To reflect, post Russell Brand etc., on things I put up with from men but now don't know why

The recent high profile cases exposing sexual violence against women is the tip of the iceberg. The brave women involved are inspirational.
Most/all women are sadly familiar with the long list of sexual assault/ harassment behaviour from men.

There are some good men but they are greatly outnumbered and sadly I don't think the situation will change.

So not the point of the thread

I remember my first waitressing job, age 15, being told by the manager at my "interview" that I needed to wear a very short skirt. He put his hand on my thigh to show the length he wanted my skirt to be. I just internally rolled my eyes and bought a short skirt. Never questioned it. We tolerated this stuff in the way people tolerate babies crying and dogs barking - it was just "what men do". Makes my blood boil now.

The 80s was such an awful time for misogynistic behaviour. In my friendship group we all have memories of being groped, flashed at and being called names in the street. I remember topless pinups in garages. TV was full of casual racism and sexism. I’m happy to see times changing and people being called out for vile behaviour.

Not quite the same but I've been assaulted by men at work more times than I can count

Sexually and physically

The 'main' bosses are female

They take it seriously and ring the police everytime,check in every few minutes to see if I'm OK,check the city etc but the one thing that gets me,is I'm expected to get back out on the shop floor within a minute of telling them what's happened

At one point,I was throwing up in a waste bin (I think it was shock) and my (female) manager told me to 'hurry up,we're busy' (we where manically busy at that moment)

(Shes now left due to endless complaints about her behaviour and the lady who is taking over is much better)

They refused to ring my dp,let me have a few minutes or to even go home as they claimed i had to be around to speak to the police (who have never done anything,one time it took them a week to come out and they told me 'its not that bad')

Twice,the man who's just shoved his hand down my trousers/up my top was still sat there and I was expected to walk past him

Complaining got me a warning for daring to complain (I appealed twice and won but shouldn't have had to go through that stress in the first place)

Is it getting better or just changing, though? Internet harassment has probably replaced some of the face-to-face interaction, but the latter is still depressingly common. Girls are harassed and assaulted by their peers at primary school. I thought street harassment was less common now but then speaking to a teenage girl I know I think it's just that I don't get it nearly so much anymore now that I'm a mum in her 40s rather than a vulnerable teenager.

The only good thing to come out of these cases is the conversations that many of us are having, and how important it is to share our experiences and have them acknowledged (even if only by ourselves).

I can remember as a visibly young secondary school kid - so 11 or 12 - frequently getting kerb crawled. Working in a civil service office with a colleague's topless calendar on the wall, and my boss making me the problem for raising it. Having men flash me, whisper about my body as they walk past me in the middle of the day when on my lunch break, having me stare at my tits when talking to me.

We cannot blame ourselves for not always challenging these behaviours, because our brains will go into shock, or survival mode.

Also, too many of us learn the consequences of the occasions we did speak out came back to bite us.

I've been groped against my consent a number of times on my life and I've been thinking, like you, why I "put up with it". The common denominator in all those situations was to get out of the situation immediately without escalating it. Because of a fear that the male being bigger and stronger (and clearly willing to assault) could make things worse. I hate that. I absolutely hate that. That males can do that to women and girls knowing they'll get away with it because their strength is feared or because they can just use their strength if they decide to. Feel so angry thinking about it.

In the aftermath there's also the feeling of "not making a fuss" because it's unpleasant, time consuming, embarrassing to report/complain and be questioned. I wish that wasn't true too.

I only reported the very first incident which was when I was in my teens. I was out walking our dogs when a man passed, made a lewd comment, lunged and groped me. It was just momentary and he then walked on without a care in the world. I couldn't believe it had happened. I was also very alarmed because it was a seafront promenade in winter with no other people or traffic in view and could have been so much worse if he'd persisted. I did go home and tell my mum, who called the police. They came and picked me up in the car and drove around to see if I could spot him. When I couldn't (unsurprisingly as the promenade wasn't accessible by car) the policewoman I was with muttered something about my "very flimsy description" which seemed to imply I'd made it up. I had to give a statement a couple of days later and was asked what I'd been wearing etc. My mum, who was very religious and disapproved of me having a boyfriend/wearing tight jeans etc quite quickly lost sympathy and made remarks like "well if you do go around acting like a tart you'll attract that sort of attention ". Gee thanks mum.

I actually saw the man again a few months later and he made another lewd comment as he passed. He didn't grab me, possibly because it was on the main road. I didn't bother reporting it that time because of the response the first time. I did mention it to some local friends and they knew who i meant - the bloke had learning difficulties and wandered around all day making rude comments/lunges at girls and young women but that others who'd reported him were told he was "harmless" and "one of life's unfortunates" and "well you'll know to stay out of his way now won't you?"

Sorry that is really long but thinking it through helps me explain why I didn't bother reporting or challenging later incidents.

The last incident was in my 30s and it has troubled me a lot because I feel like I ought to have been assertive and mature enough to have challenged him, yet I didn't. It was a personal trainer at a gym (quite a flash gym in the City of London which I went to at lunchtimes or after work). He had spent a few weeks giving me tips on my fitness progression. One evening he was talking about the importance of stretching properly and said "I'll show you, let's find a bit more space" and before I knew it he'd walked me into an office area and locked the door. I found this quite alarming and I was shocked by how passive I was, just started following the stretch routine he was showing me. I was doubting myself thinking this is fine, I was jumping to conclusions. Then he was bending my leg as I laid on the floor, showing my how to stretch out the hamstring and he took my trainer off "to extend the stretch through your foot" and I realised with horror that he was rubbing my foot up and down on his crotch. I leapt up shouting something about suddenly realising I was going to miss the train, luckily was able to unlock the door and rush off. I only went to the gym at lunchtime after that (busier) and only saw him once more, when he was sporting a black eye. I wonder if a more feisty gymgoer had walloped him. The next time I went there was a new female personal trainer who said "R doesn't work here any more" but wouldn't say anything else.

Im still annoyed by the thoughts I had which stopped me reporting him.
"He's a good looking bloke and younger than me, why would he bother assaulting someone like me, no one would believe me."
"Maybe my imagination ran away with me". (The rubbing was very subtle, I think he was "testing" what he could get away with.)
"Surely if he was going to assault me he wouldn't use my foot" (I'm no longer surprised by this.)
"If I say he was rubbing my foot on his knob, people will just laugh at me." (I was embarrassed enough.)
"I shouldn't have gone into the office with him". (Would people think I was asking for it?)
"I should have known better to go to the gym at a time I knew it would be quiet." (Victim blaming self. )
"I like the gym and I don't want the management to think I'm a troublemaker." (People pleaser.)
"I don't want to be responsible for someone losing their job." (Ditto.)
"I can't face explaining it all to my husband " (he still doesn't know).

All this still troubles me especially as I have a daughter now. We must encourage and support girls and women to call out this sort of behaviour.

I really feel the same, OP. So many things from my teenage years and early 20s which were harassment and/or assault, and one event which I now would consider rape which at the time I thought was just my fault for being stupid.

Partly different times- I was 18 at the peak of ladette culture when the narrative was that sexism and predatory behaviour were a sort of ironic joke and that girls could show they were really one of the boys by laughing along. Partly a fawn response to threat.

It's interesting how teen girls are effectively groomed by society into dropping sexual boundaries. In the 90s/00s it was irony. Now it's so-called sex positivity.

When I was 19 I had a summer job doing data entry for Prudential. I worked in a room with three men who were IT contractors, two older men and one about 30. I felt we got on well and enjoyed chatting to them.

On my last day I came into the office to find that they had cut really explicit pictures out of porn mags (I won't describe but it was the most shocking and degrading stuff, and I'd never seen anything more explicit than page 3) and glued them all over my workstation and computer, literally papered with them. I can still remember how shocked, hurt and humiliated I was and it's more than 30 years ago. I removed the pictures myself and got on with my work, and felt stupid that I'd obviously misread what I had thought were friendly working relationships.

I wonder what my DD would do if the same thing ever happened to her. I hope she would raise hell, but would she? I think she is braver than me but shock, humiliation and fear can make people do strange things- you just want to get yourself out of the situation.

I grew up with misogyny in my home. Both of my parents are two of the most misogynistic people you could meet. My mother was horrified about rape in marriage laws when they were introduced, she was such a complete bitch about the NI rugby rape trials and victim blamed the whole way through, both of them covered up for more than one abuser in the family. They are unfortunately not as untypical as I’d like them to be.

The problem with rapists is even if there was a switch we could flip to get rid of each and every one of them, we would still be swimming in the culture that enables them and a new breed would quickly follow.

I was about 14 years old (a few years back!) and had saved and saved to buy a long,pale pink dress with a white,short sleeved top to go under it (it was fashionable in the 90's) white pants and a trainer bra underneath

A man who lived down the street and had known me since I was a baby came into my parents house,just as I came downstairs and into the kitchen where my mother was (he was just like onslow from keeping up appearances)

He looked me up and down and said 'god,seeing your pubes is soooo sexy'

Both him and my mother started laughing and then he said 'why are you crossing your legs?!i can still see your sexy pubes,ive love to feel them'

I walked off,back into my bedroom,nearly in tears and feeling unbelievably dirty

My mother had a right go at me once he'd left as 'it was a joke!God,your too sensitive!you really upset jimmy!'

Upset Jimmy?!

She should have smacked the living daylights out of him-it would have done if that was one if my dds

Years later,he died and it was all 'he wasn't an angel,but he was a good father'(to 4 daughters!) and 'loveable bloke'

I spoke out about that day in the kitchen and was called a liar,that i shouldn't have paraded myself in front of him and pulled apart for being a slut/wearing slutty clothes (a long dress)

It's ingrained-i was 14,he was in his 50's and he was just another dirty old man,hiding in plain sight with his enablers supporting him

This is not restricted to working in kitchens, I worked in printing with practically all men, you have to close this shit down right away and make it clear you won't tolerate it.
After first contact I never had any problems with this again. Except once a manager fondled my arse when we were in a lift- the dress code was smart shoes , so they had a decent heel, I trod on this foot and leaned- no more problem. This was in the 1980's I never got reprimanded demoted or anything like that.

Recent events have stirred up so much for me OP, awful disturbing memories, and you’re absolutely right. It messes with my mind just how much pacifying, smiling along, not making a fuss I’ve done over the years. Trying to stay safe while also having some semblance of a life. Shutting down, fawning. Are things any better now? I’m not sure they are. I have DDs, they have been stared at, cat called while in school uniform, flashed, even assaulted and drugged all over the last ten years. Were there any consequences for the perpetrators? No. It’s like a form of collective trauma for women to live with this level of threat. Men, the good men, have no idea what this feels like and are not doing enough to call out the bad men - their mates, colleagues and family members.

All the raped and dead women. There aren’t enough tears in the world for them all.

Completely agree. I look back in horror at many incidents which I would class in those terms now and wonder why on earth I didn't react more assertively at the time. We were so conditioned at the time to not make a fuss, not hurt men's feelings, plus as you say the fawn response - and often just disbelief in what you were experiencing almost.

And also the idea that it was fine for men to just try this stuff on - even looking back at songs like Kesha's TickTock - 15 years ago - talking about 'boys trying to touch our junk, gonna slap em if they're getting too drunk'. It was so normalized that men would do this, and it was on us to deal with it assertively if we didn't want it - yet at the same time we had been trained not to.

I am so glad things are changing, but yes it is hard to look back at this stuff.

I work with men who save lives everyday. Sometimes I don’t know how they do it, makes you believe in miracles.

Are they a design fault ?. Spend a day with me and see how many fucks you give them.

Having to explain it, just means that particular poster wasn't actually listening to you or cared about your horrendous experience with disgusting men who think it is ok to harrass women, that poster was trying to deflect. Probably likes geting a rise.

Fwiw I am your age and your experience wasn't rare, I.was also sexually harassed "casually" groped when I was younger the reason we didn't respond to them was out of fear and when we did complain we were told it was just how hewas.

@SoWhatIsItNow it all boils down to money in the end.

Presenters/actors/comedians who stand out will draw in crowds. Some people will love them, some will find their outrageous humour entertaining, some will just watch out of astonished curiosity. But whatever the reason, the viewing/listening numbers will increase, and so will the revenue.

And no broadcasting company wants to reduce their income, so they let the celebrity continue unchallenged as long as they possibly can. And when one broadcaster finally reaches the end of their patience, another one is waiting in the wings.

It's all about the money.

Fran Lebowitz writes about how as a young woman in New York she did domestic cleaning jobs rather than work in restaurants. There was an expectation the the young waitresses would sleep with the managers to get good hours etc. She said the only managers who left the young women alone were gay and hassled the young men instead.
We don't seem to have advanced much in 50 years.

Me too. I'm 57, I recognise many of these experiences. Avoiding stationery cupboards, filing rooms and enclosed spaces as they weren't safe. It was normal.

I also work in the legal field and law firms were dreadful with predominant male partners. We had a managing partner who seemed to be sleeping his way through all the trainees despite being married (the high point was one of them chucking a drink over him at a Christmas Party!).

I'm hoping that some of the cases coming forward, Russell Brand and I see David Walliams has now been named (accepting presumed innocence) may mean that things are changing. I'm not convinced through.

It is astonishing how this was all said out loud, was common knowledge and not just behind industry doors - with Brand but also Walliams. I'm just reading how at the tv awards in 2005 the host Jonathan Ross made a joke about the awards being 15 years old, and 'like any 15 year old, it's drunk, unpredictable, and probably going home with David Walliams." This was on prime time TV. And we all just laughed.