When did you become aware ...

I remember the first time that my younger brother could consistently beat me at wrestling - I was about 9, he was about 7 and suddenly he was always stronger than me. I realised at that point that females are indeed the weaker sex

I remember a science teacher telling the girls to carry on with their work and the boys to come over and look at the new machine he had just received. I was 11 and this was my first introduction to institutionalised sexism

Don’t know if anyone else has read Gorky:My Childhood, for what women used to do before we had rights.....

Maybe it’s only in our generation that not tolerating abuse became a realistic strategy.

Sadly, all the violence I have experienced at the hands of men was facilitated, minimised and excused, directly and indirectly, by women who should have, and could have, protected me.

My children (one of each) have grown up with very different messages about the world to I did and we have no contact with my mother at all to try and break the pattern of tolerating abusive and violent men.

My heart is so sore for those of you living with the after-effects

I've been trying to think what the catalyst was for me, because I'm one of those seemingly rare women who's never had to deal with anything beyond the odd cat-call. But I can trace the awareness back to the murder of a teenage girl in my tiny little town which led to a huge outpouring of "stranger danger" education, even though it was nothing of the sort. I remember my gran whispering to my mum to ask if I went to school via the murder site.

I was just five when it happened.

to previous posters

My Dad is a violent alcoholic.
I am still afraid around my in-laws, even though they have never been anything other than gentle and caring towards me, and my DiL is physically frail.
It is so ingrained in me that family occasions are terrifying.
My husband dropped a plate when he was doing the washing up at my in-laws. Nothing broken, no harm done, nobody said a word. I still had to run out and cry because I was so afraid of what I had expected was the inevitable screaming.
It is hard to deal with. I learned to be constantly on an adrenaline edge. To start rows just to get them over with, because they were inevitable but at least I could control the timing. I have had to unlearn as an adult a lot of the patterns ingrained in me as a child. I am so fortunate that my DH is exceptionally gentle and kind, because I can easily see how I could have ended up with someone like my Dad in my own adult relationships.

@PositivelyPERF

I recognise that.

I was probably in my mid30s before I realised that abuse wasn't just a standard part of relationships and that not everyone's relationship had looked like that.

My childhood was violent. My boyfriends often hit me and my first serious boyfriend's grandma used to tell me that it was only because he loved me so much. If he hadn't loved me, then I wouldn't have been able to upset him so much so easily...

I have actually ended fledgling relationships because I've taken the lack of anger/threats/violence as a sign that they're just not that into me.

I don’t ever remember a time that I’d wasn’t aware that, as a female, I wasn’t vulnerable. I grew up in a household that women were treated as lesser ‘objects’ and the males put on a pedestals. Females waited until the males ate, then had what was left. Sexual and physical violence was ‘normal’ and set me up as a target for those type of men. I grew up waiting for men to assault me and took a long time to realise that my dear sweet husband would never ever raise his hand or voice to me.

He was teaching me how to drive a car and I stalled it. I sat with my hands gripping the steering wheel and he asked what was wrong. I said “I’ve stalled” and he answered “I know. Sure everyone does, when they’re learning. Just start her up and try again. You’ll soon get the hang of it”. I was really confused and shocked at how calm he was. He was so matter of fact about it and was actually stunned when I told him years later, that I was waiting for him to shout at me or even hit me. He was actually very upset that I was afraid. His dad had brought all the boys up to respect women and the girls up to accept nothing less than respect.

I fucking hate violent men and will fight to my last breath to protect women only places. I wish Mumsnet was around when I was young.

I was about 4 and walking home from the shops with my mum. I ran on ahead and tripped over on the pavement besides where a man was parked in a van/lorry. He opened the door to ask if I was ok. He didn't get out but he talked to me until my mum caught up whereupon she gave me an absolute bollocking for talking to a strange man.

Then so many more I don't have the time to type them all out...

Vicky1990
You have such an interesting posting style. I'm sure I remember you posting about your brother before; didn't he also suffer dreadfully at the hands of his wife, who also threatened him with murdering him or something similar? If I recall, from a thread where you were opining that boys are born into a much harder life than girls, where they are falsely accused of rape, and threatened by vindictive bitches, abused by female teachers and so on?

Your brother has been such an unlucky statistical anomaly at the hands of women. Perhaps that has informed your slightly unrepresentative views on women and their criminality as compared to men?

I remember getting incredibly angry at a couple of flashers. I went to a school with a proper garden and these men would expose themselves to girls through the bars of the fence, hidden by the hedge

First time it happened I was horrified. The two subsequent times younger girls were present and I got furious. The bars stopped the flashers from reaching us, so I started taunting them. I suddenly saw them as pathetic inadequates and it made me a rescuer, defender of the little ones. Changed how I felt.

I kind of just thought it was my responsibility to keep them at bay, not their responsibility not to do it.

I totally identify with this. I had a weird upbringing in that my DF was the one who told me I could do anything and didn't try to flatten me, whereas my DM was always trying to inculcate femininity and ladylike behaviour. I definitely got the message from her that anything sexual that was directed at me was my responsibility.

When I was raped in Paris at 17 I never told my family because I knew the main result would be that my DM would fight tooth and nail to stop me traveling independently. It would have been blamed on me. They would have been very distressed on my behalf, yes, but my personality would have been taken as part of the reason it happened.

In a way it helped. I analysed what had happened all by myself. I knew he was entirely to blame and that he'd planned it. Reporting it to the French police seemed far too difficult, plus i was supposed to be going home in a day or two. I did think about his future victims but it was all too much to deal with.

It was an amazing trip for other reasons, which helped me recover.

I was always warned about a nasty man when I was little, never a nasty woman. Best friend tried to rape me when I was 12, untill I smack him in the jaw. I never said anything to anyone, but actually got a bollocking off my mum for punching this lad, who was two years older and a lot bigger and stronger than me.
I never really thought about any of it though, until I was much older. It was just a part of life, the boob grabbing, the smutty comments, the unwanted sexual advances. I kind of just thought it was my responsibility to keep them at bay,not their responsibility not to do it. My mum used to threaten to kick us out if we got ourselves pregnant. Tells you all you need to know about the attitude in our house .

I genuinely never had any of those things happen to me..and l am late 50s..groping / lewd calls/ . Maybe it was growing up in a quiet country place. My mother was a fiesty woman so the dds in our house were encouraged to go all out for education etc. My dad waas a gentle sort of guy so never threatened us. I had a male teacher in Primary who constantly told us all( in the 60s) that we could be anything we wanted to be career wise. He painted pictures for us of the opportunities out there and made us feel it was ours if we wanted it...male and female.
It was only when l began to talk to adults later who had incidences as cited above that l realised l must have had a sheltered upbringing.
My dh , on the other hand, had extreme bullying in school from guys and more especially from teachers. In boarding school he had desperate lack of care and abusive behaviour from those in charge which had major impact since he only came home at holiday time..While travelling alone as an older teen abroad he had a few hair raising episodes that he was lucky to escape with his life.

Tbh I never fully realised my vulnerability as a female until I read my first feminist book aged 19.

Things that had happened I never attributed to my sex before that.

It took me a long time. I was skinny/a late developer.

But just this week a guy on a train stared insolently at me and I knew that if I stared back and there was trouble this would be my fault for not dropping my gaze.

I guess I’m a slow learner but I get there.

Well done to pp on the earlobe thing....

*asking if my dad was HOME.

When I answered the telephone at about age 8-10 and some pervert asked if y dad was gone and then started asking what I was wearing etc. I felt like a fool as I didn't understand what was going on. I never told anybody, then at 18 I was working in a supermarket and a guy there was very mouthy, he ran his fingers up my spine whilst I was bent over unloading something, muttering some pervy shit. I told my dad, my dad did nothing.

I was 11. An older boy in an isolated place started asking about my physical development. I was disgusted and puzzled. My DPs were reassuring but it didn't help. I realized that when I was on my own I was on my own, iyswim.

Never didn't know. Can't say more.

Got some sense that things could be different at my girls secondary school where they had high expectaions of us academically at least and promoted women in business etc. But outside that, RL was same old, same old.

Vicky1990
I used to touch my young nephews all the time. Touch is not necessarily sexual. Do you think you misinterpreted this? My touching was not sexual. You haven’t clarified the nature of this touch. If it was inappropriate, it’s not too late to inform the police.

When I was 14 and with my family visiting a site of interest on holiday.
An nice looking, polite older man started talking to me about nothing in particular and I had a pleasant chat with him feeling pleased an independent grown up was talking on a level to me.
My mum came out and was really funny with me and made me feel like I’d done something wrong.
I knew then that if anything had gone awry, I could not rely on her.
I recognise it as internalised misogyny and it was the worst feeling

11. I had to fend off the husband of one of my mum’s friends.

I bit him hard on the ear lobe to make him let go, and then ran away. I’m still quite proud of my 11 year old self, even now.