I read something today that was a bit of a lightbulb moment for me, and I say this as someone who's never been raped or sexually assaulted or even treated badly by men I know, like and love (but of course, have been in the receiving end of countless examples of low level harassment from strangers/acquaintances, of the sort that all women experience).
It was this: the threat of being assaulted by men structures many women's daily experience of the world.
Men don't live their lives like this. They don't actually understand at all what it's like to live life like this. In fact, I suspect they downright don't believe it.
It doesn't happen so much any more, but as a young women, going out of the house almost guarantees some sort of run-in with a man who sees fit to whistle/comment/grope or worse. Daily.
Anyway, a month or so ago I was on the bus with then 4YO DD. A man came and sat in front of us and kept trying to talk to me. I did the smile, look away, concentrate on DD (who was looking at me with wide, questioning eyes).
In the end, when the subtle cues weren't working, I just looked him straight in the eye and said, 'I would prefer to be left alone please', and eyeballed him until he turned around. The nice man behind me then offered to swap seats.
I said to DD that everything was OK, and that its OK to tell people to leave you alone if you're not happy. I think it's so, so important to tell girls (and boys, of course, but especially girls) this.
We have to give this this message loud and clear. It's OK to tell people to stop, to leave you alone. It is not rude to do this, at all.
Thank you for this thread.