When do you first remember being catcalled?

[WomenHour]

If at all

I remember when I was 14 , a boy who just joined the school wolf whistled me.

11. I was eating a lollipop. A man yelled "I've got something you can suck on!" And he laughed.it started from there, up until I was maybe early 20s, then I got too old for strange men in the street, I guess.

Not quite catcalled but was about 12/13 walking down the road and a car stopped and some teenage lads inside looked me up and down and said 'Hello little girl' and winked. Bleurgh! 😳

My friend and I used to talk about it and plan to drive our future imaginary kids to school 'because of all the pedos'. Makes me feel sick as an adult now driving to work along a busy comp school route. I look at the teenagers milling about and can't fathom how someone my age would catcall a CHILD. Makes me shudder

Same here! We used to talk about how men were so disgusting and we'd have to learn how to drive if we had kids so they wouldn't have to have things like "show us yer tits love!", "come suck on this!", "come over here, I've got something to show you/can show you a good time", "nice arse, can I park my cock in it?" Etc. How can men view children, CHILDREN, as sex objects? It absolutely boggles my mind, even more now I'm their age. Fucking hate them.

14, walking past some young builders. I had long legs but nothing else going for me so I suspected it was sarcastic.

@sweatybetty20 Your dad sounds brilliant

I was 14 in Spain with my parents on vacation.. a German man in his mid 20s I believe, he kept smiling and walking extremely close to me, winking and sticking his tongue out to me.
Then one day I was going up to our hotel room to get something with my little brother and his friend , the guy got in the lift with me and kept trying to touch me. Unfortunately for me his floor came before mine and he grabbed me pulling me out of the lift leaving my brother and his friend alone!
The German guy kept cuddling me and trying to kiss me pulling me in direction on his hotel room.
I was petrified!

I managed to get away and I stupidly was to scared to tell my parents, and made my brother keep quite!

I got my own back on the last night there though, he stopped me on the stairs in the lobby while I was with my brother.
He learned in and said something in German, my response was a knee to his balls!
Didn’t see him again thank goodness!

14, on my way home from school in my school uniform, by a bunch of workmen in the street.

@Mintjulia - it was a huge shock when I saw him throw the punch as he was such a placid, quiet man. He was also a strict catholic and a feminist and seeing someone shout that at me absolutely incensed him. As a previous poster pointed out, if that had happened today he would have been arrested. This was in 1985 when tradesmen and utility workers had never even heard of a Code of Conduct.

11yrs old, in my school uniform. obviously a child, totally flat chested, hairy legs, bunches.

Man in a white van wound his window down and shouted "i want to lick your cunt". I screamed at him to fuck off (first time i ever said the word out loud) and he did a U-turn in the street and drove slowly along side me all the way making kissy noises. I ended up running up to the cornershop where my neighbour worked and asking her to walk me home. I was so, so ashamed. I have no idea why.

12 onwards regularly.

I have a vague memory of one time when I was eleven but it wasn't anything much.

I must admit I liked it.

I was in year 9, it was spring so around the time I turned 14. I was walking back from Safeway (showing my age!) and wearing a pale blue wrap-around skirt and a strappy top with little blue flowers on it (we called them gypsy tops because they had ruching on the boobs). I thought I looked the shit, and was delighted when a car full of older teenagers/young men beeped the horn as they drove past because it confirmed that I did, indeed, look the shit.

(Obviously now I think they were inappropriate and catcalling is definitely not to be encouraged, but at the time I was really happy that boys might think I looked sexy.)

I was about 13 and i got ogled at by the odd man driving past me , but one of the things i remember most was bending down to pick up a delivery we received weekly and seeing the vile ,lecherous much older man looking down my top and smirking.
My 12year old daughter is much better looking than i was at that age and i dread to think about what she will experience .
I was curvy with boobs and that seems to be a green light to some sadly.

The sixth form boys used to hang out of their cars and tell the new 11 year old female intake who they planned to "break in".

13 - a grown man sat on a bench outside asda

14yrs old in Menorca with my parents walking down the street when a group on Spanish men pulled over in a jeep to gawp at me in denim shorts, they said something. I can't remember what but that's the first time I remember being seen as attractive, I was also quite shocked they didn't care I was with my mum and dad!

11 years old but very busty but with a small frame and young face. Remember it clearly, I had on a blue and white spotted ra ra skirt. It bothered me but it was something I learnt to deal with being a busty girl.