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.

God yes, the workplace was horrid in the 1980's and 1990's. There was always one alpha male making jokes about female staff members. At drinks after work most of the other men would join in the banter. Most, but not all with the very occasional one calling the alphas out. I have noticed that the men who have only a very few male friends, 1 or 2, tend to be more respectful. Possibly they avoid other male groups because they do not prescribe to that behavior.

@Roussette

Not one person in RL knows the entire list

Exactly the same for me. There is not one person in the world who knows all of it. Basically because there's been too much of it.

I had a convo with one of my adult DDs yesterday and we were talking about the whole situation, and I just threw in a couple of my worst ones... she was shocked but not surprised. She's had harrassment out on the streets.

Yes that is the most depressing thing about it Roussette that our daughters are encountering it now. (I really meant to mention that!).

I have said it on here before that my teen daughter and I once got separated on a busy tram , so it wasn't obvious that we were together, and observing from a distance, I was really shocked by the blatant and overtly sexual looks and leers and the pushings- past- closer -than- necessary that she was subjected to. She looked older than her years at the time being tall with long hair. She happily was unaware thank heavens but she was 14 yrs old fhs!! In the end I had to fight my way along the carriage to get to her and give certain blokes a hard stare. I felt like shouting "do you men not have sisters or daughters or girlfriends?"

Sadly, before then, she had already experienced an incident going to school wearing uniform where an older man sat inappropriately close to her on a bench in a tube station and asked her lots of questions and wouldn't go away and although she did all the right things and stood up for herself and got away, she was panicked and rang us afterwards in tears. This was three weeks in to attending her new secondary school and starting to take the metro by herself at thirteen.

I am honestly not a doom-mongering helicopter mother but this sort of thing seems to be unavoidable. She is heading off to university now and I'm in no way reassured that anything has improved:

www.theguardian.com/education/2020/nov/19/sexual-abuse-at-english-and-welsh-universities-a-public-scandal-study#:~:text=An%20estimated%2050%2C000%20incidents%20of,fast%20becoming%20a%20public%20scandal%E2%80%9D.

I am amazed by the posters who say they have never experienced any ever. That seems impossible to me.

I guess it does depend partly where you live. I’m a born Londoner and it’s part of the wallpaper in a big city. If you live in the country and are quite reclusive, perhaps you could avoid it. But even so - horny drunk farm workers in pubs are a thing ime.

@Wehaveanunderstanding

The worrying never steps, one of my DDs is similar age to beautiful Sarah and it just hit home for me.

Your stories are shocking and how can we equip our daughters to cope with this sort of thing...
Over the years I have had regular crises of confidence about how we have brought our DDs up. We always wanted them to be polite, understanding and kind.... did we go too far with that? Does that mean they won't stand up for themselves because they have been taught to be polite and show respect to others.

Luckily I think we got the balance right... as I said upthread with a couple of experiences they have had. They called it out far far better than I did at their age.

I was out for a meal with a group of friends, male and female. As we all walked out the door one of the males in the group, a friend of a friend, grabbed both my breasts as he held the door open for me and laughed saying they were so small.

A couple of years ago I was at an outdoor festival with my husband and we were dancing to the music. I kept feeling this bloke coming close to me, not doing anything but enough to make me uncomfortable so I kept moving away. My DH turned to talk to his friend, and this man groped my bum and walked off laughing. I didnt tell my husband until we got home, as I knew DH would react. At best he'd have arrested him, at worst he'd have punched his lights out and I didnt want DH to get into trouble.

I've also had all the "usual" touching and feeling as a young woman out clubbing. The "accidental" push of a penis up against you as they squeeze past you, usually accompanied by an "accidental" brush on my bum or breasts and sadly this was normal. No, not even just normal....expected

When I was cabin crew, I was groped by a male passenger in business class who then found out the hotel we stayed in and hung around in the lobby waiting for me. The airline refused to take it further as he was a “premier card” customer and his company spent over £2 million a year with the airline.

Really interesting and depressing article in the Times today.

A young woman called Soma Sara has set up a website for people to share experiences of teenage sexual harassment, abuse, assault etc.

Scroll down the testimonials on @everyonesinvited and weep. Eleven-year-olds forced to send nude photos to older boys, 13-year-olds molested in front of cheering pupils in parks, 15-year-olds coerced into having sex at parties, hundreds of children’s desperate stories of rape culture, harassment, assault and sexual humiliation. This is Britain in 2021.

Behind Everyone’s Invited is Soma Sara, 22.... She started the campaign last summer with friends after she realised that she wasn’t the only one who had spent her teens being forced into sexually compromising situations, abused by boys, teased and shamed.

“We all discovered that we have so many experiences of appalling sexual violence we have hidden from each other and from adults. We were shocked at how common it seemed to be so I posted about it on my Instagram and the response was overwhelming,” she says. “So many teenagers messaged me that I felt compelled to create something more permanent to give survivors a space to share. Then, last week, my friends and I started posting testimonials with school names but not personalised and it’s been insane.”

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/soma-sara-teenage-sexual-abuse-didnt-merely-exist-when-i-was-at-school-it-thrived-f3lbdkq22

@TatianaBis

I am amazed by the posters who say they have never experienced any ever. That seems impossible to me.

I guess it does depend partly where you live. I’m a born Londoner and it’s part of the wallpaper in a big city. If you live in the country and are quite reclusive, perhaps you could avoid it. But even so - horny drunk farm workers in pubs are a thing ime.

It also depends on how everyone individually conceptualises and defines harassment. I've been whistled at and had comments made to me in passing (usually whilst out running), on a handful of occasions. That's the most I've experienced. To me, this was a minor embarrassment and made me uncomfortable for a matter of 60 seconds, and then I moved onto thinking "what a knob", and got on with my day. To another woman, this might constitute a huge violation of her personal boundaries and cause sufficient upset for her to classify it as harassment. However if I'd been groped randomly in a nightclub or on public transport, for example, I'd consider this sexual assault and I'd feel violated. So I do think that's also where some variation in responses is coming in, too.

Not one that I have talked to about it, the question is more how often and how bad.

I've not been raped, I consider myself lucky - but lots of other incidents that we were expected to ignore/ laugh at most of the time. First one I remember was a flasher - I must have been about 8. I was approached at 12 when wearing my school uniform.

I'm now a lot older and therefore invisible to most men.

@LucieStar

It also depends on how everyone individually conceptualises and defines harassment. I've been whistled at and had comments made to me in passing (usually whilst out running), on a handful of occasions. That's the most I've experienced. To me, this was a minor embarrassment and made me uncomfortable for a matter of 60 seconds, and then I moved onto thinking "what a knob", and got on with my day. To another woman, this might constitute a huge violation of her personal boundaries and cause sufficient upset for her to classify it as harassment. However if I'd been groped randomly in a nightclub or on public transport, for example, I'd consider this sexual assault and I'd feel violated. So I do think that's also where some variation in responses is coming in, too.

Possibly, but even just saying you’ve only experienced experienced comments and whistles a handful of times in your life, and no worse than that is very surprising to me. But then perhaps you don’t live in big city.

I think everyone knows that comments and whistles can be defined as harassment even if they don’t personally find it offensive or concerning, surely? There’s a spectrum of harassment from the very minor to the major.

I am 28 and have been sexually harassed many many times.
Raped and virginity lost at 14 too, nobody knows about it.

I am now in a very happy, loving relationship. It took me a while to adjust with my partner i.e I self sabotaged a lot thinking he would leave me etc, he has stood by me. I love him beyond words for that

*Possibly, but even just saying you’ve only experienced experienced comments and whistles a handful of times in your life, and no worse than that is very surprising to me. But then perhaps you don’t live in big city.

I think everyone knows that comments and whistles can be defined as harassment even if they don’t personally find it offensive or concerning, surely? There’s a spectrum of harassment from the very minor to the major.*

I lived in a major city for 25 years and for the past 10 years have lived more rurally (but have obviously been on many days and nights out in major cities in that time).

Yes of course, that's why I said that to another woman, such behaviour may cross a line and be defined by them as harassment - for me personally, it didn't. Had I been physically touched in an unsolicited way, however, this would 100% be crossing a boundary for me and I'd define it as harassment. So yes, I understand that there is a spectrum - but there is also a personal interpretation of different behaviours and people vary in terms of their own boundaries and what they will and won't accept, and therefore what they will and won't define as harassment of themselves.

Bold fail! So annoying.

@LucieStar

The point is that harassment has a legal definition as does assault. However one personally interprets ones experiences, surely women still know what those definitions are? All the women I know do, certainly.

I would say I have experienced many things that constitute harassment but, being used to them, they didn’t really bother me. If I were to make a complaint of harassment in the workplace or other, it would have to be quite extreme for me to bother.

Equally, you’re free to define your experiences how you like, but surely you know which experiences meet the criteria for harassment?

[quote Roussette]@Wehaveanunderstanding

The worrying never steps, one of my DDs is similar age to beautiful Sarah and it just hit home for me.

Your stories are shocking and how can we equip our daughters to cope with this sort of thing...
Over the years I have had regular crises of confidence about how we have brought our DDs up. We always wanted them to be polite, understanding and kind.... did we go too far with that? Does that mean they won't stand up for themselves because they have been taught to be polite and show respect to others.

Luckily I think we got the balance right... as I said upthread with a couple of experiences they have had. They called it out far far better than I did at their age.[/quote]
Yes Roussette I can't stop thinking about Sarah's family and what they must be going through right now.

And y y I could have written your latest post as I have brought up my dc the same, to be polite, kind, tolerant and think of others etc. I am not sure I always got the balance right tbh and I only briefly and in not much detail told DD about one of the experiences I described below as I didn't want to scare her.

I am cheered by the fact though that she and her friends, as you say, seem to be more aware than we perhaps were, and they don't hesitate to call out any dubious behaviour when they see it, there and then, and they also support one another better. On my part, a few serious discussions will be had before she goes to university and if possible a self defence course will be organised, Covid regs allowing.

What I find surprising about your post was not that you experienced things that you didn’t “count” as harassment, that’s fairly standard, but that in terms of behaviour that can be defined as harassment - you just haven’t experienced much of it.

Gin4thewin4 it's great to hear that you are with a good man now but that that is so awful and unjust that you were never able to talk to anyone about such a dreadful thing happening to you when you were so young.

On my part, a few serious discussions will be had before she goes to university and if possible a self defence course will be organised, Covid regs allowing.

Surely she did self defence at school?

At my school we did them from age 12. The rape window is 12 to early 30s - the years of highest risk.

Oh it’s not a city thing plenty of abuse growing up in a rural village 🙄.

Just heard Harriet Batman suggest any man kerb crawling or abusing a girl should have his licence removed. What an excellent idea.

Harman not Batman!

@TatianaBis

On my part, a few serious discussions will be had before she goes to university and if possible a self defence course will be organised, Covid regs allowing.

Surely she did self defence at school?

At my school we did them from age 12. The rape window is 12 to early 30s - the years of highest risk.

Sadly not! Wish she had.

[quote TatianaBis]@LucieStar

The point is that harassment has a legal definition as does assault. However one personally interprets ones experiences, surely women still know what those definitions are? All the women I know do, certainly.

I would say I have experienced many things that constitute harassment but, being used to them, they didn’t really bother me. If I were to make a complaint of harassment in the workplace or other, it would have to be quite extreme for me to bother.

Equally, you’re free to define your experiences how you like, but surely you know which experiences meet the criteria for harassment?[/quote]

From what I can see, sexual harassment is any unwanted behaviour of a sexual nature that makes you feel distressed, intimidated or humiliated. That's where the individual interpretation comes in - if I don't feel those things when I'm whistled at, I haven't been sexually harassed. If another woman does feel those things when she's whistled at, then she's been sexually harassed. Obviously there are very clear cut examples of sexual harassment where the behaviour involves physical contact - as I've said, if anyone put their hands on me without my consent I'd be reporting them. So my point is simply that, for some of the lower level type behaviour, a lot of it is less clear cut will be based on individual responses to that behaviour.

@TatianaBis

What I find surprising about your post was not that you experienced things that you didn’t “count” as harassment, that’s fairly standard, but that in terms of behaviour that can be defined as harassment - you just haven’t experienced much of it.

No, I've never experienced anything that has made me uncomfortable or feel violated to the point of thinking "I was sexually harassed". Maybe I've been lucky.

@MsTSwift

Oh it’s not a city thing plenty of abuse growing up in a rural village 🙄.

Just heard Harriet Batman suggest any man kerb crawling or abusing a girl should have his licence removed. What an excellent idea.

Great idea!

@Wehaveanunderstanding

Yes absolutely to your post. There was certainly no self defence classes at my DDs school.

A few years ago my youngest DD joined a boxing gym, she wasn't doing it because she was worried about her safety, it was just her thing. I was delighted. Anything is good. She was a few years proper boxing with mostly guys (a whole other story...) and then went on to kick boxing. To me it's all about assertiveness...