teenybuffalo:

Please suggest ways to help another woman if I see her being harassed in public.

I’m in a sidewalk cafe and two guys who were probably beggars came up and started talking at a woman who looked like she just wanted them to leave her alone. I thought I should intervene, but these things restrained me:

–I was scared of them

–I didn’t know what to say. “Leave her alone!” “Are these guys bothering you?” They both sound useless to me.

–I was afraid I’d gotten the situation all wrong and I didn’t want to be rude if she was talking to people she knew.

They eventually went away, probably because they saw the woman who runs the cafe approaching. She came running over to say, “You okay?” to the first woman, who was all, “Oh, no, they were harmless…” in a rattled way.

I just sat there and stared like a dope through the whole thing, and was totally ineffectual. Now I feel awful. This is not the person I want to be. That poor young woman just saw me goggling at her, and not helping her when she was in trouble. 

Are there good ways of intervening on behalf of a stranger who is being hassled by other strangers? Suggestions of wording and actions, please. If I have a game plan I may be able to behave better another time.

Wondering that myself.