A man just shouted at me in the street

[Dallia]

“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

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.

I saw this online the other day - sums up that feeling of vulnerability that women have just walking down the street soooo well:

vimeo.com/254727272

It makes me so mad! Sorry OP it's horrible isn't it? Last week while strolling on the pavement with my 2 year old in a buggy and my 4 year old with me a group of men in a van screamed WANKERS at us whilst doing the hand signs. Livid.

Oh yes @Squirrels765 Run forest run is such a witty thing to shout at runners, I laugh every time

I was told to 'fuck off back to my own country' last summer.

I'm white British. I was very confused.

I can still remember very well, when I was 11(!) walked somewhere with my grandparents(!) and a guy who was standing on the opposite of the street surrounded with his bros,shouted at me very loudly " Hey you! Nice boobs!" I was embarrassed and speechless at same time and my grandma was completely mortified.

Mybrows that video sums it up; that moment when you know it (stares, comments, grope even) is going to happen, and you have to decide whether to change your path, or continue as planned and refuse to let them 'win'. It's an awful feeling.

First happened to me when I was nine years old and walking my dog. Fifty years later, tottering along with my walking stick, and it still happens. It used to upset me but now I just feel murderous rage.

This mumsnetter had an... interesting way of dealing with it

Famous willy willy willy thread

Surely these tossers have mums, sisters etc I wonder how they would feel if it happened to them. Hopefully they don't have partners but some of them must do. Imagine finding out a man you loved behaved like that. Years ago I calmly told some shouting creep that I'd follow him home and slit his throat. I never did it again and I'm not proud of it but he looked petrified and it felt great to be honest.

He was DRUNK of course.

My grandma was once followed down the street as a teenager by a man saying all manner of lewd and horrible things to her, she turned round and promptly shoved the ice cream she was eating in his face! It's one of my favorite stories about her

I was walking DS in the street just after he was born and a charming gentleman in a white van shouted he would 'put another one in me'. Sadly for him, the lights turned red and the 6 foot bloke picking up dog poo behind me was my husband.

He was very apologetic after a couple of words with DH.

I read this comeback somewhere once, many years ago and had cause to use it.

A bloke in a crowd of mates asked me to sit on his face and I responded with why, is your nose bigger then your dick? His mates fell about laughing.

The abuse I've had - from men - for being ginger is vile.

Ugly old troll
Ginger minge
Etc etc

Random strange men asking if collar and cuffs match
Being slapped on the arse by a client's father
A guest asking my oh how he could go out with gingers because we smell like cats piss.
Having 'Milf' shouted at me whilst I was out with my 3 young kids.

It's depressing!

jaimx86 Yes it's just horribly familiar isn't it?

These tales make me so angry on behalf of all women. When will things change? What do we have to do to stop this behaviour?

Twenty years ago I had someone randomly tell me "you're fat".

I replied "Did you really just say that? What a strange thing to do!".

I have no idea what I should have said or done.

I was overweight, I had a new born, suffering sleep deprivation and was rushing home to my baby because my enormous milk filled boobs had started to leak. I felt awful.

Stateless - i don't think they care. they see it as normal and to be expected. My dad is fairly unreconstructed and has shocking opinions about women, this extends to me too. The fact he has 2 daughters makes no difference and he thinks women should expect be cat called and critiqued and men should feel unfettered in expressing their opinions. He would happily watch question time with me and call the female politicians 'hatchet faced dogs' and lesbians. He thinks i have no 'sense of humour'. He wouldn't cat call but he certainly stares at young women in the street when we are driving somewhere/in a pub - he's nearly 73.

I was walking through the Main Street in Lytham St Ann's a couple of years ago with DP, pushing DS in his pram who was about 18 months old.

It was a hot day and I was wearing a strapless maxi dress. We passed a pub with a group of lads sat outside in the beer garden and they shouted to me 'waheeeey look at the tits on you! Can I put my face in them' etc etc.

I didn't know what to do. It still makes me angry when I think about it, that I felt embarrassed and upset rather than doing a Julia Roberts in Notting Hill and going telling them to fuck themselves.

MrsKoala - that's a difficult one. He must be hard to be around.

God lots of obscene sexual stuff when younger too many to list .

Remember being absolutely exhausted cycling back from a charity triathlon thing - on the last leg. Pulled up at traffic lights open top car with a baldy man and his girlfriend. "You fucking cunt" he hissed with real hatred. I had never seen him before in my life and was just waiting at some traffic lights! Always feared Germaine was right.

Dh was waiting at a bus stop when a woman strode up and shouted " you should be ashamed" right in his face. She must have been mentally ill but he was quite shaken up. But usually men to women im.

I’ve had this crap since I was about ten. A work colleague who is a complete man child told me last week that he likes to shout at people from his car. I gave him a right ticking off and told him how mortifying it feels to be on the receiving end.

There was one occasion I was shouted at that was hilarious though. I was walking through an almost empty town square one evening, with two male friends. One friend liked to wear vintage clothing, so he had on a suit, smart overcoat and hat. I was wearing a full length wool wrap skirt. A few teens were hanging out by a bench, and one of them (female) shouted out, contemptuously, “VICTORIANS!”.

A few years ago I took my boxes of glass recycling to a local bottle bank at a petrol station. I was loading the bottles into the bins when a car stopped with two older men and a young boy (approximately 8 years old?) and one of the men shouted 'nice tattoos!' to which I just responded 'er thanks!' halfheartedly but after which I received a load of grotesque sexually-based bile and the men and the boy were laughing. Unfortunately my anger management skills are not what they ought to be so I started shouting derisory swearword-based insults back at them and started lobbing the bottles in my hands at the car and I booted the rear back tyre so hard that pieces of the tyre came off. The man driving looked so shocked- he had a 'rabbit in the headlights' look then he did a wheelskid as they escaped my angry tirade. I think the older men were probably trying to teach the boy to catcall sadly but I am glad it didn't go too smoothly for them. I had many a time as a teenager though where I would stand there mortified or too dumbstruck to reply to this kind of nonsense, not realising that it was the problem of the abuser not mine.

Was walking past a park with a friend one night when a charming man shook his cock at us and said "what d'you think of that then?" To which I replied "it's a bit like a penis only smaller". To be fair, I think we walked past as He Was having a sneaky pee but even still - just turn away mate

Ha! Just remembered one that had an element of karma which made me chuckle! I used to drive a little convertible fiat x19 and was driving through city traffic on a sunny Saturday so pretty slow. 2 men were leering at and heckling me, keeping pace with me in what was snails pace traffic. So busy were they with their 'charm' offensive that they didn't look where they were going and one of them walked into a lamppost!!

Hilarious!!!!!

Does it make everyone else just do whatever because your going to get shouted at anyway - so if I need to scratch my arse in public, sort my bra, or adjust my jeans to acomodate my big fat belly - I just go for it what's the worse that can happen or be said to me!

MrsKoala That sounds really horrible to have to be around. I can't understand how it's supposedly funny either, the motives or attitudes behind the behavior are just baffling to me.