Is there any woman who hasn’t experienced male harrassment

[Twintub]

I was thinking about this and was initially thinking things have massively improved since I was young in the 80’s. I experienced flashers, a teacher tried to kiss me in high school he was married baby on the way, a pub boss whose girlfriend worked with him tried to kiss and grope me and another middle aged boss in my late 20s that pulled my trousers down at a night away for work. There were many more. Now I’m in my 40s I thought I don’t get bothered much but then I remembered 2 other pre covid instances. One late night train a drunk guy tried to chat to friend she politely said she wasn't interested and he got Aggressive calling her a speccy lesbian. Another instance my friend and I in a pub and a middle aged drunk man obviously on a business trip chatted up my friend she wasn’t interested I very nicely said we are just having a chat he turned on me and called me an ugly bitch He wasn’t talk h to me and I wasn’t a patch on her etc etc his work mates dragged him away.

What amazes me is men behave like this bit raise daughters who in turn get treated like this.

Yes many many times. I was once attacked by an old man as young 14 year old teenager, actually put his dirty hands on me as I was walking down the street in broad daylight, he put his hands around my neck when I fought him off. I reported it but it was laughed off as just the town dirty old man he must of been about 75ish. As a waitress of 15/16 many of us girls were sexually harassed by male kitchen staff (one who's wife even worked in the same kitchen!) I stood up for myself and gave one creep (age about 45) a real piece of my mind and threatened my dad with him (only weighty threat I could think of at the time). He was SO SO offended I didn't take his awfully almost pornographic remarks what he wanted to do to me, as humour and a joke. He stopped speaking to me. Which suited me perfect. What really sadden me not one adult defended us young girls. The manager, his wife even, all the older staff thought I was uptight and couldn't take a "joke" nobody defended me. I left soon after. Every place I've worked as a young women has been pretty much the same. It only got a bit better in adulthood when there must of a bit more weight behind my threats. Thankfully it hasn't happened in a long time, there again I'm 40 now!

Also drink spiking, in loads of bars in London - often the fancy ones. One in Canary Wharf was bad for this but they did try and stop it.

I don't see many parents behaving differently with teen boys than teen girls.

That is definitely not the case round here. Boys have a lot more freedom/independence than girls, generally. It's an area with relatively low crime rates overall - no gangs, not much knife crime etc. Even so, most parents tend to pick up their daughters rather than letting them walk home alone in the dark. The same parents would be quite happy letting their sons wander around at all hours, though.

@DuesToTheDirt I didn't find the former intimidating or humiliating (I think the man was more humiliated and embarrassed than me when I told him loudly to put it away) therefore no I don't thinknit was harassment in my case; the latter was a minor sexual assault but it did me no harm and I don't know who did it so could take no action - had I seen I am quite sure the person would have ended up feeling more humiliated than me.

I’m shocked by the number of people here doubting women who say they’ve never been harassed.

97% of us sadly have, including me, and I believe all those women. That leaves a lucky 3% who haven’t - some of whom, statistically, will be here.

We should respect that they, too, are telling the truth as they have experienced it, and welcome their view in this debate - as long as they are not trying to use that stance to tell the rest of us that we aren’t being truthful, of course. Similarly, nobody who has experienced harassment should try to tell women who haven’t that they're wrong. This is one of the ways in which women are gaslit and their experiences minimised by people who abuse them.

We should be supporting each other to improve life for all of us.

@RosesAndHellebores

I am 60 and until I was 35 worked in a male dominated environment. Never harassed. Never recall being harassed outside work or later either.

In my early 20s, I was flashed at on a bus (told him to put it away) and once on the tube someone put their hand up my skirt and was gone and the door closed instantaneously - didn't see who did it.

I used to get the occasional wolf whistle and regarded it as a compliment rather than harassment - a cheery wave resulted in a cheery wave if they were chaps I saw regularly. Never bothered me and never found it derogatory.

Mostly I don't think anyone would have dared.

Never travelled alone at night after dark - one didn't back then.

I am sorry if people have felt harassed by the butcher calling them darling. That doesn't bother me.

I'm actually quite angry at your post. I'm only 3 years younger than you and this is minimising men's behaviour and the effect it has on women everywhere.

You seriously think men are being nice and friendly when they wolf whistle at you? Perhaps that's what the men were doing on a building site opposite our house when I was 13. They made my life a misery for almost the whole year. I ended up taking a long detour to school just to avoid the harassment and whistling that happened every time I left the house. Do you think they thought my undeveloped body was attractive and they were paying me a compliment? I think posts like yours just make you look a bit foolish and I bet those men you waved at had a good laugh at your expense.

@RosesandHellebores, of course it's harassment. The fact that you weren't intimidated by it, or that it did you no harm, is irrelevant.

I think those that haven’t experienced it are lucky.
I can’t think of any other reason why I and my friends and over 90% of women have experienced it.

• school girls experiencing it because of weirdo guys with uniform fetishes and men who know they will be too scared to report them. School girls are not asking for it. At 12 I still had a doll and men who approached me in this way to chat to me were really scary. So for all those thinking women give a vibe or ask for it - think of a 12 year old school girl just walking home...
• Sexual abuse - again little girls
• In 20s going out , coming home after 12am seemed to be a green light for someone chasing me, taxi driver tried to abduct me ( this was an unlicensed cab in licensed cab rank) Is it my fault I was out and it was dark ? I didn’t even wear short dresses - precisely to avoid this attention.
• work - older male colleagues hitting on me at work to the point another male colleague reported the behaviour

In all the scenarios I was young and completely out of my depth with this behaviour. The only guilty ones are the men in this and anyone who says harassment is anything to do with the women should hang their heads in shame. Women aren’t ‘asking for it’.

@MrsTulipTattsyrup

I’m shocked by the number of people here doubting women who say they’ve never been harassed.

97% of us sadly have, including me, and I believe all those women. That leaves a lucky 3% who haven’t - some of whom, statistically, will be here.

We should respect that they, too, are telling the truth as they have experienced it, and welcome their view in this debate - as long as they are not trying to use that stance to tell the rest of us that we aren’t being truthful, of course. Similarly, nobody who has experienced harassment should try to tell women who haven’t that they're wrong. This is one of the ways in which women are gaslit and their experiences minimised by people who abuse them.

We should be supporting each other to improve life for all of us.

I do entirely agree with your post. I wonder of the defensiveness comes from the multitude of times that womens experiences of being harassed have been minimised under the guise of " It has never happened to me so you must be overreacting ".

I 100% agree that we should not be gaslighting women who have not experienced harassment but I can understand possibly the emotive defensiveness after so many years of this issue being played down.

Everyone has a right to tell their experience whatever it is and no we absolutely should not shut down anyone else's personal experience.

I just do genuinely believe the vitriol comes form a place of spending so long being gaslit ourselves , sometimes deliberately from women who refuse to see it , sometimes it is of course genuine that a woman hasn't experienced it.

Its just a very loaded opinion.

However I fully agree you cannot ever tell a woman her experience should be invalidated , whatever it is.

"Again, nope, nothing like that.

#webelieveyou goes both ways."

Perhaps so. But is that relevant or helpful and does it need to be said?

If you've never been burgled is that what you tell people who have? If they say 'My house was broken into and my jewellery has been stolen'. Do you say 'Oh really, I have all mine' or 'Oh no that's terrible, what can I do to help?'.

I don't believe any women has never received any sort of male harassment. It started for me as a young teen with flashers and public wankers and more recently I had a man rub his crotch at me and make a filthy comment in the communal area of a unisex toilet.
Just a few weeks ago some men shouted out a van at me whilst I was riding my horse and 67 year old mum was followed round a local country park.
It is so sad that as women we have to think about where we go and what we do. There are places that are out of bounds or dangerous as a women, both in the day time and especially at night, where a man wouldn't have to think twice to go.

I'm almost 60. Sadly none of this has changed over time, it is as it's always been. The problem is that there has always, and will always, be rapists, murderers, mysoginists. I don't see it changing in my lifetime unfortunately, regardless of how much education there is. If making it illegal worked there wouldn't be prisons full of rapists, murders etc. It's not like a single person in the whole world doesn't know it's wrong/illegal to murder but it still happens with alarming frequency. All we (society) can do is keep plugging away for victories. And we cannot, and should not, stop trying however slow the progress.

When I was working back in the 80s there was a big drive to improve 'race relations' and here we are still plugging away. It didn't stop people being racists, they just learned to keep quiet.

I don't find it any safer for my sons than for my daughters. The threat might be different, but as mother, there's still a threat..I don't see many parents behaving differently with teen boys than teen girls. It's not a positive to know we have to.

I agree with this also as the mother of boys. Mine are 19 & 22 now and we still have 'the talk' when they are going out. I collect them after dark, especially if they have been drinking. They think they are invincible and would readily stand up for others, or fight back if there was trouble. We talk frequently about respect for women, about the fears women have when out and about, about how they as 6ft+ strong, well built men can create fear in women through no fault of their own.

We all should be able to live in a world free of fear. All men should know what's right and wrong in how they treat women, how not to be a rapist. Women should be able to live their lives as free as men do. But we can't. Because that ideal doesn't exist yet in our society.

I live near a well known safari park. In it there is a cage with a model of the most dangerous animal of all. Inside that cage, and next to the lions, tigers and other predators, is a model of a Man.

Or when I was getting on a train and a man grabbed my crotch, perhaps I had some kind of come-hither, wishy washy look? (I punched him by the way, I'm no shrinking violet)
I like to think that I would wallop someone who assaulted me like that
not very long ago I aggressively shoulder barged a man who tried to intimidate me while I was running, after I did it he shouted at me and I carried on running but my heart was thumping like anything and I felt scared, I do remember making a quick calculation that there were enough people around and I would be able to run and so I could 'get away with' the retaliation.
But to actually punch someone!!
even though I'm quite strong and fit I don't know if I would, what happened did you manage to floor him?
my fear would be that after being humiliated by woman like that he would go into a rage and I would get badly hurt, or that he might come looking for me afterwards

I don’t think any of us contributing our experiences here are trying or need to convince those who say they’ve never had the same experiences. I’m happily shocked at those who’ve never experienced these things.

FYI there is no really “safe way” to conduct yourself. The girl I know who was kidnapped in a van was in her office gear and it was 8am on a weekday. Girls on a night out are the same as anyone on a night out, not looking to be victims of a heinous crime. I’m over victim blaming. It doesn’t matter if we perceive the risk to be higher in some cases or not - the risk is really the criminal’s intent and determination, not the victim’s circumstances. The repercussions need to be with the criminal, not the innocent.

I have been wolf whistled, patted on the bum when pregnant, patted on the bottom when a student in the work place, touched in clubs, harrassed by men when I declined there advances, verbally insulted and told I must be gay, I was followed from a tube station and had to approach a stranger and pretend they were known to me - bloke still stopped and tried to stroke my arm and encourage me to go the pub with him, where I live young girls have been approached by men in vans trying to encourage them to get in, when I was younger a young man took an interest in hitting woman with hammers late at night, we were scared and didnt stay out late at night, thankfully he was caught,

There are times when I've deliberately tried to humiliate and intimidate men, if I'm out cycling on an expensive bike I deliberately ride close behind to shit him up and then over take him.... They do so hate being beaten by a woman
I've done the same when I'm swimming, I'll choose a man who thinks he's good and enjoy beating him
I don't drive, which is probably a good thing

oil0W0lio you sound like an incel! They do that stuff on purpose to women

There are times when I've deliberately tried to humiliate and intimidate men, if I'm out cycling on an expensive bike I deliberately ride close behind to shit him up and then over take him

Why would you do that?

I have had men wanking at me three times when I was younger, once in a busy park in broad daylight when I was wearing baggy jeans and a big sheepskin coat, once walking home with a friend from a gig in jeans and a denim jacket and once walking with a friend into a nightclub wearing a mini skirt. I laughed it off at the time and thought the men pathetic. But now as a forty year old, I fear for my daughter and I would never walk anywhere alone at night. I did nothing to invite the male harassment. It was unpleasant, but it could have been much worse. How could I know if it is someone who will intimidate me and scare me or someone who will actually touch me?

It's doesn't surprise me some women posting minimise harrassment. I found that particularly hard as a teenager older women saying "haven't you had sex? They are only joking you know! Don't be fridget" some of the things that was said and done to me were really not a joke! If I had daughters I would be far more worried. With my son's yes I worry about violence and being attacked by say a group of boys but with girls I would have a whole other level of anxiety. All my sisters have said they had some sort of harrassment or another. All I can do is teach my son's hoping they will turn the opposite way of the many creeps I've encountered. From day one I tried to teach my son's to respect other people, boys and yes especially girls.

@oil0W0lio

There are times when I've deliberately tried to humiliate and intimidate men, if I'm out cycling on an expensive bike I deliberately ride close behind to shit him up and then over take him.... They do so hate being beaten by a woman I've done the same when I'm swimming, I'll choose a man who thinks he's good and enjoy beating him I don't drive, which is probably a good thing

None of this sounds great or to be applauded. It's terrible behaviour by anyone.

@oil0W0lio

But to actually punch someone!!
even though I'm quite strong and fit I don't know if I would, what happened did you manage to floor him?

Haha no unfortunately, it was the first (and last) time I've ever punched anyone, it was just instinct. I punched his chest, which was like a brick wall, then I swore a lot. The train was crowded, but no one did anything - mind you this was in Japan, and I swore at him in English. After that I tried to get acquire some Japanese swear words, and also to figure out how I could be more effective in my punching lol. I carried keys in my hand for some time after that, and decided I'd go for his face and make visible marks, but it didn't happen again.

I haven't experienced it at all - but I can believe I am in a tiny minority.

For me a combination of luck/circumstances and the fact that I lead quite a boring life in the sense that even as a teen I must have been clubbing maybe 3 times, was dressing conservatively, etc (not saying women should do that! just that you are meeting less strange men when your Saturday evening is spent at home with your best friend, and you attract less attention wearing shapeless jeans)

Being raised in a nice/posh small town, there was no 'bad crowd' at school, everybody know everybody, I never saw people fight 'in real life' until I was well into my 20s. Rural environment so would be driven by my parents everywhere, very rarely walking in the street on my own.
Then at 17 moved to Paris on my own to study but again, private school so the 'bad crowd' wasn't really bad. Never heard of any schoolmate being sexually harassed. Flat in a nice family friendly neighborhood. Plus I was kind of boring, not a huge fan of night outs more the type to meet up at a friend's place and stay the night - but even then, we would pile up in a bed, mix of 5-10 boys and girls, and nothing ever happened.
I met my husband at school so was never really single, so no abuse while dating. When I go out without him I either take a taxi or walk 10-15min but my neighborhood is naice, not a lot of dark/deserted streets (SW London).
Work, which is also a place where abuse/harassment happens: I work in a male dominate industry but people are all highly educated so a vulgar joke about women wouldn't happen there. Being the only woman in the teams I have worked in I am usually treated with more respect than men. I work standard office hours so safe commute as there are always people around.

As I said, I guess I was lucky. Don't get me wrong, I am horrified when I hear what happens on a daily basis, especially now that I have children!

It's doesn't surprise me some women posting minimise harrassment.

and here we go

but if you think you can easily dismiss my experience, you are very wrong. Who are you to accuse me of "dismissing"my own experience? Who do you think make you superior to me and allowed to judge and dismiss me?

Again, I am not letting men OR WOMEN putting me down.

It does prove my point: in my life I had somehow encountered harassment, violence, and abuse from female. It might have been just as petty as hearing other WOMEN making bitchy comments at work about someone wearing a short skirts. It's very possible none of the guys said it in front of me, I don't know, but all these insults, casual harassment and much much worst, always come from women.

I am not pretending that all women are bitches or that all women who never experienced similar are lying or deluded, am I! But you are.

I have two daughters, the thought that they are likely to be a victim of harassment terrifies me. I’m almost 50 now, so at least am now invisible to most men. In the past I’ve been
-Groped by a complete stranger when I was 14, whilst I was looking at posters in WHSmiths, he came up behind me & ran his hand front to back between my legs

• shouted at by passing men in vans
• Whistled at while running
• Flashed at while out with friends
• forced to the ground by a date on the way home, hand over my mouth
• My ex sexually assaulted me regularly, forcing me into oral sex

What a depressing list.