I don't live anywhere near a subway, but this is awesome. Hopefully, it will prompt the harassers to stop (and empower women enough to report it).

In any case, a step in the right direction!

Under the new Patriot Act, MTA employees have nearly godlike powers with respect to suspected harassers, including those of indefinite detention and extraordinary rendition.

That's great. They should also have signs that explicitly tell harassers to quit it, though.

That was much better than my train right the other day that had an ad for this gem:

http://www.abortionchangesyou.com/

What line do you take, Vanessa?

Excellent :)
adnike~ That's a good point, but unfortunately frotteurs and exhibitionists aren't going to stop just because they're told to. They know it upsets people~ that's why they do it. Seriously fucked up...
Some coercive paraphilias (especially frotteurism)have been linked to rape, so reporting these individuals is very important. At the same time, a reaction is what they're hoping for~ obviously getting caught isn't. Which is why I think the hollaback stuff is excellent (I know it's not targeting people with paraphilias, but still important).
Maybe somebody with a psychology background can shed more light on the issue.

This is awesome. I was telling my SO last night that I want to used my communications to degree to make ads just like this, and against other sexual harassment as well (rape, catcalling, peeking, etc.)

Thanks for this post, Vanessa! I ride the subway regularly but haven't seen these ads yet. May be they are only on certain lines for now. We'll see how long it takes for them to be up on every train.

I wish that the PATH trains would get these, I've had to deal with the worst harassment while riding them.

What a great sign!!! We should have those in every classroom on college campuses, in the bathrooms, in the hallways, in the dorm rooms. We should also have them on the front of ever public office building, inside each individual office, and (if possible) in private business buildings as well. I'd like to see those signs in grocery stores, movie theaters, malls, theme parks, everywhere! AWWW every day would be Christmas!!!

That's a great campaign. This happened to me on a Green Line train in Boston about 5 years ago, and I was so shocked and confused about what was happening, and couldn't figure out what to do about it in the moment... In retrospect, it was very obvious that this man was pressing against me in a Bad Way, but at the time, I felt like, "huh? this happens for real? am I sure this is really what's going on? what if there's some other explanation? maybe if I just sidle away... ok, maybe if I sidle away again..." Yeah. This kind of campaign would have helped a lot. Just raising awareness in advance would help people recognize what was happening and what they could do about it. It still bugs me that he just got away with it.

This makes me so happy! The language could not be more clear. My only question is what an MTA employee or an officer can really do- they're not usually on the train, and passengers will probably not prevent the harrasser from leaving until authorities arrive. I hope there are security cameras in the subway cars to identify those creeps.

A lot of other public service signs in the subway are dual language posters. Are there signs with this information in a popular language like Spanish? I am only asking because they don't always put both languages on one sign, they often have separate signs for separate languages.

Awesome :)

This may be a bit tangential, but it almost reminds me of "Densha Otoko" (translates to "Train Man", a japanese live-action tv series/movie) as the opening of the story involves a victim of train harassment.

@quamquam: They might stop if the signs make it clear that there are harsh penalties for doing so.