... which is a ridiculous and stupid thing to happen to a middle-aged woman out walking her dog in the woods, but which gave me this huge dual-carriageway of memory to the sorts of things that used to happen to me (as to almost every young women) when I was very young, when men would seize on my timid politeness as a way of wheedling at me and blaming me for the situations their insistence created.
At the time I was naive and like a million other young women I would blame myself for whatever awkward situation arose. But now, with the perspective of maturity, I can see much more clearly how it works -- how they engineer things so that you start to see their pressuring of you as something you have yourself created.
I'm not talking of anything remotely close to sexual assault -- just a kind of insistent, "flattering" attention. If you are like me, you start off being very polite and kind, and once you realise how pressing and inappropriately demanding they are being, the necessary rudeness (to make them fuck off) seems likes such a reversal that you feel guilty, almost buying in to their perception of you as having somehow "led them on" and then rebuffed them.
And all the "compliments" are structured to try and make you think that your alleged loveliness (I'm not remotely lovely, just an old hag in a muddy waterproof coat) takes agency away from them and makes you yourself to blame.
Even as a mature woman I couldn't bring myself to tell him explicitly to get lost. When I think back to my young self, and to all the current young women, just being polite and suffering the consequences, it makes me furious.
This was just unwelcome pressuring conversation, not assault. Just the ordinary low-level stuff that you forget about when you are old but which is routine when you are a young woman.
Just getting it off my chest, really. I actually do feel guilty about rebuffing this old man so that he doesn't get what he wants from me (namely, I think, the opportunity to talk "flatteringly" to me for ages while he thinks his lecherous thoughts).
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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions
Just been mildly hit on by some sleazy old man ...
195 replies
ButThereAgain · 28/11/2013 10:52
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BuffytheElfSquisher ·
28/11/2013 17:08
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28/11/2013 17:21
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BuffytheElfSquisher ·
28/11/2013 19:21
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