NEW YORK — A video recording the comments a woman hears as she walks around the nation's biggest city is a testament to the pervasiveness of street harassment women face, its creators said.
The comments come continuously as the woman walks through the streets of Manhattan — "What's up, Beautiful?" and "Smile!" — and there's even a stretch when a man just silently walks right next to her for several minutes.
The video, shot over 10 hours one day in neighborhoods all over the borough and edited down to a 2-minute final product, has set off a storm of anger on its way to more than 10 million views since it was released online Tuesday.
"This is having a very serious impact on the way we live our lives," Emily May, executive director of Hollaback!, the anti-street harassment organization that put out the video, said Wednesday.
The footage, which was shot and edited by Rob Bliss, was captured by a camera Bliss had in his backpack as he walked several feet of front of actress Shoshana Roberts, who was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and walked silently along.
At no point did Roberts make eye contact with any of the men she passed or talk to any of them. That didn't stop the comments from coming. When she didn't respond, one man told her, "Somebody's acknowledging you for being beautiful. You should say thank you more!"
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