My husband and his shiftmates who worked four-on-four-off while I worked 6 days a week berated me because he had to ‘babysit’ on his days off. He is now my ex husband.

I’m a year 13 in an all girls high school, with the boys high school barely a street away. The girls school gets access to nursing, cooking classes, hospitality, tourism. In the mean time, the boys get access to psychology, metal work, engineering. If we decide we want to take one of their classes, we have to give our reasoning so they know that “we aren’t just going there to talk to the boys”.

being a indian girl in australia is probably one of the most frustrating things ever. i’m always told by my dad to take up more housework since i am a girl and whenever there is something to do my dad will immeditately call my name to do it when one of my brothers will be right next to him doing nothing. im not allowed to tuck in my shirt because my dad thinks im trying to “show my vagina” or allowed to wear even skinny jeans becasue im too fat and that if i was skinny it would be alright to wear tight clothes. he says that if i ever try to be like a “white girl” by having a boyfriend or doing anything “not indian” that he would murder me and would not care about the fact that im his daughter. he abuses my mom, verbally and physically, and it frustrates me that my mom just takes it as simply being “her role as a wife and that it just happens” and whenever i try to call it out as being domestic violence she gets mad at me for even thinking that. theres so much more but its all so fucking disgusting and i hate the house i live in.

My male neighbour has spent the last 14 years not looking at me, not speaking to me, not acknowledging me, treating me as if I am invisible. When ever there is a street party he doesn’t acknowledge me. He is lovely to the other neighbours, who defend him. They think that his subtle attempt to diminish me are ok. This has eaten away at me for 14 years.. I think this is worse sexism than any form of groping or sutch as it’s very difficult to deal with due to its subtlety. It’s the nastiest and most effective form of sexism alive.

Was walking in broad daylight in a busy street with my friend when some random guy shouted ‘nice ass’ at her. She was so shocked and ashamed but managed turn around and give him the finger. I shouted back telling him to shut the fuck up. Later that day I was at a stand up comedy show with a mainly male line up. The first guy was making jokes comparing guns and vaginas!? The second one was going on and on about how he really respects women and gay people for sucking dick. He then stated that he doesn’t understand women cause their logic is bullshit. I left when he started a rant about how he wants to strangle his girlfriend cause she wanted to take him out for brunch. Not only was I feeling disgusted and assaulted but I was shocked that no one else left or challenged them.

I was in Finland when this happened, though I am from New Zealand (there is no option for Finland as a location). I was there as an exchange student and made use of the very comprehensive public transport every weekend. One day, in summer, I was returning from one such trip at about 2 pm in the afternoon, I got off the train at my normal stop and began to walk down to the small underpass. I was aware of a boy behind me – I don’t remember if I noticed him on the bus or not. He was riding his bike, and he cycled up next to me – sandwiching me between himself on a bike and the wall. He started to speak to me in Finish, and me, hoping I could get out of the situation by pretending I didn’t understand him, spoke back in English. Sadly, he kicked in with perfectly fluent English and continued to cycle next to me, keeping me trapped. I have always been trained to be polite and felt like I had to keep smiling and nodding at him and not put my earphones in and tell him to go away like I wanted to – also he was physically intimidating, especially on his bike, looming over me and I knew I wouldn’t be able to run away. His questions started out innocently enough – what was my name, where was I from, how long was I staying. Then they started getting creepier – did I have friends? did I live alone? Where did I live? I knew I couldn’t answer these things fully honestly, so I made up things to protect myself, saying I lived with my family, had many friends and wasn’t sure where exactly I lived – what the street name was. He didn’t believe this and so kept pestering me. By this point I was very afraid, throat closing up and heart pounding and my body shaking. I felt like I couldn’t be honest in case he got upset and hurt me somehow. There was a woman behind us but I worried that she wouldn’t step in – one because Finns usually don’t and also because we were speaking english and she might not understand. The boy then asked me if we could be ‘friends’ while I was in Finland, though it was very obvious he was sexually propositing me. That was the moment when I found some courage and said, though maybe meekly: “no, I don’t think so”. He was completely shocked. He asked again, and I repeated myself, this time more forcefully. I was panicked, becasue I knew he could easily just follow me home. Then, this wonderful woman behind me speaks up and says very loudly “Do you want to go get ice cream with me?” I don’t exactly remember how but I pretty much lept over to her (she was on the other side of the walkway) and she linked her arm with mine and just glared at the boy, who swore about stupid women and was obviously annoyed and maybe embarrassed but luckily did cycle off. The lady was so lovely, i was shaking very hard and started to cry and she was just comforting me and talking to me and sympathising even though she wasn’t very conifident in english, and just letting me express how afraid I had been. When she pointed out the way she was going I lied and said it was my way too so I could walk with her (I was still afraid he would follow me) but she figured it out and so said she would walk my way a bit and I asked her to just stay with me until we got to a supermarket where I could feel safer and call my family, which she did. I am so thankful to her and know that is exactly what women need to do for each other. I didn’t end up calling my host family to pick me up because I had no idea how to tell them about what happened – I felt awkward and afraid and somehow dirty. I bought myself some chocolate to give me some sugar to calm me down and waited in the supermarket for about 30 minutes to be more sure that the boy wouldn’t have followed me. I then sort of half ran the 20 minute walk home, always looking over my shoulder. I got home to my room and just cried. Later, I made myself tell my host parents because I knew it was important, but I felt I had to say it in a joking way and couldn’t be completely serious. They tutted at it and said it was bad and my host mother told me to call her next time no matter what, but it wasn’t further addressed (not fully their fault, because I downplayed it out of awkwardness). It was hard to admit it to them also because my younger male and female siblings were very anti-feminist and think feminists are ridiculous and petty complainers so I felt they would think I was being too dramatic. This event made me scared to go back to that train station and so I always went to the next stop, which was about twice as far away from my house. It is horrible to just feel so helpless in a situation, but I also try to think back to the woman who helped me and be grateful and know there are good helpful people in the world and I aspire to be like her. The worst part is probably that the boy didn’t even know how threatening and creepy he was being, because he didn’t see me as a person but just as a desirable object. Until we change that mindset these things will keep happening.

This was last year. My friend had met new people somehow, I don’t know how she got into contact with them or how she met them but anyway, I was added to a group chat and we were planning this beach meet up. We got to the beach and everyone went swimming except for me because I had my period. We got pizzas’ from across the road for dinner and as it started getting dark we built a fire and lit it. One of the boys had bought fireworks and he set them off. Anyway we got back to one of the boy’s homes and we set up and slept. A few months later and many more beach meet ups later I had started chatting to one of the boys and he did multiple things over the course of many months that I wasn’t okay with (but I din’t say no to them because I thought I would be a bad friend for saying no): -He sent me a naked picture of himself. -He confessed that he had stared at my breasts while I was asleep. -He told me one of his fantasies was to see me in a small skirt and make out with me. I was 15 at the time. He was turning 18. On the second beach meet up, I had decided to sleep next to him. I was in a sleeping bag and he wasn’t. He rolled over to face me and I was trying to fall asleep so I kept my eyes shut. I knew what was going to happen next. He kissed me. Both of us had girlfriends. I pulled away from him, really shocked that he just did that. He leaned in to kiss me again and I pulled away. He then asked me if he could kiss me again and I said No. He kissed me on the forehead anyway. Then someone said something and we laughed and I took that opportunity to roll away from him. He left the room after that, and I cried because I kept thinking that I had cheated on my girlfriend. I told my best friend and she was shocked but we didn’t talk about it until later. The next day we left and when I got home I called my girlfriend and told her everything and said I was sorry. However she didn’t actually pick up so I left several voice messages. While I was dating her, after everything he had done to me, I developed a crush on him. After my girlfriend had broken up he wanted to date me. I told him to wait until I was 16 . He had gotten a girlfriend by then. Whenever my ex girlfriend and I joke about either of us cheating (not that either of us did) she always says “Yeah, like you.” implying that what happened to me was my fault. I feel like it’s my fault that it happened, I feel like I led him on and I’m mad that I let it go on for so long. I’m now really scared of getting a girlfriend again because I feel like it’ll happen again. I don’t talk to this guy anymore. I don’t know what to do. I want to tell my parents but I know if I do that then I’ll get into a big debate with them about why I don’t like men and how that may have effected me coming out as gay. I do really like girls and even when I was bi I still preferred girls over guys and I hated how I acted and dressed when I dated a guy. They made me feel so powerless. I’m sorry this story went on for so long :/

Working as a researcher, I am the only female on the team and often wonder why I bother turning up at meeting where I get ignored and most of my suggestions are brushed off. For some reason everybody thinks I need someone to ‘help’ me with my work, I know that this would never happen with my male colleagues. Tired of being treated as if I am stupid and have no voice, thank you for this website otherwise I would sit and fester in this shit

Once when I was 14 in the middle of summer, it was a really hot day. I walked down one of main roads in my town in shorts and was greeted with some fully grown men whistling at me and yelling nice legs. Um, I’m a minor and not cool :/

Enjoyed hearing about your book today! This brings to mind that today I am sitting at home awaiting advice which I have been assured is happening that my home and property is secure from a convicted domestic abusing alcoholic husband who is incompetent to the degree he threatened to kill me and stabbed himself due to WKS (alcoholic dementia) and his and his enablers feeling despite him being this “dangerous” I would have to be his carer. Obviously impossible. His incapacity is such he’s been living in a home for alcoholic men irrepairrably brain damaged. Nevertheless I am required to lose all interests in our family home and have been deprived of all information on it. This is the type of ongoing misogynistic and illegal under various laws here wives and partners are required to tolerate. This really is the tip of the iceberg of the lack of attention paid to our legal rights for ourselves and our children which are simply ignored. We have 8000 children in “care” due to Mothers being unsupported by those with legal obligations to provide so it is a huge issue and we must stop the male dominated and privileged women enablers getting away with this mass abuse of an entire class and being in the majority. I sit here and wonder how the hell they get away with it and much of it is done silently and sneakily by a failure to consult, delays, not consulting or gaining our consent on anything or supporting legal obligations to us.Which is actually all illegal. It’s a horror show really that many women are not aware of and due to silencing when they are in it they feel it must be just them. Reality check it’s done to us all by these evil men and their institutions and it is a hellish social landscape for women and children to keep us under control and available to them and do men don’t have to fulfil their legal duties and obligations.