Stranger "hits" DD - am I over-reacting?

[rosabud]

My DD is 17. Today she was on the bus on the way home from school (6th form so not in uniform). It was crowded and old people were tutting at her and making it obvious she should give up her seat for them (there were free seats towards the back of the bus - not sure that is relevant). Nomally she would have given up her seat but she was tired, had been in an AS exam which had gone horribly wrong and her back was hurting. Personally, I think she should still have given up her seat.......but don't think that's an excuse for what happened next.

A seat behind her became vacant and, as an old man (in his 70s, she thinks) sat down in it, he hit/slapped her across the shoulder ('quite' hard - but not hard enough to cause injury) and told her that she should give up her seat for an old man next time. DD apologised and tried to explain about the exam and her back - but he did not answer her. Old people continued to tut at her and she sat there and cried!

She should have given up her seat, I think. But I am really angry that a man thinks he had the right to hit/slap her! Would he have done that to an older person like myself? Would he have done that to a teenage boy - I don't think so, surely he would have been too wary of being punched back?!

I am so cross! How dare he?! Am I over-reacting?

Thankyou for your replies, everyone. I have had a whole range of emotions reading them. I cannot believe that, despite the fact that I repeated on page 4 of this thread my own ability to make a judgement about whether or not my daughter should have given up the seat (and my ability to talk to her about that decision), some posters have continued to make that the main point of their replies and, worse, their excuse for victim-blaming. I note with interest that a few have even used it as an excuse to feel entitled to comment on my own relationship with my daughter and how well I know her - did I realise she could be exaggerating/ upset about an underlying issue etc - with one poster even feeling entitled to point out that I must have known her bad back was a "red herring" (interestingly, I am well aware of my daughter's back condition and how it is being treated by our GP, although I am cross with myself that I feel a need to disclose that).

Thankyou to those who have discussed it in light of gender-bias and issues of male entitlement, you have helped me to think through why I was so very angry about it. Also, thankyou to those who have encouraged me to report it - I know you are right, I will talk to my daughter about going down that route but, I must say, if people on Mumsnet are inclined to judge the situation and disblieve her or imply it was justified then I don't think the police will take it very seriously.

Another thing that has angered me is how many posters have reported suffering from similar incidents! I really don't think that people feel entitled to hit,shout at,touch or assualt men,teenage boys, or fathers out with their children in the way they appear to feel entitled to do it to females.

I do wonder too if the other passengers were actually tutting at the hitter, but in her distress, DD assumed they were judging her.

OP, hope you haven't been scared away - can you clarify what you mean by "hit" since you put it in speech marks, and was DD in priority seating?

I'm another one who would say a call to 101 wouldn't go amiss, but I wouldn't bother saying the man was elderly until asked for a description. Would hate for the police to have preconceptions about 'frail elderly' like some have on this thread.

X post!!

DD was not wrong because NOONE EVER JUSTIFIES HITTING SOMEONE ELSE.

It's black and white.

Call 101, say your 17 year old was hit on a bus in an unprovoked attack, and go from there.

rosabud I think it might a good idea to report it even if nothing happens. It's a way of showing that it's worth taking it seriously if someone hits her or otherwise mistreats her or invades her space.
I'm glad your DD has a supportive mum (you!!)
Too many teenage girls are suffering because no one takes them seriously.

OP you have exactly the right attitude. It is frightening how many people would read the title of your OP and immediately think their most pressing point to make should be about bus seats.

Frankly it doesn't matter of your DD told a pensioner to piss off it STILL would have been illegal, and morally wrong for him to hit her.

I would suggest your fears about it being an issue of male entitlement are also well founded.

Please don't fall into the trap of thinking 'mumsnet thinks victim blaming is ok, or my daughter was in the wrong'. Disappointingly some posters seem to have take that stance but not by any means all of us!

Also I'd hope the police are better trained In what constitutes an assault than the average MNetter.

Sorry but your dd had a back back. Sometimes I get them and they are crippling. No way would I give my seat up if my back was playing up.

I'd call 101, buses have CCTV.

Dervel
Great post!

Rosabud, I hope you and DD DO decide to report it. That disgusting man had NO right to lay even a fingernail on her, and I am absolutely disgusted that people on here would try to justify that in any way. SHAME on them!

My parents are 76 years old...just recently they ran the Belfast half marathon. They would NEVER want a young person to give up her seat on the bus, because they are intelligent enough to realise she might have a hidden condition and would bear that in mind. And even if they were infirm, they would NEVER expect or feel entitled to it.

You simply CANNOT hit people even if they have poor manners. Your DD had the misfortune (as too many women have) to meet a horrible, abusive man.

More girls need to grow up feeling their judgements and autonomy are sacrosanct particularly when others disagree.

Brilliant Dervel. Thank you!!

Staggered by the amount of victim blaming going on.

OP's dd was assaulted.

I must say, if people on Mumsnet are inclined to judge the situation and disblieve her or imply it was justified then I don't think the police will take it very seriously.

I am very sorry for what you and your daughter have been through. This is absolutely not true.

The police are briefed in the actual law, which is that it's illegal to assault people.

I am a little weirded out that you would even hesitate to report this. What kind of message do you want to give your daughter?

Matilda, Rosabud I think explained she did not want her DD to go through any more stress as she wanted to move on. DD HAS to be listened to and respected.

Rosabud your post was so interesting to me - almost exactly the same thing happened to me when I was 18 yrs old twenty odd years ago on a National Express bus. I didn't tell my family, I felt horrified at the time, like I had been assaulted really, I couldn't believe anyone would behave that way, especially an old man.

My tale is that my friend and I were travelling by National Express (so all allocated seating, this isn't a case of not giving up my seat) the people in front of us had reclined their seats, leaving us very squashed, and when they got up I quickly tried to put them back into the upright position in the hope the next occupiers of the seats would keep them upright. An older couple arrived (I guess about 70) I smiled and explained what I was trying to do, they sat down and left the seats reclined. We were squashed for a further 100 miles or so. When we got off the old couple remained on the coach and as I walked past their seat the old man reached out and hit me hard on the arm with a very angry expression on his face. I exclaimed "He hit me!" to which there was no response from anyone. I don't know what provoked him, thinking afterwards (which I have done for years) I think that he was irritated by my moving about in my seat during the journey - his seat was so close to mine whenever I crossed or uncrossed my legs he probably felt it.

So OP I'm glad to hear you have taken it seriously and are supporting your daughter, whether or not she should have given up her seat is irrelevant. I wish that I had had the maturity at the time to have made more of a fuss and told the driver of the coach or my parents. As you can see I have not forgotten the incident and it's not a nice memory (don't get me wrong much worse has happened to me since!).

I agree with you OP that the man who assaulted your daughter would not have done it to a more mature adult and absolutely not to a male teenager either (he would be too scared of the repercussions). You are right to take it further. Nasty people should not be allowed to get away with bad behaviour no matter how old they are.

Okay, neither of us is there but has DD said she doesn't wish to report it?

I can't imagine a daughter being assaulted on a bus, working up the courage to tell her mother, and the mother saying, "That's not right! But it will probably be too stressful to call 101 and anyway the police won't believe you so let's not report it."

No wonder violence is so rife when so many people who are bringing up children FFS, rush to defend it.

Rosabud, I'm sorry htat happened to your DD and hope she's OK now. Also, I would consider seriously reporting. It will remind your DD she has the right to have her bodily integrity respected, even by people who have set themselves up as more vulnerable than her while physically assaulting her.

Why should she give up her seat if there were other seats available?

Basil as usual you have really got to the crux of it!! He set himself up as more vulnerable, yet still saw fit to assault her because she was female, and no matter what, he as a man still felt he was BETTER than DD! Revolting...just like the apologists for violent males on this thread!

I hope your Daughter is OK and that the rest of her exam period is calmer for her.
Of course the man shouldn't have hit her, and to echo what many others have said, he probably wouldn't have done if she was male.

Again, please please please report it.

Just to go back to two comments made above, I can't scroll so I apologise in advance if I'm not exact.

The first was '17 year old exaggerate' the second was ' 70 year old men don't usually actively hit unknown 17 year olds in public'

When I was 17 I was working as an auxiliary nurse on a general medical ward. Being physically and sexually assaulted was a weekly if not daily event.

'Funny' things like
'Ooh is that my hand on your boob?'
'Is that my hand up your skirt?'
My personal favourite ' nursing has gone downhill since you stop wearing stockings'. . .

The one that still make me feel physically ill, my tights had torn, he managed to get his fingers inside me, and complained I was 'dry'.

That's with the random slaps on the ass, face, arms, legs. Random bites, being punched in the face several times. Had vases, plates, urine bottles, full urine bottles, thrown at me.

Once had a chipped ulna where I stopped a 'gentleman' hitting a 7 month pregnant colleague over the head with his walking stick.

Had 3months off work because I had a small TV thrown at my back, the reason for this was I was late with the morning tea round. . .

ALL OF THESE patients were mentally competent.

And all these attacks were by older men, men with wives and daughters and granddaughters, who saw all of us female staff as lower, as nothing, actually as less than that, as empty vessels.

One of them who punched me in the face for saying that I wasn't going to wash his genitals because he was capable of doing so himself, introduced me to his granddaughter as his favourite nurse. . . I still had the bruise on my face.

(None of us minded so much the attacks by the confused patients, be it a passing/illness related confusion or Dementia. You knew that they weren't responsible for their actions, even if their actions were a reflection of who they had been.
Though before I upset anyone, most dementias of any type do make the most gentle caring people aggressive which is why, they, the disease is such a bastard.)

I'm telling you this as a 40 year old, at 17 I underplayed it all, we all did. We laughed it off while feeling sick inside, knowing that it would never be taken seriously.

Me at 17 I thought I was a grown up, I though I should instinctively know how to deal with this, I didn't tell anyone, much less my parents.
No offence to my parents, they were in a different country and would have raised hell, and supported me to the ends, but I was so very sure I knew better. I had been brought up in a household with respect to everyone, this treatment was alien to me. It's hard to explain.

70 year olds who are aggressive, are those who were aggressive at 20,30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80…

Your personality doesn't change the day you pick up your pension.

Oh and before anyone asks when we did try to report, it was blamed on us, I was given a verbal warning for having torn tights.

Sexual assault was ignored.

That is shocking and horrific.

I think that you should seriously consider reporting that hospital trust now, for failing to protect its employees.

Oh vintage

That's shocking vintage I also think you should consider reporting it now... With historic cases in the news at the moment I think it would be taken seriously and woudl be good for other who still may being dealing with shit like that. So So So on your behalf.