I was the recipient of unwanted advice from a random man today.

[Pollydonia]

..and actually remembered to say " thanks Random Man !" He just looked confused but another woman near by burst out laughing.
It was in the gym, I was doing my own thing , he tried to tell me to do it " his" way .
Seriously though, I'm 49 so I'm less likely to be intimidated by shit like this. I've also emailed the gym as a heads up .

I agree, posters tying themselves in knots to excuse behaviour and blame the woman.

Poster upthread seemed to be accusing us of criticise power and money, but still craving both.

Is that true in your experience? Not mine.

But I definitely see a trend here on MN recently where more than a few posters desire attention from men and resent anyone who gets it, particularly if they express discomfort with it.

I think there is a lot of truth in the internalised misogyny.

The 'happy to get compliments' comments made to the mother on another thread are an example of just how much women are expected and expect each other to be validatd by men!

As for my train experience, it really just illustrated how insidious it is. As a previous poster said a few pages back, if I'd simpered and tittered and gone along with them, would they have remained pleasant? Would I have been seen as 'womaning' correctly? Would they have followed me off the train and assaulted me? Would I have been seen as encouraging them as I'd been seen by a whole carriage full of people being friendly towards them, when I didn't want to be, as a self protection strategy?

Why should their desire for female company override mine to just want to sit on the train in peace? I was actually reading at the time too so wasn't even looking up or around the carriage.

As someone else said, we have no idea when the seen will become unpleasant and I have no desire, or intent, to appease a man's ego when inam going about business doing my own thing.

@MarieIVanArkleStinks OMG, I'd missed the shoes story and the station story and the table seats. I am so saddened by all this.

THIS is why we have to fight to keep the guards on the trains. Isn't there a system to call the transport police or flag up that we're being made to feel scared/threatened on a train?

Yes, you can call or text the British Transport Police on 61016. It’s always a good idea to know which coach you are in so you can identify which train, coach and seat you’re reporting from.

So am I @SirChenjins . It doesn’t go away when you get older either.

I know. I'm 53, so comfortably in middle age, but still on the receiving end of this type of behaviour. My DD is 22 and has to navigate the kind of unwanted attention that her brothers don't - and will never have to, ever. But y'know, be grateful for the male gaze

Yes there is it’s 61016 - sounds stupid but I remember it as a little head (the zero) with headphones on (unfortunately what we have to do to be left alone sometimes!)

I have had very similar experiences on the train to the stories above.

In my 20s, if you were on the train with me you probably would have looked at me and thought all was well. Me just chatting to a man on the train.

The thing is, I became very good at masking.

It looked like everything was ok because I was ‘pretending’ it was ok, partly in some ‘freeze’ response to a threat (yes it’s not just fight or flight) partly because I was trying not to provoke an aggressive reaction and partly because I had learnt from previous experience (much like PP above) that even on a busy train, with people around, no one will intervene, so it was a type of self protection I guess.

Unfortunately that transport police number wasn’t around in the 2000s…

When I talk about learnt behaviour, and no one intervening, one incident sticks out above the rest.

I was on a train (in the U.K.) I think I was 18/19 and a man sat next to me and just kept trying to chat, it started as him just badgering me constantly.

I was polite (ffs!) and said I didn’t want to chat (removing my headphones each time!) and then the taps on the shoulder to get me to listen started., the slightly more aggressive tone. When he went to the loo, I changed carriages and sat opposite two people on a table seat l, but he found me and sat by me again.

This time he was trying to manspread using his left leg to push into my space and touch my leg, then the ‘snobby cow’ ‘too good to chat to me are you?’ ‘too ugly for you am I?’ ‘Slut!’ started.

No one said anything.

Then he tried sticking his hand up my skirt asking where I was getting off and getting more and more angry and verbally abusive when I refused to answer him. He was putting his weight on my now. Up in my face, sneering in my ear. Calling me a slut.

Still no one said anything.

I don’t know how I had frame of mind but I guess instinct kicked in. We were approaching a station (not one I wanted) but I got up, almost clambering past him in the process.

He followed me and stood glaring at me in the bit by the doors between the carriages, shouting insults at me. I was trying to look anywhere but at him. Other people were there too, I was trying to catch their eye they were all looking away.

As the doors opened he oddly stepped out with some others, I stayed on the train and watched him look for me on the platform while the train carried on.

I was so relieved I just burst into tears and everyone stared at me like I was some crazy person.

So this is why women go along with it, why they pretend to laugh and nod and smile whilst constantly assessing risk and quietly trying to distance.

Obviously I know the bystander effect is a thing but I was desperate for some to even just pretend they knew me or go to a guard for me, anything to divert this man’s attention from me.

It still effects me now, so much so I had to stop typing at one point as I got a bit teary (more out of frustration and anger about what we have to go through as women more than anything else!)

God I’m so angry.

@Chubarubrub
That is a horrific story, you poor thing for having to go through that. It beggers believe that no one helped.

Thank you. Unfortunately it’s one of many incidents for me, although luckily the worst. Incidents I’m sure most women have had to some degree.

In fact, and this is what angers me, I was just relieved he hadn’t physically hurt me. Everything was going through my head, physical assault, rape, murder… I was expecting it. Felt inevitable. That’s how low the bar is, the measure of a good and happy outcome, ‘at least I wasn’t killed’ Lucky me. I’m a woman and I wasn’t killed. 😣

Oh @Chubarubrub i want to give you a massive hug, i'm teary now for you, for the 18/19yo you.

I'm so sorry that you went through that and nobody helped

Thank you! It’s mad that I’m nearly 40 and this (and other incidents) still effect me and have heavily influenced my interactions (or lack of) with strange men to this day. The wariness, the risk assessment. It’s exhausting!

I didn’t want to share, even anonymously, but done if the comments on here shaming and ridiculing OP and PPs for similar reason just got to me.

There’s so many women out there with similar and worse stories but my main ask is, please help someone! You can pretend to be a friend or a colleague or just quietly assist or distract in many ways that don’t involve confrontation 🙂

@Chubarubrub Horrendous. Even worse, I’ve heard dozens of accounts like this.

You hit the nail on the head - the problem is (a) nobody helps and (b) if we speak up, everyone stares at the victim (like we’re a weirdo) instead of the perpetrator. It’s deeply embedded - Making A Fuss is just not the done thing. It happened to me when I was attacked at a train station. I yelled when he nearly pushed me over and everyone stared at ME! How dare I make a noise!
I have no idea how we change this. I can only say that now I’m old and bolshy I wouldn’t hesitate to speak up, and don’t care if people stare at me and think I’m being awfully unreasonable to break the polite silence of a train carriage.

There is now but I don't know how effective it is.

I did actually go into the ticket office while I was waiting for the next train to tell them what had happened. There were two men in There, they listened and were sympathetic (at least!) and told me they'd pass it on but I had the feeling they didn't know what to do about it really.

Sadly your experience doesn’t surprise me. They were probably thinking, just a woman being hysterical.

As for solving it. My place of work does active bystander training and I honestly think it should be mandatory in schools, colleges, Unis, as well as workplaces. As well as helping me understand why people didn’t help me (putting to rest the blame I had carried by questioning ‘why didn’t they help me?!’ as if it was personal or I deserved it) it also has given me loads of strategies that I’d be confident in putting into practice in the real world, if ever I needed to ‘step in’

@Chubarubrub I agree - I've done active bystander training too and yes it should be mandatory. Unfortunately very few people go to it at my workplace and those who go are naturally those who want to make a difference.
As I recall though, it was focused on racism, sexism and homophobia in the workplace. It is appropriate in situations like your train incident, but nothing like that was mentioned in the course.
To be honest I think a lot of people just can't believe such things happen.

I actually think it's more insidious than that.

People can experience racism from men or women. That means it's racists who are the problem.

People experience hobophobia from homophobes. That means it's homophobes who are the problem.

Women experience sexism in the workplace. That means it's the work place that is the problem.

Women experience aggression and threats of sexual assault etc from men. That means it's... ah and there we reach the problem.

@Chubarubrub - that is a horrible experience you had, I'm so sorry that no one even looked at you or tried to help you. Well done for finding a way out of the situation - it's appalling how some men think they have a right to our attention, and will become aggressive and insulting when they don't get it.
And yet we''re the ones in the wrong whenever we challenge it.

FAR too much internalised misogyny/"pick me" girl attitude in the world still. I don't even know how we change it now - we seem to be going fucking backwards, not forwards!!

That sounds horrendous and saddening to hear.

However, even with people fully trained in bystander training, one has to make a risk assessment and determine whether things are going to escalate. These accounts seem to suggest that things could get ugly very quickly and knowing how to diffuse the situation highly variable.

Of course the other aspect of any training is adrenaline. I've studied martial arts but sparing never truly prepares you for a real-life scenario when your adrenaline takes over and you end up a gibbering mess. I'm definitely not knocking bystander training but it takes huge bravery to manage someone seemingly unhinged. In the workplace it's much easier as we have the safety of a familiar setting. In public we do not.

People definitely need to start stepping up but in instances like these, I'm not surprised people didn't step in.

@Chubarubrub I just wanted to pop back in to this thread and say I had tears in my eyes reading your post (and yours isn't the only one in this thread), and it's made me resolve to try to be braver about saying something or trying to support women & girls I see in similar situations. I don't know if I'll be brave enough but I recognise the situation you describe.

In my 20s & 30s I remember being on buses & trains when men have decided they want yo talk to me, and I've resolutely looked out of the window, and been called "snob" etc which then quickly turn into "I wouldn't want to fuck you anyway"

Which just shows you what the men were actually thinking & what they were thinking about me - as a random bit of female meat.

@GreyCarpet Women experience aggression and threats of sexual assault etc from men. That means it's... ah and there we reach the problem.
Yes I think you’re absolutely right.

Active bystander training isn’t just about intervening in a direct way on the spot though. A core part of it is knowing when stepping up on the spot is safe and appropriate, and when it isn’t, and things you can do after the event if on the spot intervention isn’t possible. The mass of people who sit and watch, or look at their phones, when someone is being verbally abused or threatened on the train could easily text the British Transport Police or may able to signal to the victim to go to another carriage with them. Or they could quietly get up and find the train manager. And it isn’t just fear of provoking a violent response or anything like that, it’s fear of attention being turned on them if they do so much as speak.
If more people in a group DID do / say something than sat there watching, the perpetrator wouldn’t be able to get away with it.
When I was attacked on the concourse of a large London station not a single person asked me if I was OK afterwards, even when the attacker had gone. That’s not because of any fucking risk assessment.

Scary isn't it? Or we've quite the invasion of MRAs and threads like this flush them out.

More likely the former. Really sad.

Don't be, it's widespread.

Another thread, where a 21 year old thug assaulted his sister, is full of people saying she is responsible as she was banging on the bathroom door looking for something, as she was running out to work.

He went for her twice, and SHE'S to blame.

Also she's been ridiculed for being desperately upset in college and crying.

Apparently it's normal sibling rivalry.....in lots of MN homes..... at 21 and 18.

You really couldn't make up the shit you read on here.

Not surprising that the Daily Mail are all over MN.