You say harassment, but that's pretty vague. Since you're talking about women in particular, is it more about sexual harassment? For instance, a man is trying to touch her without her consent, stuff like that? By the way, not saying it can't happen to men, but it kinda happens more to women than men.
Anyways, it depends a lot of the kind of harassment I'm seeing and if the guy is drunk, etc. In any case, if I stumble upon a woman that seems to be getting harassed, I'll wait 15-20 sec to confirm it's really happening (not going to interfere in something that doesn't concern me especially if I'm not sure it's happening). Though, if I can really confirm that the woman is getting harassed; she's is trying to get away, she's telling the guy to stop, that she isn't interested... then I will step in. But, I won't come and randomly beat someone, also, depending on the guy, I might not be able to succeed in doing this.
One thing I like to do, even when I'm not sure about the fact that she's getting harassed or not is to simply walk there and tell the woman something like this; "Hello, are things fine here? I was just walking around and you guys looked tense a bit; are you Ok?" Just the fact of saying something like this, will be enough a lot of the times, to show to the guy that there's people around and that he isn't alone and that it's obvious we are seeing that something is happening.
Lastly, if it's the case you do not want to be in; you're about the only one around other than the harassed and its harasser, it's getting intense and your morality is telling you to intervene. Then, I'd probably call the cops and buy time, at least most of the time; if it's really out of control. In any situation, I will never be the first to hit, I might just go in front of the woman if she's clearly telling/signaling me to help her and then, if the guy still insist and pushes me/hit me, it becomes self-defense, I can break his nose freely and I have the woman as a witness to defend me legally when the cops arrive. Even there, this might be a trap to get money out of you and the woman was acting all along; you have to watch out, especially depending on where you live.
Damn, hitting the preview button made me realize I wrote way much more than I though. |