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AIBU?

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Original poster

A man just shouted at me in the street

622 replies

Dallia · 21/02/2018 18:18

“Why are you wearing a curtain?”

I kind of smiled awkwardly and carried on crossing the road to him shouting “oi, you, I’m talking to you!”

I was absolutely mortified, lots of people were watching but no one said anything.

Why do people do this? He seemed like a “normal person” and it was really intimidating. He turned back to look and I thought he was going to start following me. Has anyone ever had weird random things shouted at them in the street, or is it just me Hmm

For the record I was wearing a stripy maxi dress as I was on my way to get a spray tan. Really wish I’d had a witty comeback.

OP posts:
UpABitLate · 22/02/2018 07:59

Just remembered a man threw eggs at me out of a car once, one of them hit my head and it really fucking hurt.

God you just forget all this stuff don't you.

I was once sitting at a bus stop with plastic window things and there was a loud thud next to my head (maybe I was leaning on it) and I looked and a man has spat as hard as he could at head height onto the plastic.

I've got loads of this stuff, some of it really properly scary and illegal.

UpABitLate · 22/02/2018 08:00

On MN there often seems to be a difference in where people grew up with some areas worse than others.

KERALA1 · 22/02/2018 08:01

It's common.
It's to put us in our place and remind us that we are just sex toys and not real people - like they are.
The hatred drips out of them.
I think most of us can relate to the car park scene in Thelma and Louise in these instances.

savagebaggagemaster · 22/02/2018 08:20

I was in a nightclub years ago when two blokes started laughing at me asking 'are you a transvestite?' My pals told them to piss off, but 20 years later I can tell you it really affected my self esteem and hurts me even now.
Worse than that I've had a masturbating man put his hand up my skirt on a very crowded bus in Paris (used to live there) and a waiter push me up against a wall in a stairwell in Italy forcing me to kiss him - when I was 17. Sad
It's so depressing when you realise that this sh*t has basically happened to most women you know.

Anniegetyourgun · 22/02/2018 08:22

I hope people realise that these calls of "fat" are nothing to do with whether you are actually fat or not (as witness several posters here who were not fat at all). It's because they know it is an insult that most women will take to heart. I've been called a fat slag and a dried-up old hag in the same sentence - go figure. Mostly it's while they drive past very fast because, as someone observed upthread, they are cowards, as bullies often are.

At my current stage of life (back end of middle age, stout and proud) I do get blokes who look me up and down slowly and say "look at the state of you". Like we were in the army and they were my superior officer or something. Sometimes I do the same to them and say "hark who's talking" in a really contemptuous tone; other times I smile and say "have a lovely day" (with or without "asshole" tagged on). At this stage they're likely to scream "Shut up!" in an almost panicky tone, because you're not supposed to answer back, you're supposed to look mortified and slink away. Don't give them the satisfaction. Stand up tall and walk away as if you'd been given a great compliment. They hate that most of all. (If you want to cry when you get home, do, but try to remember it's not about you, it's about them. And they are, indeed, assholes.)

Anniegetyourgun · 22/02/2018 08:23

I was in a nightclub years ago when two blokes started laughing at me asking 'are you a transvestite?'

The obvious reply is "no, are you?" Then their mates laugh at them instead of you.

CollyWombles · 22/02/2018 08:24

A few months ago, I was walking fast to get to the bank before it shut for lunch and as I overtook a lad, he yelled: in a rush munter? And laughed with his presumably girlfriend. Hmm

Anniegetyourgun · 22/02/2018 08:25

... oh, or "are you looking for one?"

SadieHH · 22/02/2018 08:28

Mine both happened in deepest posh Surrey, the driver I mentioned was in a huge jag and about 50, having pulled out of his big gated house. Alas it’s men of all types.

Fekko · 22/02/2018 08:29

I was with a friend years ago and she handled one beautifully although I don’t think she intended to.

I was waiting for her outside the cinema and she came by bike. She was in sports clothes and had a helmet and some man started with the usual ‘hilarious’ chitchat.

She looked at him quizzically and went up close - ‘pardon? What was that? Are you talking to me? I don’t think I know you, do I? Are you looking for directions? Have we met? What do you want?...’ she has quite a school ma’am manner and he did squirm like a naughty schoolboy then walked away very quickly.

UpABitLate · 22/02/2018 08:31

"I was in a nightclub years ago when two blokes started laughing at me asking 'are you a transvestite?'

The obvious reply is "no, are you?" Then their mates laugh at them instead of you."

They'd take that as a banterish come-on though, lots of the time.

There's no good way of dealing with these men IME.

UpABitLate · 22/02/2018 08:31

OR get really angry and aggressive.

I've never had one subside and back down and go away.

HandbagKrabby · 22/02/2018 08:33

If anything happens to me and dh I’m not bothering with another man, there’s nothing they could offer me that I’d care about and the genuine good ones are so few and far between that I can’t be arsed looking for one.

All these men have mothers and they probably have or have had girlfriends and wives. They have plenty of opportunity to see us as people but they have chosen not to and the society we live in enables that.

All we can do is pull it up every single time. Abuse from someone in any organisation, complain loudly. Tell the police, and complain loudly when they don’t take it seriously. Speak plainly to the men in our lives so they don’t ever have the impression that some women are fair game. Campaign against organisations, events and products that reinforce the idea that women and girls are products that can be bought or sold, won or lost or are there for men’s entertainment. Stop excusing violent misogynistic porn as something all men ‘need’.

Ideally women need to raise their standards as a group and stop making life easy for all the arseholes out there but it’s very difficult to do that when the world is against you.

I’d love my dd to grow up in a world where being flashed, wanked at, groped and verbally assaulted isn’t the norm of what happens to little girls in a supposedly civilised country.

UpABitLate · 22/02/2018 08:35

Great post handbag Smile

I've got 2 DD as well, the 10yo is well along with puberty, I dread that she's going to have to start navigating this shit so soon.

Even when they dont' say or do anything, it's the age at which men start looking, staring, eyeing you up and down. It's really discomfiting.

Pumperthepumper · 22/02/2018 08:36

I don’t think there’s a good way of dealing with it either because you never know how they’ll react. I’ve had ‘nice arse’ as I walked past then ‘stuck-up bitch’ when I didn’t respond. I also had a male colleague tell me I had nice tits on my first day at work, I didn’t know what to say so I gave a nervous laugh and he said ‘they’re not that nice, I’ve seen better’ - a weird mix of aggression for not reacting ‘properly’. Pricks.

Timefortea99 · 22/02/2018 08:39

Handbag has nailed it.

WashingMatilda · 22/02/2018 08:43

This is not people - it's men -

Yep

problembottom · 22/02/2018 08:46

Abuse of this kind as a teen used to devastate me and sadly, like everyone else, it happened a lot.

Last year I was running in the park when a teenage lad shouted vile sexual stuff as I passed him, with his mates falling about. Sadly for him I was doing mile circuits and next time I passed them I went mental at him. I felt so bloody angry, his mates asked me to leave him alone! The next few miles they all turned away when I ran past. I’m just not taking that shit anymore.

Bluntness100 · 22/02/2018 08:53

I think that's what struck me too. Every man who does this is someone's partner or son. Do they know they are out there abusing women in the street for shits and giggles?

When I was on holiday with a friend, we were 18 , we were sitting on a bench chatting, I was wearing the typical 18 year old outfit of a short skirt and a man, late sixties, out walking with a young boy of about seven, whose hand he was holding, I assume his grandson, walked up to me and shoved his hand up my skirt, touching my vulva. Early evening. He just walked right up to me and did it. We shouted at him and pushed him off and he didn't stop easily. The little boy just stood and watched.

That man would probably have had a wife at home. Who probably had no idea that her husband took the grandkid out for a walk and randomly sexually assaulted young women on his way.

waterlego6064 · 22/02/2018 09:06

Urgh, this thread is so upsetting. Fucking hell.

PP made a really good point about women being labelled ‘bitchy’ and men being seen as straightforward. This totally disproves that doesn’t it? What could be bitchier than shouting an insult at a complete stranger?

DD is 12 and starting to look a lot more woman-shaped. I hate it when men stare at her. All right, no-one has commented on her yet (thank God), but I hate the staring. Any of you found a way of dealing with men staring at your daughters?

On the one hand, I imagine there’s no way to stop it, and of course it is not illegal to look at a person. But on the other hand, I know damn well that they are not simply ‘looking’, they’re thinking disgusting things about my child 😕

KERALA1 · 22/02/2018 09:10

OMG Bluntness.

If we all reported this shit all the time the police force would fucking collapse Hmm.

I wonder if the "best" response is to try and engage normally. Eg "grim sexual comment". Walk up to wanker look straight in eye "why did you say that. Why did you say that. You don't even know me. Shall I say the same to you. Can I take your name and address? I will take your picture. We don't have to stand for this". Sure it might be dangerous but if we all did it all the time and women backed each other up? Maybe am fantasising..

anna231a · 22/02/2018 09:12

I was in a nightclub when I was 18 and a man came over to me and whispered “you’re a fucking ugly cunt” in my ear. It affected me for ages after.

Weallfeelbetterinthedark · 22/02/2018 09:13

I was at a disco and a man I have never seen before was following me trying to chat me up with "charming" remarks such as "Your tits look good in that top. Would you like to touch my dick? Do you think your mouth is big enough to fit both my balls and dick in?"
I couldn't go anywhere without this man following me, and when he sat down next to me at the bar I raised my arm to create a barrier of sorts between him and me and shouted: "Leave me in peace!" Then I hurried to the ladies' as he couldn't possibly follow me there.

End of story: When I returned from the loo I was received by one of the club's bouncers with THIS man and also the bartender in tow, and I heard THIS man say: "Yes, it's her.", and the bouncer then told me to leave the club NOW since "we don't want any troublemakers in here!"
Allegedly I had been "kicking and shouting" at this man, "who only wanted to be friendly and nice" to me.

Birds of a feather and the like...
Hmm

ultrababy · 22/02/2018 09:21

I was away with a group of women for a hen weekend. It was fantastic having some down time,just a group of friends catching up and not really bothering with any other people.
We went to a bar one night and as is customary we went fancy dress. We were dressed as Audrey Hepburn with black shift dresses, pearls and sunglasses.
This man clearly drunk come up to our table with his friends around him and shouts out 'What the fuck have you lot come as? A funeral?
I replied. 'No. What have you come as? A cunt?
Obviously we all started laughing loudly and you could visibly see him shrink in size as he slinks back to his group of friends with them shouting 'She fucking done you mate'
Normally I never think of things spur of the moment but this my finest hour.

kalinkafoxtrot45 · 22/02/2018 09:26

I want there to be a planet, only for women, no men allowed, and we can all live there free of this shit.

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