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.

Vicky is a well known MRA on these boards, famous for starting a long thread about how BBC Women's Hour discriminates against men. She also seems to be pretty thick and homophobic to boot. I guess some people just have it all. Probably best to ignore her.

Thanks PeakPants.

NotMeOhNo

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

If gender identity rather than sex is being used to record crime stats then it's not surprising we are seeing a rise in stats for women committing violence.

www.change.org/p/charge-a-crime-as-a-male-crime-according-to-uk-law-not-by-self-identified-gender

Thinking about this question has made me sad. I was raised by a very misogynistic father and cowed mother, and I can’t remember a time when I didn’t “know” that women were weak and inferior and always at risk because of being omlyvreally objects for men to control and play with. When I was about 10 I had a very short haircut and I remember the relief and freedom of people often thinking me to be a boy. That only lasted until I grew breasts, but I loved it while it did.

Pot that's it exactly - feeling the difference between being seen as female, and being seen as a person/gender irrelevant/male.

I remember being on my bike in the back lanes for hours as a kid, and then one day just being aware that it was, or I was, unsafe, that I felt scared. And feeling so angry that I could no longer bike outside without having to put that extra work in to overcome the fear. So biking outside was no longer pure pleasure.

Same with just walking to the shops

I had a very violent step father who ended up going to prison for four years which was the maximum sentence for violence towards children then

Regarding sexual violence or the threat of it towards myself from about the age of 8 just the way an uncle cuddled me made me feel very uncomfortable and I only realised years later we were never left alone with him but he still got the chance for the odd inappropriate touch/tickle

About 10/11. My community warned us about the ‘dirty old man’ who spends his day in the woods and tries to ensnare young girls. There was even a rhyme dedicated to him so we would all sing it when he tried to call us over. Sadly some girls succumbed. Don’t know what happened to him but by the time I was 14 the woods were a much safer place. He assaulted two friends of mine. I didn’t know until I was older.
Once I started to physically mature at age 13, the comments made to me and my friends reinforced we were just objects. Even just walking down the street was horrendous.

Any wonder our teen girls try to be guys. This is their mental defence mechanism. Escapism etc. It’s so obvious to us.

About 12. I couldn't walk down a main road without cars beeping at me and getting comments shouted from their windows.

That button wasn’t available to us when we were teens. I’m sure we would have all hit it if we could. Now that the button is so easily pushed and out there, it maybe makes sense to them. I am so angry with the trans narrative for doing this especially as it leads to medical and surgery changes that are irreversible. If this wasn’t part of the steps, I would not be so scared for our kids. They would just be teens who rebelled. Kids who come through it , just like us without being a lifelong medical patient.

11. I had to fend off the husband of one of my mum’s friends.

I bit him hard on the ear lobe to make him let go, and then ran away. I’m still quite proud of my 11 year old self, even now.

When I was 14 and with my family visiting a site of interest on holiday.
An nice looking, polite older man started talking to me about nothing in particular and I had a pleasant chat with him feeling pleased an independent grown up was talking on a level to me.
My mum came out and was really funny with me and made me feel like I’d done something wrong.
I knew then that if anything had gone awry, I could not rely on her.
I recognise it as internalised misogyny and it was the worst feeling

Vicky1990
I used to touch my young nephews all the time. Touch is not necessarily sexual. Do you think you misinterpreted this? My touching was not sexual. You haven’t clarified the nature of this touch. If it was inappropriate, it’s not too late to inform the police.

Never didn't know. Can't say more.

Got some sense that things could be different at my girls secondary school where they had high expectaions of us academically at least and promoted women in business etc. But outside that, RL was same old, same old.

I was 11. An older boy in an isolated place started asking about my physical development. I was disgusted and puzzled. My DPs were reassuring but it didn't help. I realized that when I was on my own I was on my own, iyswim.

When I answered the telephone at about age 8-10 and some pervert asked if y dad was gone and then started asking what I was wearing etc. I felt like a fool as I didn't understand what was going on. I never told anybody, then at 18 I was working in a supermarket and a guy there was very mouthy, he ran his fingers up my spine whilst I was bent over unloading something, muttering some pervy shit. I told my dad, my dad did nothing.

*asking if my dad was HOME.

It took me a long time. I was skinny/a late developer.

But just this week a guy on a train stared insolently at me and I knew that if I stared back and there was trouble this would be my fault for not dropping my gaze.

I guess I’m a slow learner but I get there.

Well done to pp on the earlobe thing....

Tbh I never fully realised my vulnerability as a female until I read my first feminist book aged 19.

Things that had happened I never attributed to my sex before that.

I genuinely never had any of those things happen to me..and l am late 50s..groping / lewd calls/ . Maybe it was growing up in a quiet country place. My mother was a fiesty woman so the dds in our house were encouraged to go all out for education etc. My dad waas a gentle sort of guy so never threatened us. I had a male teacher in Primary who constantly told us all( in the 60s) that we could be anything we wanted to be career wise. He painted pictures for us of the opportunities out there and made us feel it was ours if we wanted it...male and female.
It was only when l began to talk to adults later who had incidences as cited above that l realised l must have had a sheltered upbringing.
My dh , on the other hand, had extreme bullying in school from guys and more especially from teachers. In boarding school he had desperate lack of care and abusive behaviour from those in charge which had major impact since he only came home at holiday time..While travelling alone as an older teen abroad he had a few hair raising episodes that he was lucky to escape with his life.

I was always warned about a nasty man when I was little, never a nasty woman. Best friend tried to rape me when I was 12, untill I smack him in the jaw. I never said anything to anyone, but actually got a bollocking off my mum for punching this lad, who was two years older and a lot bigger and stronger than me.
I never really thought about any of it though, until I was much older. It was just a part of life, the boob grabbing, the smutty comments, the unwanted sexual advances. I kind of just thought it was my responsibility to keep them at bay,not their responsibility not to do it. My mum used to threaten to kick us out if we got ourselves pregnant. Tells you all you need to know about the attitude in our house .

I kind of just thought it was my responsibility to keep them at bay, not their responsibility not to do it.

I totally identify with this. I had a weird upbringing in that my DF was the one who told me I could do anything and didn't try to flatten me, whereas my DM was always trying to inculcate femininity and ladylike behaviour. I definitely got the message from her that anything sexual that was directed at me was my responsibility.

When I was raped in Paris at 17 I never told my family because I knew the main result would be that my DM would fight tooth and nail to stop me traveling independently. It would have been blamed on me. They would have been very distressed on my behalf, yes, but my personality would have been taken as part of the reason it happened.

In a way it helped. I analysed what had happened all by myself. I knew he was entirely to blame and that he'd planned it. Reporting it to the French police seemed far too difficult, plus i was supposed to be going home in a day or two. I did think about his future victims but it was all too much to deal with.

It was an amazing trip for other reasons, which helped me recover.

I remember getting incredibly angry at a couple of flashers. I went to a school with a proper garden and these men would expose themselves to girls through the bars of the fence, hidden by the hedge

First time it happened I was horrified. The two subsequent times younger girls were present and I got furious. The bars stopped the flashers from reaching us, so I started taunting them. I suddenly saw them as pathetic inadequates and it made me a rescuer, defender of the little ones. Changed how I felt.

Vicky1990
You have such an interesting posting style. I'm sure I remember you posting about your brother before; didn't he also suffer dreadfully at the hands of his wife, who also threatened him with murdering him or something similar? If I recall, from a thread where you were opining that boys are born into a much harder life than girls, where they are falsely accused of rape, and threatened by vindictive bitches, abused by female teachers and so on?

Your brother has been such an unlucky statistical anomaly at the hands of women. Perhaps that has informed your slightly unrepresentative views on women and their criminality as compared to men?

I was about 4 and walking home from the shops with my mum. I ran on ahead and tripped over on the pavement besides where a man was parked in a van/lorry. He opened the door to ask if I was ok. He didn't get out but he talked to me until my mum caught up whereupon she gave me an absolute bollocking for talking to a strange man.

Then so many more I don't have the time to type them all out...