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.

Are the women who have no experience of this younger? From the generation where you are driven everywhere, you don't play out in the street, walk home alone etc? Maybe the compensation of helicopter parenting is that young teenage girls are not subjected to male threat. I know when we were young we were told to laugh it off, not make a big deal of it. Memorably, when a girl at school dared to complain that a teacher had flashed at her on her way home, she was hauled into the head's office and told if she made a fuss, he might lose his job and he had a family to support so it would be her fault if they ended up on the streets. I remember how upset she was at being told off for making a fuss about nothing. We felt that we were resilient - in a way perhaps we were, but the attitude normalises harassment.

Flashed at aged 13 with 2 other girls, in a park. Got upset in a lesson once aged 12 and male music teacher asked me to stay after class and pulled me onto his knee to 'comfort' me. I ran out quick but never told anyone. Male history teacher used to put a hyphen in the middle of my first name that ended with 'bra' as i had a small frame but large bust. Sexually assaulted in my home by a man whose partner I babysat, aged 16.
Endless unwanted attention when I started university, endless 'accidental' touches when doing my nurse training. It just goes on and on and on...
When my 16 year old DD was with me a few years ago, got catcalled by a group of drunks (male and female) that my boobs were bigger than my head. DD was shocked, me far less so.
It's a disgrace but I fear it will never change.

Ironically this is one thread the media ought to pick up.

I have a great dad, parents who taught me to be strong etc etc. That had bog all to do with the man who felt he could grab my boobs at a party, the colleague who followed me home after a shift finishing at 1130, and then proceeded to stare at me all day at work, the man who rubbed up against me on the tube, the one’s who complained about my lack of sense of humour when I complained about images of naked women going round the workplace ..........

What’s staggering is the number of these I’d forgotten until I started thinking about it over the last couple of days.

And now I worry for my daughter and what she might experience

@DrSbaitso oh man, I didn't mean it like that but I see your point! It was a badly phrased way of trying to show that you don't have to be a woman who 'stands out' or attracts attention to be harrassed, any woman is a target. Some people in this thread seem to have assumed that they've never experienced harrassment because men aren't interested in them or something, but that's not how it works.

DrSbaitso

why do you translate my post stating that I haven't been a victim of male harassment as me saying "it doesn't happen to others"?

Like many posters above, I run 4 or 5 times a week. I am more than fed up with unruly dogs jumping or going in my way because their stupid owners have no controls. I am also very wary of aggressive dog. But somehow I am not allowed to say, or believed, when I have no experience of aggressive or unwanted male attention, whatever the level of rudeness. I might get a smile when crossing paths from other runners, male or female, no one would confuse that for harassment.

Are the women who have no experience of this younger? depends what you call younger, I am mid-40s and have 4 kids.

I really find it hard to believe no woman has experienced this- although I acknowledge those on here who say they have not. Leaving aside a serious sexual assault, when I really thought about I remember all the 'jokey' cat calls when I was young (including in in school uniform), a few times I have had to get off public transport because a man sat next to me and wanked, just totally inappropriate comments, including from a GP when I was 14 and my acne and big boobs meant 'I would easily make babies'. Now I am old and fat I get different attention, so young youths feel it is totally fine to call me a fat bitch as I am going about my day to day stuff. As for dealing with men in a professional context, the crap I and my female colleagues get from certain men is off the scale. It is so engrained in society I think on some level we accept it- does not make it okay though.

@dewisant2020

I've been chatted up "sexually harassed" as some of you may put it. But I've also been out with my girlfriends & seen plenty of woman do the same to men. This anti men stuff going around feels so unfair and damaging to men, I'd hate to think people think like that about my DS

There’s a difference between being chatted up and being harassed.

One night I was in the pub with a group of friends, including some who’d been abroad and had just come back. We had lots to catch up on, it was a mates night out, no one was interested in meeting new people.
A man came over to the group and asked if he could buy me a drink. I said that was really kind of him, but I’d got a drink already, and I was just wanting to hang out with my friends. But thanks anyway etc.

That’s fine - that’s chatting up. If he’d walked away I’d have been flattered, thought no more about it, and continued my evening.

But instead he stood and pestered me, nagged and nagged, assured me he didn’t expect anything from me, just wanted to buy me a drink, then he’d leave me alone. Eventually, after explaining repeatedly that I didn’t want to talk to him, that I was with my friends, I said OK, if you really have to, you can buy me a Diet Coke. He went away and came back with a big fancy Diet Coke with fruit and a parasol and so on. And insisted I talk to him. When I made my excuses, he had a right go at me, told me I was a bitch for leading him on , selfish cow, slag etc. Basically ruined my evening.

That’s harassment.

Hopefully you can see the difference.

why do you translate my post stating thatIhaven't been a victim of male harassment as me saying "it doesn't happen to others"?

I didn't. I took it at exactly what it said, which was that you appear to be more worried about women who haven't been harassed being bothered about it than the massive, huge, overwhelming majority of women who have been harassed, a lot. You may have noticed quite a lot of posters saying they thought they had never been harassed but now they look back with greater awareness, see that they have been, quite egregiously. Or quite a lot saying something like "Oh, I have had it, but it's not been too bad" and then listing off a load of staggeringly horrible behaviours. What does that tell you?

Amazed some women have never experienced it. Good to hear. I would be here all day if I typed all mine out 🙄.

Actually quite a relief getting older the leering stops and I do not miss it. Can also identify with being aggressively hit on then the man getting nasty when politely rebuffed....

If we are in agreement that it has happened to almost all women, with a few outliers, we can agree it is a massive problem that does affect all women, even if on a few occasions only indirectly, as a result of being a woman in such a sexist culture.

Happened in my teens, but now at 27 I'm too ugly for anyone to notice.

Here’s the thing, that playing hard to get often attracts arseholes. Because they do persist beyond the point where a decent man would pack it up.

There is big difference between charming flirtation and pushy. Young men know the difference, the pushy ones just don’t care.

I haven't fortunately.

I don't know whether I should call that lucky

@frogswimming

" However, what I think made a massive difference to me was a wonderful father. He had two daughters and instead of regretting the lack of sons, treated us exactly like sons, we were taught to aim high and believe we could do anything at all. I think that entirely changed my demeanour at work and elsewhere, in how I expected to be treated and thereby influenced the way others treated me too

Yes, me too. I agree with you, pp - I think the way we expect to be treated does influence the way men treat us. I've gone through life expecting men to treat me well, and for the most part this is what's happened."

You two women are part of the problem. I expect to be treated well, my father brought me up that way. But unfortunately for me the random stranger who had a wank looking at me walking through a busy park wearing jeans and coats in the middle of the day didn't stop to ask me what my family relationships were like. If you are saying something in the way women act invited this - you are giving an excuse for men to abuse those who are lucky enough to have slipped through the net so far.

Spot on👏

When I was 13 my friends brother exposed himself to me and tried to force my hand on his penis. When I was 15 an old man put his hand in between my legs as I sat beside him on a bus. When I was 38, a random man came up behind me as I sat in a bar, put his hand down my top and squeezed my breast so hard it left bruises. When I told the bouncer, he told me relax the guy meant no harm.

I'm an average looking person, always have been. Not good looking, but not ugly. Short, bit squishy now around the stomach. When people have this conversation and I try to provide my experience, I often get the raised eyebrow as if to say "Someone touched YOU??".

But it doesn't matter what you look like or how you were raised or if you are shy or confident etc. What ever happens to you is not your fault. I hope there are women who haven't experienced this, I really do.

Actually, having said that when I was 14 I was walking along the road with my friend who was tall, blonde and attractive (to other 14 year olds!) . Two grown men shouted out 'yeah I'd fuck the blonde one but the other one is a fat, ugly bitch'

I guess that's harassment. And pretty fucking vile given we were children!

I dont' appear "more worried", I am replying to accusation or attacks addressed to ME

ou may have noticed quite a lot of posters saying they thought they had never been harassed but now they look back with greater awareness, see that they have been, quite egregiously. Or quite a lot saying something like "Oh, I have had it, but it's not been too bad" and then listing off a load of staggeringly horrible behaviours. What does that tell you?

that you are patronising me by suggesting that I am either in denial or completely blind to the obvious.

Which is ironic, as I am supposed to be so dumb I am completely unaware of things like that apparently.

@LexMitior

Here’s the thing, that playing hard to get often attracts arseholes. Because they do persist beyond the point where a decent man would pack it up.

There is big difference between charming flirtation and pushy. Young men know the difference, the pushy ones just don’t care.

I am sincerely hoping you are not hinting that some of us are are a bit too.. free with men.

I am supremely envious of, and happy for, women who have not experienced sexual harassment, or assault.

Here are my lowlights:
Molested and sexually abused by an elderly family member when I was seven, for over a year. Parent when informed, asked me why I hadn't told them, and sighed sadly for the abusing family member, that if only the town had prostitutes, that it would never have happened.
The cat calling, leering, following, sexually explicit comments and suggestions, following home, started at age eleven. I got reprimanded for not taking it as a compliment, and back chatting an adult.
When in ICU after having a life threatening accident at thirteen, was kissed and fondled by a male nurse. (He later killed himself, over a similar incident).
A man who was a friend of the family who constantly, constantly, constantly wanted to give me massages, back rubs, and when he was asked by my parents to teach me to drive, wanted me to give him a kiss for every mistake I made.
My cousin's boyfriend came to play pool, and I got forced up against the table and kissed.
An ex-boyfriend threw me across the room, and my girlfriends who watched this said it was my fault for having annoyed him.
I was sexually assaulted by a taxi driver.
I had a boss run his hands up and down and all over when dancing, in full view of everybody. When I asked some older women for help, they said I deserved it, I'd been leading him on. (I really hadn't).
That's the worst of it. . . there's lots of really minor shit in there.

No

@sunnydaleslayer

I haven't fortunately.

I don't know whether I should call that lucky

Of course you should. It's not a compliment to be told you need "your back doors bashed in" or "spunk on your tits" or that he "loves a cunt in a suit". It doesn't make you feel sexy and it isn't meant to. The message is not "you are beautiful". The message is "you are a usable set of holes and you are so unimportant and subhuman that you should be pleased I've told you this". I cannot tell you how insulting it is.

I would be sad if I had never had a man I cared about call me beautiful, but this is something else.

@DrSbaitso

I didn't mean it like that. I meant it shouldn't be down to 'luck' that women aren't harassed. Being 'lucky' is considered out of the ordinary. Sexual harassment should not be 'ordinary' IYSWIM