An uncomfortable experience among girls and women is sexual harassment, something that I encountered on the train that left me furious.

I prefer to take the express N train home from my school in Manhattan because it will get me there faster. Occasionally, I take the F train with my friend to ensure she gets off at the right stop in Manhattan. Then I have 19 stops before I get to my stop in Brooklyn. When I get out of school around 4 PM, the trains are packed with other students and people I assume just got off work. 

However, two months ago on a Thursday, I noticed a man wearing a ski mask and sunglasses as I followed my routine of taking the F train. I ignored him because I was used to seeing strange individuals on the train. Most of the time if I ignored weird behavior, it wouldn’t bother me. He had gone from train car to train car, and I noticed him again when he sat across from me. I was mostly alone on the train with a few people further down. As I looked up from my phone, I noticed his hands down his pants with a slight movement that seemed creepy. He noticed my gaze and stared at me throughout the train ride. When I got up to get off, not because it was my station, but because I was scared, he got up and moved toward the door. Lucky for me, the doors closed in his face. The only person who noticed this was an older woman, the only other woman in the car, who got off at the same stop. On the train, she had been watching both of us and now she told me that she noticed him fidgeting with his pants. She got on the next train but I waited until the one after came to minimize the chances of running into him again. 

Since then I’ve changed the way I travel. I no longer take the F train anywhere around 4:00 PM to avoid such an incident again. I am much more alert to my surroundings, especially when changing trains. Sometimes I am afraid someone is following me home, so I walk a couple of blocks away from my apartment to ensure that I’ve lost them. This happens more in the summer, but occasionally during the school year. I always check my surroundings or walk with a friend.

As the oldest of three siblings and daughter of immigrant parents, I didn’t have anyone to consult about this issue. So I started consulting with my friends. One friend noted that if that man was wearing a ski mask and glasses, it wasn’t the first time he had done this, and so I question, how many other girls has this happened to besides me? Out of the six friends that I asked, four had been harassed this way, and the other two were uncomfortable talking about it, unsure how to respond. Another friend told me that as she waited on the platform, one day a man approached her saying “You’re cute,” and when she stepped away from him, he inched closer to her. Another woman stepped up and asked if she was all right and if the man was bothering her. She scolded him and told him to leave. A third friend shared that on Halloween, she and her friends were on the subway platform, and were continuously catcalled and followed by a man. They asked him repeatedly to stop, but he didn’t. They ended up walking fast into a crowded area outside the subway, where he finally left them alone. When retelling this encounter, my friend said, “That’s usually what happens. I’m sure you can relate– like you can’t confront them”.

This happens to a lot of teenage girls. I’ve noticed that around the age of 15, we started to change how we said goodbye. When I was 10, I said “Goodbye, see you tomorrow,”, but now we mostly say “Bye, get home safe” or “Bye, text me when you get home.” We had to deal with tough situations like these because we can’t say no to it.

At the time of this shift, I had just returned from two years of online learning during COVID-19 and mentally still felt like an eighth grader. As I grew up physically, I had to catch up mentally in the sense of having to adapt to how men perceived me. Although I’m not sure if my peers also felt mentally stuck in eighth grade, for me being so unprepared made it more shocking. 

Months later I haven’t encountered the man on the F again. But the anger never went away. It made me realize that this was just the beginning of many uncomfortable incidents I would have to face. Sometimes I think about this experience and a rush of emotions overwhelms me. I’m furious because of my vulnerability– I have no power to make the person stop. I can only hope that sharing these experiences will bring more light to the issue because this isn’t just happening to one person, it’s a universal experience among girls and women. 

Process

A month after having a bad experience on the train, I started talking with my mentor, Stephanie, a lot about my feelings about sexual harassment. I decided that talking about my experience along with my peers as well, would bring light to the issue and hope that no one has to ever feel alone in these situations. I learned that this writing process, helped me process my own emotions. I was able to develop a keen understanding of what I had gone through and it took several months to produce this finished piece.