Mousseline

I’m Mousseline. My passion is travelling. Because of that fact I can assure you that sexism IS real and DOES exist even today. You can tell only by looking at the amount of male hitchhiker VS female hitchhikers. When i tell people i hitchhike alone from time to time, they say i’m crazy. And to some extent i can understand what they mean because it’s true that i feel scared. But i refuse not to do it anyways because it would take away my liberty. I know a lot of guys that hitchhike by themselves, travel by themselves and rarely they will have any problem. I, as a girl, can manage but i have to follow more rules. This summer, i was hitchhikking trough western Europe. One time, i hitched a ride to a trucker in France. I wasnt in the car for 40 minutes when he proposed to show me his d**k. Then offered me money. Then started to touch himself. I told him to stop the truck and he did. From that day on i never felt safe hitching a ride with a men alone. Sexism exist because a man feels like he can force sex on me. Sexism exist because i have to be scared in a hundred situations where men will not.

Leah

Glad I found this site, it’s almost as reassuring as it is horrifying. Where to start? It’s everywhere, isn’t it? Everywhere and everyday. Small irritations to huge life-changing tragedies. I started a new job, my supervisor asked me to tidy up, pick stuff up off the floor. Another male colleague waited until I had done so, then said “You know he only asked that so he could look at your arse?” and I just gawped at them in silent bewilderment while they grinned smugly. Completely at ease in their harassment of me. My first year of uni, I went to a shop to pick up a toolkit for the house and was asked at collection “what a girl like me needed a toolkit for”…let’s just say I could think of a few choice uses at that particular moment. My sister was sexually assaulted at uni, but because it wasn’t quite full on rape, she didn’t think there was anything to report. She even felt bad for “leading him on”. Because he’d convinced her that she had, so any breach of consent was her fault. Obviously. Even worse, her friend and housemate faces dropping out of uni altogether after she was raped by a peer. Apparently so violently she may no longer be able to have children. She’s terrified to report it, because she has a personality disorder and knows that in our victim blaming society, in a “he said she said” scenario, her mental illness will be used to discredit her. Her assailant also knows this, smugly told her as much. She admitted to my sister that she would kill herself if she was called a liar by those she turned to for help and support…for justice. So instead she avoids classes she shares with the scum who raped her. The thing that worries me is that this website? Thousands of stories from all over the world. Women objectified and abused and treated differently purely for being born without a penis. Because men are being raised in a society that teaches them that this behaviour is OK. They are entitled to everything, and being offensive is just banter. And women are being raised to accept this behaviour as normal too, even to blame themselves, adjust their habits, take it as a compliment…the list goes on. It’s not a male conspiracy to keep women down…it’s more like a global pandemic, an insidious and malicious thing that hides behind society’s ignorance and acceptance. For any men reading…if you wouldn’t want someone to do/say it to your mother/sister/daughter, then don’t treat other women that way. Every woman is someone’s daughter, or sister, or mother. We were not put on this Earth to entertain you. We do not exist to give you a hard-on. We are not decorations. We are human beings, with thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams, just like you. Remember that, please?

Dianne

I went bed shopping on Saturday . It was winter and i did not bother with makeup or doing my hair. I washed my face and brushed my teeth and put on my winter hat. I was wearing jeans and a sweated. I am in my late 40ties. I bought a bed and had it delivered. The bed broke the same night. I called the store and the same guy who half halfheartedly served me the day before came with a delivery man to pick the bed up. I was on my way to work so I had on make up and hair done. wearing jeans and a sweater. This sales guy walks into my apartment and says to me in a seductive voice ” hmmmm are you the same woman from yesterday” I answer yes I am. He them proceeds to tell me what a difference there is and how he would not have looked twice at me yesterday but today yummy. That is just gross. Why do men think that ANY situation is appropriate for trying to pick women up. Why do they think it is OK to comment on ANY woman’s appearance in any situation. Why is it not OK for a woman to go out with no makeup on and a cap on her head on her day off to run errand but men can do this all the time and are never judged. My own mother will say to me ” you could have put a bit of make up on” on days I decide not to wear any. Woman in some places can be fired for not wearing makeup in the workplace as it is viewed a unprofessional attire. I am tired of feeling ashamed of my natural looks.

me

I asked my Dad to bring his drill to my new apt to help me hang some art. He told me I needed to find a man to do these things for me. I looked at him and said I did not need a man I needed my Dad to reach me to use a drill. I will never forget the look on his face. He taught me to use the drill.

fed up

I hate it when on public transit men will sit next to me and spread out their legs so they are touching mine. I will move as close to the wall as I can so they will stop touching me and they will just spread out ever more and continue to touch me. I feel they do it on purpose. There legs against mine and their hips next to mine. I get freaked out and get up and stand 99% of the time. Why do they think I moved over and squished myself against the wall ? To give them more space to spread their legs even wider and invade my space.

why

I hate how every conversation I have with a male co-worker or customer always includes the question “are you married” or “do you have a boyfriend” I never know what to say. I feel like saying “why are you asking me that question” or “that is personal” Instead I answer honestly and say “no I am divorced or I am single” . I am an honest person and the truth is what I say. This ALWAYS ens up looking like an open door to the men and they think I am up for grabs or letting them know I am ready willing and able. I have now started to lie and say I have a serious boyfriend or just change the topic. Women do not go around asking male co-workers if they have a girlfriend or if they are married. Why do men feel they can do this to women. It makes me very uncomfortable. I want to say that it is none of their business and has nothing to do with work. But if I did that i would be viewed as a bitch and hard to get along with.

do not judge a book by its cover

I work in security in a condo. I am an outspoken straight woman with 2 children. People just assume I am a gay woman simply because I wear a uniform. This happens with women and men. I cut my hair into a sweet pixie cut at one point and the assumptions became even more common. One older woman told me that her lesbian daughter was coming to visit and then added that she was single and that we should meet. When I told the woman I was straight she told me that there was no shame with being a lesbian these days and that I should just be me. After the hair cut a new male co-worker began to tell me that a lot of older woman my age (50) marry and have kids but come out of the closet later in life. I told him I was straight and divorced. This person insisted I was a closeted lesbian and was lying to myself. He then went on to say ( for days and days) that I was a tough woman and I looked and sounded gay. I finally got mad and flipped out and said that all women in uniforms or male dominated professions must be gay then. Police officers, woman in the army, construction works. All of then gay gay gay. Look I said, I have nothing against being gay but I am not a lesbian. I told him to piss off and leave me alone. Yep I was raising my voice. He went to the human resources department and complained that I flipped out at him at work with customers close by. I was let go. I still cannot believe it happened. I was made to feel like I had a mental issue by the male human resource manager.. Moral of my story. Do not judge a book by its cover. Just because a woman does not wear high heels and make up and frilly clothes does not make her any less a woman . A woman can be tough as nails and work in a male dominated profession not be a lesbian. Why do men always go to that. A woman does not assume a man is gay just because he works in a typically female orientated profession. This is insulting to both straight and gay men and women. I grew my short hair out because of this. pathetic.

Ece

I always change my wallpaper to a photograph of me and one of my boy friends when I’m going out for clubbing so if somebody that I don’t want to get with tries to get with me I can show it and say no. It makes me feel so bad that me saying no is not enough. This trick does not work all the time either. The last time I was out, a guy tried to kiss me and I kindly said no and showed my wallpaper of my phone and said that I have a boyfriend. He didn’t leave me alone for about 10 minutes, during those 10 minutes he tried to touch me and kiss me. It is tragic that this happened in one of the “best” countries in the world – United Kingdom, to be more specific, Cambridge.

Arianne

A man pushing who was presumably his toddler-aged daughter in a stroller catcalled me yesterday while I was on a run. HAVE YOU NO SHAME.

Morgana

While waiting at a bus stop, a man stops at the stoplight right in front of the stop and proceeds to roll down his passenger side widow and the window of the backseat where he had a child in a car seat, and yells at me and another woman at the stop asking if we were going to the metro, insinuating if we wanted a lift. I looked and frowned at him, and shook my head no, and proceeded to ignore him. As he drove away he yelled that I could have said “no thank you”, and then called me a whore. I couldn’t believe what had happened was real, like as if I was going to get in the car with a stranger, and I felt angry that he thought I needed to stroke his ego by thanking him for offering me a lift. On top of that, he had his child in the backseat. Disgusting.