party

Aleksandra

|

At a house party last night, I was participating in a chat about soreness and injuries from the gym. (So it happened that I was the only woman in this group). I mentioned I related to these problems and only performed particular exercises with someone to spot me. In response, one guy shifted the conversation to bluntly asking me how much I squat or bench press. I disregarded it, saying lightheartedly that I didn’t want to share, but he kept asking repeatedly, demanding an answer. He laughed loudly, *do you even put any weights on the bar?*… I casually pointed out it was sexist, that he wasn’t saying that to any of the guys, and I just didn’t wish to share my personal fitness progress with a group of guys at a party. Of course, I got laughed off. It’s not the first time a woman was expected to be weak. Judged for what she does with her body. Expected to share numbers regarding her body. Laughed at for not wanting to share them. Disrespected when saying “no.” But I sure as hell won’t be having it because I’m a woman, and we are strong if we only decide to be.

Anonymous

|

Told I’d like to “ram it in her” on my way to the toilet (alone) at a party.

C.E

|

I was at a party on Friday night and started chatting to this guy who I had previously been on a date with. We start kissing, nothing serious and I decide I would rather chat with him for a bit than dance. We go into a room with lots of people, sit down and chat, suddenly everyone disappears and I start to panic. He kisses me again but this time it is more forceful and he moves on top of me and gets very hands on, it takes me 5 times before he stops. I then say I need to move rooms, we go to the main room and dance, I figure I will lose him in the crowd but then he asks if we can go back to mine and have sex. I say no, you are too drunk, and he slaps me in the face, in front of all the people I know. This is what I get for speaking up for myself and exercising my right to say no. I am completely humiliated and so scared at the fact that it almost led to something so much worse. I keep playing it in my mind and trying to see what I could have done differently but the fact of the matter is, it was not my fault, regardless of what I did or didn’t do, I said no and he should have respected that. I feel so gross and upset and all I want is to be absolutely furious but I am not there yet.

Megan

|

Hi Laura, my name is Megan, I’m 20 years old and a university student. I wanna tell you about a party I went to this weekend. It was the 21st birthday party of a friend of mine. We always knew he was “kinda” sexist towards women but he wasn’t towards us (me and my two best friends) usually so we didn’t think too much about it. About 20-30 young adults were at this party, more men than women but still it was fairly mixed. All around 17-22 years old. The first thing we saw when we arrived was a big inflatable female sex doll in whom someone had inserted an empty beer bottle…that was already upsetting to us. But we said nothing. Knowing that those guys are all drunk and not the cleverest and thought “alright, they probably don’t think like we do. They probably don’t mean it that way. It’s probably just a joke to them. A real bad one. But alright”. The first thing I and my friends thought about was the multiple cases of rape we had read about that happened with a glass bottle. Therefore I felt uneasy the second I stepped foot in the house of my “friend”. The evening continued with me and my friends grasping more and more sexist sentences some boys where throwing around like simple small talk. It was never directly directed at us, so we again didn’t say anything, still it made us angry. Then we were in a room with another girlfriend of us. She had too much to drink, was laying on the bed and tried hard not to vomit. One guy came, I thought he was a good friend of hers that why again, I didn’t do anything when he came, lightly slapped her ass and wanted her to join in on a game. When she started vomiting he fastly left the room. We were still in the room, some guys playing a drinking game on the one side while we were still caring for our drunk friend. That guy from earlier came in again, really hyper and started insulting a girl (who was currently downstairs at the party) as well as her mum as a hoe. I then grabbed him and asked him what gave him the right to call her that. How he dare call her something like that. He just laughed, said something about feminist, brushed me and my words off and turned around to his friends to continue the story. He said “we’ll ignore them (gesture to us girls) for now”. I then grabbed him, pulled him away and against the wall and made very clear what I thought of him and his behaviour. The night ended with multiple boys saying I overreacted, didn’t understanding how I couldn’t take a joke and even the boyfriend of my best friend saying that the sex doll with the beer bottle was a joke and we really shouldn’t overreact, because it didn’t mean anything. The worst thing, I also told those boys, was, that they didn’t do anything. Some even said that the behaviour of this guy wasn’t great, but they still remained silent when he threw sexist comments around and still laughed along with his “jokes”. We ended up leaving and decided to never hang out with this crowd again. Still I can’t rid myself of the anger I’m feeling.

Flatmate

|

My flat was throwing a halloween party and someone accidently broke some glases in our entrance, so I went out to clean it up. One of my male flatmates was also standing outside talking to another guy. The other guy asked who are you’re flatmates? And my flatmate, standing two feet away from me said: The one with the big tits, pointing to me. He than realized, that I heard him, laughed nervously and said I meant it as a compliment. I didn’t know what to say, because I was new in the city and looking for friends so I laughed and felt terrible.

Savannah

|

I was at a friend’s graduation party when her old math teacher came up behind me and began massaging my back around where my bra clasp is as I was getting food. He is an older white man who taught math at a local private school. I tensed up and looked over at where the other three girls in the room were talking, but they all refused to meet my eyes and carried on with their conversation like nothing was happening. I finished getting my food and walked back outside and he left as I walked out. I can still feel where his hands were, and none of the girls have said anything about it to me or anyone.

Francesca

|

Last year when I was 16, I got drunk for the first time at my brother’s flat party. I started to get really tired around 1-2am mark and decided to call myself an uber, which I waited for outside on the pavement. A guy in a car beckoned me over to his car, thinking it was my uber I jumped in and shut the door. He apologised for the mess and I asked if he was my uber, he nodded and said yes, however, I noticed that he was not my uber as soon as he locked the doors. Thankfully he was at a red light, so I quickly unlocked the door, swore at him and ran over back to the pavement freaking out. This man thought he had the right to take an intoxicated young female straight from the footpath, I always think back to that moment and appreciate that I still had a small amount of common sense, enough to escape him.

Anon

|

In the 8th grade, I played on the softball team. The softball and baseball teams would have games at the same schools so we would take the away game bus together. Once I lost my lunchbox on the bus so I asked if anyone had seen it. One boy said, “ I’ll give you your lunchbox if you give me your body.” I remember being disgusted and called him a freak. It turned out that he didn’t even have my lunchbox. In freshman year, I went to a party. The host had a brother about 2-3 years younger than me, and the younger brother’s friend was constantly putting his arm around me, calling me “baby girl,” and asking to hook up with me. I kept on saying no and he would NOT leave me alone so I slapped his leg! He left me alone after that but it’s sickening to think that this behavior is being instilled at such a young age.

Natasha

|

I was leaving a party at a friend’s house when a boy I’d never met before walked up to me and picked me up, running his hands all over me and telling me I liked it despite me trying to kick him off and yelling. He only stopped once a friend intervened.

Marion

|

So I went out with friends to some friends of one of them. We were drinking and we all slept over at that house. I was lying next to this guy and we were both drunk and he started to grab my boobs and i didn’t do anything against it. A few moments later he started to get on top of me and started rubbing his dick on me… luckily i was abel to push him off and he stopped…