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’ve said it before on here: I think most women’s first sexual experience is harassment. I think it’s a minority of men who do it, but they do it all the time, to any woman with whom they feel they can get away with it.

@noseresearch "Although, I’m also unattractive and have instead experienced LOTS of abusive comments from men. My heart sinks if I have to walk past a group of ‘lads’ as I’m terrified they’ll notice me and say something hurtful again
It’s stolen most of my self esteem 🤷‍♀️"
Abusive comments about looks are sexual harassment in that men feel entitled to judge a woman on her looks and pass comment. They wouldn't do that to a man.
It's so damaging, as you said.

The definition of sexual harassment hasn't changed or been watered down at all. It is UNWANTED sexual attention.

I think the PP you may be confusing sexual harassment and sex discrimination. Different things altogether.

To the other PP, or was it the same one?

Victims can be any gender, propotionately more likely to be women to a significant extent.
Perpetrators can be any gender, propotionately more likely to be men to a significant extent.

I've been thinking about this overnight and I have been called names by men just never been groped or had sexual things said to me.

My 15 yr old dd on the other hand has recently revealed she was raped at 12 and sexually assaulted by a boy older than her who wanted to be her boyfriend. Which is absolutely heart breaking. She has also said she hates having a big bum as it gets her unwanted attention. Sadly all of this has lead to an eating disorder.

Was sexually assaulted in a municipal swimming pool in the mid 1980s by a gang of 5 lads it was very obvious what they were doing no-one stopped. I remember having the outraged courage to get out of the pool and report it to the lifeguard who just shrugged and did nothing. He was probably scared of the perpetrators. Has kind of ruined swimming for me, funny that .... 😢

The ones I can remember:
-teenagers shouting "show is yer muvvers" (Bristol) as I cycled to university.

• men staring down my top and openly commenting on my breasts when I was leaning over writing a postcard.
• abusive language being shouted at me from cars/ van on numerous occasions.
• BIL groping my bottom at a family party. I never stand that close to him now.

Then the comments that aren't sexual per se but I'm damned sure would never be made to a man like "cheer up love, it might never happen" and "your skirt is too short".

Sometimes I'm glad I don't have a daughter.

I used to think it had never really happened to me. I've never experienced for example flashing, parents friends or relatives trying it on or similar. But there have been so many more minor incidents that I'd never given much thought to as they are just part of life

This. I didn't really think it had happened to me, either. I certainly didn't experience it as a young teen (thank goodness - how sick is that) but I've certainly had the cat calls from building sites etc. But generally, no. Maybe I just have a "smack bottom" face with a big sign saying "don't even think about it" going across my forehead!

That thing where men touch you on the waist to squeeze past you in pubs, do they do that to other men? No. That thing where they say "smile, it might never happen" in the street. Doesn't happen to men I've got to say I've never considered these as sexual harassment - I think women do the former and the latter is just stupidity and a desire to be irritating - not sexual, just stupid.

It's stupid how often it happens. I grew a set of curvy hips by 13. One time I was walking back home from the main village and I remember being beeped and leered at and it was old-hat by that point. I can't count the number of times I've been hassled for my number, one time the guy was following me so I went up to a police officer (busy London street) and asked him to hang onto the guy so I could get a head start and disappear. I managed to hang on to the panic attack until I got home safely.

Even now at nearly 50, I get men in their 50/60 still commenting on my looks/figure etc. Was really pissed off this week when DD1 (11) met a male family member for the first time (he's lived abroad) and the first ten comments out of his mouth was how pretty she is was I sure she was DH's? Fuck off you twat DD1 absolutely hates her appearance commented on - she is very pretty, and tall, and about to have all this misogynistic, sexist twaddle aimed at her.

I think being a woman that has never been sexually harassed and assaulted is definitely a privileged position. I do think though, that we all have different views on what constitutes harassment and assault as this thread demonstrates, the disturbing part is that it seems to be defined by the perpetrators and presented in such a way that people believe it.

I have daughters and I’m pretty resigned to the fact that they will experience harassment and even assault and its going to be how we build their resilience and respond to those situations that’s going to make a difference to how it affects them.

Most vivid memory was when I was around 13 with 2 friends followed by a man, we soon realised and paused to see if he would stop when we did and because he did we all ran into a library and his behind a bookcase.he proceeded to walk upstairs in the library looking for us and spotted us as he came downstairs. He then stood outside the glass door licking his lips and staring at us by the door. Only left when we contacted the security.

Most recently was Sunday. Just finished work and was p-ing it down with rain. Like torrential. A man on a moped stopped to let me cross the road and as I smiled he commented that he wished it was a wet tshirt contest and he'd me so hard. Put me in an awful mood

I think my husband thinks I'm exaggerating when I tell him because I never get comments when I'm with him ( I wonder why) but will usually get around 1 ish thing happen a month of inappropriate behaviour

Universal. To the point where I don’t even believe the women who say they’ve never experienced it. One friend claimed she had and then as we all discussed the subject she absolutely had been - wolf whistled at as a teen by workmen, groped by some class mates as a ‘joke’, made to wear short skirt and heels in a sales job at a industry conference to get people to stop by their stand etc.
And as for me, the second I started getting breastS at 11/12 it’s been pretty consistent throughout my life. I’m ‘busty’ so that’s given men an excuse to grope, comment, harass all my life.
At least I’m gay, and don’t generally have to put up with much of their BS. It’s astonishing the difference in attitude and treatment I’ve received from gay women - respectful, normal - to the attitude of many, many men.

Said she had not...

First time when I was 12 and on holiday with my parents. One waiter at the hotel would pinch all the young girls bums when no-one would see. All the girls were too embarrassed to tell anyone. Fucking paedo.

Remarks, being followed, touching and groping through my teens, 20s, 30s and 40s. At work, out in pubs and clubs, on public transport, on holidays, on the street, in the park. I am not attractive, but do have big tits.

In my 50s it's become rarer, but as someone else said, more angry and aggressive from the start. Last time, I was walking out of a car park, two men driving in swerved their car directly at me so I had to jump back, one screamed 'piss flaps' at me, and roared off shrieking with laughter.

Forty years' worth. It was constant and it was exhausting. My little niece is eleven and just starting to develop. I know what will happen and I know how much she will hate it.

Heaven help the numpty who so much as leers at her when she's with me. I will not be mincing my words with them.

A friend of mine started her periods at 8. When we were in year 6 in the late 90s she was very tall for her age and had breasts. Men used to ogle her. She was fucking 10!!

I started getting wolf whistled at and/or heckled by men when I was 11, especially in my school uniform.

School trips abroad at 13, 14 and 15 all involved creepy men making lewd comments at us and in some cases following us around forcing us to find our teachers.

In the summer holidays between year 9 and 10 when I'd just turned 14 a man on the street grabbed my breasts as I walked past him. It was in broad daylight when I was walking to a friends house. It was around that age that we started to have men follow us around in town at the weekends. Pretty much all my friends had similar experiences to me of men grabbing their arses/wolf-whistling etc. One friend was flashed by a man in town, which reminds me of a man who used to wave his willy at us just outside the school gates when we were 11 - he hid behind a tree then jumped out when. He did it about 3 times before an adult saw it and he never returned. I hope the police knew who he was! The school was an all girls secondary so he wasn't a pupil.

At 15 I was sexually assaulted by a man I worked with in a restaurant. He forced a kiss on me, grabbed my breasts and was trying to pull me into the toilet when someone disturbed him. He ran away and wasn't seen again. My employer blamed me as I 'wore skirts to work' (one day I wore trousers when it was colder weather and he told me I had to wear a skirt again like I had in the summer as I had 'nice legs the customers will want to see') and because I 'spent a lot of time coming into the kitchen where the men work, so it gives the wrong impression' (I was a waitress so I came to the kitchen regularly to give the cooks customer orders). I'm still very angry about it.

This sort of stuff eased off as I got older I.e. mid 20s. I don't think I've been wolf whistled at once in my 30s.

My husband found it hard to believe all that stuff went on as he never saw it growing up.

I'm sort of half-horrified, half-intrigued by some of the posts on here.

I wondered [really thinking of my own daughter] if anyone has any views on who's the most vulnerable? IMO:

1. the age you're most vulnerable at is about 13-18, then it's a more or less steady decline until menopause ish, at which harrassment largely stops;
2. social class plays a role - working class women are more vulnerable; and
3. looks play a role - the very most and very least attractive women tend not to be targeted so much, with a prime target probably being a woman who's average lookswise but has a big chest?

Is any of this fair?

Not really no

Why do you need to confine it?

Yes I’ve had it. Not from 11 or 12, unless you count the two boys in my class who verbally bullied me relentlessly. I don’t think it was sexual, although they did say I was ugly and called me names re my brace (teeth) and glasses. It was just bullying. But yes, since the age of 17-18 assaulted in a public swimming pool, wolf whistled from building sites, young men in nightclubs asking me to slow dance and then rubbing their erection against me, inappropriate behaviour from work colleagues. Now pushing 60 and invisible.

@EasilyDelighted

I used to think it had never really happened to me. I've never experienced for example flashing, parents friends or relatives trying it on or similar. But there have been so many more minor incidents that I'd never given much thought to as they are just part of life.

Then I got groped in a crowd a few years ago and it made me think. Does this happen to men? Virtually never. That thing where men touch you on the waist to squeeze past you in pubs, do they do that to other men? No. That thing where they say "smile, it might never happen" in the street. Doesn't happen to men. That time when I couldn't remember which pocket my ringing phone was in and I was patting them to find it "I'll help you with that, snigger". Same when I absent mindedly tugged up a bra strap in the street one day. And you never know when they're going to do it, it catches you off guard and makes you uncomfortable. That's why they do it. To remind you who's in charge.

Not wanting to minimise what you and other women experience in the slightest, but these things do also happen to men, albeit not as frequently.

I'm an average looking guy at best, but have had women touch me up on public transport numerous times, including pushing her crotch up against my hand, had my leg stroked in a bar by a woman walking past, and been told to smile it might never happen by both men and women (the woman being my manager at the time).

Nope, never experienced it. I suppose I'm just not pretty enough! None of my female friends have either. I think it's not as common as women like to claim.

Or maybe your friends just deny it knowing that you will dismiss their lived experience

That's the kind of thing that a lot of men say about street harassment. "Well I don't think it's that common because I've never seen it and none of my female friends and family have ever told me about it" I wonder why that is

I found a bit in a Caitlin Moran book really resonated about this. That women tend not to tell the good men all the things that happen because it would make them sad.

And then they'd only be bad men and sad men.

Definitely the case for me (previously).

‘I think it’s not as common as women like to claim.’

Are you a man @sweetpetrichor? That sort of misogynistic comment is why many women don’t report this behaviour. Perhaps you don’t have much contact with men in general, or don’t work outside your home? My first experience of inappropriate behaviour from a boy was when I was 8. From a man when I was 10. It’s as if you’re conditioned to think you are to blame, and accept it.

Oh boy. Where to begin.

• Men beeping at me while I was walking into town along a main road. This happened when I was in my teens.
• Groups of drunk men shouting 'hey sexy', 'get your tits out' etc. Sometimes in cars, sometimes on the street.
• An old man groping me while I was waiting for the light to turn green.
• A guy in my year shoving his hand up my skirt - I think I would have been about 14 or 15.
• A group of girls and boys pressuring me to feel my tits and give a boy a handjob (I was 11/12 at the time and I made my excuses and went home before he got his knob out).
• Men telling me to smile.
• A man shouting 'run piggy run' as I was running for the bus. I flipped him off and he immediately turned his car round and I screamed and legged it.
• A man slowing his car down next to me as I was walking home from a night out. I don't think I've run so fast since I was competing for my form on Sports Day!
• A man grabbing me in a club and refusing to let go, to the point where I dropped to the ground like a stone in the hope it would get him off me.
• When I was 17, I copped off with a man in a club and at one point we went to sit outside, and when I tried to go back in, he grabbed my arm and I had to wrench myself free. Then later, he was fingering me and it began to hurt and he wouldn't stop when I asked him to. He only stopped when my (male) best mate at the time told him to leave me alone.
• A man asking me in a club if he could feel my arse. Thanks for asking, but no.
• Men not understanding the concept of personal space in general.
• My brother's mates shouting sexual comments at me at school.

@SweetPetrichor it's got nowt to do with looks, trust me. I'm plain and overweight and a bit scruffy and I still get catcalled.