To be fucking raging about sleazy horrible men

[SweetHoneyBeeeeee]

I don't know what it is about me but I seem to attract the unwanted attention of fucking horrible sleazy men I am happily married (not really relevant) and dress quite conservatively but just seem to always be the subject of horrible men running their eyes over me and blowing kisses/dropping their business cards in my lap/hooting/making (very unsubtle) remarks to theirs friends and since even asking for shag in a train full of people. Today has been dress down at work, I am wearing skinny jeans, flats a floaty vest top and a baggy cardi ...to be honest, this morning I looked in the mirror and thought I had overdone the under-dressed look and yet I still get some fucking asshole asking me if I fancy a fuck! No I FUCKING DON'T, FUCK OFF! (Disclaimer: pmt and my mother may have put me in a bad mood today)

In the city I live in, the mist common sleazy approach is to say to women 'how much?'. Not even any sleazy, pervy preamble, it even comes from young professional looking guys as well as bloated old goats. My friend even gets it in the health food shop she works in.

Its so bad, that when I went to Turkey on holiday, it was actually far more peaceful than the daily sleaze back in Scotland.

I once got stuck in a traffic jam next to a van with sliding doors at the side. Of course they opened and one of the three men sitting inside proceeded to stroke himself by putting his hand down his jeans and staring at me and shouting.

I was fuming. I took photos and phoned his work number on the side of the van to complain. Their HR dept phoned be back to say they were sent to a disciplinary hearing. They were disgusted and fortunately took it really seriously.

I had my car worked on in Kwik Fit once and they take your name, address, phne number etc and put it in their system when you pay your bill (or they used to, it was a few years ago). Anyway then I started getting all these texts 'when can I take you out' 'you're really sexy' etc, asked who it was and they said 'guess'. I was only about 18 and it made me really uncomfortable, I wanted to make a complaint but didn't feel I could as this person had my name, car reg, address etc!!! It felt really invasive / inappropriate / sleazy. That was about 12 years ago and I never have, and never will, step foot inside a Kwik Fit ever again. Rancid little person he was.

I've been thinking about this thread sice last night and getting increasingly wound up. I can recall at least three incidences of similar behaviour and I was telling my friend last night and he was horrified:

In 2011 I was driving back from an interview, along a motorway. I (legitimately) over took a van and kept going. This van proceeded to chase me and come up alongside me, so I slowed down and let him in, he slowed down so I had to over take and then he would speed up to stay alongside me. I tried dropping my speed down to 50 but he kept trying to stay alongside me and I couldn't go any slower because it would be dangerous. In te end, I looked directly at him to see what was going on and he leered at me and shouted "you're gorgeous, nice tits love" and then sped off.

I was really angry because I had, for those twenty minutes, actually been quite scared.

When I was 16 I used to hang around with my friends in a different town and then get the last bus home at midnight. It was normally pretty empty but one night I got on, a bit tipsy, and a man got on at the next stop. Even though there was an entire bus to choose from, he sat next to me and proceeded to grope me and try and kiss me. I was horrified but not too sure what to do, and could see the bus driver watching in the mirror, so I just sort of tried talking to him to keep him occupied. I got off at my stop and so did he, asking if he could come back to mine with me, even after I had said no and that my parents were in and could he leave me alone.

That's without even mentioning the actual attack a few months later by a cab driver, and a few months earlier being approached by a different cab driver, saying he had been watching me since I was 11 and had known I'd grow up to be a sexy girl, did I want to go for a ride?

Oh and I've just remembered giving my cv in to a restaurant when I was 16, and then receiving 'suggestive' texts for a good few weeks from someone who claimed to be a waiter there.

OP if these approaches happen at work I I hope you make a formal complaint to HR or senior management.
On a bus once I gave a guy a hard slap after he tried a grope.

Thinking carefully on the poster who mentioned the Oxford thing, it might be a vulnerability thing. I look young for my age and am polite and non-confrontational to a fault which comes across in my body language I think. I don't get nearly as much hassle when my husband is with me or if a dragon of a colleague is sat beside me in client interviews or when I'm driving my quite expensive car around.

If I'm walking/interviewing alone, I'm vulnerable. If I'm with friends in a bar, I'm just a silly drunken girl. A young mother with a pram is vulnerable. When it looks like I have someone to protect me or I'm somebody important/respectable (badly worded, you know what I mean), it happens less.

I'm uncomfortable with saying to women that if you're confident it won't happen. Because I'm confident and it still DOES happen. If anything it happens more.

At school, I used to get boys trying to grope me constantly, in my early teens older teens, sometimes in cars would follow me home, despite the fact I was dressed in school uniform and was clearly a child. I was confident, would face them down, tell them they were pathetic, and to get lost.

And they did it all the more, because they liked getting a reaction. The girls who didn't react got a tiny proportion of the grief I did.

There are a lot of men who still behave in this unpleasant, entitled way. They will give grief to anyone (I've seen men shouting disgusting abuse at policewomen for example). Confidence doesn't matter to them. Your reaction doesn't matter indeed if you do react, they often do it all the more. And of course as I mentioned upthread, you run the risk of being physically attacked and/or threatened with violence, because these men see women as nothing more than pieces of meat, as nothing. So they'd be quite happy to punch you in the face if you get too gobby with them.

If this abuse happens, it is no-ones fault bar the mans. If you are confident and assertive, it might mean you get less hassle. But it might not.

The responsiblity for stopping this shit lies with the men who do it. We should not have to tailor our lives, our personalities to in some way make ourselves less vulnerable to attack. We should be able to dress as we want, be as we want. Men don't have to modify or change their appearance or behaviour, why should we?

Yeah me too. I nodded along to the victim - blaming post upthread so was hesitant to post what I did.

Gosh, I can't believe you felt you had to apologise for your first post in case it came across as 'stealth boasting' - anyone who'd think being perved on was complimentary needs their head read. Probably the same sort of people who actually enjoy being wolf-whistled.

I'm so pleased that this thread has gone the way it has, and that you've had sympathetic responses.

Totally feel your pain.

Hear hear, VelvetSpoon.

i do not think anyone is saying if you are confident it will not happen, and it is not about looks or how you are dressed

it is not either trying to be someone you are not it is accepting that sadly there are men like this around and it is wrong the blame lies there no where else

for some women confronting a man who has made suggestive remarks to her is unthinkable and they would rather just walk away (this is how i feel) there is nothing wrong with that, but her believing that it is what men do is. society is not going to change over night and by helping women believe that they do not have to accept this or this is just what some men do is a step forward

These kind of things don't happen to me at present, maybe because i look worried or a bit miserable without meaning to? (I'm crap at hiding my emotions).

I feel quite invisible where men are concerned really.

(Except one of my elderly patients with dementia says he ''loves me'' and says ''marry me'' ALL the time because he keeps forgetting he's said it bless! He says it to anyone female though.)

urgh, men like this are disgusting. I used to get it a lot in my 20s and 30s - thankfully has dropped off now I'm in my 40s. Dunno whether it's because I'm less attractive or because I am old enough for them not to try it on. Whatever, it is NOT OK and it is nothing to do with how you are dressed or how you behave. It's misogyny and entitlement.

Perhaps glasses are a protection, I have never got any of this rubbish in my whole life.

I worry slightly that my DDs might, but DD1 has such an air of being in another world blocks will probably instinctively realise they'll get no reaction.

It will bother DD2, she wears glasses too, but will be way prettier than me.

Forgot, i did get a lad grope my bottom in a club 2 weeks ago; i turned round and it could have been one of two lads - i wasn't sure so i raised my arm threateningly as if i wanted to hit them and they got the message; i didn't get groped again.

I honestly hadn't expected that to happen because i hadn't been clubbing in a while, forgot that we often get groped in clubs just for being women.
I was going to ignore it but remembered past Mumsnet threads and threatened them instead; hopefully they'll think twice before bothering another woman in a club.

Posted to soon.

Threads like this make me wonder if I should say something to them, but what.

As I say I just don't get this stuff.

I'd also like a few suggestions for good 'come back' phrases.

I was paying for petrol the other day and a sleaze bag behind me said 'it must be lovely wearing a skirt on a hot day, it means you get some air to all areas" Tbh I was gob smacked and didn't say anything. I wished I had.

I've got 2 DDs and want to arm them with some good advice.

I don't think you should bother trying to think of something witty.

'What did you just say to me?' said loudly enough for other people to hear, works.

It happens whether you look confident or not. One of the worst things said to me was when I was smartly dressed and a man hissed as he passed me: 'You think you look like a fucking film star, don't you?'

I say worst because he made no pretence of complimenting me, like creeps often do. It was clear that he hated women.

Ifnot I think the point was that if she was buying a man's top, she probably wasn't single, so innapropriate.

Ooh yes I've had "stuck up bitch" when I am out and about and once a man bumped into me in town on purpose and then mimicked my voice in a put-on upper class accent when I apologised (I know, conditioning. ) I don't even speak like that, just don't have the regional accent here and he obviously thought I was a bit above myself and wanted to take me down a peg or two. I laughed at him because it was completely unexpected and that was the best reaction I've ever given to something like that. The scowl I received in return made me laugh even harder.

And I understand what you're saying about stealth boasting OP.

I'm impressed that no one's accused you of that or said it puts a spring in their step every time a stranger shouts 'nice jugs' at them.

I wonder how long that will last?

Startail, I got lots of it despite wearing glasses!

This never happens to me and to be honest I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that

Do you wear a lot of pink or red?
Are you in certain areas?

Not at all saying that this excuses anyone's behaviour.

Oh, for some reason I thought she was buying the mans top for herself! ( I have clearly been single too long!)
I agree with Freudian re victim blaming. If you say that a sleazebag picks on a particular type of person, that is not to say that the perp is not to blame. Its just saying that the man is on the lookout for someone he reckons he can humiliate and get away with it.
In the same way that you are far, far more likely to be assaulted under the age of 19, because you seem more vulnerable.
That is not to say that it is teenage girls fault for being young, just that certain men will be more likely to percieve you as a target when you are young.
My BFF used to get loads of awful stuff from sleazebags. Followed home, flashed at, awful comments. She is very slim and small boned,and probably seemed very young.
The fact that actually she us confident ( and has always had the voice of a chain smoking 45 year old!) didn't matter too much- although she could see them off quite effectively, it was how she was perceived.
So, not remotely her fault- nothing she could do about being teeny.
The fact is though, that we do need to learn to stand up for ourselves. Just to say " oh well it shouldn't happen" is not going to stop it. We should be vocal and pissed off about it, as a woman, and on behalf of other women, and girls when it happens to them.
culture can change- most building sites now have strict policies about this kind of behaviour, so it happens a lot less with construction workers. If women call these sleazebags on it, every time, and realise it doesn't have to just be part of life, then the tossers might think twice.