to be fucking RAGING

[CherryBonBon]

that I and other women have to put up with this shit.

Was out in town tonight. Walking to my bus stop and was about to pass a group of drunk lairy lads when one of them started walking quickly towards me with his arms out.

I turned my body away from him and tried to keep walking but he side stepped and put his arms around me. I shoved him as hard as I could off me and told him to get the fuck off me.

I walked away to a barrage of laughter and being called a 'stuck up cunt'.

Why do some men think this is acceptable behaviour? It's so fucking depressing.

Oh dear mire commen up north yes it must be the influence of the ferrets and the flat caps men wear north of Watford dear!

Discounting fuck wit comments like that it's unacceptable op for anyone to grab anyone uninvited in a sexual way. Man to woman or woman to man.

Regarding the 50s and 60s can't comment. I was a teenager late 70s and early 80s and don't remember the drinking culture to be quite so pronounced as it is today but equally in those days men didn't need to blame alcohol on bad behaviour, bad behaviour was the norm from men and you just accepted it. Being touched up happened all the time.

OP, so sorry this happened to you.

Retro robot, had to lol at your comment because it's happened to me in London, zone 1 and 4! I'm sure it happens in 2 and 3 as well.

Joking apart, a friend living elsewhere to,d me london was probably better because everyone out and about has been doing a range of stuff, whereas in her town centre you only go out if you're drinking apparently.

It's a class thing. It's a Northern thing. Yes, there are some toffie Tory types in the Home Counties who probably do this. But there's a clear difference in prevalence of drunken leering at women in the street. Those Northerner who can't admit this are just protecting their tribe ahead of their gender.

YANBU at all OP. Something similar happened me when out a few years ago. I avoided and asked to be left alone to no effect until eventually he put his hand up my dress. I flipped and screamed at him to "get the fuck away from me" my 'friends' said i had over reacted really? How long should i have let him carry on? He already had his hand almost in my pants! When i told my mum the first thing she said was "were you drunk?" I was sober as had been driving. Not that it mattered.

I grew up in London and received unwanted attention from men in the street pretty much every day from when I was about 13 to my early 20s.

Most of it just annoying. Some of it genuinely scary.

So not just up north, no.

Your experience doesn't make it a rule Retro. I'm sure there are many mumsnetters who have experienced dick heads down south. I know I have. Dick heads are everywhere.

Pepper spray. Half a brick in a sock. A sewing needle (seriously you'd be amazed how many people are scared of being pricked by needles).

Hope your alright OP.

The5DayChicken: "Dick heads are everywhere." No, they're not. Most men don't act like this and suggesting that they do won't solve the problem. The men who do this sort of thing are predominantly from a certain cultural background.

You have hit nail on the head The5DayChicken - there are dick heads everywhere!!!!

So you really think there are no dick heads down south? And that with the right background, it's not possible for a person to be a dick head? How very naive.

And I certainly didn't say most men act like this Retro. I've not even confined the term 'dick head' to men. A minority of people are dick heads. And they're spread out a bit of everywhere.

Certain cultural background? City merchant wanker in the zone 1 case for me.

The5DayChicken: Deal with the point as I wrote it, not as you imagine it to be. Of course there are dickheads everywhere - but you find the particular sort of street-drunkeness leering etc. a lot more in Northern / working class areas. I don't see it on Kings' Road Chelsea, that's for sure.

In your experience. Not in everybody's. You're somehow making the leap of applying your own very limited experience to the entire country. I've had this type of experience in London. And the bloke behaving this way didn't strike me as working class. You're being naive.

I read it as The5DayChicken meant dick heads everywhere as in there is always a handful of them in every area, which there are. They weren't saying every person was a dickhead and that term could be male or female. I know a few female ones myself !

Thanks proudmumny, I thought I was somehow mincing my words for a moment!

I have worked all over the place and it from my experience, class, background, culture doesn't make a difference. Drunk, leery men, will be drunk, leery men. I've had very well to do "posh boys" try this kind of thing as well as "lower class" lager louts! It was "only a laugh" doesn't cut it. It's awful, especially as a woman alone.

Self defence is good, I also used to keep a deodorant, impulse type aerosol handy. Spraying one of those directly into a face will certainly stop them long enough to retreat.

It gets my goat too.

Nobody at all should act in such a vile and intimidating way towards anyone else, whether it is man on woman, woman on man, woman on woman or man on man.

I think it most commonly does occur as man on woman. It is evil and an assault whatever the circumstances.

Some people are just massive arses.

The5DayChicken: You are tedious aren't you. How is your experience any wider or less limited than mine? You believe what you want to believe. I bet you also believe that grooming of young teenage girls is equally prevalent among all groups in society! Problems only get solved with targeted treatment.

I'm giving examples that disprove your statement Retro. I'm not claiming that this doesn't happen up north, but that it does happen down south, and my example, and those given by some other posters, are proof of this.

But hey, if your 'thing' is demonizing the northern working class, be my guest. Tell me all about the other ways that southern people are a cut above northerners...

Bollocks, Retro, you wouldn't have seen it on King's Road Chelsea because the road is far more populated than others, that's all. I lived in London for 5 years and similar things happened to me.

AM I being naive, or is there more opposition to this kind of thing? Maybe just that I didn't know about it when I was younger, but now there are groups who campaign against cat calling, and youtube videos about it as well. It seems to be getting acknowledged as unacceptable behaviour.

I like

On a late night train, I have had a drunken group of Scottish men, who were actually just silly - kept trying to play peepo with me down the side of the seat Their team had won; they were very happy and really not a problem.

I have also seen a feisty young woman deal with a drunk who was pestering her. She stood up, went to the emergency stop button and yelled at him that if he didn't keep right away from her, she'd stop the train and call the police.
Worked a treat! Every other passenger was alerted and he slunk off, albeit with a bit of verbal. I did think she must be used to dealing with it, though

I think women's attitudes are changing too. When I was younger we were taught not to make a fuss, to just put up with it, even see it as a compliment.

If someone did this now to my dd I think he'd regret it.