Discussion on Women's Hour about harrassment on the streets

[LadyBiscuit]

Did anyone hear this? I am absolutely furious. They had a woman from the London Anti Street Harassment campaign and a male journalist. He was saying that feminists were effectively trying to silence men and deny them a voice by campaigning against harassment.

Sorry I'm being very inarticulate but I was so cross.

I shall post a link when it's up on Listen Again.

Here's the link to have a listen.

This is a men problem isn't it. I mean that it's one that men need to pick up and sort out amongst themselves. We can't force others to change, we can only point out that their behaviour is shit. For true change, society and men need to agree that it's shit and make it become unacceptable to behave that way.

People might say that masturbating at someone is very different to shouting obscenities at them or giving them a bit of a grope in the pub or whatever - but it's all coming from teh same place, it's all on a continuum, and to the women walking around being barraged with it, it all feels much the same.

That's really interesting that quite a few of you are saying that your DPs are amazed that any of these things have ever happened to you. I wonder if my DP is equally blissfully ignorant. I'll have to ask him when he comes in.

I guess normal men (the kind who don't go round following/flashing/harrassing women) rarely see it happen that it doesn't occur to them that it's incredibly commonplace.

Avril, I was about 12 when I first saw a man wanking too :( He followed me and a friend through a secluded park type place. It's very grim when you think about it. We're not just talking about men harassing women, we're talking about young girls :(

thecatspjs, have you explained to your dh that sometimes, ignoring a man is incredibly dangerous?

Their sense of entitlement is so great, that if you ignore them they get angry. As that woman on the video in Cardiff said, the bloke got out of his car and kicked her in order to punish her for ignoring him.

It's not even a question of the fact that we shouldn't need to ignore it - it's the fact that if we do, we may be punished further with at best a tirade of obscene verbal abuse and at worst a physical or sexual assault right up to rape.

And that's what these wankers know underpins all their catcalling - the threat of violence. That's why ignoring is not always possible or wise.

eg a man wanking at me or a man shouting "show us yer tits love" or a man going on and on and on in the pub and refusing to leave and trying to put his arm round etc... They all just make me feel "FFS not another one". It all blends into one. I don't feel significantly more outraged byh the wanker (ha) than the shouter, it's all the same to me. Just stupid bloody men getting in my face again.

But the men each seem to have a personal code of what is acceptable and what isn't, based on what them and their friends do, presumably. How the women feel about it all is irrelevant.

I heard it, some of the women were almost in tears recounting it. And still they felt they had to explain that they weren't wearing provocative clothes. Who is doing this?

I know what you mean ISN'T

You have to judge each on a case by case basis. It takes time and effort I don't want to expend, weighing up which approach I need to take with this particular bloke. Totally agree that ignoring is definitely not always the right move.

Admittedly I don't get so much of this shit now I am older and always have children with me but i can remember how it was from about 13 - 30 as if it were yesterday

I agree, I think our DPs would be shocked by, say, a quick straw poll at, say a wedding. How many women old, young, single, partnered up, underage, whatever has been harassed, assaulted or abused, hands up. I was shocked myself when I read a thread on here about unreported rape. For me, touched up on a train and dragged down an alley. I don't know why there is so little shame that men just don't stop doing it.

Actually Rosa I think you've spotted something.

Most men probably don't realise just how prevalant this behaviour is, because men don't tend to do it when other men are about (unless they're part of the group that are doing it of course).

They need to be told.

The reason they can have the blissful delusion that it's all just harmless fun, is because they haven't got the faintest idea what their mothers, wives, sisters and daughters are having to deal with on a daily basis. Becuase for some reason, we tend not to mention it to them. Is that because we get so used to hiding it from when we are children and feel embarrassed and shamed by it, that we continue our discretion into adulthood long after we know this behaviour doesn't shame us, it shames the perpetrator? Or what? Why do we keep quiet about this? Is it because we know it will be written off as just a one-off? If every woman every day, told her work collegues/ husband/ family every single instance of sexual harrassment, perhaps men would realise how prevalent it is?

They were almost in tears recounting it and yet Brendan O'Neill still felt able to tell them they should just be ignoring it because it was not that different from flirting

street harrassment- the cartoon

My dh definitely knows about this sort of thing

Hope it is not a case of "takes one to know one"

But I would be suspicious that men say they don't know that this is going on - I thought that was why men are so protective of their daughters

I think the reason we don't mention it HB is because it's so mundane and familiar. It happens so often that we just accept it as part of life. And of course that is totally wrong but I don't think I've really talked about it before. Or only if I've been harassed just as I'm going into work I might mention to a colleague. Otherwise I just don't.

I wonder also if we don't mention it to partners because we are worried they might think we were being in some way provocative (this last bit is pure speculation - have been single for aeons)

In some ways. although the interview got me really riled, I'm very glad this subject has been raised. I really don't think men realise how often women get flashed at/harassed/shouted at/hissed at because we don't talk about it.

I've been harrassed and catcalled so many times I've lost count - from the age of 13/14. Comments on my body shape/parts, being groped, followed, called names...I get pissed off just thinking about it.

How dare this self satisfied twerp tell people it's not an issue and it doesn't matter.

It's not funny, it's not complimentary it's not harmless, it is intimidating, it is threatening and it is not acceptable.

Another one here who was furious at the programme, and I only heard the first ten mins.

I have been called a cunt by a twelve year old on my street, flashed at, grabbed, spat at for ignoring the verbal abuse from the group of 20 men I was walking past, had a man do a graphic impression of fellatio at me while I was walking with my toddler... it goes on and on, doesn't it?

Once in the tube I sat horrified while a group of French students chatted in pornographic details about the things they were going to do to me and my friend. I did French at A level but she didn't do it past third year. I made her come with me at the next stop and explained later. At the time I thought "ooh, lucky escape, but maybe it was just intimidation talk", but later on I thought, "hang on, they assumed we couldn't understand them, so maybe they weren't just making shallow boasts". I still get shudders about it.

But never mind the right to walk down the street in safety after dark. Reclaim the night? We haven't even got full daylight sorted yet. And for some smug little prick to claim that litigating against the random verbal abuse of women stifles men's freedom of speech, well, the blood boils.

I can honestly say that this has made me angrier than I can say. Now what do I do? I need to do something about this!

Oh yes and I also have seen a man masturbating. He helpfully stopped his car to show me ask directions.

dittany - you have a good point. I moved away from a really weird bloke who moved up to sit next to me on the tube once and decided to sit opposite three men (not together). When the weird bloke started hitting me with a newspaper and kicking men, the blokes just ignored it. It was two women (not together) at the other end of the carriage who came to my rescue. :(

Exactly HerBeatitude. Why don't we talk about it more openly? Not just amongst ourselves on here but to men as well?

I think it is the shame factor too. Like the example I gave of someone shouting "nice arse" to me in front of male colleagues. I think they were really embarrassed and didn't know what to say. They're both decent blokes who I'm pretty sure would never dream of saying something like that to someone they didn't know. But I would never bring it up with them ("Isn't it outrageous that tossers like that feel they have the right to comment on my body in the street?") because I was too busy being mortified and wishing the ground would open up and swallow me.

Once a bloke grabbed my arse as I crossed the road and my first reaction was to feel totally humiliated and embarrassed and worried about who else might have witnessed it. I went and told a female colleague/friend about it but I wouldn't have dreamt of telling a male colleague.

Why is that?

I don't believe men don't know about the general harassment, as Dittany says. I think they convince themselves women don't mind.

I can believe they don't know about the wanking.

However when I was discussing the wanking with DH he said 'If I saw that I would definitely intervene!'
And I was, like 'Would you really? People don't usually intervene.'

Have you seen the Goldman Sachs case as well? It's all linked, the sense of entitlement. I was just thinking about whether there's a specific type of person who does it when it occurred to me -- if you work on the street, you do it on the street: if you work in a bank, you do it in a bank. Same difference.

Rosa, I'm so beyond shit caring about what bystanders think of me I'm afraid that in your situation I would turn like a fury and use language.

I had to look up anti-bullying techniques for one of my children and the most effective was "be loud". It's the shock, apparently.

Of course they know it happens, I just don't think they quite grasp the extent to which it happens.

I haven't continued the discussion tonight HB because I am tired, and don't want to spend the rest of the evening explaining something badly. I'll try again tomorrow when I have had some sleep. I don't think he was being dismissive btw, just that he is a very calm, laid back kind of guy who doesn't pay much attention to whats going on around him. I doubt if he has even noticed, and he doesn't hang around with the sort of men who would do this. And we live in this very quiet area as I said, and don't get out much!

As for people thinking I'm bonkers, I am sure you're right Avril. Which is why I nearly didn't post it on here - it seemed so melodramatic writing "incitement to sexual hatred" that I deleted it twice and then re-wrote it. Would never actually discuss it like this in real life.