I was out last night with a young person who is 14 years old. I don’t want to go into details of the relationship incase it’s outing but she is not a relative and someone I have a safeguarding responsibility to.
We we’re having a lovely evening and we’re walking back to my car at about 10pm when a man was walking in the opposite direction and as he approached us he asked her if she wanted to touch his balls. This happened so quickly that he had practically walked past by the time he finished his question so I tuned round and shouted at him that she was 14 and called him a creep.
I have informed her legal guardian who is as angry about it as I am. I’ve also told the organisation that facilitates our relationship. She is technically a vulnerable child. She looks like an adult and she is beautiful so has always attracted attention but never before with me in a way that could be described as sexual harassment.
Ive told the adults involved that I’m going to ensure that for the foreseeable I’m going to stick to spending time with her in the day to support her to feel safer. But this wipes out our favourite shared activity that we were doing last night.
I’m just so angry. I should be able to take her out and have fun without her, a CHILD, being sexually harassed. I hate that she has a lifetime of this ahead of her.
Feminism: chat
I should be able to do this.
Brewskipa · 06/05/2023 09:02
Raquelos · 06/05/2023 10:07
Please don't curtail your perfectly reasonable activities because of the bad behaviour of a man like this. The tragedy is that these idiots are everywhere all the time. You are just as likely to experience that kind of interaction at any other time of the day. If you stay in to avoid them, you will never go out.
Better to use the opportunity to talk to the 14-year-old about how contemptible this kind of behaviour is and how they should have zero tolerance for it and other questionable behaviours in any aspect of their life, including their own friendship groups. Help her understand that these people are scumbags and that she is not responsible for their shitty actions.
It is so frustrating that we need to help our girls navigate this kind of shit, but we do because there is no way of avoiding it completely.
Brewskipa · 06/05/2023 09:50
@dementedpixie because there are other activities we can do that we also enjoy that can be done in the day, and because making a child feel comfortable is more important to me than who “wins”.
CurlewKate · 12/05/2023 13:16
@Outdamnspot23
"Actually even if I walked down the road stark naked I should still not be sexually harrassed or assaulted."
Absolutely. As a man could. Not suggesting it, obviously!
NumberTheory · 13/05/2023 09:01
I don’t think it’s a given that you should keep doing the activity. But I don’t think the question to ask yourself is whether it’s more important to you to that the girl is comfortable than who “wins”. The question to ask is - is it more important to her that you she avoid such comments than that she gets to do her favourite activity. Don’t let her agency be snatched away by this misogyny.
Brewskipa · 06/05/2023 09:50
@dementedpixie because there are other activities we can do that we also enjoy that can be done in the day, and because making a child feel comfortable is more important to me than who “wins”.
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