When did you become aware ...

[buckingfrolicks]

How old were you and what happened, to make you aware that you were not in a female-safe world? I can't remember when it dawned on me, but at some point growing up I must have realised that eg I had to be careful out as a 7/8/9 year old.

I've been thinking about this while out for a walk alone, and recognising that I am just "aware" that I'm vulnerable, a single woman out walking. And then I thought as a young girl I must have had a moment when it dawned on me that I was female, and that the world was less open or open at the cost of chronic low key vigilance. My DB never had this shift I'm sure.

This may make no sense to anyone. Im curious though if anyone has a clearer memory of this.

Mine was a little younger when we would do the weekly shopping. Although it was a warning that both girls and boys were vulnerable to harm from men. Myself and my sister were allowed to go to the public toilets but warned to leave immediately if a man entered. My brother was not allowed to go to the public toilet unless my father was able to go with him.

Could have been the time a co-worker grabbed my boobs in front of everyone when I was 20 although I don't think even that made me realise that it was harder for women.

My aunt used to like touching my brother when he was about 12 and I was 10, that was when I realised that older women could do bad things.

When I started secondary school and would walk an extra half mile there and back to avoid a house where a man would make disgusting suggestions to me as I walked past.

I was around 7 or 8. Some boys in my class threatened to strip me of my clothes if they saw me out ( this was in the early 1960s when all kids walked to & from school, played outside etc). I was terrified, told nobody even when I got into trouble for refusing to go to the shops for my mother. My intro to male power.

As soon as I had breasts and acquired loads of nicknames from boys, I was 9/10. Also it was that age when I went to a party and couldn't go to the toilet because all the boys tried to look under the small gap at the bottom of the door.

Vicky how incredibly unlucky for your brother and for you that your aunt was apparently one of the tiny little proportion of offenders who are women. I'm sorry that happened to your brother.

But OP's question was about when you realised the reality that the world you live in is a hostile setting to move though as a female child or adult. You seem to have misinterpreted "not a female-safe world" to refer to a world in which female people as a class tend to pose a risk to children or to others. If such a world exists, it ain't this one, as i'm sure you know.

Mine was a fairly late awakening. On gap year pre uni round Europe being groped by strangers on trains, chased down roads, flashed at on the metro etc etc. Endless harassment.

Coco.
I want people to know that females can be a threat as well.

Family holiday as a young teen - raped by a local bar man but family didn't want to report to police as thought it could put me through even more pain and result in nothing happening to the guy. This was around the time of a high profile suicide of a young girl in the uk who was raped then made to go through a really horrible trial where the defence lawyer made her hold up her underwear in front of the court. I can understand why my family didnt want to take it further.

Whiskeyjar
So sorry that happened to you

I lived in Saudi Arabia as a small child, with an Arab parent; I can't remember a time when I DIDN'T know that females were at risk from males and that we had to protect ourselves (plus that it would be our fault if we didn't). It was proper mother's milk stuff.

Honestly I was fairly oblivious that it happened mostly to females for a very long time.

In fact, I don't think it was until I met my current partner in my late 20s and had this sort of conversation, and realised he didn't think about this stuff, that he hadn't ever experienced flashing/groping/rape. Which is ridiculous when I think about it - because of course they were groping my boobs, flashing at girl-children, and raping women (the vast majority of men being heterosexual)

During my teens/20s I was first sheltered, and then strongly identified as fearless, so refused to think about my boyfriend raping me, how dangerous it was to talk to randoms (I remember being proud I walked a guy home once - when I spoke to my mates they were horrified, and I was clearly lucky the guy I walked wasn't a bad one).

Vicky is this along the same lines of NAMALT...

Aged 6 unfortunately.

Far too early. Likewise that even those adults related to me felt no responsibility for making the world safer or (later) preparing me appropriately for it because they accepted that that state of affairs was immutable and merely reality for girls/women. (Tied in with what now strikes me as frankly wilful blindness to the reality of what was happening around them.)

I want people to know that females can be a threat as well.

Course you do, love, course you do.

The first I remember is the dirty phone call that rang on the landline as I walked into the empty house after school, commenting on my (primary school) uniform, asking about my pants and telling me not to tell anyone what he asked me.

Must have been a neighbour who had seen me walk in. My parents still live in that house.

I realised when I was 12, an ice cream man in his van exposed himself to me. I was happily oblivious of any threat or danger until that day.

Oh god I'd totally forgotten about the dirty calls. Yes - that confusion suddenly congealing into disgust panic and fear. About 7 maybe.

At 3 a man exposed himself to a group of us kids in a wood - i was the youngest, and just thought he was a mad man rather than a sexual threatener.

It's one of those weights that society puts on women, as they grow out of childhood, to carry. Invisible shackles. (respecting that too many girls and boys don't have a anything close to a safe childhood).

Whiskeyjar

Aged about 10 - one of the farm hands put his arm round my shoulder & groped my breast as he waved to my father at the far side of the field & his daughter (my friend) stood on the other side of him.

Walking to school when I was about 7 and a man stopped me to ask what I had under my clothes.

Gosh Vicky1990 - a violent ex-sister-in-law (on the other thread) and a sexually abusive aunt.

Unlucky you.

I've noted your username now - wonder how many other violent women you will post about, in your quest to let us all know that ' women can be a threat too'.

Or name change to do it...

Of course women are a threat. Violent women are on the rise too, it's evident in the national crime statistics!

I was about 10 years old. This man used to come out into the fields where we used to play and talk to us. I treated him as any other person and saw him as no different to say an uncle. But my mum said I must never sit down alone with him, try not to talk to him and never go anywhere with him. I didn't understand why and it really puzzled me.