To ask if you’ve been harassed, assaulted, abused, or raped or in any way by men?

[TrialOfStyle]

YANBU - you have been (in ways described below or beyond)
YABU - you have not been (in ways described below or beyond)

It’s just a quick show of hands, really, as I know some people are skeptical of the recent polls.

Obviously it’s entirely up to you to define this but harassment I would consider anything from (but not limited to) catcalling, unwanted comments (in virtue of your looks/body/attractiveness (yes, being told to smile) femininity, negative parenting as a mother and not just as a parent, or in some way negative biology of woman), stalking, persistence when you’ve already said no.

Assault - physic or verbal.

Abuse - emotional, physical, mental or sexual

Rape - including (but I consented to x but he did y)

I have had everything from the above (which is why my list includes it, but I certainly have miss r so things. However I’d be interested in the poll to see the responses).

Ps - before it’s ask, I’m clearly not a journalist or someone being toady (go ahead and advance search). I’m just curious to see how to polls align.

YABU, because this question has been asked again and again and is not helpful.

What we need is two separate questions

• Have you been sexually assaulted etc or abused
• Have you been catcalled or similarly harrassed

YANBU
I have experience Assault / Abuse / Rape on more than one occasion

💜

All three for me, by my ex partner. He denies ever doing anything wrong, and claims that pushing and pushing for sex and not stopping even though I'm lying there in tears isn't abuse. Okaay.

Loads of times. I think I just got used to it when I was a teenager. Every day on the bus (mostly sexual comments) and I hated going on holiday with my parents because of the cat calling and men who would think nothing of sticking their hand between your legs in full view. And at gigs - always some perv who thought it was ok to feel you up from behind.

DH and I have been working our way through Line of Duty recently and we’re now on season 4 (the one with Thandie Newton). A teenage girl comes into the station to report an experience she had with a suspect they already have in custody, when he followed her and tried to get her to come back to his house. Kate asks her why she didn’t report it at the time and I honestly laughed out loud. I said to DH why would she report something that happens all the time to young women, something so miserably banal? Young women would never be out of the police station if they reported everything. I love LOD but thought Kate wouldn’t have asked that question, as a woman herself. Or she’d have said do you know you can report things like that to the police, because clearly she would have known why the girl didn’t report it.

Sexually assaulted at work by a man twice my age at 18. Groped numerous times.

No assault, abuse, rape or any kind of physical non-consensual stuff, but definitely some catcalling, unwarranted remarks, insistent pursuit after being turned down etc, plus one incident where I was followed by a random man I didn't know.

Yes to all unfortunately

Yes, all of them.

I know ONE woman that says none of this has ever happened to her and I’ve never heard as much victim blaming come out of someone’s mouth than I have hers. It’s seriously upsetting.

Once, slightly harassed by a hobo on my way home. Went to the overground station to hide, and was taken in by a male employee that walked me to my door.
Other than that, the only time I was groped at a party was by a drunken girl, she was very pushy, and got slapped in the face for her troubles.
I feel I had a blessed life compared to you guys.

Yes to all. Started age 14... still happens

gang of men jumped me and my expartner..then held him away from me and made him watch while the ring leader tried to pull my trousers down..in the middle of the road.

Felt up so many times in public.

Drugged and raped by 'a friend'.

Beaten by several men

Had my hair set on fire

Stalked

Followed home on the bus because I half smiled awkwardly at a stranger who made eye contact.

Been spat at for ignoring advances.
I could go on and on.

My mother is like that, ThrowingAShellstrop. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like her for victim-blaming. I’m talking about victim-blaming murdered pre-teen kids, or assuming without evidence that a young teenage girl allegedly murdered by a parent must have brought it on herself by being “mouthy”.

The funny thing is that she’s clearly had a whole lifetime of terrible experiences with men, yet she won’t admit it. She’ll go on about how terrible women are to work with and how much better her one experience of working in a male dominated office was. But when I’ve caught her off guard, she’s told me how the male colleagues she thought were her friends ostracised her for getting engaged to my father, because they thought they were entitled to sleep with her. And her male boss effectively ended that phase of her career by giving her a vindictive performance review because she wouldn’t fuck him. Yet she invited her ex-boss round to dinner when I was thirteen and didn’t even blink when he made suggestive comments to me. I don’t really know what to make of that level of denial.

Ynbu
I'm a women in my 50s
I've had decades of bloody harassment.
From being whistles at as a13 year old and called frigid because I didn't respond, flashed at, tits stroked as I walk back to my friend in a crowded bar carrying two drinks. A favourite one by that's about 15 years ago was walking past a crowd if guys in a bar, minding your own business when one would stick his finger around your arsehole. I remember really losing my cool once over that as his mates laughed. I lashed into him physically and the bouncers tried to kick me out. I went absolutely fucking nuts!!
I would be hear until tomorrow describing things that have been said to me over the decades!
Then there's the flip side. I remember being out when Ds1 was about 2 or 3 months old and a bloke I vaguely knew asked who was looking after my child. I said my husband and he was disgusted that my husband was "babysitting " while I was out having fun! I asked who baby sat his kids because he is also out 'having fun'. I was a bitch for asking that apparently.
Another bloke said I was farming my children out. In other words I was working and the kids were at the childminders.
All of them absolute twats!

When i was a lot younger I was coerced into sex. Knowing what I know now and not putting up with nonsense it wouldn't happen today but back in the early 80s I am sorry to say I was frightened at times of saying no once pressure was put on me and it wa easier ( and probably safer) just to do it.

Yes,yes and yes. By family members,strangers and men I have dated.

Yes attempted rape, and had a breasts grabbed on 5 occasions and my crotch grabbed twice.

Yes - assaulted, harassed, catcalled, raped.

I've had men grabbing my crotch in nightclubs and once had a man (a complete stranger, he just walked over to me) push me against a wall and pull my hair back. He was huge and I couldn't get him off me. Luckily I was with a friend and she hit him until he let go.

Catcalling is pretty standard, I get it regardless of what clothes I'm wearing. Also I've had lots of men tell me to "smile" on the street when they pass me.

Raped by an ex-boyfriend. Literally was telling him "no" and he carried on. Also was coerced into having sex without a condom by the same man - he was a really horrible human being and I massively regret ever going out with him. I've also had another ex-boyfriend have sex with me whilst I was asleep so no consent which is rape too.

Yes. The high percentage is hardly surprising and depressing too.

Of course I have - haven't all women?

Starting at about 9 when a man took me and my sister aged 7 into the woods to who us "something really cool" which turned out to be his penis (not in this country).

Last incident of note about 3 years ago (mid forties) when a man sexually assaulted me as I squeezed pat him in a crowded local pub - that one took me by surprise (and bloody hurt!) as I thought I'd aged out of all that, mainly hanging out locally in the suburbs with my partner and friends.

Everything in between including sex without consent, sex when too drunk to consent, consent to x but he did y, more flashers than I care to remember - mainly in or around Clapham Junction station, men masturbating at me as I walked down the street (not in the UK) countless intimidations by large groups of men on trains at night, being surrounded by a group of men in a dark carpark at night, locking doors just in time, verbal abuse, sexual harassment at work, men lying about me at work after I refused their advances, countless having to listen to drunk, rambling men in bars who wouldn't take no for an answer.

I am very lucky to have never been in an abusive relationship though and never violently raped.

Nope. Never had anything like that happen to me.

You would never get a real answer here

Because being catcalled is completely different to sexual assault / rape

So you need separate polls!

Yes.

And 3 occasions that my 19 year old DD has deemed bad enough to tell me about so doubtless more than that for her.

So many times I've lost count.

Men have flashed at me in tube carriages, on escalators, in my own street (frequently) when I was a teenager, in parks, on footpaths, on the way to school (frequently.)
Men have groped me - strangers on trains, in bars and pubs, dads of friends, boyfriends of friends, colleagues and bosses
Men have chased me in deserted places, so I had to run for my life (while jogging in a park in broad daylight) or barricade myself in (late night train carriage)
Men, including taxi drivers, have driven me to deserted places and told me what they could do with me, when I was expecting to be driven somewhere safe and trusted them to take me there. I had to talk them down on several occasions.
Men have kerb crawled me and followed me home at night.

FTR I am an average woman, well-educated, slightly dumpy, always have been, and dress conservatively. I've never worn a skirt above my knees, not even as a schoolgirl. Just in case anyone reads that and has been trained to wonder, What did she do to provoke such attention? Nothing. I did nothing except assume the right to move relatively freely around the world, as men do.

I forgot to add the two incidents of actual assault. One would technically be classified as rape these days. In those days it was called a boyfriend getting carried away despite my very very clear protestations. Another was a stranger. I called Rape Crisis after the stranger episode and they were on answer machine due to staff shortages, so I never took it further.

Yup - been assaulted by a “friend”, had men follow me into the bathroom at work (when I was a waitress), been groped too many times to count in clubs / bars / public transport. Never reported the assault as I didn’t think anyone would believe me. Lost my BF over it because she took his side over mine. It was all very weird and horrible and took years to get over. I still hate being touched by strangers