Over the weekend, Tugce Albayrak – a 23 year old student in Germany who stood up for two girls being attacked by a group of men in a McDonald's toilet – died of her injuries after being beaten into a coma. Also over the weekend, a video of two girls attacking three guys who had been sexually harassing and ‘inappropriately touching’ them went viral in India. Oh, and on a much lower level, I got so harassed on a main road in London’s West End that my sister snapped and shoved one of the guys whose friend then promptly punched me in the face because he thought I was her.
Basically, there’s a problem with street harassment and it’s a lot easier to just stand by and watch – the viral video of the women who got hounded off the bus and into the street before eventually throwing a brick in self defense was filmed by a passenger. Who just sat there and watched it happen.
‘I think it is very important to stand up to harassment, regardless of the risk,’ says Gemma, who waded into the fray when some guys started beating her friend up. She got chased, and one of the guys swung for her, but she’d still do it again in a heartbeat. ‘I think we have a duty to protect one another. It can be scary and dangerous but ultimately, our communities are stronger if we act to protect those who need protecting.’
And that’s the nub – it’s scary, there’s certainly a risk (whether of getting beaten to death for helping, or getting punched in the face because someone else helped who looked like you) but the alternative is worse: that of not helping. Everyone I spoke to, including a guy called Andy who got beaten to a pulp for defending his girlfriend, said they’d always help out. He was walking home after a night out, when some guys called his girlfriend a ‘slut’, so he called them ‘fucking pricks’ and got the crap beaten out of him. ‘I was on the floor getting beats while my girlfriend was throwing fried chicken at them – I got two black eyes, a bloody nose, a chipped tooth, a busted elbow and a ripped shirt,’ he says. ‘I’d do it for anyone! Friend or family. I wouldn’t call them pricks again, though. These days, I’d be more diplomatic. You’ve got to make a stand, though.’
If you’re going to defend someone, it’s best to take the diplomatic route than the physical one – because, obviously, they’re less likely to respond with violence. Fran, who helped her two mates who were getting chased down a road by a guy for ignoring him, reckons there are a lot of ways to stand up to harassment than getting your hands dirty – and possibly inciting more violence. ‘I was basically stood on my doorstep with my arms crossed asking him who the hell he was and why he had chased my friends, then Dave [her housemate] ran down the stairs behind me, and the guy got really aggro because Dave’s quite big, so I had to make him wait in the living room while I talked this guy down,’ she remembers. ‘I think if you see someone getting harassed you should probably do something – my other housemate sat with a girl who was getting harassed on a bus – but you just don’t want to start a fight.’
Fran’s friend, Sophie, agrees that you don’t always have to wade in if the situation is particularly dangerous. ‘Even if you just show the person who is getting harassed that someone else on the bus has noticed, and that they’re not mad, then that’s sometimes enough,’ she says. ‘A girl on the bus was getting racially abused by this horrible guy, I just turned to her and said, “Are you OK?”’
The whole point of this being that if we stick together, then the arseholes who think it’s OK to shout and intimidate people in public places might have second thoughts. There’s one thing following someone down an isolated street and yelling gross things, but it’s mad that they can get away with it on buses, trains and busy roads without fear of bystanders going, ‘Hang on mate, that’s really shitty.’
Tugce Albayrak was brave, and her story is a tragic (and terrifying) risk of getting involved when someone else is struggling, but it shouldn’t mean we stop. It means we should keep going, full pelt, and call that dickhead out on the train who touches your leg. To move and sit next to the girl on the nightbus who is getting shit from some guys. Use your head, though – as in, don’t barrel headfirst into dangerous situations with your fists up, or lamp someone in the face for telling you to ‘smile, beautiful’, but we need to make sure that Tugce’s tragic death wasn’t in vain by joining forces and stamping out this gross behaviour wherever we can. If we don’t do that, then what sort of people are we?
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Picture: Eugenia Loli
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.