Street harassment will not end until men stop behaving inappropriately toward women they do not know in public spaces. Since most men who harass women do not think they are doing anything wrong—or they do not care that they are—and men who do not harass women tend to not know it occurs or else also do not think it is wrong, ending the behavior is challenging and will require a multi-layered, comprehensive approach. The layers I propose include educating men to respect women and to intervene when they see other men harassing women, empowering women to know street harassment is not their fault and equipping them with assertive responses they can use against harassers, raising public awareness that street harassment is a problem, and working to make street harassment an issue the way sexual assault or workplace sexual harassment is, including lobbying for anti-street harassment laws.

The following are suggested ways people can work to help combat street harassment at an individual and grassroots level:

Individual Level:

In the Moment:

1. If you feel safe enough to do so, confront the harassers calmly, firmly, and without insults or personal attacks, to let them know that their actions are unwelcome, unacceptable, and wrong and why. Use tactics suggested by Martha Langelan and the UK Anti-Street Harassment website. Here is advice from Martha Langelan on dealing with the oh-so-fun drive-by harassers. Here are verbal self defense suggestions you can use, from Lauren at Defend Yourself.
   
   
   
2. If the harassers work for an identifiable company, call or write the company to let them know that their employees are harassing women and why that is unacceptable. (Here are two contributor Stop Street Harassment blog posts with examples of how they successfully did this.)
   
   
3. Intervene when someone else is being harassed to help her out of the situation and let the harasser know that his actions are not condoned by others. Men engaging in this tactic can be particularly powerful since men look to other men for approval. (example of a story in DC)
   
   
4. Take actions that will create real consequences for the harasser, such as reporting the person to a police officer or other person of authority, like a bus driver or subway employee. [NOTE: Here is a statute in New York against serial acts of public lewdness]

Before or after being harassed

1. Talk about your street harassment experiences with family, friends, coworkers, and acquaintances. A lot of people don't realize how often it happens and how upsetting it is. Maybe if more people knew, it would happen less.
   
   
   
2. Post your street harassment story or tactic suggestions on a website or blog to raise awareness about the problem.
   
   
3. Tweet your harassment story and add @catcalled or #hbnyc to your post and it will be added to Catcalled or HollaBackNYC's thread of harassment stories. Keep your own log of your harassment experiences like @streetharassmnt does
   
   
4. Put up anti-street harassment fliers, posters or signs (click on link for street signs) or hand out anti-street harassment fliers. Here's another example of a street harassment poster.
   
   
5. Write and submit an article or op-ed about street harassment to a magazine or newspaper.
   
   
6. Start mapping out where your harassment occured (google earth offers a free tool to do so with a tutorial) or contribute your story to someone who has a map to help visually show its volume. If there are patterns about where it occurs, then you can ask the police or a local business to help intervene in that area.
   
   
7. If you are in a position of mentoring (as a family member, teacher, or friend) educate boys not to speak with disrespect to women and teach girls how to stand up for themselves and challenge disrespectful behavior.
   
   
8. Men, we need you as allies! Read about how men can help stop street harassment. I also recommend reading Brian Martin's "Men: Help stop public harassment," Jackson Katz’s The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help and Todd Denny’s Unexpected Allies: Men Who Stop Rape.
   
   
9. Volunteer time or donate money to fund anti-street harassment organizations, workshops, or community projects.
   
   
10. Take and/or encourage others to take self defense classes so they feel more empowered to safely confront their harasser(s).
    [Where I live there is a great program called Defend Yourself that even has an annual workshop about dealing with street harassers]
    

Grassroots Level:

1. Join or start an activist organizations such as the Street Harassment Project, Rogers Park Young Women’s Action Team, RightRides, NYC SafeStreets, or Blank Noise to work to end street harassment in your area.  It not only raises awareness of the problem but concretely aids women dealing with street harassment and works on preventative measures so women are not harassed in the future. 
   
   
2. Create a lobbying group or petition for anti-street harassment ordinances in your city or state so that people who have had serious incidents of street harassment and want to seek legal recourse can have a way to do so. 
   
   
3. Organize or participate in a lobbying group or petition for inclusion of school programs that teach respect for one’s peers at every grade level.
   
   
4. Make a documentary about street harassment to help educate the public, like Monique and Nijla are, Girls for Gender Equity did, Tracey did, and Maggie did.

While ultimately street harassment, rape, and domestic violence are unlikely to end until there is a cultural respect for women and an end to the idea that women’s primary identity is as a sex object, the above are suggested ways that people can take to try to help that cultural shift occur and help stop street harassment.  In doing so, I do not want to ignore the fact that men must be educated to stop harassing women and that it's not a woman's responsibility to stop harassment, but rather my suggestions are for those who would rather take the matter into their own hands and act instead of waiting for men to figure out that it's wrong to harass women and that they should stop.

NOTE: I am not professionally qualified to offer advice on street harassment. My suggestions are based on the research I conducted for my master's thesis on street harassment. The suggesitons must be practiced at your own risk. There is no one way to address every instance of street harassment and it is up to you to decide what will be the best way for you to act to maintain your safety and dignity.