“I was honestly trying to lighten things up a little bit," she said. "I thought the snark and sarcasm behind it would change the energy behind the timeline."
Women started sharing their experiences — which ranged from verbal to physical harassment — in droves.
CJ said the hashtag became something bigger than she’d anticipated.
“The sad thing is that my mentions are still filled with people with men who don’t understand that women have a right and reason to be afraid of the way that they’re approached in public, and it might not be a good idea,” she said.
If nothing else, #NoWomanEver has shown women once again that they are not alone when it comes to experiencing street harassment.
Looking at these #NoWomanEver tweets & seeing the humor but also knowing most of them really happen daily...