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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Letchy fucking men

279 replies

ineedsun · 28/08/2021 12:03

I don’t think IABU but I’m due on so might be over reacting.

I wore shorts today because it’s warm here, not proper short, shorts, probably two or three inches above the knee, I walked somewhere - about 3 mile round trip. I’m just fed up of letchy men, I can ignore staring, and someone smiling and saying hello is friendly and nice but people slowing down to comment or make the sort of noise you make to call an animal. What the fuck is wrong with them. I felt genuinely intimidated at one point and I’m a nigh on 50year old grandmother, I changed my intended route on the way back because I felt too scared to walk along a footpath. I hate to think how teenage girls feel and what their experience is.

Perhaps naively I thought the world had moved on.

OP posts:
Heruka · 28/08/2021 21:11

@Clymene

I'm genuinely surprised there are women this has never happened to.
Me too. To the extent that it must be a perception issue, that those who feel it’s never happened, must have a different view of being letched on. Of course I don’t disbelieve anyone but given this sort of harassment has happened literally hundreds of times in the lifetimes of every woman I know - from all areas, ages, races etc - feels like there must be another explanation.
DrSbaitso · 28/08/2021 21:15

I cannot believe there are women to whom this has never happened. I don't know a single one. And I've often caught men making obscene gestures or comments to passing women who didn't notice. Male friends have seen things directed at me at a distance that I didn't notice. One of them once ran at a group of men who had clustered at the edge of a beach. I hadn't noticed them, but he had and he said they were making obscene gestures at me. Unusual for them to do that while I had a male companion but I guess they thought they were too far away to be noticed. I didn't notice them, but my friend did, bless him.

Suzi888 · 28/08/2021 21:17

I don’t think you have to be wearing anything exposing flesh to be honest. Just being a woman means men will stare.
There’s a difference between looking, acknowledging, saying “hi” and just 👁👁 …. As I’ve gotten older it’s easier to 👀back and say loudly “do I know you?”
YANBU op.

SmileyClare · 28/08/2021 21:35

Couldn't agree more Op.

I started a cleaning job for a lovely 80 year-old woman but now her 70 year-old male lodger constantly hangs around when I'm there, watching, commenting on what I'm wearing (usually a vest and leggings because it gets hot cleaning) and making lewd comments when I'm bending down mopping the floor etc. The last straw is that he has started randomly touching my arm or waist every time he speaks to me.

I've decided to leave this particular job. I'm so pissed off by men like this.

thenightsky · 28/08/2021 21:36

@Clymene

I'm genuinely surprised there are women this has never happened to.
Me too. Its slowing down now I'm 62 though.
ChardonnaysPetDragon · 28/08/2021 21:39

This is getting more and more common. It didn't use to be quite so bad. It's disgusting and intimidating and I'm utterly sick of it.

Blossomtoes · 28/08/2021 21:46

@ChardonnaysPetDragon

This is getting more and more common. It didn't use to be quite so bad. It's disgusting and intimidating and I'm utterly sick of it.
It’s always been awful.
ChardonnaysPetDragon · 28/08/2021 21:49

It's always awful, no doubts about it. I just think it wasn't happening as often as it does now.

Blossomtoes · 28/08/2021 21:53

I can’t say because it doesn’t happen to me any more but it used to be pretty dreadful. Some loathesome old creep pinched my bottom in Woolworths when I was 15 and it was the start of decades of harassment. At least most of them seem to have the sense not to touch now.

5128gap · 28/08/2021 21:56

Those who have never had this happen I think maybe haven't noticed. Those who say it's a minority of men are ime underestimating the issue. I excercise on a moderately busy road and I can tell you that about a quarter of male drivers who pass me shout comments (I don't know what as I wear earphones) a lot more hang out of their windows or hoot, and on most days almost all the others stare. The shouters and performance letchers are generally in vans, in pairs or threes. The slack jawed gawpers are usually alone in their cars, and are no doubt the ones people think don't see women as objects.

Lurcherloves · 28/08/2021 21:58

Some men are pretty awful. The amount of older men I see gawping are very young women or girls is disgusting. It’s just so odd I wouldn’t dream of doing that to men god forbid much younger men. It’s that sense that men are entitled to look at women in that sexual way, even if it is totally inappropriate

Namechanged556 · 28/08/2021 22:08

Off topic as this was 15 years ago but I've never told anybody properly.

I was naive and in my mid 20s, when a celebrity almost twice my age started (out of the blue) talking horribly at me during sex. I didn't know what to make of it so laughed it off but it must come from woman-hating or sadistic porn? e.g.

"You like it don't you, you fucking bitch / whore / take it you slag"

Still confused how this was meant to be a turn-on.

He has in the past few years made a name for himself for championing feminism and raised many £1000Ks for women's charities.

LuaDipa · 28/08/2021 22:27

You honestly think the overwhelming majority of men are letches? Is that your experience? hmm

I don’t think the majority of men are letches. But I do think that a majority stand by and excuse such behaviour. ‘Oh that’s just Dave’. ‘He doesn’t mean anything by it’. ‘He’s a good guy, I’m sure you got the wrong end of the stick’.

I often used to be beeped at and wolf whistled on my way to school, in full uniform I might add. No one ever stopped to check if I was alright or safe. I thought things were improving until my 12 yo dd who had gone ahead of us was approached by a middle aged man in Sainsbury’s the other week. He jumped a mile when dh asked him wtf he thought he was playing at. I do wonder if dh would have even noticed if it was someone else’s daughter. I know I would have and I would have been over there like a shot.

It’s not all men, but far too many laugh along or don’t speak up while their peers are behaving like absolute dickheads. It’s not all men, but it’s enough that I don’t know a single woman who hasn’t experienced something like this. It’s not all men, but we bloody well need to speak up about this until the ones that pull this crap realise that it’s unacceptable.

NichyNoo · 28/08/2021 22:38

I was walking recently with my two young DS and a man drove past, beeped and shouted from his window. I explained to my sons that he was doing it as some men like to intimidate women and make them feel unsafe and how sad and pathetic it was. I said that he wouldn’t have done it if daddy was with us. I’m trying to educate my boys to feel the same contempt for that behaviour that I do and hope that they grow up to be part of the solution and not part of the problem.

Voice0fReason · 28/08/2021 22:40

@BichonFrizz

The OP has called the thread letchy fucking men because in all my 41 years neither I nor any women I know have ever been letched on, sexually assaulted and cat called by women.
Exactly this. Clearly it's not all men - no-one ever said it was, but it is ONLY men who do this.
Draineddraineddrained · 28/08/2021 22:44

On my local FB group this month there has been a rash of women complaining about two separate individuals repeatedly accosting women in the local park (apparently unrelated to each other). All hours of the day, women of all ages and races, women with their kids in the play area. It's so fucking sinister and the fact all the women are telling each other on FB makes you aware these men are literally hanging round the park FOR THE PURPOSE of propositioning pretty much every woman they see.

It is men. NAMALT, yeah yeah yeah. But it is men.

CorianderBee · 28/08/2021 23:55

@BichonFrizz

The OP has called the thread letchy fucking men because in all my 41 years neither I nor any women I know have ever been letched on, sexually assaulted and cat called by women.
You can't possibly know that. I don't particularly tell my friends when I've been followed down the street or harassed. I know one of my best friends doesn't tell many people that she was raped when she was nine and another friend when she was 16.

I don't know a single woman who hasn't been sexually harassed.

Hellotoallmyfans · 29/08/2021 00:06

Where do you all live for goodness sake you poor things? I think the men would be stoned alive if they treated women this way in our village!

This.I honestly think it has a lot to do with where you live. When I lived in quite a rough area and worked in the city I faced SO much harassment from men and had the most disgusting things said to me for years - it was almost daily. Standing at the bus stop, walking down the street, in the workplace, on a night out, everywhere.
Then about 15 years ago I moved to a nice, middle class area and I haven't had a peep. Literally not a peep. I've been whistled at by builders maybe 3-4 times (ie they're not from round here) but the last time it happened one of his mates said "don't do that, she might complain"! It's so liberating walking around and feeling safe from all that shit. (I'm not trying to be smug just saying to the disbelievers I've seen both sides of it and I do think it depends a lot on where you live/work).

NiceGerbil · 29/08/2021 00:34

I think from multiple threads on this it does depend where you live.

I also think it's not worse but I'm older now and it's strange how the whole thing falls away. It's lovely. Men don't seem to notice and do the up down etc which is normal everyday but when it goes you realise how it sort of made you feel I dunno. Just aware. Now I can generally walk around without that it's brilliant.

I always am Hmm when men say it is unusual. They're not doing it to you are they you plum!

debbieupper9 · 29/08/2021 00:58

[quote girlmom21]@thedancingbear you clearly surround yourself with a lot of dodgy men... [/quote]
Pickme girl much?

PumpkinKlNG · 29/08/2021 01:06

This never happens to me now that I got fat!

DrSbaitso · 29/08/2021 07:28

Pickme girl much?

I have a theory about users on an almost entirely female website who do things like deny the realities of sexual harassment, while using overly feminine usernames.

5128gap · 29/08/2021 07:35

@Hellotoallmyfans

Where do you all live for goodness sake you poor things? I think the men would be stoned alive if they treated women this way in our village!

This.I honestly think it has a lot to do with where you live. When I lived in quite a rough area and worked in the city I faced SO much harassment from men and had the most disgusting things said to me for years - it was almost daily. Standing at the bus stop, walking down the street, in the workplace, on a night out, everywhere.
Then about 15 years ago I moved to a nice, middle class area and I haven't had a peep. Literally not a peep. I've been whistled at by builders maybe 3-4 times (ie they're not from round here) but the last time it happened one of his mates said "don't do that, she might complain"! It's so liberating walking around and feeling safe from all that shit. (I'm not trying to be smug just saying to the disbelievers I've seen both sides of it and I do think it depends a lot on where you live/work).

It must be lovely. A bit depressing though that you need to be a 'respectable' middle class woman in a nice area to be left alone, with other women still fair game. Not to mention it's only the fear of complaints that holds them back. I know the association with this is with men in manual jobs, but Ime white collar men are just as bad, they're just more sly and cowardly about it. Probably because they're not in a pack and they know that its judged more in their circles.
Heruka · 29/08/2021 07:39

@Hellotoallmyfans

Where do you all live for goodness sake you poor things? I think the men would be stoned alive if they treated women this way in our village!

This.I honestly think it has a lot to do with where you live. When I lived in quite a rough area and worked in the city I faced SO much harassment from men and had the most disgusting things said to me for years - it was almost daily. Standing at the bus stop, walking down the street, in the workplace, on a night out, everywhere.
Then about 15 years ago I moved to a nice, middle class area and I haven't had a peep. Literally not a peep. I've been whistled at by builders maybe 3-4 times (ie they're not from round here) but the last time it happened one of his mates said "don't do that, she might complain"! It's so liberating walking around and feeling safe from all that shit. (I'm not trying to be smug just saying to the disbelievers I've seen both sides of it and I do think it depends a lot on where you live/work).

So basically you are saying working class men harass women and middle/ upper class men don’t, am I reading that right?
Onlinedilema · 29/08/2021 08:00

I agree 100% with the op.
I thought I'd become invisible too, I'm old and fat, but no only this week I was leered at. It's fucking disgusting. I was walking from work when an older, unattractive man stood outside a cafe/bar would not stop staring at me to the point where I thought why the fuck are you staring at me. I dress nicely and look after myself but ffs God knows what he must do to young, slim women if this is the reaction I get.
Both myself, dds, and dil have been sexually harassed whilst children walking to and from school by men, not boys. Neither my dh, son, or son in law have experienced being sexually harassed by women when they were children.
It is everywhere.
As for the not my Nigel brigade, think about it. Would you bleat on to your father if he had had the shit kicked out of him , "Oh Jonny it's not all men who attack people, you must live in the wrong area, it doesn't happen to nice, middle class pensioners."
Or to a non white person "Its ok that you get racially abused all the time, but not all white people are racist." Yeah that makes it fine then doesn't it.
as for the posters saying non of their friends have had this happen, you absolutely do not know that. The vast majority of rapes go unreported let alone incidents of harrassment. Do you think I have told anyone irl about my most recent exoerience? The answer is no, not even my dh because he is so sick and tired of all the shitty men who give all men a bad name.
Oh and how nice it must be for you to live in your white, middle class, utopia, carry on whilst the rest of us have to deal with this shit day in day out.