The Girlfriend's email this morning:
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I got chased by these dudes, and they were blocking me from getting away. They seemed to think it was funny how I was trying to get away from them and they were almost toying with me in not letting me go, like making it into a game. Not funny at all. Immediately after I got away, almost the same thing happened with another nasty guy.
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She was en route to her apartment in the East Village last night. Not the projects, not the Bronx or anywhere with a reputation for scary happenings. What are guys trying to accomplish with this behavior? It's like when they yell & whistle on the street - do they think girls are going to walk over & say, "Wow you make me so hot. Let's go fuck on that trash can over there." In this case it was much worse, because they were physically menacing her. She is the strongest, toughest, most together woman I know & it only took a couple minutes of this to make her feel completely unconfident & vulnerable.

Western civilization has come a long way & I'm grateful I don't live under a burka in a fundamentalist Islamic country. But I hate that women still have to put up with this kind of crap every day. I would like to be able to walk down the street without carefully averting my eyes from all men, without thinking "oh no, my pants might be too tight or my skirt too short"... I have no defense against comments, leers & the like. I can't fight back or argue if I don't want to be assaulted. Guys: I understand that you like to look. That's perfectly fine. Just please, please stop doing things you'd kill other men for inflicting on your sisters or mothers. It's not enough that you have more money, power, options & all the rest of it - you have to scare us in our own neighborhoods, forcing us to replay every abusive situation or relationship we've ever been in, frightened that it's going to happen again. Please grow up.