Sexual harassment is an almost universal experience for women

[severeine]

I was having a conversation with a well-meaning male friend who was struggling to believe this. I think it is a case of not realising because he hasn't asked/spoken to enough women and isn't a perpetrator himself. For most women I think it is for to say this starts well before even the teen years and persists for 3 or more decades. I have experienced it myself, from school to work, in random situations and still do now. You don't need to be attractive, I am I suppose what you'd call average, you just need to be a woman, ideally unaccompanied. I was talking to one female friend who was harassed every single day by strangers when she lived in Paris, which is one place I've heard of it happening a lot, only it is everywhere. I wonder what your experiences have been?

A few weird things in childhood that only made sense looking back.

Then from puberty until age and weight blessed me with a invisibility cloak it was pretty much constant.

Warned by the older barmaids never to caught in the stairs by the landlord, how to deflect and avoid him.
Office temp for a number of years - men my father’s age would grope me as they passed. Make a fuss and the work dries up, so we kept quiet.

Groped at clubs, so stopped going, assaulted at a gym so stopped going. Getting old was a great relief.

Men should be scared of us. They’re lucky we’re after equality and not revenge.

Everyone on here mentioning friends/DHs/DPs who just had ‘no idea this stuff happens to women’ - I’ve said it once and I’ve I’ll say it again - such willful ignorance!

@workhomesleeprepeat

Everyone on here mentioning friends/DHs/DPs who just had ‘no idea this stuff happens to women’ - I’ve said it once and I’ve I’ll say it again - such willful ignorance!

Agree they choose not to see and choose to believe it is the exception not the rule

Men should be scared of us. They’re lucky we’re after equality and not revenge

Why should men be in any way responsible for the actions of others that came before them?

My experiences, so similar to all the others here, were part of the reason my DD has gone to an all girls school,

I really wanted her to have her education free of all the crippling sexist humiliation l remembered at school.

That is a terrible indictment of the harrasment women have always faced.The older l get the less l like many men.

Strange really when I think about it. I've never really considered myself to be a victim of sexual assault. But thinking about it, I have.

The men that have randomly slapped my backside or grabbed my boobs when I was out clubbing when younger. Or being pinned against a wall "for a snog". Or having my hand forced to some random blokes crotch. Nightclubs

Then add in all the minor every day stuff, cat calls, horns beeped, etc etc.

Started from age 11 upwards and it was never anything but one of those things that happens, because it happened to every woman I know. And it has happened to every women i know. That really makes me feel quite sad.

My eldest dd is 16 and has the figure of a marvel super heroine. She dresses like a bag lady because she can’t stand the male gaze she has been attracting since she began to develop as a pre-teen. Her 13 y/o sister is following suit. Even their school uniform enhances their waist in the summer time and shows more than they like, so they get followed by men in cars. It’s awful. My Dh has become rather confused about when a PDA is okay and when it is groping now, and tbh... so have I. After 20 years together it becomes annoying a lot of the time and it’s not flattering - there’s pressure involved.

For me it started when I was young and it happened regularly until I was in my 30s. I don’t get hassled now (in my 40s). I think my vulnerability as a child and as a young woman made me a prime target.

I've not really experienced it and I used to see all this stuff about how women are constantly harrassed and think other women were complaining too much and were being oversensitive, but I've listened to enough other women now to know that I have just been lucky. It clearly is the experience of most women.

There's a few threads on here over the years that intend initially to be fairly lighthearted asking for creepy stories or worst night of your life (OP was meaning most embarrassing or worst date etc) and they almost all turn into horror stories of everyday assault by men, being followed at night by strange men, cars chasing women down streets, date rape stories and other awful things. And the worst thing is that most people replying on the threads had more than one story to tell each.

My husband cannot grasp the fact that getting assaulted as a female out in a night club is sadly a regular thing. Men putting hands up our dresses when dancing, grabbing our boobs or worse, trying to force themselves on us after the club. And me having my drink spiked more than once.
I once spent an evening telling DH about every groping, two attempted rapes, one actual date rape after a spiking, the time my friend was almost pulled through a car window, and All those times I've been followed (or believed I was) and the stranger turning and leaving after I reached a busy public place, met a boyfriend or got into my house. DH still didn't really "get" it. Was I sure I just wasn't overreacting? And maybe I was imagining that I was being followed when they were probably just walking the same way etc?

I told him, "a man's worst blind date would be a horrible date and being left with the bill.
A woman's worst blind date is her being raped and murdered."

My husband can’t grasp that all men do it. That we are not universally flattered by the gaze of men despite the intention behind it. It pointed out the leering gazed of men his age and older upon his daughters (he hadn’t noticed before - Captain Oblivious.... And of course, he’s proud owner/husband when it happens to me despite my advancing years) and you could see his blood boiling at the same time as the shock set in. They can’t cope with the idea that they might be “One of Them”

I disagree that all men do it, as genuinely decent men do exist, like my DH and BILs, as well as husbands of my close friends. But IME decent men are oblivious to how widespread sexual harassment of women is unless it's pointed out to them.

Not happened to me either. The odd whistle when I was younger but not something I’d consider sexual harassment.

@Mittens030869

I disagree that all men do it, as genuinely decent men do exist, like my DH and BILs, as well as husbands of my close friends. But IME decent men are oblivious to how widespread sexual harassment of women is unless it's pointed out to them.

I agree that not all men do it in the same way that not all men would take advantage of a girl who'd had too much to drink, aren't interested in porn, etc, but a lot of men do it.

When we have experienced a lot of sexual harassment we recognise the type of decent man who wouldn't dream of harassing anyone; thank goodness they exist!

My husband can’t grasp that all men do it.

Your husband is right justilou
They really don’t ‘ALL do it’.
You’re wrong.

I remember the first time I experienced this back in the 70s, at a disco organised by my school.....my first 'grown up' evening out, my mother had made me a long skirt to wear for the occasion. Bottom-pinching and groping the whole evening. I was 11 years old.

The harassment was regular from there until (thankfully) I got older & uglier.

Back then it wasn't regarded as harassment, it was all treated as a laugh. But it wasn't a laugh to me, I remember how nervous I felt about going out and about on my own. Back then Benny Hill was hugely popular, more even than Monty Python which is just astounding.

It is good that attitudes are changing in this regard but it is a great shame the harassment of girls & women continues to this day. How do we make it stop?

I’m very surprised that there are women who say they have never experienced it. Do you think this is because people have different ideas of what constitutes sexual harassment?

I am not saying that all men act upon their thoughts, but “THE GAZE” is universal. That is what all men do. The one that takes you up and down and stays on your chest or your arse or follows you when you walk away. I’m pushing 50, ffs and it still happens!!! (No, I’m not gorgeous, but I’m little and blonde and I think that alone gives men preconceived ideas about my availability/openness/attraction to them/intelligence, etc, or perhaps I am simply less threatening... dunno.)

All these husbands who don't believe it happens until they see/experience it for themselves. Do they really think we are all making it up or exaggerating things or misunderstanding. It is part of the problem.

I think there was a YouTube video about it once and even that annoyed me because it was as if our word wasn't enough. We aren't talking about court cases or burden of proof after all, just our own lived experience. It's sad not to be believed by those who are supposed to love us.

@justilou1 my husband doesn't. He is oblivious to pretty much everything around him, including good looking women. He does know when someone is pretty (he's not a blind man) but it's not something he would comment on unless in conversation about the subject.
He is very much a beta Male though. Doesn't talk down to women, has never cat called (he'd be far too shy) and will defer to me happily if it's something I know about. He also can't stand a lot of his workmates because they're "blokey eejits" They'll rib him about him not knowing there was even a footie match on nevermind not knowing the score, or they'll take the piss out of him for random stuff. He's a genuinely nice, quiet man who's not into beer drinking, car tinkering or football.

And I reckon that is another reason he doesn't really believe that us women all have to deal with constant sexual harassment. He wouldn't do it, but he still doesn't see it. Or he thinks it's just the way it is. He may not like the aggressive blokes he works with but he doesn't feel intimidated or afraid as a woman would either.

My clubbing days were in the early 80s. I'm a bit shocked to read about blatant putting of hands up skirts, getting into knickers and grabbing of boobs. With me it was mainly unwanted snogging and as I mentioned the grinding of erections against me during slow dances.

@justilou1

I can tell you for definite that my DH really doesn't gaze at women. I'm hyper alert to that sort of thing because of the abuse I went through as a child, so I would certainly notice if he did do that.

Almost universal is probably right.

I don't think those who haven't automatically like it or only internal misogyny. Might play a part, it's probably more a bit of luck, maybe some life circumstances (working from home with a unisex name and being obviously disabled so not out as much I think is part of why I'm struggling to recall any sexual harassment) and possibly viewing sexist harassment or aggression from sexual harassment differently to others.

Like, I was in a pub once when a man yanked me by the arm, mistaking me for someone else, but being an ass both in the yanking and in me not being who he thought. Friend viewed that as sexual harassment because he touched me, I viewed as sexist aggression - he likely wouldn't have yanked a guy like that or held onto him as long, but there wasn't anything sexual about it. Most of my sexist interactions are like that, aggression that's very different to the aggression I've seen aimed at my spouse or sons.

Oddly, my spouse does get sexualized remarks about me. He was recently messing around with one of those scam callers, for reasons I don't understand he thinks if he wastes their time it will prevent them contacting someone more vulnerable, and the guy on the phone got pissy with him and said "I was fucking your wife last night". Again, I don't take that as sexual harassment as I wasn't the target, he's trying to emasculate my spouse and it was on a phone where I couldn't hear, but I imagine that interaction had somehow happened in person to our faces that I might feel differently about how he'd said that.

Yes, I think most women on the planet experience this. I worked in the West End in my twenties and never a day passed by when I wasn’t the object of some man’s unwanted attention.I’m in my 60s now and still get the odd comment. It disgusts me.

I've been shouted at in the street (including when heavily pregnant).

Touched, groped, that started at school.

Men sitting too close to you, not giving you enough room to walk past them, the arm round you, chatting you up and not taking no for an answer (or even I'm not single/I'm engaged/married, I've been assured my husband won't mind... and I hate using it as a reason, but sometimes I've felt it's a safer option, that they're less likely to get angry if I can make it not about them personally...)

A friends brother behaved inappropriately towards me. As did a work colleague.

Can't even remember the first time. Teen or nearly teen when I was out on my bike in a crop top and had comments made by a couple of men perhaps?