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?

I don’t think all men do it, but I do think the majority of women have definitely experienced it. I think part of the problem is some of the the men who don’t do it rightly can’t conceive of how someone else could-so think that there must be something else going own. But this still shows that even the ‘good’ men are not all willing to listen to and advocate for women. Some are, but they are sadly few and far between.

Yes, from age 11 my first year at secondary school. Boys in my class saying:
"Show us your tits"
"Suck my cock"
"Let me lick you out"
etc etc eventually leading on to them putting their hands up my skirt and trying to open my shirt.

To a dirty old fucker at work when I was 16 getting a bit to 'helpful' with his hands.

To the driving instructor touching my knee unnecessarily and being generally creepy.

Plus numerous other creeps through the years.

This has just reminded me to teach my own 11yo girl some good comebacks.

I've noticed that a lot of the men I know only start really paying attention to this behaviour towards women when they have daughters themselves. Cue hand wringing and worries about how to protect their daughters from leery men (who they themselves once were and in some cases still are). My BIL is an example, and now his eldest daughter is about to go to secondary school he wants to organise a private car to take her to and from school so she isn't subjected to the kinds of experiences we're all talking about.

I think most men know this happens. If they haven't done it themselves they will have friends who have. Like in nightclubs, those places are packed. I think unfortunately unless it happens to someone they love, they dont give it a moment's thought.

I am very cynical though but this is my experience.

The first time I ventured to the park on my own, an old man literally had a puppy for me to stroke, to reel me in, then stuck his tongue down my throat.

Flashed at numerous times as a child, unwanted sexually appraising comments when in teens and twenties (whether I was fuckable or not etc.), attempted rape on holiday. Was never harassed at uni tho, and had a lot of male friends. Occasionally had drunken sex with guys in my twenties just to prevent an assault.

In most of my workplaces men have been respectful. Always aware of men when walking at night, and in the park etc.

Sadly, it seems very few women have never been through this. I am not.sure I know anyone that has never had any form of sexual.harassment however mild. An d that is speaking of adult or young adult women, let alone the CSA e.g. Being groped at age 11 that seem s so prevalent in here. YEs, I do consider any inappropriate touching of a child to be child sexual abuse. I have been told am overreacting, being dramatic etc by family members for calling my experiences of being groped or fondled as a child CSA, but I still believe it is. My therapist who is treating me for a while bunch of PTSD related issues including verbal and p physical abuse from a parent, also thinks so. I felt like I was ccomplaining about nothing when I mention the groped etc as a kid because it didn't seem a huge deal compared to.The other stuff but my trauma therapist says he believes it is relevant

Sorry that was badly written am learning to type in a new device

I first experienced sexual harassment growing up in the late 1960s
from boys at primary school cornering me in the loos,
from family friends cornering me at large family events
e.g. one wedding when I was 12, struggling but powerless to get away from a very tall strong man who was dancing with me while rubbing his erection against me.

Age is no protection
The last time I visited London, age 59, crammed onto the Tube, a man was rubbing himself against my behind.

Men & boys harass women and girls whenever they think they can get away with it and they mostly still can

From when I was about 15... white van crawling alongside me, whilst walking to my boyfriend’s house in school uniform; ... from working in a bar/restaurant/nightclub from 19-24, more times than I could count; from travelling on my own in SE Asia (looking very young - and almost boyish) in my early 20s; on crowded public transport, more times than I can remember; when I was a student, and my own step-uncle (estranged from family), leching on me in a bar - until I told him who I was; at a party, where my dad’s mate (20 years older than me), trying to get me to sit on his knee...
that’s just a few that stick out. Never mind a very high ranking workmate perving on my tits in an interview....
I am a fairly plan woman in her 40s now. Only now do I realise white how inappropriate some of these were - and how many more I’ve kind of forgotten about.

Sadly it’s something we find part of our lives. It’s not right or fair, but it’s almost like we have to be taught to be defensive in these situations.

Still, I’m way bolshier now. I did the whole ‘whose hand is this?!’ Whilst holding it in the air, after removing it from my arse. This was on the underground last year, and the guy got quite aggressive. Thankfully others backed me up. I don’t know if I’d be as brave without a few dozen Glaswegians to back me up.

whose hand is this
I'm impressed that you had the presence of mind✊
it feels pretty scary though doesn't it, because you know that if you humiliate them them they will probably get angry, and they are bigger than you and could easily overpower you
in fact they do it in the expectation that you will be scared and freeze
I have been subject to harassment from men all My Life, some of it sexual some of it general intimidation

I did it before I thought through the consequences, tbh @Heffalooomia.
I’d had a couple of drinks, and was with pals.
I wouldn’t have done it 20 years ago, which is a real shame. It’s awful that we think we have to do this though.

From 17, it was constant. Mainly men on the street or in clubs, but also at work.

yep. lots when younger. I remember someone standing too close behind in a queue, though they backed off after getting hit in the face with a plait after I flicked it out of my face. been groped, comments, etc. lots.

I was a teenager in the 70s. I grew up with drivers beeping me as I walked along the path in school uniform, and the "usual" wolf whistles and comments as I grew older. And then horrendously inappropriate comments made at work - one boss used to tell me that he wouldn't "fuck me around if I didn't fuck him around", emphasising “fuck” whilst leering at me. And men being too touchy feely - the arm round the waist, but just a bit too tight, or getting too low.

I was not equipped to deal with any of it, so put up with it and said nothing. I was trying to explain to my mother quite recently how difficult life could be for women having to deal with sexual harassment. She said that's what life was like, particularly “in those days”, men didn't mean anything by it. And women liked the attention too apparently. And that's why I never told her about the guy grooming/touching me when I was a young teenager, a sexual assault when I was slightly older, or any of the other stuff I had to deal with. She thinks we are all snowflakes for complaining about things then - and now.

From 13 pretty much constantly until I had kids in my early 30s. Lovely being 45 and under the radar of these utter knobs.

How do you deal with this for your own dds? My lovely mum never mentioned it so felt I had to deal with it on my own. Dd2 although only 11 is conventionally beautiful with long legs etc. She also very emotionally intelligent and observant and has come home from errands questioning why a van beeped at her etc. She got off a metro train in Paris where we had been separated by crowds in tears because a “man stared at me between my legs”. Dh and I were unsure how to handle.

Fortunate really that we are not allowed to carry firearms or I swear I would leave a trail of dead perves behind me.

Of course its virtually universal. I started copping comments, yelling from cars, leering, pinching - and one particularly memorable experience of having my tiny chest groped by my 35 year old soccer coach - when I was 11.

The yelling, leering, whistling, and comments went on (in conjunction with regularly being groped on nights out) until I was 30 and 5 months pregnant.

Then I got fat and it hasn't happened since. It's a relief.

Last year it happened to my very tall 11 year old for the first time - a middle aged man very obviously leering at her at the shops. She's dark skinned so he didn't realise she was my daughter. I stared at him right in the eye while asking her loudly "Who did you want to invite to your twelfth birthday party again?" He fucking SMIRKED and walked off. She was disgusted.

It's absolutely universal.

Ask him why he won't believe you!! Just because he hasn't experienced it is no reason not to believe you haven't.

I had a full post all typed up about some of the things that have happened to me , then sadly realised reading others comments that my more shocking 'major' experiences are far from unique.

I am a people pleaser and don't like to make a scene and I think that made me more vulnerable. My dd is a different personality all together and will never go along with anything to be polite, I hope this will give her protection but really fear that she will just have different experiences as men try to "put her in her place". The thing is, there is no right or wrong way to react to the bullshit some men throw at us, so how can I protect my dd as she grows?

You are right

I was 8 when I was first harassed by the drunken best man at a family wedding - I was tall and well developed (precocious puberty), but it still should have been very obvious that he was talking to a child! It's over 20 years ago now but I still remember it very vividly. I didn't understand what was going on, but thankfully my grandfather grabbed me and ended it. Everyone in the family is aware what happened, but I have to admit that we've never discussed it.

Since then I've had men press against me on the tube, I've been stalked by men in cars and on foot to and from school/university (often in broad daylight and busy rush hours - they have no shame), I've been flashed multiple times on public transport and in the week before lockdown had an older teenager try to lift up my skirt on the tube when I was on my way back from court with colleagues. It was so humiliating, particularly as I'm very junior (and new) and they're all older men in their 40-50s. But I will say that they all handled it very well.

I'm attractive, if a little on the chubby side, with big boobs. But it really doesn't matter what I'm wearing, it happens anyway. I can be in the worlds baggiest trackies and quite overweight with ratty hair and no make-up, in club wear or wearing a full lawyer suit ready for court. It's not me. It's them.

The bright side is that having to deal with it all these years has made me VERY good at dealing with it. I'm not afraid to shout at them, kick them if necessary and make sure the whole world is aware of how disgusting they are.

It absolutely is a universal experience.

Just a sample, to demonstrate how early it started and the variety of ways men have harrassed me:

Jumped on and pinned down by a boy in the long grass at the back of the playground in primary school.
Drunk neighbour put his hand up my skirt when I was about 14.
Repeatedly groped in my workplace as a teenager.
Comments about my tits continue to this day.
Recently, an elderly man groped me and wouldn't take his hands off me until his friend dragged him away and apologised.

I'm in my 40s, so it's been going on 30 years, and I'm fucking fed up of it, because while they're "minor" incidents, the effect of them is cumulative. Not to mention, I'm the humourless one for not laughing it off

I think most men have no idea how universal 'minor' harassment is for women. How since our early teens - if not before - we kind of expect it and factor it into our daily decisions.

I also suspect a lot of men believe it has to do with how "attractive" a woman is. They think it's just a crude way to show a woman they fancy her. But as we all know, women and girls who are not generally considered 'hot' get sexually harassed all the time. It does tend to fade with age, but I don't think that's because older women are less 'attractive', more that they are considered less easy to intimidate.

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 said further up the thread that I don't think the touching someone as you squeeze past them (as long as it's not on their bottom or boobs!) is sexual harassment and the "smile, it may never happen" is annoying and makes me want to slap them, but I wouldn't have put either of those things down as sexual harassment.

Wolf whistling yes. Shouting leery comments from white vans, yes.

I've experienced being "looked up and down", sadly it was overseas and I didn't have the foreign language skills to tell them exactly what i thought of them but left the room and refused to have anything to do with them. And a few years ago a couple of young lads made stupid remarks to me when I was out with my running club. I was old enough to be their mother, I don't know what they were on.

But generally speaking, no. Never on a train, I have never been a nightclub fan so maybe I've just avoided situations where it is most likely to happen. Office Christmas parties have been well behaved.

I agree that a lot of men think it’s based on how attractive we are and that is some form of compliment

I also think few men can truly understand how threatening it feels when it is not physical and why we don’t lash out. I’ve had this conversation many times with men and the response is well if they don’t do anything why do you feel threatened or why didn’t you punch/slap him. Yes of course I feel safe to do that to a man that has just sexually assaulted me. It makes me so angry as it places some of the blame on our behaviour

I agree the attention as I have got older had been less because I do not appear so vulnerable. I rarely get that attention that is intimidating now and thankfully can walk past a group of men without a comment being made about my tits but I still have that feeling of dread

One thing that really surprises me now is the number of complaints about university students. When I was at uni my fellow male students were really good about walking the female students home late at night etc and never tried it on.

I said further up the thread that I don't think the touching someone as you squeeze past them (as long as it's not on their bottom or boobs!) is sexual harassment and the "smile, it may never happen" is annoying and makes me want to slap them, but I wouldn't have put either of those things down as sexual harassment.

Do men tell other men on the street to 'cheer up, it may never happen'?

Do women say this to men?

I think the answer is 'no' in both cases. So while it may not be 'sexual harrassment' strictly defined, surely you'd agree that the person's sex is relevant here.

I also think few men can truly understand how threatening it feels when it is not physical and why we don’t lash out. I’ve had this conversation many times with men and the response is well if they don’t do anything why do you feel threatened or why didn’t you punch/slap him. Yes of course I feel safe to do that to a man that has just sexually assaulted me. It makes me so angry as it places some of the blame on our behaviour

Yep. I think men 'get it' when there is an overt physical threat, because they can kind of relate to that.

However, I remember getting into a discussion with men about how intimidating it can feel to have men stare at you intensely on public transport. They all said, well, just look away or sit somewhere out of his line of vision.

Then there's also the 'Well it can't happen that much because I use the tube every day and have never seen it'. Well d'oh! The men who grope and indulge in similar behaviours make a point of doing so discreetly. Easy enough to do on a crowded train.

These men, as you say, also criticise women for not making a scene. They don't understand the shame that women feel in these circumstances, how they just want to get away as soon as possible, not draw attention to themselves. And would all these men who claim to be shocked by sexual harrassment intervene to help out women if they did call for help? They say they would, but I'm not so sure.