Harassment

Sorry we can't make you feel better when we are the ones being harassed....

I wouldn't worry about it.......we're not exactly buried with stories of women being attacked while jogging.  If she's running in an area with a fair amount of traffic, vehicle or otherwise, she's not likely in any danger.  My 14 year old now runs on the road and she gets the same thing (she's 5'9" and hasn't looked 14 since she was 10)..... you can't fix stupid, no point in trying.

real advice?  headphones so you don't have to hear it.  i don't have any idea how to stop it from happening or where to go to avoid it.  

My wife walks the MUP by her office during her lunch hour, constantly gets comments, whistles, etc. She finds the best thing to do is just ignore them completely. Just monkeys looking for a reaction, ruins all their fun when they don't get one. 

Aside from that she has been known to carry pepper spray while walking or running. 

Thank you for your thoughtful post.

Keep a camera phone with her. Anyone who violates her sense of space/acceptable behavior gets their picture taken. If a vehicle is involved, take a picture of their license plate too. Call someone and speak LOUDLY about some weird guy in a blue Chevy (or whatever the car is). Heck, even if you can't make the call, pretend you ARE.

This could be terrible advice. I don't know. But it's what I would do (and have done here in Indonesia but for different reasons).

Make sure she varies her running routes and times. Predictability is the enemy. Message someone when she's leaving, her (approximate) route, and when she expects to return.

I've never felt genuinely threatened. But the few times I've felt uncomfortable, I do something unpredictable. If someone is behind me, I do a sharp about-face and run AT them. At other times (not running), but on a subway or bus at late hours, I've pretended to be crazy (okay, not a far reach here) and talking psycho babble to myself in various voices and volumes (inappropriate) out loud.

Problem solved...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTbNtO0hZsk 

Perfectly SFW.

I have gotten to the point where I zone out almost everything around me when I run - the cat calls, whistles, yells, even honks within inches of me. I get honked at, at an alarmingly high rate. I don't like that I've had to zone everything out becuase I feel I might be missing out on other surroundings sometimes (both good and bad) but it just sort of happened. It has to, if a female wants to run in public any more. Otherwise I'd be jumping out of my skin every 60 seconds.

Hey, it happens to us guys too! Just the other day while standing on the corner waiting for a light to turn I got a whole earful from a car loaded with ladies. I mean I'm in decent shape, but I now realize I must have a pretty sexy a$$ and my short shorts (they were only my 6" shorts, imagine if they were my split 2") are da#m sexy. 

It happens. I think the best advice is to just ignore it and keep moving along like you are oblivious to it. 

None of this is new in the world, and it's not worse now than before, and it's not going to stop, and it doesn't mean the idiots doing it care what you think or don't think, or usually even what you look like.  I wouldn't take it personally.....the idiots who do that do it to virtually every woman they see.  It's some kind of a dumbarse gene.

I think responding with a negative reinforcement is exactly what they are hoping for and would encourage the behavior, inviting even more unwanted attention.

Curious - what would be an example of a solo female runner responding with negative reinforcement to a male harasser? What does that look like? How do you envision that playing out?

I bet it does....but I'm telling you, the idiot that behaves that way does it to nearly every woman they come across who's running, cycling, etc.  It really has a lot less to do with you than you think it does.  It's their issue.