How do men get away with this?

[leavethingsalone]

My friend's daughter is absolutely stunning (and a lovely modest girl). She's 18. She often gets told by strangers how beautiful she is.

That's all great, but she's recently started going clubbing and has come home upset because of the attention.

Most recently she was dancing and a guy came up behind her and was grinding on her from behind. He wouldn't leave her alone. Luckily her friends saw what was going on and stopped it!

I'm sure this happens to lots of other young women too!

She's (hopefully) off to uni in September and has been looking forward to this, but is now starting to feel unsafe as her parents won't be nearby to look out for her!

When will men realise that this simply isn't appropriate behaviour and that women should feel safe when they are out?

It’s horrible

When will men realise that this simply isn't appropriate behaviour and that women should feel safe when they are out?

Realistically, never, or at least not in our
lifetimes. There is a deeply seated culture of male entitlement to female bodies and it comes out easily under the influence of alcohol. It’s awful. It started happening to me when I was that age and in my late 40s it still happens from time to time. This young lady needs to find her voice and not rely on her friends to save her.

She's (hopefully) off to uni in September and has been looking forward to this, but is now starting to feel unsafe as her parents won't be nearby to look out for her!

I totally agree that this is a 'men' problem,

But at 18 does she still need her parents to look out for her?

This is the tricky stage where we parents have to watch our children navigate the world without us and hope that we've taught them well enough

She's 18, not 8 and should be perfectly capable (especially these days) of saying something to the 'guy came up behind her and was grinding on her from behind' - why didn't she say anything - or just move away and head back to her friends??

Why did she need to be 'rescued' ?

It's a genuine question - it's not like 20 years ago ..... or even 10 years ago ....when women put up with men's unwanted attention because it was 'just part of life'.

Why doesn't she know what to do in situations like this?

She was safe in the club, she just had to deal with inappropriate drunk behavior. She’ll be safe in university but will also have to deal with inappropriate drunk behaviour.

Most 18 year olds had much older have to deal with that kind of behaviour, not just attractive ones. She 18. She's not a child she'll be fine. When being grinded on she just needs to move away. It's not nice but she needs to stand up for herself also, not rely on people her age to look after her

If she can't cope on a night out not sure how she will cope at uni

So helpful.

No woman should have to “cope” with caveman behaviour from juvenile, arsehole men.

Savvy?

I categorically am not "beautiful" or "absolutely stunning" but I can't even tell you how many blokes have approached me from behind in clubs and just started grinding away (or worse).

Your OP sounds as if you (and she) were surprised by this?

I mean, it shouldn't happen but it's a very, very common occurrence. She just needs to tell him to piss off - and move away from him physically if he tries to carry on.

I'm sure being beautiful means she'll get even more attention but in my experience, drunk men in a club/pub means they'll more or less try it on with any woman that looks even vaguely attractive.

You're right - women shouldn't have to put up with unwanted and unsolicited physical contact. But sadly it's nothing new. And I very much doubt things will change any time soon.

OP, they know it isn't considered appropriate. They haven't been living under rocks. That's why they like it, because they are rapey pigs who like to bulldoze over women's boundaries.

Sure, because sexual assault is to be expected and "coped" with. Piss off.

When will men realise that this simply isn't appropriate behaviour and that women should feel safe when they are out

Never. It won’t change.

The part I find mystifying is how it’s taken you until August 2024 to be perplexed/outraged about this? You had no idea before now?

Gross... this was happening 20 years ago... and it happened to my mum.

I want to be charitable and say its because the alcohol turns off their frontal lobe, it starts with being loud, then casual sexual harrassment, casual sexual assault and then full out aggression- punch ups at chucking out time!!!

Really, its just tolerated or celebrated by their peer group. It would get a lot easier for women if men strted calling their mates out.

FUCKING WOW TO SOME REPLIES ON THIS THREAD!!!
No she should never have to put up with it/why should she move away/ why does she have to cope with it?

Men should know better; stop blaming women.

What I've never understood & still don't if a man or child gets abused/raped no one ever asked were they dressed in a certain way, where were their friends/parents? Why didn't they do this or that?

Why the fuck is it a woman's fault how a man behaves towards her?

When will men realise that this simply isn't appropriate behaviour and that women should feel safe when they are out?

The men who aren't creeps need to make this less socially acceptable.
Many creeps do it in full view of their friends but yet their friends don't seem to ever call them out on it and they still happily hang around with those guys.

While I agree with the premise - what are women and girls supposed to do when men don’t conform to the well mannered behaviours we want and expect from them?

its 100% correct that no woman should have to put up with it and they shouldn’t have to move away or to dress a different way etc but things aren’t changing so is the 18 year old expected to just dancing with this bloke rubbing his cock on her arse because she shouldn’t have to move?

It a a genuine question, what are women expected to do when we are already speaking out and it still happens.

Men need to change but they’re not for doing that, so how do we protect ourselves and our daughters?

Some men are still ignorant in an equal world. Thats a sad fact.
From a woman's perspective I'd say run like the wind from assholes and hang out with like-minded people. Respectful people .
I thank goodness im older sometime. I still get hit on and i have a very good expression on my face that says it all. I refuse to tolerate unwanted affection if that's the right word.

She needs to take some courses on self-defense, and on assertiveness

It's not alcohol that causes them to do it. I worked with a chap and we are both in our sixties and he did it once to me at work. I absolutely told him if he so much as touched me again I would immediately report and escalate his behaviour. Also told him if he did it to anyone else I would report it. I did actually tell our manager because we had a lot of young women who maybe wouldn't have the confidence to tell him to back off. He had a word and I don't think he did it again. Pervy twat.

If your daughter is off to uni, I highly recommend buying her THE GIFT OF FEAR by Gavin Becker and WHEN VIOLENCE IS THE ANSWER by Tim Larkin. Both are packed to the hilt with advice for women about how to stay safe, and they are uniformly described by reviewers and readers as excellent. I thought they were too.

One thing personal safety experts seem to agree on is that women need to make a noise when approached by a man and feeling uncomfortable about it. She could just pretend she's hugely startled and scream her brains out. Maybe you could do soe roleplay with her using strong, loud sentences so she gets used to it. "LEAVE ME ALONE. I DON'T WANT TO TALK. GET AWAY. FIRE!" etc.

Here are a few simple things I learned from being young and naive in London:

1. If a man tries to invite himself into your home to use the loo, she can direct him to a hotel, a station, a hospital, a pub, or a police station. And she should straight-up say that she is not comfortable having him in her house. I got caught out this way when sharing a taxi with a client after an event at age 23. We were supposed to drop me at home and then the taxi was meant to take him to the station, but he did the loo trick. I was young and unprepared and didn't know how to say no. A delivery person once tried that too. I directed him to the nearest pub.

2. Always have 50 pounds or so kept at home, so that if she gets her bag stolen, she can always get home by getting a taxi and paying him once there. For the same reason, she should keep her door keys in a secure pocket, not her bag.

3. When travelling by bus, always sit downstairs near the driver. ALL the trouble happens on the top deck in the back half.

4. If there's a woman sitting alone on the bus and one empty seat next to her, always sit in it. That way, both of you are protected from a creep sitting next to you.

5. Once, when living alone in London, I arrived at the door of my block of flats at the same time as a man. I had no way of knowing if he lived there. So I waited to see if he would pull out a key, and he did not. Then I waited to see if he pushed any of the flat buzzers because he was visiting someone. Nope. If he didn't live there and wasn't visiting, he must have been trying to get me alone inside the building. (No one about, dodgy area.) So I rang my own buzzer, knowing of course that no one would answer, and when there was no reply I went "Damn! He's not home yet!" and quickly walked off. Waited quite some time, went back and he was gone.

6. Carry insect spray and give anyone who tries to harm her a good spray of that in the eyes.

That's all I can think of right now. Maybe you can think of various situations she's likely to experience and practice some assertive phrases with her. I wish my parents had done that with me. This could cover a lot of things, like if her friends meet a bunch of guys when out and want to go back to a party with them and she doesn't want to (she can get a taxi because she has her 50 pounds at home!) or what to say to pushy shop assistants (Mine are: "I'm just browsing" and "That's more than I want to spend today.") This was actually for pushy salespeople in ports when I went on a cruise. I was young and handling the sales pressure felt awkward. But these phrases could be useful against any sales pressure tactics.

My parents sheltered me a lot and then gave me ZERO preparation for what I would find in the real world, and I do mean zero. I wish I had been better prepared. e.g. I'm very smiley and bubbly, and the amount of men at work who took that as a come-on when I was young and slim and unwrinkled...if I could go back in time, I would smile a whole lot less at the opposite sex. Maddening. Absolutely maddening.

You could also practice phrases to turn down dates, or to say you don't want a second date if asked. "I don't feel a spark."

I do so wish my parents had armed me with a bunch of useful phrases. When you're that young and have never encountered such situations before, it's really hard to know what to say.

Best of luck!

In my teens I used to wear stilettos with steel heels. Easily scraped down a shin.

I think club behaviour must have got worse. I used to go clubbing quite a lot when I was under 25, around 1993-2000, and I was slim and attractive back then. I remember twice being horribly groped. But men didn't do the grinding thing back then, at least not that I recall. And I there were only those two gropings in those years. Maybe there were more that I've forgotten, because I do remember getting quite upset once that I couldn't just go and have a good old dance without any hassle.

Yes! And grinding your stiletto heel into someone's toes, too! That really hurts. We women can do our own grinding!

Its not new is it. This was accepted behaviour when I was that age. No one batted an eyelid.
teach her how to deal with it rather than she’s not safe and needs mummy to look after her.

Ugh FFS.
What I find most depressing is that, from a really young age, it's women who have to live like we're permanently on guard for this shit.
What a world it would be for us and our female friends and relatives if every single dirty lowlife bastard who does it was actually held to account.
Dream of a time when we don't amend our behaviour and curb our freedoms to accommodate the possibility of being harmed by men.
The stuff my young nieces tell me leaves me feeling scared for them.
My overall sense is that fuck all seems to have got better for women and girls out there, and the crime stats evidence that.
This is a problem that men should be solving.

Two sharp elbows driven behind her as hard as she can, that’s what generally works. Certainly worked in the 80s when I was clubbing.
Honestly, she’ll get used to dealing with this, she’ll have to.