If the person does not respond in a way that the harasser wants, the insults ensue, and there is a real fear of escalation:
“[My two girlfriends and I] passed by a group of three guys who were catcalling at us and one of them grabbed my arm as I walked by. I said, 'Ew' and shook him off. When we walked away, one of them shouted, 'Go study for your SATs fucking Chinese bitch.' I marched up to him and his friends and told them not to call me a bitch. The one who called me a Chinese bitch, who was probably about 6’2″ and over 200 pounds (I am just over 100 pounds) shoved me two or three times – hard.” http://bit.ly/18pJ34I And the racial slurs and harassment can be VERY threatening and isolating, especially if people are watching and nobody does anything:
“I am a woman. I was harassed on the street yesterday, about a block away from my apartment...when I looked, his talking turned to yelling...He was yelling, 'You FUCKING CH**K, FUCKING go back to where you came from, you FUCKING CH**K.' But I’m an American. So I couldn’t help myself. And I turned around to glare at him, and he said...Come round this corner and I’ll FUCKING bop you one, you FUCKING CH**K.'...So I walked away. Shaking my head. While everyone else on the crowded sidewalk WATCHED.”
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