I was on my way to my best friends house one night and I had JUST left my apartment. As I was walking down the street, a car pulled up beside me, slammed on the breaks and one of the men inside yelled at me “hey bitch, down for a threesome?” I was so scared that I dropped my phone and it broke.
A male classmate who is dating my close friend texted me that he gets turned on by me and shared information about his fetishes. All of this was unwanted. I avoid my friends so I don’t have to see him anymore.
It was a last day of school. I was at 7th grade as I remember it now. Nothing special had happened to me those days: study, study and again study…Literature classes were the most boring part our school program and every break I was tend to have a fresh air at the corridor. But one day changed my whole attitude towards gender stereotypes. When I walked away from class, two of my classmates followed me and, suddenly (I do not know how it happened) circled and touched my butt. Well, squizzed really hard, which I could feel. At the same moment, I startled at them and asked: “What the hell did u do that?”. They did not respond and only smiled. I was dissapointed and ashamed by the fact that they did it to me. True to point, this small harassment made me vulnerable for almost 10 years at least. I was a target for other harassments based on tits and butt, even when I was not wearing those tiny shirts or blouses. And it is the most weirdest part of all!
This happened a long time ago, but I still remember it vividly. I was in the pub with my dad, because he wanted to have a beer and so I went too. We happened to meet one of his friends, you know “long time no see” kinda thing. So his friend sat next to me for some reason, but I thought nothing of it at the time. They were talking about their lives, what changed what didn’t and about their kids. See, here’s the thing, his friend doesn’t have any kids. It was summer and I was wearing a crop top and high-waisted jeans, but my arms weren’t covered up. So his friend suddenly takes my hand into his in front of my dad and goes: “You’re so young. Is it okay if I touch her?” He asks my dad! And my dad agrees thinking it’s normal! So that man placed his hand on my shoulder and goes down to my palm caressing my whole arm! He says “You’re have such a smooth baby skin. Doesn’t she?” He asked my dad. I was in absolute shock! I couldn’t believe it was happening. I felt disgusted and disgusting. I was around 15-16 at the time.
I work in a bar now, I have done 1 shift. ONE. More than a dozen times have I been told to smile more, that they’d rather go to the ‘cute’ bartender, pointing at me, making me feel highly uncomfortable. I’ve been yelled at to hurry up, I’ve been laughed at by my male peers, and one man had the guts to tell me I wasn’t being friendly enough, and then left without greeting me back when I told him goodnight. And it sounds insignificant, but I was shocked. And also in no position to retaliate to any of those comments, because I am the new girl, an employee, and this is just what these men do.
I started getting calls from a number I did not recognize which I usually don’t pick up. After the third missed call I picked up because I was worried it could be an emergency. A man asked, “Is this Elizabeth?” I answered yes. He then told me he wanted to lick my a*%hole.
It’s been a few times where I walk on the street and these men approach me either bumping into me as though it was an accident, or purposely coming close to me even if I try to avoid them and whisper something in my ear in another language I don’t understand. I feel angry, I feel like I should’ve done something to avoid it, but in the end I realise you can’t. It’s everyday sexism, and although I am angry about, I have to learn to accept it and live with it everyday.
To be honest, I live a pretty sheltered life. I’m 17, I don’t tend to leave the house a lot, I don’t party and I was home educated for the majority of secondary school. Even so, I still have stories to share about times I’ve been sexually harassed (not including the classic “show us your tits!” calls from passing cars nor the coercion into carrying out sexual acts that I didn’t really want to do). First time, I was about 13. I was out for a jog at dusk with a group of my friends (ranging in age from 13 to 11). We were running in the streets of my estate when this guy in a red van drove up behind us, sounding his horn at us. We ran off and he followed us, cornering us in a cul-de-sac while he drove up towards us. We got round his van and ran off, only to find that he had followed us once again, still sounding his horn. I was absolutely terrified but back then I thought that it was really our fault for being out at dusk. For that reason it went unreported. Second time I was 16 and at a friend’s house. It was night time, and she and I had gone outside on her doorstep to wait for my ride home. This car with two men in it drove up to the front and slowed to a crawl outside the gate. They started calling stuff at us, and although I didn’t hear what they were saying, I’m pretty sure they were trying to get us into their car for sex. We ran back into the house and I didn’t catch their registration, so the incident went unreported like the last one. Most recent time was at school. I had a male acquaintance through my GCSE years and he had a certain habit of making sexual jokes. The first time he made me uncomfortable was when he tried guessing my bra size, but I laughed it off because he was just “like that”. Last year, however, his comments started getting more obscene and more focused on me in particular – at one point in biology class he made a joke about me “swallowing his proteins” (clear implication) which left me feeling sick and violated. He also mouthed obscene song lyrics such as “f*ck me, f*ck me” while looking me in the eye. It upset me to the point that it gave me nightmares. And naturally, when I told him to lay the hell off all he said “jeez sorry”, and proceeded to block me on social media, as I was at fault for complaining. On the bright side though, he did actually lay off.
Here’s a collection of incidents that have stayed with me over the past few years. The first few are more serious, shaping the way I form relationships and react to intimacy. The last two are just moments when I felt dismissed, and the last one likely a common shared experience for many femme-folk when on a night out. I’m 16, at boarding school: I have a bit of a crush. He’s my first kiss, of the times I think mean something anyway. He’s handsome, smart. We’re watching a movie, when he pushes the laptop away and climbs on top of me. I’m uncomfortable, I ask to leave his room, but I never directly say no. Condescendingly, he asks “you’re not a virgin, are you?” Without waiting for a reply, he says “trust me, I’m older, this is how it works.” I don’t say anything, because my body just freezes. Later I’ll be told that it’s not just fight or flight, apparently freezing is an evolutionary survival mechanism too. Just stay still for it to be over quickly, maybe it’ll hurt less. It still hurts, excrutiatingly. I feel like I’m floating above my head, hearing the thump thump thump of my head hitting the wall. After, he walks me to my room and kisses me good night. I desperately want him to leave. When he does, I sit on the bathroom floor, crying. I’m bleeding and bruised, but nowhere people would see. I sit under the hot shower for a long while, wash my hair three times, scrubbing my skin red to get the smell off. That cycle, my period is late. Retrospectively, probably from the stress. I am sure it’s my fault. How could I be that irresponsible? When my period comes, I am so grateful. I shut it from your mind and don’t talk to anyone about it for eight more months. Four months later, drunk, I have sex with him, just to prove to myself that’s what the first time was, just sex. Anything more is just my imagination. Although I was stone cold sober that night, for nearly a year I drink too much. I’m 17, at a party: I’m having a few drinks with friends. He’s there, but not really a friend. He keeps putting his hands on my body, I keep moving them away. It’s innocent, I think, he’s young and he just doesn’t get it. This is still in the eight-month timeframe, I haven’t admitted anything to myself or anyone else. The 8 people in the room all leave individually, for a smoke, more booze, weed. Only he is left. He tries to climb on top of me, kissing me forcibly. I am almost paralytically drunk. Luckily the rest come back before things escalate. The next time I’m at a party with him, he pushes a shisha towards me, and the coal burns my wrist. It was an accident I convince myself. He was drunk. But I’ll always have a scar. A year later I hear he’s raped a girl. Things escalate, don’t they? I’m 18, at a club: I’m out with a society from university. The club is crowded, and I can feel the anxiety building up, not being in control of your personal space, which happens sometimes due to my earlier experiences. It turns into a full-blown panic attack, and I end up crying in a corner. One of the people I was there with comes to check up on me. I don’t know him, and I don’t really want to talk about it, so I try to convince him I’m fine. The next time I see him, some months later, he makes fun of me for being too drunk to function. That’s what he thinks happened anyway. I don’t blame him, but stop going to the society. I’m 19, at a club: This encounter is not special or different, but it stayed with me. I’ve never met him before, there’s no connection. I’m getting drinks from the bar for my friends, when he pushes himself against me from behind, hard. I can feel his erection through my dress. I’m physically stuck between him and the bar, and I can feel my heart racing, my body freezing over. It’s a busy night, and none of the bartenders or bystanders pay any attention. My mind blurs. It feels hard to breathe, both because of the panic and how hard he’s pushing. Not sure how, but I slip away, tears running down my face. My friend sees me and just reads my mind, taking me out for fresh air. Somehow he follows me around all night. I’ve almost forgotten about him, when walks up to me, waiting for an über with a girl. Luckily she has a cold head and a sharp tongue on her because I freeze completely. He wants me to go home with him, perhaps the both of us, very persistently. She shuts him down, laughing. I end up in her bed instead that night. Positive end-notes: My assault at 16 (I still struggle finding the correct terms for it) pushed me to help develop my school’s sexual harassment policy, which was previously nonexistent. After over a year I reported it, for my own closure, and was taken very seriously.
My name is Ioanna and I am a 21 year old student from Greece. The worst experience I have ever had was a man finding my phone number and video calling me. That happened almost a year ago. He kept on calling for days unstoppably. Whenever I picked it up all I could see was him naked masturbating. He never showed me his face. I got panic attacks but I never told my closest friends or family. Eventually I started screaming at him asking him what have I done to him to deserve this harassment while crying uncontrollably… He eventually realised that what he did affected me in the worst possible way and told me: “Oh! I never thought that it was so serious” and the calls gradually but surely stopped. He never apologised. To this day I am still thinking to myself how lucky I am that things didn’t take a turn for the worse.