That small group of boys outside the meeting last night are old enough to be abusive. They were enjoying themselves thinking themselves intimidatingly. And they were, I walked past knowing no one, they were the age of my son, I'm the same age as their mothers. As I walked back to my car parked in an unfamiliar car park I noticed a young man keeping pace with me, I stopped and moved to one side, he stopped just past me and looked at a bus timetable. I walked on, he walked on. I'm not tall, men with their height advantage don't tend to walk at the same pace.
Possibly coincidence, and he was trying to find a bus, I hadn't looked at the protesters closely so no idea if he was part of that group or someone passing. But when I was the age those boys were I had my first experience of being stalked by a boy their age I'd brieflŷ dated. At the end of the day he'd come up to me and tell me everywhere I'd been that day. So as a result I got better at losing someone following me. I then had to go into that deserted car park, find the machine to pay and walk across to my car the opposite of the floor.
By the time I got home I was too hyped on adrenaline to sleep.
So whether that was a man was following me because I'd been in that meeting or it was coincidence doesn't matter. Those abusive young men half succeeded in what they wanted to do which was intimidate us, I was scared. They also wanted to scare us into giving up and that won't work. This was the first time I've been to a WP meeting but It won't be the last, that fear and how royally pissed off I am today at being scared is going to make me more determined.
If these young men have to resort to trying to scare ordinary women their mothers age out of talking to other women about human rights law and how it applies to them they are most certainly not on the right side