What could I have done differently?

[Marcussmith23145]

Hi all! I’ve joined mumsnet specifically to tell a story of something that has recently been resolved and to look for advice as to what to do differently. CAUTION long post

Around a year ago, I was on a packed tube on the way to work when the Oyster card of the woman in front of me dropped to the floor. I picked it up, put my hand on her shoulder to attract her attention (she was wearing headphones) and returned the card. She didn’t say thank you, but hey, London. She got off at the same station as me. I stopped at the bottom of the escalator to help another woman with her pushchair as the she couldn’t find the lift. We made small talk and parted ways at the top of the escalator.

I headed for the ticket barriers but was collared by two members of station staff with a shouting woman. I was in uniform (I’m a nurse) and assumed that they needed help. How wrong I was. It transpired that, according to the woman, I had touched her inappropriately. I was confused. I told the station staff that I had put my hand on her shoulder to attract her attention. They said that the woman didn’t dispute this but it was obviously a sexual advance upon a woman of colour. I was still confused. I was asked for my details, which I provided, all whilst the woman was bellowing that I should be arrested. Colleagues were walking past and hearing this. I then continued to work, shaken to say the least.

Around a week later, two uniformed police appeared at my front door. I let them in and they wanted to discuss the incident. I explained the situation and was met with stern looks. The woman has claimed sexual assault and just because I thought that touching her shoulder was innocent, she didn’t think that it was and her opinion is what mattered.

Some brief background to me. I’m a 41 year old white guy. I’m just over 6 ft tall, have lost the battle with male pattern baldness. I’m also a little overweight (thank you relatives with chocolates!). My husband and I have been together since first year of university. He’s a doctor, British born Chinese. I was adopted at 3 months by two wonderful parents. They were from Trinidad, already had 5 of their own but took me in regardless. I play rugby, sew stupid cushions and love the Lake District.

To continue, the police left shortly after I had explained my background to them. They came back a month later, again explaining that the woman wanted my charged. They would be undertaking further investigation.

I work with the elderly. Part of this involves putting hands on shoulders if they are deaf to attract attention, or to help them from a chair. A kind hand on the shoulder can give confidence back when trying to walk again. I have never thought that I was being inappropriate.

The investigation took around 11 months, and at the end the police decided on no further action. During this time, I had to report this all to my employer. I had to be moved away from patients. I’ve sat in an office for all of this time, pretty much alone.

I’ve posted some of this on other forums and have been met with vitriol. Some have told me that they would break my arm if I touched them without permission. Others have told me that if I can’t see what I’ve done is wrong then I am the worst face of the patriarchy. Others still insist that by picking up the card I was infantilising the woman, again making me an awful person.

Since it has finished, I’ve (nearly) left nursing and the NHS. I’m just finishing my notice period. I don’t want to take the risk again. I am worried about providing personal care, holding someone’s hand whilst they get bad news, hugging a grieving relative. My behaviour around women has changed, too. I tend not to put money into the cashier’s hand when paying for things. I won’t sit anywhere near a lone woman on the night tube.

What I want to know is where do I go from here? Is offering a pregnant woman my seat on the tube demeaning her and making her seem weak? Do I help at a cardiac arrest in the street? I would, you see, be putting the heel of my hand between a woman’s breasts. Where is the boundary? As a man, I feel like I have been painted with a massive brush that says “all men are scum”.

What I want to know is what did I do as an individual that was so wrong? I think that I did what any normal person would have done. Am I wrong?

Opinions welcome!

There are huge differences between sitting near to them which is normal, and sitting directly next to them on a train which is very weird if the carriage is empty, but obviously unavoidable when it's busy.

Or even sitting near to them when there’s a whole empty carriage and it’s late at night. Sit a long way away and don’t attempt to engage them, if you’re a man who cares at all about women.

kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest-blogger-starling-schrodinger’s-rapist-or-a-guy’s-guide-to-approaching-strange-women-without-being-maced/

You don't think it's weird to look at an empty carriage with one lone woman sitting there, and deciding to sit right next to her? As in, on the same double seat? That has happened to me, and I found it incredibly intimidating. I moved immediately and continued walking until I found a carriage with several people in.

Why would any man (or woman) choose to do that and why would they not realise how intimidating and unnerving it is? Being "in their own world" is no excuse at all for behaving in a way that intimidates other people. They should have more awareness than that.

To call it "triggering" in inverted commas is appallingly dismissive of the very real fear that someone may feel in that situation.

Can I ask why it's 'not ok' to sit near (simply near, not directly next to) a lone woman on a train? What's not ok about that?

Lol.

Obviously it's not good to go and sit near a lone woman on the night tube! Missed that gem! Why do that? There's stacks of seats, don't go and sit near the only person on there!

Apart from anything else we did a thing at school which said how people naturally space themselves out - we looked at buses but you see it in lifts too. Going and sitting near someone when there is lots of other space is weird behaviour even if that's all that happens, lone women often feel vulnerable late at night on public transport, having a man come and sit near them when he could sit elsewhere immediately sets the spidey senses going.

I've had men sit more than near me - one moved whenever I moved and sat next to me again, he followed me into a different carriage, in the end I pretended to get off the train but nipped in the next carriage and "hid" in the corner (old style northen line train) as it pulled off I looked out the window and he was stalking up the platform looking really angry.

Remember that MANY women have had iffy things happen on public transport, it's a magnet for dodgy men unfortuantely which is one reason TFL have had a drive in last few years asking passengers to report everything and with a focus on sexually motivated crime. For OPs eludication, that would be stuff like men rubbing erect penises up against girls at rush hour, feeling women up, getting their cocks out and masturbating at them. Touching them on the shoulder to say hello you dropped your pass, not so much!

That was to OP not you justoneman.

TBF though hopefully you weren't a very intimidating teen and some of the older women may have thought you were sitting near them for protection

(Which isn't such a silly idea - many young people and older people of both sexes can feel vulnerable and other people as well! Maybe rather than a "ladies carriage" they can have a carriage where anyone who fancies safety in numbers can head to).

I don't get this, why would the police actually use up their time in this way? A year or so back, I reported a perv for getting his bare hardon out on a train and rubbing up against me, the police were not in the slightest bit interested even though there must have been footage of it. I have also reported having my bits grabbed by a random guy in the street, same response. Yet they will apparently spend a lot of time on a shoulder touch? Hmm

Because the police is run by feminists who want to lock men up for perfectly normal behaviour.

OP is right to say he will not act to prevent anyone female from being hit by a bus. It seems like proportionate retaliation.

One man did do that didn't he - there was a lone toddler playing near a pond and he noticed but didn't do anything as he didn't want to be accused of something and it drowned. He could've rung the non emergency line or flagged down someone else to get them to check though I'd have thought. Anyway - that's a bit of a tangent!

@AssassinatedBeauty I didn't say 'right next to them' - I made a point to highlight that I was referring to sitting 'near to them'. I agree that the former is intimidating, creepy and downright unacceptable.

@JustOneMan @KittTheCar I guess I'm picturing the image of a man tired after a long day, just sort of drifting onto a carriage and sitting on the first seat he sees (which happens to be near a woman), rather than making the active decision to sit near a woman.

@KittTheCar you kept saying 'to go and sit near to a woman', suggesting that the action was conscious or deliberate - I wasn't referring to this.

Op said this " I won’t sit anywhere near a lone woman on the night tube. "

Meaning that due to the shoulder incident he will no longer sit near lone women on the night tube.

As lots of people have pointed out, most men don't sit near lone women on the night tube as they correctly understand that she might feel wary or uncomfortable.

So op holding it up to show that he's had to significantly change his behaviour in this regard (worth mentioning in his post), is interesting. As most men wouldn't be doing it in the first place.

I'm not sure why you are responding as if it's you that brought it up rather than op.

@KittTheCar I'm commenting because I'm trying to understand something - is that not allowed?

I think I'll stick to black feminism, because this branch of feminism isn't for me.

I guess I'm picturing the image of a man tired after a long day, just sort of drifting onto a carriage and sitting on the first seat he sees (which happens to be near a woman), rather than making the active decision to sit near a woman.

OK. If he's not thinking about it, he's not thinking about it. When men do think about it, they generally wouldn't do it in my experience, because they know they might worry the woman. OP is making a big song and dance about it, as if it's unreasonable for him to be expected to modify his behaviour, when in reality, it's pretty normal not to go and make people uncomfortable if you don't have to. Women, too, would likely leave a reasonable amount of space between them and a lone traveller.

I'd think sitting opposite in an otherwise empty carriage would also be odd.

birthofawoman if you use the @ sign in front of a username, that user gets an email notification. Just using bold for a username is the usual way to signal a reply.

DisturblinglyOrangeScrambleEgg I think I view the matter on more of an an individual basis. It's not usually the fact that a man has sat near me that makes me feel uncomfortable, but what follows. It also depends on what I sensed to be the reason for the man sitting near to me. If the man appears to be a perfectly decent, reasonable man who simply strolled onto the carriage from where he was standing on the platform and sat down on the first seat he saw, I can't imagine being uncomfortable by this - especially if he just proceeds to go on his phone, read a paper, stare into space etc. Now, if it was clear to me that his reason for sitting near me was to stare at me, smile at me for long periods of time, verbally harass me, touch me or so forth, then I'd feel uncomfortable. However, I don't hold the general expectation that every man should have to think about me whenever he's travelling on public transport - people are often stressed, have worries on their mind or are just in their own world. Having such an expectation would mean that, as a black woman, I'd have to expect Caucasian people to go out of their way by to make me comfortable on the basis of my race - which, often times, they don't. Until they do, I don't see it as fair that one group should have people working so hard to make them comfortable unless we do this for all groups. This is why black feminism is necessary.

LangCleg ok, thanks. Had never noticed that.

By 'thinking about me' I mean thinking about my needs/comfort.

I read a study on the menopause once which found that African American women experienced the menopause differently to their Caucasian counterpart. It was found that this was because, compared to daily battles they experience based on their race, the menopause wasn't much of a problem to them - a mere blip in their lives. Perhaps the same can be said here, when it comes to threat. I think that, perhaps, black women have other challenges to face throughout their day (of a racial nature), meaning that they might be a little less affected by issues such as a man sitting too close to them on a train. These are just my thoughts, though.

Saying that, the black (I think I read that she was black?) woman who reported OP may have experienced actual sexual abuse in her past, which might've been why she reacted the way she did.

Fact is many men DO take account of this, and don't sit near lone women on empty tube carriages on the night tube, or walk closely behind women who are walking alone at night, or decide to approach lone women to ask directions in a badly lit alleyway & etc.

Do you want them to stop? No-one is "forcing" them to do this - it's just showing a bit of empathy. The idea that men shouldn't have to bother with women's comfort as racism exists is an interesting take! It's not a race to the bottom!

There is a stand of men on the net who are encouraging each other to frighten women via doing things that are not illegal but they know will be interpreted as threatening -

The fact that this is even a "thing" demonstrates firstly that many women and girls in general are wary / cautious in isolated situations with men they don't know, and with good reason (experience) that is backed up heavily by societies messages that we have to "keep ourselves safe" and that dangers are lurking in certain circs, and secondly that there are enough men out their who dislike women so much that this is even a "thing" which is worrying in itself (and add that on to experience to see that these men aren't as rare as we might hope!).

Men who have the awareness not to behave in ways that a normal woman might find threatening are a good thing, they shouldn't be told to stop because of racism or any other reason TBH.

This post so reminded me of troll tactics on reddit - they post some outrageous thing designed to provoke - they love the support and "ahhh, poor you" comments - "isn't it terrible" etc - but then as soon as anyone disagree/challenges/ asks for more information, they flounce off citing "you're bullying me" and falsely accusing OPs of harassment

I hope @MNHQ recognise the tactics- anyway I've reported the OP for possible trolling

xpost with your more recent posts awoman.

I am finding it hard to follow you.

So, white women who experience threat when men they don't know sit close to them on the tube on an empty carriage in the middle of the night, experience that threat because they have no other struggles in their lives?

I would say it's the reverse, in a racist sexist society, many non white women have experienced a collission of racism and sexism that makes things significantly worse...

Are you assuming that women who are posting on this thread are white, is a first question.

Your posts seem to be jumping from one topic to another.

The fact that many women are cautious of men in general is hardly stunning news is it? The idea that you have come up with that it is white women who feel this way because they have problem free lives and are easily "triggered" sounds like the sort of thing I read on Facebook from various groups TBH.

woman - yes indeed.

I am always surprised that there are people in the world who believe that the Met / Transport Police will prosecute men for examples in the OP like touching a woman on the shoulder to give her a pass that she has dropped.

I suppose it's mainly men who believe this? Women know better, sadly!

And the response "I'm not going to stop women (girls?) getting hit by buses!" is very much like the response to #metoo "We can't even look at a woman any more!!!".

Anyhow -

Some interesting replies as well for sure.

marcus, hope you will return to the thread. People have asked you questions which you have ignored. No one has been impolite or abusive - you are clearly an experienced internet user, so you'll be aware that the sceptical tone of some posts is very mild 'criticism' compared to other platforms and forums.

For what it's worth, I find it difficult to believe the police would persue the investigation of this complaint, and I'd welcome some sort of corroboration, perhaps of other online comments which you could link to.

But a hand on the shoulder would give me a fright - I'd be reassured if the other hand gave me my Oyster card back, and I wouldn't go to the police. Nevertheless, it's not the best way to attract someone's attention.

And a nurse hugging me, or holding my hand, when I get bad news? No thank you! I've had bad news from hcps, and being touched in this way by a male (or female) stranger would have made it more difficult! Surely this is taught in training?