I stopped doing that after this man reached into his pants as I was holding down the shutter. I had taken four or five photos in a blast when it happened. I started to back away. I walked down the street. I was almost running. He stopped me and stood over me and forced me to erase the photos one by one. He kept saying, “I thought you’d like it, but you didn’t.” I’m not sure why he let me leave this one.

At a event in Brooklyn, Rebecca Solnit said she’d asked female students at Columbia to imagine how their lives would be different if, instead of the “manscape” we live in, streets and bridges and buildings were named after women. One student said she’d feel like public space belonged to her. She said she’d feel she had as much of a right to be outside as anyone else. This statement touched a previously untouched space inside of me and I started to tear up a little. Then a man who had been staring at me all night came up to me and asked me why Rebecca Solnit was being “so political.”