To think this is intrusive and creepy?

[kiritekanawa]

I commute about two hours a day on suburban trains in Paris. It's quite creepy and unsettling to watch the gender politics being played out every day.

Women sit with their bottom at the back of the seat, so their knees don't jut out, so they take up as little room as possible in a 4-seater bit where 2 people face 2 people (which is how most of the seats are arranged on these particular commuter trains).

Men, usually young men, frequently sit opposite women, slide their backside to the edge of the seat, spread their legs wide, and if sitting opposite a woman, put their feet either side of the woman's legs. Then they stare at the woman. If the woman gets up to get off the train, they often won't move their legs, so she has to clamber over them. It's deliberate intrusion. I very rarely see men so tall that their legs would stick out that much naturally if they actually sat up straight - and I know this, I have seen various extremely tall friends sit on these seats without intruding on the space opposite.

This is totally unnecessary, and really rude. Or, possibly, it is totally normal, and I am an uptight Engleesh bitch who needs a f*, as I was told this morning when I politely asked the man opposite me (young enough to be my son, incidentally) to sit up and not surround my legs with his legs, explaining that many women found it a bit too intrusive. Yuck.

[ExitPursuedByABear]

That would give me the rage. A heavy handbag dropped in the crotch woukd be my m.o.

[kiritekanawa]

GoEasyPudding - yes, Paris syndrome in spades this year. I already knew it wasn't the stuff of Amelie, more the stuff of Les Amants du Pont-Neuf, but still, I hadn't expected to find it quite so vile...


And yes to all the suggestions of planted stilettos (unfortunately don't wear them, but I can still kick shins effectively while i clamber over them) and enforced incontinence. Maybe a hand gel accident so their trousers stay smelly all day? (the need for hand gel during trips on the RER is a whole other thread... boak...)

[BOFster]

This is an interesting and related blog.

[kiritekanawa]

Yep, those photos look familiar BOFster...

I may out myself here, but I once went to a very macho place where there are basically only young men working. Watching them sit at the airport - all staring down at smartphones, all nervously jiggling their knees up and down, all with their legs spread as wide as possible but packed into a small room so their knees were touching others' knees... it was like looking at some collective secret sort of communication being transmitted by knee to knee jiggling

[kiritekanawa]

quietbatperson (I adore your name) - yes - that side of life is very much on show here. Though TBH the casual sexual bullying (or more general bullying) kind of behaviour that i see far more frequently is white middle class, professional, and particularly on the train I catch, very highly educated.

I know the oxbridge kids this year had to go to sexual consent classes, but my experience of the UK higher ed system is that individals can occasionally be sleazebags in private, but there's absolutely no way that the casual sexism on show daily here would be tolerated, let alone regarded as normal or acceptable. I remember one academic who did this kind of thing, and everyone in my college called him "teflon man" because frequent suggestions to rein in his behaviour just washed over him with no effect.

[kiritekanawa]

I should also point out that the reason i'm mentioning education here is absolutely not because I think education correlates with decency of behaviour. Any time spent working in a university should disabuse anyone of that.
It's because in the French education system, educational attainment typically correlates with exposure to ideas about feminism, individual freedoms, gender politics, body language, etc.; and middle-class upbringing correlates very strongly with exposure to ideas about good manners, as well as educational attainment. So these people are unlikely to be unaware of the sociological context (indeed some of them clearly go to HEC and are reading stuff about sociology), but they clearly just don't give a monkey's.

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman:

[AnnaFiveTowns]

I lived in Lyon when I was 22 and suffered sexual harassment/assault on a daily basis. I'm now 42 and for some reason have started to get more and more angry about it. It makes my blood boil when I think of what I endured and just accepted.

[NoNoDontEatThatBloodyHellFFS]

This is exactly the type of behaviour that would send me into an incoherent rage, and also makes me glad I wear fairly heavy, reinforced combat boots to work (and all winter, tbh). Fuck that shit, and fuck asking them politely to move their legs. Give them one warning and then slam your foot into their vulnerable little package.

I had a young french lad deliberately blow his cig smoke into my face throughout dinner at an italian (school exchange, we were about 16?) He actually lent over so that his face was inches from mine as he did it, and wouldn't even look at me when I was telling him to quit. Unfortunately for him I also smoked at the time, so my after dinner ciggie was 'accidently' put out on the arrogant little oxygen thief's hand.

[MardyBra]

Take their pictures and add them to this site:

movethefuckoverbro.tumblr.com

[Kalinka16]

Learn some choice French phrases (I would offer to help as I feel myself fluent in everything except modern very-naughty street language) and mutter one as you swing your bag/stamp in his foot. Ignorant fucker, whatever the nationality.

[carlsonrichards]

I would whip my phone out and start taking photos of them.

[PedantMarina]

I was sitting in a church in France (Lyon, to be precise) and a man sat next to me (and, yes, plenty of spare seats) and tried to touch my thigh.

IN. A. FUCKING. CHURCH - GaaaHHHH!

[PoppyWearer]

I lived in and commuted in Paris about 20 years ago and the casual groping/sexual harassment was quite shocking back then. I learned to dress to blend in, but even so it was thought nothing shocking to have your bum squeezed on the way out of the Metro. Happened to most young women I knew there at the time.

Living in London soon after, sure I had a few get-me-out-of-here experiences on night buses, but not the blatant daytime disregard for my body as an object that I experienced in Paris.

In spite of that, I do love Paris still.

[RedButtonhole]

I'd go with spilling something/foot stamping. Will hopefully discourage them from doing it in the future.

I adored Paris when I visited, but my trip was tainted by a man who followed my friend and I down a side street and pinned me against a wall trying to stick his tongue down my throat presumably I looked like an easy target as I had a frock on and my hair done. More fool him as I kneed him between the legs and my friend managed to grab my hand and drag me away from him, he ended up on the floor with very sore balls. People like that need something to teach them a lesson.

[DiaDuit]

Give them one warning and then slam your foot into their vulnerable little package.

Good idea. Perhaps even just mentioning how exposed and vulnerable to injury they have left their most sensitive area might be enough to make them think twice.

[PetiteRaleuse]

I lived in Paris for 8 years. I had very similar experiences. Sometimes I confronted, other times I didn't.

I haven't had a single bad exwperience since moving to the east of France over 7 years ago.

[PetiteRaleuse]

I also had four or five experiences of being sat next to, opposite, or across from a perve who started openly jerking off, ie literally pulled it out and went for it.

[ErnesttheBavarian]

I lived in Bordeaux for 6 moths and think I was sully harassed abused and assaulted every single day. When we complained to the university we were told they couldn't do anything. And anyway, English girls were easy. Our names and room numbers were in the entrance hall and obviously the English names stood out and we'd get people turning up to our rooms to get us there.

Some bloke rubbed himself up against me on a bus and when I told him to stop he called me a who re etc. Unfortunately he was often on the same bus so for the rest of my stay he'd occasionally pop up screaming Sexualität abuse at me. I was a very timid teen and it was totally mortifying for me.

I really hate France as a result of my 6 month stay there.

[DiaDuit]

Excellent point MrsC

We really need to get rid of this idea of 'ladylike' behaviour. My mum was a real stickler for being ladylike.

[DiaDuit]

I almost wish i had to get a train sometimes so i could sit with my legs splayed and behave like those space stealing men.

[Corestrategy]

This kind of thing happens in England too. I've always noticed it and it pisses me off.