Public Transport

Eleanor

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I was on the tube in summer, it doesn’t even matter but i was wearing a white summers dress that made me feel pretty it sunny but windy enough that i wore a jumper over the top. A man (around 50 around the same age as my own dad) got onto the tube i was stood against the ‘wall’ across from the door. he immediately locked eyes with me and loudly sighed.The tube wasn’t busy, an older couple sat beside me and my friend in the carriage. The man sighs again… i could tell he was trying to gain people’s attention. Addressed to no one he largely shouts it’s just fucking disgusting how these young people dress these days just fucking disgusting. I froze. He then proceeded to walk across the carriage and bend down crotch level and loudly ‘whisper’ to the couple next to me “I’m sorry this slut is making you feel so uncomfortable it’s disgusting these days”. I got off at the next stop completely choked up from the situation. i had such a lovely day and now it’s the only thing i really remember. I have now beaten myself up for not saying something – i am a politics and IR student so i learn about these everyday sexism events every day in my lectures i felt like a hypocrite. FUCK HIM

Jordan

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I’m so tired of walking down the street and being cat called or having men follow me shouting things after me. I’m tired of having to fight harder than my husband when I walk the dogs alone because if he has reactive dogs he’s trying his best but I’m just a bad dog owner. I’m tired of men bullying their way through life and being allowed to get away with it. I’m tired of feeling unsafe walking home at night. I’m tired of feeling unsafe walking alone during the day if I don’t have a dog or my husband with me. I’m tired of being treated differently when my husband is there versus when he’s not. I’m tired of men directing their technical information to my husband like my brain is too small to comprehend it. I’m tired of having to make myself smaller so I’m more palatable. I’m tired of always having to push to be treated in even the same ballpark as men. I’m tired of all the micro aggressions I experience on a daily basis that I don’t even register anymore. I’m tired of having to pitch against agencies run by men who are worse at what they do but get more work because they’re men. I’m tired of just fucking existing in a society that wants me to shut up and put up.

Anon

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When I was about 15 years old, I was on the incredibly crowded bus from the train station to my school when I felt someone touching me from behind, breathing heavily. I tried to stop him and asked one of my classmates if I could move over to his side of the bus – he just laughed at me and said no. I saw that people I have been taking the same bus with for years noticed what was going on, but noone did or said anything. I was 15, I didn’t know what to do, how to react. When I reported it to my homeroom teacher, she told me welcome to womanhood – it happens to all of us and sent me back to class. I still think about this years and years later.

Victoria

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I was around 16 or 17 and i was just sitting on the bus when a grown man (probably around his 50s) turned to me, started saying something that i ignored and then said out loud “this one would be good raped” and no one did anything except laugh.

Olivia

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I was going back to my flat from university and sat down on the bus and after a few minutes, this guy just sat next to me and stared at me, i ignored it, not wanting to escalate the situation and he suddenly just grabbed my chest and thigh, I just froze for a second, not knowing what to do as I then got up and walked away, and this after he tried to catch up to me, i tried ans explain that i was lesbian, because i am, vut he just ignored me and tried to grab me again, i pushed him away as one of the men on the bus just said to relax, lime he hadn’t seen him try and harras me, lowest point of my week

Andreea

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I was 17. I was on the bus on my way to the train station. I sat on a seat near the window and the seat to me was occupied after a few stops by a quite large man, he was maybe in his 40’s. I was looking out the window and had music in my earphones, I wasn’t paying any attention to him. After five minutes or so, when I only had only one stop left, he grabbed my hand forcefully and squeezed it. Alarmed, I looked at him and he had a disgusting grin on his face. I said “let go”, as calmly as I could and he said, still smiling “Why? Don’t be scared, I’m not going to hurt you”. Now you probably realize, this was even more unnerving that if he said nothing. He was still squeezing my hand all this time. He simply held it, trying to hide from other people. I thought he was never going to let go and my hand hurt. The bus got to my stop after about 4 minutes. All this time he’s still holding my hand tightly. Somehow I managed to lift both our hands and when he realized other people were going to see it, he let go and I ran out of the bus. After that, I think I shivered the whole train ride and I’ve avoided taking the bus as much as I could since then.

anon

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I have been harassed/assaulted so many times I can’t even remember all of them. I remember being catcalled and whistled at the most when I was in school uniform, I have been touched on buses, in clubs, in my flat, have been spiked twice. my own best friend assaulted me when he thought I was asleep and got away with it. I go through harassment every single day to the point where I don’t even react anymore, I got touched a few weeks ago and it was so frequent for me that I didn’t even realise that I was harassed until I really thought about it.

Dunja

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A creep follows me through a train, sitting opposite me when there are plenty of seats available. I set up to sit somewhere else, he follows me, and again, and again. He mutters obscenities at me. No conductor on the train who could help me. At my station, the guy gets off as well and keeps following me in the town. I manage to shake him off but then get stopped in the street by another guy who asks why I kept changing my seat. That means the creep apparently complained to him about me. I’m really shaken and terrified.

Anon

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Not about me,but my niece. She’s 14 but has to take the city bus home due to the lack of school bus drivers. One day, she was supposed to be getting off at her stop, but a man put his leg up to stop her. He then asked for her number. She said, “No.” He then proceeded to ask, “Why not?” She told him she doesn’t give her phone out to strangers. I can’t recall exactly what happened then, whether he told her his name and said he’s not a stranger or if he said something else equally dumb. Afterwards, my niece basically told him that she’s a minor and would call the police on him if he didn’t let her leave. Only then did he move.

Alice

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A group of boys from my school harassed me and a friend on a bus we reported it to school and they all got away with it