To be angry and distressed at the amount of harassment my fourteen year old daughter faces?

[Saggingninja]

A small sample. She's been harassed on a bus by a man in his thirties when she was in her school uniform. Nobody intervened. She was followed slowly down a street by a man in a car, but when she turned to take a photo of his licence plate, he drove off. She was asked for a 'date' by a man who was 'in his fifties'. When she pointed out she was only fourteen he smiled and said 'he didn't mind.' And yesterday on the train with some friends, she noticed this man filming them. When she turned to face him, he stopped and moved away.

My daughter is confident and I've told her not to be afraid of telling anyone harassing her to fuck off or to loudly remind them that she's underage. I put up with so much crap when I was a teenager out of fear of being rude. But I'm so angry and distressed that this happens so often. Nothing has changed has it?

I got a lot of harassment from 13 onwards. Dds 10 and 12 the 10 year old is already extremely conventionally attractive. My plan is this. If an older man perves at her I will walk up to him take a photo on my phone and say “you are leering sexually at a 14 year old I am putting your photo online so the peadophile hunters can deal with you”. That’s my plan anyway might give them pause for thought

Grearduckcookery - yes, some men - the ones who bring shame on the rest of them.

Men are foul and they need to do something about it.

I think I've told this story on here before, but a while ago, I was out with my 9 year old ds and he turned round to me and asked "mum, why do men in vans always stare at women?"

I don't get it as often now at 40 but when I do it takes me by surprise and I'll glare at him but not say anything. It's usually just blatant leering even when the wife is with them.
However when or if it starts with my dds (only 9 and 5 just now) I vow to call it out. Something along the lines of 'why are you leering at my 13 year old daughter are you a fucking paedophile?'
Nice and loud so all can hear

I would suggest, if she has the nerve, to tell her to say loudly and clearly 'You are sexually harassing a child. Leave me alone or I'll call the police and get you on the peadophile register'. Might make them (and casual observers) realise how wrong their behaviour is.

Report this to the police (via the non-emergency number) EVERY SINGLE TIME! Make sure she has a good look at the man (or takes a photo if she can) so she can give them a description. Even a partial photo of a car or a person walking away is better then nothing - although tell her not to put herself in danger by taking the photo.

Tell her to report it when it happens, not to wait until she gets home. And if she's on public transport tell her to report it to the driver and to tell them she is ringing the police to report the incident. She'll meet resistance, people will try and brush this off as not being important or say she's making a fuss but the only way to stop these creeps is to push back against their behaviour.

If she reports this incidences, the police can build up a picture, see if there's a pattern of this happening in the same place at the same time. See if they get several descriptions the same. See if the description matches somebody already on their watch list.

My 13 year old daughter was stalked over the summer by a creep in a Range Rover.
He was arrested but released without charge (CPS decision) on a technicality. It was terrifying.

I got the harrassment from 12 to 30.
Kerb crawlers. Creepy cabbies. Older guys thinking they were brad pitt not rab c nesbitt 😏🙄
We knew the paedos and after he walked past us and brushed my thigh, we always crossed the road to avoid him. Weirdo.
I got groped whilst queuing in the bus steps. I grabbed the hand, waved it in the air and shouted loudly "does anyone own this hand? I found it on my bum". The fucker stepped off the bus and waited for the next one.i was 17.
My dd is 12. I'm raising her to make a fucktonne of noise. Why the fuck should this still be going on?

Totally agree it’s disgusting and totally creepy. It happened to me from 13 onwards. I remember driving in a car with my mum and a man in a van pulled up at the lights beside us and shouted out his window requesting I “flash him my tits” my mum screamed at him “she’s only 13!”
That still makes me cringe even now! Tell your daughter to call the police next time!

This is not ok and we (mums, dads and kids) need to call out this behaviour every time, however embarrassing it is to do so.

I remember being harassed at work when I was 16 by someone who also worked there and was old enough to be my dad telling me I had ‘great tits’. I told the manager who proceeded to justify the man’s behaviour because he was a. Northern and b. An older generation. Not ok. I wish I’d been able to stand up to them both. I wish laws had been on place then so I could have reported. I wish someone else had stood up for me and I wish it was socially unacceptable. From your post it seems like nothing has changed.

OP I agree that nothing much has changed. We need to insist on zero tolerance and it's great that your daughter is confident, aware and vocal that it is wrong.

I was just saying to DH last night that I don't think there is a woman alive that has not been demeaned or treated badly in some way by a man. I can think of multiple incidents that happened to me from about 13/14 onwards that would warrant police involvement now. When I was 18 (looked v. young and lived in another country) I was kerb crawled by a guy who exposed himself (and more!). I was told that it wouldn't be investigated as I wasn't a minor, as if it was ok.

I had this from 13 to 30, like all of us. It gives me the rage as well. I agree that pushing back is all that will change it, but I also think there needs to be a mass public campaign to shame it, too. That was how attitudes to drunk driving were shifted. I want to bloody well win Euromillions to pay for that - actors showing these shifty, dirty old men harassing girls, shot from her perspective.

They had an anti-rape campaign along those lines in Canada a few years ago called Don't Be That Guy. It had astonishing success against the sort of opportunist, preying-on-drunk offending rates. We need to make it so this doesn't make these men feel good. We need to make it behaviour they're scared to demonstrate because it makes them the perv in their own perceptions, too.

This shit is one of the reasons I like being middleaged. It doesn't happen, thank God. Intimidating and scary and humiliating and depressing should not be a gauntlet you run, just being out minding your own business in a young girl's body.

YANBU and this behaviour should frankly be taken a lot more seriously by everyone.

My daughter (then 16) was going to her after school job when a similar age boy came up to her with a knife and told her he was going to rape her. She told him to PISS OFF, loudly and walked on. She told us when she got home from work and even though she wasn't upset or unduly distressed about the incident, the next day I took her to the local cop shop to report it. Turns out it was far more serious than we thought as this 'boy' had approached several young girls and terrified them. He was identified and arrested (she had to do a video one to one in a police house about the incident). We attended a follow up meeting with all concerned and the step father of the child personally apologised to daughter. The boy was 'troubled'. I like to think that he learnt from this and went on to do no further harm. Daughter is now 33 and lives and works in London but certainly has a DON'T FUCK WITH ME look and attitude and applies it when needed. (Still calls me occasionally when walking home alone, in the dark after work, even though she is 200 miles away...) Sad.

If it was my dd I'd be advising her to turn and scream paedophile in their faces and make a commotion till someone stepped up.

It sounds like your dd has been very unfortunate to come into contact with some very sick individuals. Its the amount of times its happened that scares me.

"I quietly leaned over and said, 'that is my 12 year old daughter you are ogling you filthy old pervert, and you'd better stop, or I'll be letting management know what you're doing and make damned sure you are removed'."

Nice to see someone who's articulate enough to not just revert to the usual "fuck off". I can't believe people are happy to teach their children to swear, yet on other threads bemoan the bad language of the young.

It is disgraceful that children are harassed this way and the perpetrators should absolutely be called out. But let's not turn our children into foul-mouthed youngsters. Telling someone you are reporting them would possibly have more effect.

Putting my tin hat on...

YANBU. My daughter just turned 15, she has to taoe public transport across philadelphia to her school every day. She was getting so many comments and men trying to chat to her or making her uncomfortsble, she has taken to wearing huge baggy sweatshirts and gay pride beanie hats, not wearing make up etc.

To he fair, when she has said to men trying to chat her up "dude... I am 14" they have tended to backtrack, saying they were just being friendly. But it is horrible for these young girls to have to deal with. I have warned her not to do or say anything to anger them, either, because there is loads of gun crime in this city. A kid was shot a gew minths ago just walking to her school... world is crazy.

OMG this was me at that age. I was like catnip to the bastards when I was that age for a shortish but very intense time. I was slow to develop so it wasn’t that. I even got chased by a flasher once when I’d spent the day mucking out horse so it wasn’t how I dressed. It got to the point where I couldn’t bear to be alone in a room with a man, even my dear dad who frankly would have gone to jail if he’d known what was happening to me. But I never told anyone. I was embarrassed and ashamed and I had no idea what ‘i’ Was doing wrong. It’s honestly great that your daughter is telling you. Hug and and give her pepper to carry in a pocket. And reassure her, it’s not her. There are just a shitload of sick guys out there who think they’re really something and pick on girls they know are too inexperienced to give them the earful they deserve. I wish I’d been on the bus with your daughter. I’d have taken out 60 years of rage on the twat that was badmouthing her. And enjoyed it.

Oh no, both me and my kids are quite happy to be more succinct, and sometimes 'fuck off' will be the go to.

We just happened to be in a really rather posh restaurant, and there were some lovely elderly patrons around that I didn't want to further distress or offend with the more common vernacular.

(I know my kids swear, I insist they know what the words mean and when and where to use them, and when and where, not to. They know there is no swearing around their parents, around or at their teachers, or any other adults (particularly their Grandmother, the mere thought makes me quite faint), and that if they get snapped for swearing, I'll leave them swinging in the breeze. . .)

Is this a new thing? Or was I just an exceptionally ugly teenager/young woman? Or did I just have "don't even f-ing try" written across my forehead?

And if it is new, why on earth is it happening? Clearly it's not a new thing reading some of the posts here but I can honestly say I don't remember anything happening beyond wolf whistles by your proverbial sexist builders. Who I fortunately didn't walk past every often.

Oh OP, YADNBU!! Your poor daughter. I totally agree with you advising her to tell these horrible creepy bastards to fuck off. I will be doing the same when my daughter is older. Hope you are all ok

I have a 13yr old dd, after sea cadets which finishes at 9.30pm I popped in to the local takeaway place with my daughter who was 12 and my son who was 11 both in their cadet uniforms, and sat down to wait for food.

A bloke sat down next to my daughter so I moved her to the other side and gave him a don't fuck with my kids glare,
He then tried to talk to her ignoring both me and my son.

I told him not to talk my daughter and he wanted to know why because he was just being friendly.

I gave him a piece of my mind.

OP: I'm so sorry your daughter has been through this. Xx

I used to get beeped at and cat called to walking to school of a morning in the 90's. Grown men usually in some kind of works van. As a teen my friends and I couldn't walk past builders/window fitters/workmen without harassment of some kind or another. Why do men think it's acceptable? We were kids in school uniforms! Don't get me wrong out skirts were short but why does that mean grown men get to ogle and be so disgusting
I have young girls now and I'm dreading them growing up and having to deal with this type of crap at 13/14

I remember being 15 and on holiday with parents. In the family club they were playing a game of men sitting on chairs and their female assistant running through the other holiday makers gathering certain items, for example a lipstick, or a woman's scarf. Then either using the make up on the man or dressing him in the items of clothing.
One of the contestants, a married man on holiday with his wife and 2 sons, who weren't that much younger than me, came up to me grabbed my hand and told me he had chosen me to be his female assistant!
I was absolutely mortified.
I was a very shy child and did not want to go with him!
He dragged me onto the dance floor.
I thought then wtf!
How on earth is it acceptable for a man to behave like this!
Absolutely shocking.

Yep. DD has already been sexually leered at and flashed at. Both times when she was on her way to school before 8am. Both times she was in woolly hat, anorak, school uniform. She is 12. This is what #metoo is actually about - not stupid men moaning that they are not even allowed to compliment women any more. It's about the fact that girls face this crap from the age of 12, daily.

11 here, in the 80's. I was a fairly bolshy feminist child, so didn't take it lying down. So to speak. When I told my parents about such things as having grown men wolf whistle me (in my primary school uniform), kerb crawl me, or graphically tell me what they'd like to do with me, I was told I was making a fuss about nothing, needed to have a sense of humour, and should learn how to take a compliment.

Fairly safe to say that's why I didn't tell my parents when I was assaulted by a male nurse when in hospital, or when I was harassed by a male in the family.

Needless to say that's not what I've told my kids. They've done self defense courses, and been told not to be afraid to use their voices. And to never think that we would ever blame them, minimise their distress, or fail to support them.