my 12 year old DD and unwanted male attention

[crispandcheesesandwichplease]

I've posted before about my DD getting unwanted attention form adult men. She's 12, she's developing but doesn't wear make up or skimpy clothes. She doesn't look particularly older than she is.

Today we're down by the riverside having a picnic. She's wearing jeans and a t-shirt. We were sat reading and other people are around. A bloke, in his 40's I'd say, and 2 younger kids come and sit near us. The bloke immediately starts leering at my daughter. He sees me watching him look at her, I give him the Paddington bear hard stare. The kids he is with are messing about by the water and he's sorting them out with sun cream etc. He keeps looking over at my DD then at me, he knows I'm watching him.

After about 20 mins or so they gather their stuff to leave, he still keeps glancing at my daughter then at me. DD is oblivious to this, lost in her book. As they walk off I continue watching him, and he keeps turning round to look at my DD. Then, just before they disappear round the corner he turns to me and sticks his two fingers up at me!

Part of me was amused at his cheek but another part of me was furious. He was clearly letching at her and knew I'd clocked it, then he does that! What goes on in some men's head ffs???

Well said shove and amy.

It's cultural. It's broadly accepted as just the way things are, nothing to see here, and that's being demonstrated right here on this thread.

We could change this, as a society. But that involves challenging male sexual entitlement, and well, it's only swivel eyed feminist loons who want to do that, eh?

I'm curious as to how many women only seem to "click" on this when they see it happen to their daughters. Did you dismiss your own experiences of street harrassment as young girls? did you not really remember it? Did you think it belonged in the past and that we were beyond such things now?

I wonder, PoochSmooch, if part of that is due to so many women having low self-esteem. If it happens to you; you feel like in some way you deserve it. If it happens to your children - well fuck THAT noise, you know they don't deserve it!

In a similar way to how some women will put up with years of abuse from their partners, only to finally snap when they start on their kids?

YADNBU.

I remember becoming aware of men leering at me from the age of 13 or so but recently my DM said she'd noticed it earlier but I'd been unaware.

I would definitely approach and say something. It's very obvious when it's leering and not just 'looking around'

Thank you Pooch. I concur, I feel it's so ingrained in society so many just accept it as normal. Of course girls will start being ogled and have comments made on the street, that's part of being female, so get used to it. Then many girls (and women) see it as so commonplace so maybe accept it, change routines and routes, cross the road when certain groups are approaching etc, it just becomes a natural part of life.

It's also the case I feel from what friends and I have experienced that those who do this are all kinds of men, of all ages (including now boys younger than myself). I expect the man who gave me my first "learning experience" of such things went off to work that day where people think of him being perfectly decent.

I actually had an experience once where I was out with my DM shopping on a Saturday afternoon in a shopping centre.

We walked in to HMV, DM was slightly in front of me so didn't see but as we walked in a guy grabbed my boob. I think I was 14 at the time.

That's interesting, geordie. I wonder if that's an element of it (I don't have children myself, so don't know from firsthand).

It was accepted as normal until very recently, I think, until women started to talk about their experiences on social media and people realised how common it is and bloody unacceptable. It certainly isn't all men but there are enough of them doing it that this shit affects women's and girls' lives on a daily basis.

*stumblymonkey
That's awful - and it happened to me too when I was young, more than once, although I was clearly a young woman, not a child. Not that that makes it better.

I felt sick, mortified and guilty as I always did in these situations even though I knew I didn't invite it in any way shape or form.

You put it to the back of your mind and forget, don't you? I've only started recalling these things since reading this thread, although have always been v protective of my own daughter and nieces growing up.

That's not to say I haven't ever challenged such behaviour individually in the past, and also in online discussions. But until a few years ago there were more people dismissing your experiences like the tiny minority on this thread. In fact I never really talked about being groped or flashed at etc as it seemed taboo or shameful.

Well if I'm in this situation i will definitely video the purpotrator. I will then report to the police. Then i will post the footage on face book and ask all my friends to share it.
If you don't want this to happen then stop harassing females.

I think you were very calm considering.

My DD is the same height as me (5'2). Rather developed already and I've already perfected the don't even fucking go there hard stare towards certain others. She's only just turned 11! But looks 13/14 and yes that's without makeup etc too.

Did you dismiss your own experiences of street harrassment as young girls? did you not really remember it?

Yes I think I did use to dismiss it in a sense, and I remember it well, unfortunately I was a very messed up teen and mistook it for genuine attention rather than the leering it actually was. Bit of an ice queen nowadays though, was at a tram stop first thing in the morning and when a bloke, at 8am in the morning started to chat me up I knocked him back without even looking up from my phone. He could have been Tom Hardy for all I knew and I wouldn't have noticed 😂

Taking a photo... Really? That could get nasty. However horrible he might be, he has as much right to photograph your daughter as you do to photograph him.

It's not fair but the best thing to do in any difficult situation, whether on a poorly-lit street or on a riverbank, is to walk away.

Some men don't give a shit. They do what they want and rely on women/girls freezing so they get away with it.

The first time I took my newborn out for a walk (he was about a week old and jaundiced and I thought the sun would help) a man pinched my bum hard when he walked past me. I just stood there stunned while he walked on, and my immediate reaction was that I must be mistaken or that I must have been swaying my hips or something to 'provoke' him - when one week after childbirth I was probably walking like a robot actually.

And now I'm sure it's the fact that I was obviously vulnerable that made him think he could do what he liked. And I think that may be part of the reason men target young girls - their vulnerability. The fact that their comments will hit a 12 year old much harder than a 40 year old who has heard it all before. It makes for a bigger power trip, ironically...

he has as much right to photograph your daughter as you do to photograph him.

He most certainly doesn't.

It was normal - and continues to be so, though it is increasingly being challenged. I think we did normalise it - the idea only occurred to me in my 30s that I actually OUGHT to have the same right to walk the city and to occupy public space as a man, without being stared at, wolf whistled, groped or threatened, and then told that I ought to feel complemented by the fact that men were deigning to give me this attention.

We've begun to tackle the leading edge of womens' humiliation - the sexual assaults, the rapes, the groping on public transport - but we have yet to deal with the incessant daily humiliation of being leered at, gawped at, and objectified in public space.

They do what they want and rely on women/girls freezing so they get away with it.

Very much so. That's part of why they do it, it's often about the power of being able to intimidate you, in my opinion.

I don't remember it happening much when I was growing up, the odd wolf whistle or comment from a passing car, but I wouldn't say it was happening all the time by any means, nor has it into adulthood. I have never been flashed at and the first time I was groped in public was in my late 40s. I grew up in the 70s/early 80s and even if it didn't happen much to me it was always there, accepted, just what happened. Girls and women just shrugged it off or went along with it. It was there all the time on TV as well, nudge nudge, wink wink.

However, even if it hasn't happened all that often to me, it is still always there, I have spent my whole 10+ year old life feeling self conscious walking past building sites, feeling my heartrate increase (not in a good way) when I inadvertently catch a man's eye in the street, watching where I sit in trains relative to men, feeling nervous if a carriage starts to empty because I know it does happen, can happen any time and you never know when or where. I absent-mindedly adjusted my bra strap in the street the other week and was treated to "I'll help you with that love" from a market trader who will never get my business again. Same when I was patting my pockets trying to find my phone at DS's football training recently. I haven't seen it happen to my DD yet, but I am watching out .

No they don't have a right to photograph a child and if they did then I would certainly challenge that and report them to the police.
I would then post on social media asking does anyone else know who this peodophile is? The entire point being to call the creep on his behaviour and stop this ingrained mysoginy.
People like this think they are entitled to do it, to put females in their place as second class citizens.
Alerting their behaviour to their boss or family calls them out for the disgusting creatures that they are.
They are relying on you feeling embarrassed and staying silent so that they can carry on doing it.

I was a 14 yo teen in the early 80s and remember there was a young guy who would walk past you on the high street and mutter crudely what he wanted you to do to him. After the first time I was ready for our next meeting so told him to f&£@ himself thank you. I never saw him again.

A male friend later told me same guy had intimidated his sister who was older. When I said how I handled him it was obvious that I should not have sworn and simply run away and told the police. It was more appropriate for me to have acted like a victim and remained threatened basically. I am a gobby bitch and my experiences made me this way.

I think it probably depends a lot on where you live. There's a lot more harassment in big cities.

I got stuck on the tube the other day with a couple of drunk guys asking me incessant questions. It was good-humoured rather than aggressive, there were plenty of people around, I didn't feel threatened. I could have moved carriages but I was tired after a long day. I remembered that when I was a teen that happened all the time. You just got used to being hassled.

Funny thing though - they eventually asked me my age - I said 45. One said "fourty five? 'Kin ell you don't even look 35, I thought you were our age."They were 27. "That's beer goggles for you" I said.

I remembered that when I was a teen that happened all the time. You just got used to being hassled.

Yes indeed. But it doesn't matter if the men doing it think they're being good humoured (I don't feel they do most of the time, I think it's about power and intimidation) - it's entirely unwelcome and threatening. I also don't care how old I might look, I should never have to put up with harassment. It's just all the more abhorrent it starts when you're quite obviously a young girl.

Teens and twenties I should say. I expected it to tail off more in my 30s than it did.

But it doesn't matter if the men doing it think they're being good humoured

No, I agree, it's still unwanted attention but chitchat doesn't really bother me.

There have been situations where I have felt threatened.

It bothers me because it can be threatening (and turn violent if not reciprocated or even politely declined: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-39315449) and is an example of feeling entitlement to women and girls' time.

I have also felt threatened in a number of situations. It's abhorrent.

A friend of mine recently dealt with unwanted attention brilliantly, PHD student in her 20s, very pretty and quite voluptuous, bloke in Sainsbury's said that he'd love to shag her, so she whipped a condom out of her bag and said: " Ok. here and now?" he called her a slut and walked off.