... to think that all adult women have experienced male harassment?

[ravenmum]

Is it unreasonable of me to assume that by the age of 18, all women will have had personal experience of a man or men harassing them with unwelcome behaviour as defined by the UN:

"Sexual harassment includes many things...
• Actual or attempted rape or sexual assault.
• Unwanted pressure for sexual favors.
• Unwanted deliberate touching, leaning over, cornering, or pinching.
• Unwanted sexual looks or gestures.
• Unwanted letters, telephone calls, or materials of a sexual nature.
• Unwanted pressure for dates.
• Unwanted sexual teasing, jokes, remarks, or questions.
• Referring to an adult as a girl, hunk, doll, babe, or honey.
• Whistling at someone.
• Cat calls.
• Sexual comments.
• Turning work discussions to sexual topics.
• Sexual innuendos or stories.
• Asking about sexual fantasies, preferences, or history.
• Personal questions about social or sexual life.
• Sexual comments about a person's clothing, anatomy, or looks.
• Kissing sounds, howling, and smacking lips.
• Telling lies or spreading rumors about a person's personal sex life.
• Unwanted pressure for dates.
• Unwanted sexual teasing, jokes, remarks, or questions.
• Referring to an adult as a girl, hunk, doll, babe, or honey.
• Whistling at someone.
• Cat calls.
• Sexual comments.
• Turning work discussions to sexual topics.
• Sexual innuendos or stories.
• Asking about sexual fantasies, preferences, or history.
• Personal questions about social or sexual life.
• Sexual comments about a person's clothing, anatomy, or looks.
• Kissing sounds, howling, and smacking lips.
• Telling lies or spreading rumors about a person's personal sex life.
• Neck massage.
• Touching an employee's clothing, hair, or body.
• Giving personal gifts.
• Hanging around a person.
• Hugging, kissing, patting, or stroking.
• Touching or rubbing oneself sexually around another person.
• Standing close or brushing up against a person.
• Looking a person up and down.
• Staring at someone.
• Sexually suggestive signals.
• Facial expressions, winking, throwing kisses, or licking lips.
• Making sexual gestures with hands or through body movements."
www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/pdf/whatissh.pdf

YABU: I am a woman aged 18 or over and have never personally experienced any unwelcome behaviour of this kind.

YANBU: I am a woman aged 18 or over and have personally experienced unwelcome behaviour of this kind.

Also I’d like to ask if so many women have so many experiences like this with men, why do they want to date them? How can you ever know/trust they are not part of the problem

I can honestly say that if DH and I ever separated then I don't want to date again for pretty much that exact reason. Yes there are decent men out there but a large proportion are part of the problem and even the ones not actively being arseholes are benefiting from the privilege that goes with being male and so are complicit in maintaining the status quo.

YANBU
yes yes yes I don’t think there’s a single woman in my friendship circle who hasn’t experienced some degree of harassment at one age or another. x

All of these, and sadly until probably my late 20s I saw it as a compliment that I was attractive to men. I think I was so used to harassment as a pre-teen I not only saw it as normal, but as validation (for what I'm not sure. Deserving as having a place in society maybe?)
I still do occasionally but working on it....

Reckon I've had personal experience of a good third of these, maybe half (from women not men)

I remember about 13years old in high school the big thing was for boys to cut a hole in their pocket pull their penis through it then get us girls to put our hands in their pockets. Makes me sad that nothing much has changed in 20+ years

@oopsyoudiditagain

Also I’d like to ask if so many women have so many experiences like this with men, why do they want to date them? How can you ever know/trust they are not part of the problem.

This is why I started dating men relatively late! But I was never interested in women or abstinence. Which leaves ... compromise, I think, in some form or another. The world isn't perfect.

@RedSquirrel111

All of these, and sadly until probably my late 20s I saw it as a compliment that I was attractive to men. I think I was so used to harassment as a pre-teen I not only saw it as normal, but as validation (for what I'm not sure. Deserving as having a place in society maybe?) I still do occasionally but working on it....

I think that's the 10% no offense @RedSquirrel111 but that's the only way I can explain it to myself, people seeing it as ok.

Sure, everything except the first one, almost constantly, and including quite frequently at work. I do think some items are really so minor though, as to constitute background noise that doesn't bother me. I mean...looking up and down? I probably do that to women too when I'm taking in a crazy outfit.
Generation X in general is still used to a very different society.

@oopsyoudiditagain

Also I’d like to ask if so many women have so many experiences like this with men, why do they want to date them? How can you ever know/trust they are not part of the problem.

Well, some women don't.

But generally, human sexuality is not turned off completely by the existence of bad people who fall within your attraction remit.

Yeah - all of them I think and I do not know a single woman who hasn't.

Started in primary when i used to sometimes answer the landline and it'd be the heavy breather (remember them?) after my mum but just as happy with me.

Boobs by 9/10 so lots of car honks and catcalls then lots of unwanted grabbing, bra strap pinging and comments by boys at school. One pushed me against a wall and put his tongue in my mouth - i told the teacher and she said to keep quiet or the other girls will be jealous. I was overweight, spotty and swotty by the way so none of this was meant as a compliment - it was just power.

Bullied for being a prude, then raped on work experience at 14 (in my mind he was my 24 year old boyfriend ), then bullied for being a slut.

Every friday from age 13 to 18 being told by a 60 year+ customer he wants 'waitress on toast' for dessert.

Endless groping in nightclubs. Once was stood on a balcony overlooking the dance floor, someone came up behind me and managed to get under my skirt and put fingers inside me. Disappeared when turned around. Driven home by a policeman after we stupidly walked home drunk along an A-road aged 16 - demanded a kiss before we could get out.

Endless times of going along with sex because to say no might anger them or it was just quicker to get it done (in relationships). Endless 'bants' in male dominated work sector.

Being 'playfully' pulled into a car by strange men on a night out who got cross when I threatened police. Offered discounts by taxi drivers. Beeps, comments and teasing while out running/riding.

Sooo much more if I could bear to think back. So glad I don't have daughters. If I did I would have prepared them a whole lot better than my parents did me, but it's never enough.

@Hospedia

Also I’d like to ask if so many women have so many experiences like this with men, why do they want to date them? How can you ever know/trust they are not part of the problem

I can honestly say that if DH and I ever separated then I don't want to date again for pretty much that exact reason. Yes there are decent men out there but a large proportion are part of the problem and even the ones not actively being arseholes are benefiting from the privilege that goes with being male and so are complicit in maintaining the status quo.

And now I have another question!

Why is MN filled with women who say they won’t date men again if something were to happen their husbands/boyfriends?
Just dump their ass!

But I agree with everything else you wrote.

@oopsyoudiditagain

Also I’d like to ask if so many women have so many experiences like this with men, why do they want to date them? How can you ever know/trust they are not part of the problem.

For me when I was younger I grew up in a pub, this behaviour was on show from almost every man so it was completely "normal" I saw it happening to so many women and so didn't realise it was something that shouldn't happen, I also had a brother who was 6 years older than me, the way he and his friends talked was disgusting but again to me normal so I didn't question it. I also in my youth loved the attention and was stupid enough to think it was appreciation rather than harassment. I've been with my DH since I was young(er) and I lucked out that he is very respectful to women but as a pp said if I was to find myself single, I would no doubt stay that way.

There are 3 unwelcome things on this list I can't remember experiencing at age 52 - turning work discussions to sexual topics, neck massage and touching an employee's clothing, hair, or body. I suspect this might partly be because I've been self-employed and wfh since 2005!

Oops Because my dh is fine, but after looking back on the majority of experiences with other men, I wouldn't put myself through that.

My old (female) boss called everyone babe. There was no sexual connotation to it.

This is hilarious. My mum calls me babe. CLEARLY no one is talking about non-sexual behaviour that's not unwanted and doesn't make anyone uncomfortable.

Why are there always these bad-faith arguments from women whenever sexual harassment is discussed?

My old (female) boss called everyone babe. There was no sexual connotation to it.

This is hilarious. My mum calls me babe. CLEARLY no one is talking about non-sexual behaviour that's not unwanted and doesn't make anyone uncomfortable.

Why are there always these bad-faith arguments from women whenever sexual harassment is discussed?

@oopsyoudiditagain

Also I’d like to ask if so many women have so many experiences like this with men, why do they want to date them? How can you ever know/trust they are not part of the problem.

it's a reasonable question. Although I also think that the men who DO do it, do it relentlessly. I mean, the man in a car catcalling me and my friends walking down the road did it to us in a group and probably hundreds of women (girls) a week/month/year. I've seen men at a pub/park etc doing it to every woman who walks past etc. In an office environment, it's often the same men who initiate the innuendos and the jokes over and over again and it's usually one or two men who women tell each other to look out for at the christmas party etc.

Even the more severe cases - a man who sexually assaults one woman is very unlikely to only ever do so to that one women. There's a reason Claire's law exists after all.....

@appleturnovers

My old (female) boss called everyone babe. There was no sexual connotation to it.

This is hilarious. My mum calls me babe. CLEARLY no one is talking about non-sexual behaviour that's not unwanted and doesn't make anyone uncomfortable.

Why are there always these bad-faith arguments from women whenever sexual harassment is discussed?

It's not 'hilarious'. It was all fine until one of the mens partners came to work with us as a freelancer and didn't like it. It was unwelcome for her. Still wasn't sexual harassment.

Also, what is it with the people saying women do it as much as men? Really??! You really think the majority of men are scared to walk back to their cars in the dark after work in case they get sexually harassed by women? Ask your dad/husband/boyfriend how much of a threat they feel women pose to them. Hilarious.

@oopsyoudiditagain I'd say that being bullied by men specifically because they didn't find you attractive is still very much sexual harassment. It's so fucked up some people think there is a difference between 'nice tits' and 'fat bitch'. It's abuse giving un-asked for comment on how fuckable they find you and is stuff they would never ever dream of doing to a man. I've had the 'postive' and 'negative' sexual harassment and they both give me the same feeling - disgust, vulnerability and anger.

Earlier posters have put it well when they say we still have relationships with them (well, I don't anymore) because harassment and misogyny is normal and the ideal of marriage and kids is pushed on us from a very early age, so we put up with it. Has taken me 10, 20, 30 years to see some of things i've been through for what they are and not just something women should endure just to say they got picked.

Never experienced anything when under 16. When I got older going to pubs/clubs the odd arse pinch and ‘alright darling’ kind of thing. I do come across as rather curt and unapproachable perhaps this isn’t a bad thing. Even my partner said when we first met he thought I was rude!

At 11, my daughter was pestered over mobile phone by a 16 year old boy asking her for nudes and sexually explicit chat and getting really threatening when she said no. We only got her phone when she started secondary and within days, a friends older brother had for hold of her number and given it to his friend. When she told me about it, I immediately brought it up with the school who assured me they'd come down hard on it. Which meant a male teacher took it upon himself to tell my daughter she was "asking for it" by being so friendly and she needed to "dial back the smiles" because it wasn't the boys fault he was getting the wrong idea and that she'd be in trouble if she wasn't careful. True story. He lost his job over that. The kid had nothing happen to him, his mum reached out to me on social media to assure me he was a poor bewildered lad who had no idea of the context of his requests and was just trying to fit in. Four years have passed since then and he's been in court recently for sexually assaulting a 13 year old.

Yes,
Flashed at twice as a child / young teen
Chased by a random man as an older child ( thank god my dad spotted him and let our dog off the lead to frighten him off. Reported to the police, he had attempted to abduct a young girl a few days before)
Working in family business ( shop) as a young teen - many, many , many horrible comments, usually as soon as my mum or dad were out of view. On one memorable occasion when my brother was behind them ( man was physically thrown out of the shop).
Another public facing role as an older teen^/ adult. Touching and comments. Followed home from work.
In my 20's , married with 2 kids a local man started sending me notes and following me.
And I dont think I'm unusual, certainly not amongst my friends. In my 50s now so happily invisible.

Oh and older teen lived with an abusive dickhead for 6 months. Funnily enough he wasnt sleazy.

I think a survey last year after Sarah Everard’s death found that 97% of women had experienced those behaviours? So presumably there are a few fortunate ones that haven’t.

For me it started at age 11 (or at least that’s when I first became aware of it, it may have started before). Intensified through teenage years. I’d actually say it was at its worst between 13 and 16. Since I turned 35 it’s got a lot better and frankly it’s a relief.