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Anon

Constantly having to hear my mum use the phrase “don’t be such a girl” when she has two daughters. Using that phrase not only suggests it’s a negative thing to be seen as feminine, but also shames boys for exhibiting anything that society views as traditionally feminine. What she means is coward or wuss, but she chooses to say “girl” instead.

Anon

Growing up I was told that girls can’t throw as well as boys because their arms are designed for “holding babies”

Jessica

Despite handling the majority of correspondence and information gathering for my re-mortgage, our advisor put the account in my partner’s name by default.

K

Happened to my best friends 22yr old daughter. Her boyfriends new boss (C) had stayed over their house after they’d all been out drinking the night before. Her boyfriend left for work that morning leaving my friends daughter alone with C. C asked her repeatedly if he could kiss/touch/and more to which she repeatedly said no. He was so persistent, and she was alone with him that she “allowed” him to touch her because to her it was the only way to stop it. I am so angry on her behalf that he put her in this position and this behaviour seems acceptable to him. She won’t report it as her boyfriend loves his new job and she does not want to ruin that for him. I hate this happened to her but respect her need to deal with this in her own way cos ultimately we weigh up the behaviour and consequences and do what we need to do to protect ourselves.

B.F.

I realized I’m a lesbian pretty late in life. He said he could “fix” me in the same breath that he used to complain I treated sex with him as a chore. He held me in our home against my will. I did eventually get out, and I’m married to a wonderful woman now. While the trauma still haunts me, I’ve never been happier.

Anonymous

This is only one of countless stories on my list, but it is the one that I think angers me the most. I was living in a shared house with two other girls. I woke up in the middle of the night – having gone to bed to an empty house – to feel a body behind me and hands on my breasts and between my legs. It took me a few moments to fully wake and realise it wasn’t a dream, and then I screamed and jumped out of bed – there was total stranger in it. It transpired that he had bumped into my housemates earlier on in a pub and was a friend of theirs. Later, after they had left, he had turned up drunk outside our house and asked to stay on the sofa, and naturally they let him. His excuse was he thought it was my housemates bedroom – we’d swapped rooms when I moved in – so essentially his excuse was he sexually assaulted the wrong sleeping woman by mistake. We kicked him out and eventually went back to bed. The next day at work I couldn’t stop thinking about it; I told a colleague and kind of laughed it off as a ‘these things happen’ but the look on their face made me think twice about it and I realised it just is not ok – I couldn’t ‘justify’ it in the way I had other assaults with ‘I was drunk’ ‘I chose to go home with him’ etc. I was literally just asleep in my own bed. So, I went to the police. And this is where I get angry. They believed me, they investigated, the man admitted it – which to me seems to be a fairly straightforward case. However, it never went to the CPS; the police said that the assailant had made a mistake and felt really guilty about it; that a court case would be traumatic for me and my sex life would be open for discussion, that I would be ruining a young man’s future just because of a drunken mistake. And I acquiesced. And this makes me angrier than anything else – the way the police prioritised his future over my well-being; the way they minimised what happened to me; the way they insinuated my being sexually active would make the case more difficult in court. Side note: Whilst in the instance above I think the police were appalling, I have more recently been involved in an investigation into sexual abuse I suffered when I was younger, and I really cannot fault the way the police have handled my case and dealt with me as a victim – so just like it is ‘not all men’ it is ‘not all police’ – but whether or not you get a man who isn’t rapey or a police officer who does their job should not be down to sheer dumb luck and while it is ‘not all xxx’ it is the whole system.

may

so when i was 6 or 7 my cousin who ill call mark was 9 or 10 and he sexually assulted me. now for context we had a love hate relationship because i was younger and always annoyed him unknowingly but thats just what happens in families but it was normal for us however this meant i was always slightly intimidated by him so i couldnt say no to him sometimes because i thought that he would either annoy me into saying yes or make me some way else but not in a toxic way. its hard to explain.i dont want him to seem like a proper shit person because at the end of the day he isnt and we are still family and loved eachother even if we didnt show it all the time. right anyway it wasnt rape or anything penetrative but it still counts idc what anyone says. it started small with mark asking if he could hump me and because i was so young and didnt know anything to do with sex at all and barely knew what humping was i thought that if i didnt say yes he would do it anyway or somehow make me consent but i really dont know and to be honest ans i couldnt be arsed to deal how he would annoy me if i didnt say yes so i just agreed with him and so it happened. then the advances kept happening amd getting more risky whenver he came over (or whenver i went over to their house) which was quite often because our family had a work office on the land where i lived so me and mark kind of had to interact and it would be weird if we didnt because we always had and if we stopped then our parents would have noticed and mightve found out about it. but the final time was when we were in my room and i had laid down on my stomach infront of him so my arse was like in his veiw (covered obviously) and he started humping me again and whatnot. but after he left i searched up the word “sex” into youtube on my xbox but the screen was my TV so it would be seen if someone walked in cause it was diagonally placed to my bed which you could see from my door. so the video was playing but i hid under the cover because i was like 7 or 8 now and thought it was grim but MY DAD walked in and SAW what was playing and he screamed and shouted so i started crying and begging to not tell my mum because i knew she would kill me (not literally but yk what i mean). when my dad asked to explain myself i said that mark had told me to search it up and im gonna be honest i dont remember what his reaction was but i was so scared i was gonna be disowned or something. anyway when my mum came back she was actually really like understanding shockingly?? she just calmly asked to confirm that mark had told me to search sex up i agreed and that was that. later on im not sure how long but she had told my uncle about it and i dont know what happened from there because no one ever told me but im pretty certain he got in mad trouble for it. looking back now 6 years later i think because he was really young also maybe someone was doing it to him aswell and i was a sort of release for him maybe? i havent told anyone but 3 of my closest friends (in 2022) who i trust and know would never say anything about it but im thinking of telling my other cousin because i trust her alot and feel like someone else needs to know. i really dont know if its for me to get it off my chest after 6 years of not telling no one (apart from the 3 friends) or so someone else in the family knows but its all up in the air right now. i really cant think of why he would do something like that to me because i know he loves me and i love him becayse even if we didnt love eachother well we’re stuck togther because we’re family im not sure really. i know no ones gonna read this and i dont care because i want to get it off my chest because ive kept it a secret out of fear what would happen to me or him. im fully over it though like it doesnt bother me at all anymore because it was so long ago and i dont feel the need to hold a grudge against him. but we havent talked as much as we used to before it happened but we still talk and laugh and stuff like that but its an unspoken rule between us to not mention it to eachother at all but im okay with that. anyway have a nice day

Kay

To my brother who told me I can’t talk about sexism because he is grieving the loss of his daughter – yes, sexism can be dished up in complex scenarios. He told me never to mention it again. I’ve been silenced, muzzled.

Nicola

have experience sexual assault since 3 years old. First from a family friend, then a neighbour. I was very aware by the age of 5 that men were preditors. in primary school my male teacher would make me feel unconfortable with touches etc. he even called me in to his class after school and sung me a love song. now i see he was grooming me but due to previous experience i was aware of this, so kept my disatnce.

Anon

A man who was at at the time and may still be now, serving as a Special Constable in a UK police force told me drastic and terrifying lies about activity in said force so that I wouldn’t leave him. He also stalked me at my place of work, at home and out with my friends. People knew and did nothing, including my then employer who are still global. Luckily others I love and trust did do something and helped me. I want to report this to the police but I don’t think they will care as I have no proof.