Me and my flat mates were walking through seven dials when a police car (with the sirens on) with two male officers inside slowed right down and started beeping their horn and leering at us. About ten minutes later we were sat on the green outside Montpelier Crescent when we looked up to see a man stood at a big window, very obviously masturbating whilst staring straight at us. We looked up on three different occasions to find him doing the same thing, and he only stopped once we made it extremely clear we had noticed by holding up a phone as if we were going to take a picture.
As much as we were bothered by the second man, it was the actions of the police that really upset us. It’s just one example of how systemic acts of violence against female-identifying people are, and how ingrained misogyny is within the systems that are in place to protect us.