Public transportation might be cheap and relatively convenient, but one of the biggest downsides is unquestionably the amount of sexual harassment that goes on there. If you’ve ever ridden on a subway in any major city, even if you haven’t experienced harassment yourself, you’ve definitely seen it at least a few times.
And while most people just turn a blind eye and don’t get involved, one young woman in New York City decided that wasn’t an option.
Caitlin Wilkinson was riding the train one night when she says she realized another woman in her car needed help.
The woman kept making eye contact with her, something Caitlin took to mean she was looking for an ally, so she took out her headphones and realized a strange man was “explicitly talking about how he was going to fuck her” and being otherwise completely inappropriate.
“I started looking around to see who else was on the cart, and we appeared to be the only two women on the train,” Caitlin told BuzzFeed. “There were three other men sitting somewhat near the situation. Nobody else on the train seemed bothered by what was happening. The man then stood up and began walking towards her, grabbing his dick and blatantly staring at her.”
So Caitlin decided to call him out.
By the time the video starts, the man is already yelling back at her, angry that she’s staring him down and “all the way up in my business.”
“What am I supposed to do when you’re yelling at a random woman about your d—ck?” Caitlin fires back.
The man continues insisting that she mind her own business, but that just isn’t going to happen.
“You’re sexually harassing someone, I’m not going to let you do that,” she tells him. “Don’t use that word,” he responds.
He then asks if she’s a feminist, as if people genuinely need a label in order to stand against sexual harassment.
“If that’s what I have to be, bro, to tell you to stop bothering a human being, if that’s what it takes,” Caitlin replies.
In a follow-up video, Caitlin admitted she didn’t get a chance to talk to the other woman, who reportedly got off the train even as Caitlin and the d—ck-slinger continued arguing.
“I was kind of just making him stay focused on me, but I really regret not talking to her. I just didn’t want to attract the attention back to her, because he was still talking to me at that point,” she said.
Regardless, we definitely need more people — of all genders — like Caitlin, willing to call out sexual harassment when they see it so that men finally realize it’s not something they can get away with anymore.
