teenager

Kat

I was only 16 when after a yoga class by mistake i took a wrong bus and to make a shortcut had to use a deserted underground to cross the motorway. i was listening to music on my headphones and as i approached the underground i saw i girl walking up the stairs with a shaken up look on her face, but i didn’t pay much attention to it. soon i realized what hat frightened the girl so much. as i descended down the stairs i was a tall, strong-built man with massive erection an a creepy look on his face, i turn of my music, and pretended i was talking on the phone ( i thought he wouldn’t approach me then, but i was wrong). without paying any mind to him i proceeded to walk past him when i heard a disgusting voice yelling “hay”, yet again i ignored him, so he said ” want me to fuck you? or you’re too scared it will hurt? ” i looked that man straight in the eyes and said ” no thanks” while i was trying to come up with ways i could defend myself against this huge man. he was shocked for a second so i took it as my queue to leave so i ran. Once i was on the street i got in the other bus and sighed with relief. However, my peace was short lived. The particular bus i took always got very crowded and stuffy, so when i felt a man press into my back i yet ignored it, though it was an accident but as i felt a warm and hard ” something” being not only pressed but basically humped into my ass i knew it was no accident. It was just a pervy old man with a moral of a stone. I was honestly shocked, thought that a universe was testing me and froze up, tried to move away but that bastard was persistent,so i elbowed him in the stomach and he backed off. I knew i had the right to scream at him or slap him and make a scene of any other kind, however, my twisted mentality took over and i didn’t say a single thing, afraid that i might make people on the bus uncomfortable. when i told my mum what happened she said to me ” well it sucks but what can we do, just make a scene next time and DO NOT use that underground, that place is known for perverts looming around”.

Anonymous

I was 17/18 and learning to drive. My driving instructor was in his 50s/60s. I’d had very little sexual experience up until that point. When he would guide the wheel, his hand would graze the underside of my breasts. It happened infrequently enough for me not to know if this was intentional or not. Maybe I’m still trying to write it off as accidental in my head, years later. I do remember him exhaling and grunting slightly every time he did it. I remember just freezing every time it happened and my mind going blank. I never told anyone about it until I told my mum years after the fact. She frowned, probably acknowledging that it shouldn’t have happened however didn’t say anything. I’ve told my husband about it. I know I will tell my kids, if we have them, that if their instructor makes them feel even a bit uncomfortable in any way, we are changing them. I don’t remember particularly dreading driving lessons. I do remember feeling more uncomfortable that the guy was also a massive racist shit as well (he was white, as am I), frequently making awful comments about the local BME communities. I wish I’d stood up to him more about that in some ways. God, I fucking hate how normalised this shit is, even, especially, to myself.

Ying Yue

I was sitting in my Computer Science class logging onto my computer when I heard some boys making sexist comments about how “women should stay in the kitchen” and “if ahything has gone wrong within a home, the wife will be behind it”. naturally, I was upset by these comments but chose not to say anything since I was the minority (there were about two females in the room at the time). What made it worse was when a guy I knew relatively well started openly slagging women off in front of me, knowing my views on feminism and how women should be treated – equally. I didn’t know what to do, but I decided to challenge him. He began saying even worse things to all the girls in the room. Finally, the most horrible thing happened. My friend – a girl I’d know for about five years – began to laugh and agree with him, saying things such as: “Oh, good one!” (referring to his joke) and other such comments. I got so upset that I ran from the classroom at the end of the lesson. I know that this situation wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been, but I’m just so fed up of people thinking that it’s funny to slander women, and for others to agree just because they’d get retribution if they didn’t. Sometimes, I feel like I have no voice, and even if I do, people forget what I’ve said and reverted to their old ways. I’m just…tired. So done with their crap. – Ying Yue, teenager

Mandy

During a visit to our house in Turkey, my father forgot to lock the doors. We’d always thought of it as a nice place, everyone was friendly and so if there was the occasional slip of mind, none of us thought much of it. We’d had a busy day and I was exhausted. I fell into bed at about 11:00 pm Turkish time (9:00pm uk) and was almost immediately asleep. I woke up four hours later to my mother screaming hysterically, just my name over and over. I sat up, in time to see my bedroom door open, my wardrobe opened (though nothing touched) and all my drawers. Right beside my bed, so close there was hardly an inch gap between the mattress and the nightstand, my underwear drawer had been rummaged through. My purse was left, beside my lamp, untouched. My parents had woken up about half an hour earlier when their bedroom door was opened. The door in the apartments made a lot of noise when opened, and my parents are both light sleepers. They then heard the bathroom door open and close, and so assumed it was just me making a half-asleep mistake. Just in case, my mum got up and looked around the apartment, to see if anything was wrong and there was no problem so she went back to sleep. Later, the bathroom door was opened again, and the door to my room was opened, but not shut. My father couldn’t get back to sleep, so he got up and put clothes on, to go sit on the veranda. He comes out of his room and sees a man stood over me, as I sleep, going through my underwear. He shouts at the man, wakes my mother, and she starts to scream. The man runs from my room, I’m still asleep, and my dad follows, getting to the door before him. The man then yells, “I have had sex with your daughter!” Most likely knowing that it would cause my father to move out of the way, and wake by this point I start to shake. I was asleep only in underwear and a tshirt, the former of which had been removed from my body, and the man had held up to show my father. My mother starts to cry. Four pairs of my underwear had been removed from my drawer, and he took them with him when he ran. I can’t get over the fact that he would have been right next to me, and had even gotten to the point of undressing me in my sleep. As a usually very light sleeper, this chills me to the bone. I am fifteen years old. This is not ok.

Izzy

Hi, I’m izzy. I’m 16, and for a while I’ve been in a bad mental place surrounding the multiple sexual assualts and rape I’ve undergone since the age of 13. Whoever’s reading this must be thinking “Oh gross she must live in some poor council estate with no parents”, or you may have been tempted to stop reading at the mention of the word rape. Rape. It’s not a word that I’m supposed to be using, is it? I’m a 16 year old girl, and it’s not ladylike. Well for whoever’s wondering, I live in Switzerland, I have a wonderful family, and great friends. But none of this changes the problems that all girls and women go through today. Despite all of this I was still a victim of rape multiple times, and despite what my brain has been telling me ever since my first encounter, it is not my fault. It’s not. I’ll even shout it from the rooftops! It’s not my fault!! Sexual assulay happens due to the social grooming that happens from a young age. School dress codes for example. Girls are literally blamed for actions they take due to what clothing they are wearing, and boys conform to this idealism. In my most recent sexual assualt case, two classmates raped me, after I had been prescribed anxiety medication not knowing that when mixed with alchohol, I would pass out. They proceeded to carry me to a bathroom and do what they wanted to me for about an hour before I started vomiting while unconscious and they decided they’d had enough, so they ran and left me. Eventually a bar tender found me and called the police and the ambulance. I was rushed to the hospital, and I kid you not when I say this was the worst I’ve ever felt in my entire life. Well aware of this, a gynocologist was brought in to perform rape tests, despite the fact that I did not consent to this. My body was covered in injuries as well as on my neck and after sticking a number of things up me (which was extremely painful due to sexual trauma injuries) they then proceeded to photograph my entire body, including my genitals (which was for court evidence). As a 15 year old at the time, this was the most humiliating and degrading experience of my life. I had no recollection of the rape due to the fact that I had been unconscious, the only reason they had was that I had been found next to two used condoms. I was forced to stay in hospital for a night, wasn’t allowed to shower, all my clothes were taken away, and I was all alone. My mum had dropped by and was in tears but had left me for the night, covered in vomit, bruised and bleeding, with no one to talk to. The next day my head was still spinning and it felt like there was a fire in my gut. I had to do a filmed interview for the police that went on longer than two hours, where they grilled me and grilled me as to whether I had consented to anything. At this point part of me believed that the boys hadn’t done anything to me. I mean, they were my friends… right? In the interviews I did everything I could to protect my friends, and had the belief in my mind that I hadn’t actually had sex. They carried on questioning despite the fact that I told them I couldn’t remember anything. I was finally told a day later that yes I had had sex, and I remember completely breaking down, that something like this had been taken from me. In further police interviews, it was then that I really began to despise the entire justice system. After being put through hell already with the authorities, as well as the fact that I didn’t even want to pursue the case, but by law I had to, I was asked questions such as “what was I wearing”, “do my friends consider me promiscuous”, “had I had sex before”, “do I have a boyfriend”, “how many times have I had sex” and was asked more and more. It was honestly humiliating. And I had to do everything to hold back the tears. The justice system needs to change, as does victim blaming, because I’ve had enough. It’s not like they slipped and fell into my vagina??? There was literally physical proof that I was unconscious considering they ran blood tests, and there was no way I could have been conscious. Anyway the case got annulled due to “question of consent” because I said I didn’t remember anything. I want to share this and talk about it, but I can’t. In our society it’s looked down on to talk about such things, let alone relate to them. Even my own mother told me never to tell any boy that I’m involved with, because “no one will want me if they hear that”. Well I can tell you that my boyfriend at the time broke up with me because he didn’t want an emotionally complicated girl who got raped, but I can happily tell you that my current boyfriend is a feminists himself and knows about everything I’ve been through and is always there to support me. All in all, I don’t think just the rapists are at fault here, it’s our society and the way we view women, as well as victim blaming and fault in the justice system.

Annika Scourse

Why do I need feminism? I am thirteen years old. I have always had a fiery passion for feminism and people’s rights. I read ‘Girl Up’ and heard about this online project. I thought that this would be a great place to share a story which really changed me. I was walking home from a school theatre rehearsal, in full costume, when I walked past a male builder, maybe late thirties? He gave me a strange look. I’d had that before and it annoyed me, but I kept walking. Then he stopped and I heard his voice- ‘nice legs you got there. just saying. they’re gorgeous,’ . I was shocked. No one had ever said anything like that to me, I did all I could at the moment, which was keep walking forwards, tears streaming down my face. When I got home and lay sobbing into my pillow, my feelings turned from fear to pure anger. Anger at him, anger at myself. Why had I gotten so upset? People were going through so much worse every minute of every day. Did I even deserve to be affected? Also angry at myself because I hadn’t spoken out. Why not? Why had I been so terrified? Why are girls like me scared to stand up for ourselves in front of sleazy men in the streets? I know the answers to those questions, and THAT is why I need feminism.

Catherine

I am 13 years old, and absolutely love playing video games with my friends, and being in the team voice channel when I play competitive games. I always found it fun to meet new (nice and supportive) people while I’m playing, until I would run into the inevitable accounts of sexism. I have only once met another girl playing this game (Overwatch), or at least another girl who uses a mic to speak to their teammates. When the people I’m playing with hear my voice, and realize I am female, I either get instant friend requests (which happens almost every game), nothing happens, or someone makes a joke about how I can’t play. Someone once said, “Hey, girl. Bring that ass over here.” Another time it was “Get off your boyfriend’s computer.” The thing that bothers me the most about these comments is that I am discouraged from doing one of my favorite things, which is meeting new people and having fun playing Overwatch. I’m scared to use my mike because I’ve heard the comments that other women get. While watching female YouTubers playing Overwatch, they get constant sexist remarks and have to report people all of the time. All of my friends who play this game are male, and I have no one to relate to or talk to this about, because they don’t understand, or try to change the subject.

madi

my older brother’s friend (4 years older than me) came over our house frequently. he has fingered me, exposed himself to me, he has locked me in the bathroom so i can’t escape from him, he has dragged me across the carpet in my living room till i have rug burn all over my body, and he has routinely walked into my bedroom while i’m sleeping and i wake up to him having intervourse with me. these occurances have happened multiple times since i was in 7th grade, so frequent that i have lost count and they have all happened without my consent. i feel like there is nothing i can do because i can never forget the images. i’m now 16 and i’ve never revealed this to anyone because i’m ashamed and do not want anyone to pity me or to feel as though they could have done something to stop this.

Claire

So this year something happened to me at school that I never thought could or would happen. I am 14 and through out my school year, my butt would randomly get smacked whenever I was walking in the hallways. I haven’t told anyone this simply because I was and still am scared about what else the people who did this sort of horrible thing could do to me. I am sharing this because it is a big deal, it is sexual harassment and because I want the nightmares to stop.

15 minute walk

Last year, I was going back home on foot. I passed several men who had no problem cat-calling and calling me beautiful. I moved on. It was about 1 pm (lunch time) and I was almost home when a car passed by me so close my arm hit one of the side mirrors. The driver smacked my butt. He hadn’t even slowed down! I stopped walking and stared at the guy that was driving away, his hand still out the window, giving me the thumbs up. I’m 17 now.