Men in a van

[alphamummy]

I'm unsure why this bothered me so much, i'm not upset more annoyed that it happened.

Sorry i'll explain, i was walking on main road to playgroup 10am ish, with my 2 children in double buggy. I was dressed in jeans, winter coat and walking boots( not that it should matter at all what i had on). A van drove passed me pipped their horn and the driver shouted out of the window at me " fat split arse" and the bloke in the back also shouted "show us your fanny".

Why would you behave like that? I had my children with me.

I think its the fact that they pipped to get my attention to shout abuse at me.

Maybe Mumsnet could do a campaign to urge men to stop harrassing women in the street and to encourage women to report the harrassment every single time it happened.

The police would have to take on extra staff to deal with it, we could save a lot of jobs of people who might otherwise be made redundant with all these cuts going down...

SardineQueen: regarding your examples:

"get your tits out" - section 5 public order

"gissa smile love" - not threatening, abusive or insulting. Maybe rude, insensitive, inappropriate etc but not a crime.

"oi sexy" - difficult. Prosecution would have to demonstrate that the words are threatening, abusive or insulting and that you were actually alarmed and distressed. I really don't think it would fly.

One of the problems is that Public Order offences and even summary common assault will not get you on ViSOR, despite the offences being of a sexual nature. Perhaps an amendment to the Public Order act to create sexually-aggravated offences, as there are for racially-aggravated offences, and for convictions to result in a ViSOR entry, might have a good deterrent effect. I would certainly think it would be in the public interest to have rape-threat man on ViSOR.

HerBeX: street harassment is the kind of offending that I think would respond well to public education campaigns. The behaviour is one that the perpetrators do not equate with criminal behaviour and therefore they may respond well to education, much as the oafs who used to throw bananas on the football pitch responded pretty well to Kick It Out.

What is ViSOR?

So there we have two great suggestions - the MN campaign idea and the idea that we get sexually-aggravated offences to have the same weight as racially aggravated offences.

With the "oi sexy" - does the age of the target make a difference? So if it won't fly for a 30yo woman, what about a 16yo, a 13yo, or an 8yo? What about an 85yo?

With a lot of this stuff it seems to me that females in their reproductive years are seen as "fair game", while when people outside those ages are targetted people are outraged. I understand that the very young and very old are more vulnerable - but to me it always has a subtext of - well of course men do stuff to women. But why on earth would a man do stuff to a girl or an old lady - that is just wrong - and there is more outrage. Why can't we have a similar level of outrage for women who are victims while between the ages of about 13 and 45?

Sardine: ViSOR = Violent and Sex Offenders Register.

Regarding "oi sexy", I don't see how or why an age difference would make a difference. The words themselves probably aren't "threatening, abusive or insulting" and therefore it's unlikely that there's an offence. You need to have both the threatening words AND the distressed target. One or the other on their own ain't enough.

I think Oi Sexy can be seen as insulting can't it?

It reduces a woman to her sex, reminds her she can be raped and leaves her feeling alarmed and/ or distressed.

Particularly if she is 14 years old. Which of course, is when it happens most often - when you are under 20 and less likely to knwo how to deal with it.

It could equally be argued that it is a compliment, albeit a clumsy, boorish and cack-handed one. Therein lies the problem.

Is there really no problem with a man shouting "oi sexy" at a 10yo girl?

While it can be taken as a compliment by some women, it can also be taken by other women as demeaning, insulting, belittling, and aggressive.

"Oi sexy" means "I would like to have sex with you" which is threatening surely, and unsuitable to say to a 10yo?

I really don't know about the case of a 10yo. Does this happen? I always thought that the kind of Star-reading, van-driving apes who do this kind of thing were also incredibly self-righteous paedo-haters and considered anyone without breasts as off-limits.

Of course there are a separate group of men who do target prepubescent girls (and boys) but you don't use section 5 Public Order against them. There are far more serious charges available.

I think the fact that women are conditioned to believe that being yelled at in the street is a good thing, something to be pleased about, confirmation of your attractiveness - is a big problem. There is nothing complimentary about it.

and yes, I know I joke about don't knock it until nobody wants to do it to you cos you're so ugly and I know I shouldn't because I'm just not funny

But in all seriousness, there's no compliment in having a bloke make you feel like a blow up doll or a piece of meat.

What is interesting is that it is part of the conditioning of women that this is even an argument. We exist for the pleasure of men / to service men / etc, so we should be flattered by their comments on our bodies.

Because I've never heard a man yell "You look like a fascinating woman, I really respect you." or "I admire your intelligence"

dittany: it might be an incorrect argument in your opinion, but it's also one that might stand up in court. If it does turn from "Oi sexy" to "fucking bitch" then a section 5 has clearly been committed. Might even be a section 4 which is more serious (intent etc.)

The law is a blunt instrument and societal changes are a far better way of curbing this behaviour long term.

Dittany: We got away from the reality because Sardine specifically asked about that example and I gave her an answer to that specific question - that it would be tough to prove.

All the examples that you give are section 5 without a doubt, except for the last one which is possibly a common assault. I already explained this.

If you re-read my posts I explicitly advised that ALL incidents like these should be reported to the police in order to create a change in the mindset that these are not "serious" offences.

I agree that there's no harm in having a blunt instrument, but if it fails to catch the vast majority, and lets many of the rest off, there might be a better way. Creating societal taboos against behaviours is a very effective way of suppressing them.

I do mind you asking my gender because it is not relevant to the thread.

Why?

Would my opinion on how the police and courts are likely to view a section 5 be any less valid if I were a man?

I agree. I think a man, no matter how much he disagrees with the yelling of smut at women, has not felt it. Knowing that it is wrong, feeling that it is wrong, is not the same as having experienced being made to feel like nothing more than the worthless wrapping around a vagina.

Thanks hogsback I'm finding your input really interesting. I suppose with the 10yo I was trying to see whether the law sees a difference between comments made to young/old women and those in childbearing years IYSWIM.

I guess a better question would be what about a 12yo girl who is pubescent. I just think surely it can't be legal to say sexually explicit stuff to underage girls IYSWIM. Or is it? I just don't know.

OH, meant to add that - in the same way that I, as a white woman in the UK can understand that many black women are seriously discriminated against, abused and insulted. I can think it is disgusting and be very aware of the law about it, but I cannot truly understand how it makes you feel about yourself, feel the feelings that are felt at the moment that that name is spat at you. if that makes any sense.

In that same way, I think that a man cannot understand how it feels to have abuse of a sexual nature yelled at you and how it affects you.

They can hate it, they can agree it should be punished, but they are, to a certain degree, removed from it. iyswim.

Sardine: the problem with a lot of this stuff is that you simply don't know whether it's legal or not until you get it in front of a court. If there is any wriggle room, you can bet defence counsel will find it.

The legislation is quite broadly worded (I quoted the whole of s.5 to you above) but in many of the "obvious" cases as quoted by Dittany it could and should be used far more often.

hogsback, some 10 year olds have breasts.

Lots of 12 year olds do.

You're right, Stereotype White Van Man hates peedos. But his definition of peedo, is someone who likes prepubescent children.

Pubescent children, if they are female, are fair game.

If they are male of course, it's a different matter - hark the cries of outrage when the age of consent to gay sex was lowered.

Yes I agree with that Hecate. One aspect is that I don't think they can ever quite get how intimidating it can be. eg the security guard saying it was just boys being boys, shouting about rape.

hogsback I suppose I'm just trying to understand whether its legal or not to yell stuff at people randomly, I can see that sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't.

I would really like to see this type of thing become unacceptable in our society.

HerBeX: well, if you shout abuse at anyone of any age, there is the possibility of an s.5. If you actually sexually proposition children than that is a far more serious offence.

Yes I think a lot of men don't understand that this starts when you hit 12/13 or earlier for some girls.

Girls who are just too young to understand or know how to handle this type of attention - which of course is often why they are targeted. I am convinced that men who do this aim it at younger women, not because of different levels of "attraction", but because they know they are more likely to get the sort of response they want from a girl/younger women, and that they are less likely to cause a scene or report it to anyone.