lil
I was walking home from the grocery store and I stopped to adjust the playlist on my phone. There was a man behind me and he told me “I’m not going to touch you, I just want to watch you walk”.
The Everyday Sexism Project exists to catalogue instances of sexism experienced on a day to day basis. They might be serious or minor, outrageously offensive or so niggling and normalised that you don’t even feel able to protest. Say as much or as little as you like, use your real name or a pseudonym – it’s up to you. By sharing your story you’re showing the world that sexism does exist, it is faced by women everyday and it is a valid problem to discuss.
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Roo
A (younger) male colleague openly saying that women lose all value past the ages of 25-26. A woman of 35 and over is like second hand goods; worn out and discarded. He then made a comparison between divorced women and used cars; too stubborn, too much mileage. I am a youthful looking 40 y.o. and went through a difficult divorce a few years ago.
Anonymous x
He asked me to come back his house. Deep down I didn’t want too, but i know if i said no to him the things that he would tell all of the boys at school would ruin my life so i thought a few hours of talking is better than my school life being more hell than it is. We sat down on his bed and the first thing he done was come on to me and started kissing me. I got him off me and said ‘is it okay if we just talk’ he said ‘yeah thats fine’ and i believed him. He than came onto me again kissing me and pinning me down. I said no so many times and he just begged and begged to fuck me. I tried leaving his house he didnt let me. Eventually i knew there was no way out i HAD to say yes to him. So i did. I was 13 and a virgin and now i still have a forced sexual relationship with him because i know theres no way out. The things other people would say about me and the secret photos i know hes been taking of me when we have been having sex would get shown to every boy at school and social media. I feel like its my fault surely i should just never give in to him again. I dont know wether my story is even the right story lto put on here so i am sorry if its not
Dana
My own mom is a misogynist. I was once simply stretching and my mom asked me to stop ‘showing off’ my boobs because some guy might grab them. I told her that if someone were to grab it I would punch him in the face. My mom replied, ‘ohh but you provoked him.’ This was when I realised that my mom was a misogynist and had ingrained misogyny.
Anon
As I was passing a checkpoint to get into a high security site for work, the old man on the gate walked around my car and said “isn’t that car a bit too big for you?”
Ella
I was 14 when I went away for the weekend with my former best friend and her family for a wedding, it was a camping wedding and no cell service in the area. My friends cousin had been hitting on me all day before the ceremony talking about how “good my boobs looked framed in my dress” and how grown up I looked. I brushed it off and continued on with my day but later he got drunk And started to grab my thighs, boobs and ass saying how fuckable I looked. I never told my friends mom because I didn’t want to ruin her wedding and when I told my friend she defended him and told me that I was making a scene and not ruin her mom’s wedding. I wanted to call my boyfriend my mom, my dad, anyone but I couldn’t I felt trapped. He was 21 and I was 14
Sick of engineering
Customer requests engineering support for a specialist piece of equipment – I offer to drive to the project site to help him – the customer responds “I need someone who knows what they’re talking about” – I respond “I know as much as any other engineer” – I drive 2.5 hours to the project and the customer doesn’t show up – Customer contacts a man on my team who is not an engineer and is very grateful for the support he receives – I point out the obvious misogyny and my coworker gaslights me by saying that happens to everyone, I ask him to give me an example of when it’s happened to him and he can not give me a single example. My male coworker, who denies misogyny exists in engineering, can’t give me a single example of belittling behavior towards him, but for me this was just another day at work.
pseudonym
I work in a group of three leaders. The other two are men. They have an extraordinarily difficult time hearing any other ideas other than their own. Recently I pushed with some questions that challenged the status quo, and their response was to sit on the opposite side of the conference room table from me, in a group with 3 additional people including my direct leader, and rather than debate the issues, one said “everything is fine as it is, the problem is really YOU, (my name).” Nothing is fine- we are losing money and market share- but they don’t want to do anything more difficult than sit and watch it fail. My response? “I never promised to be fun all the time, I’m not an amusement park. Sorry I rattled your cage but something has to change here if we are going to be successful. Can we talk about the business now?” UGH it is like pushing a giant boulder uphill, every single day.
Lulu
Desperately ill in the emergency department, was told by a young male dr that I was either bulimic or pregnant. I was 22 years old, throwing up due to the amount of pain I was in.
Puddles
My father in law tried to teach my two young sons (4 & 6 years old) to call attractive women or even young girls their age “eye candy”. I stopped it immediately but he still doesn’t understand why that’s a problem.