Tram

sahra

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I was sitting in the tram home from University when I heard a couple behind me Fighting. He said “what do you say slut” and she cried, I immediately turned around and they were about 15 years old. Again he said slut and touched her legs and she tried to push him away. I walked to them and I asked if she needs help, when he respond to me:” you can leave, shes my girlfriend” I said “and you call her a slut?!?!. he respond: “yea I can call her that way because she screwed another guy” I was so Angry and said with loud and direct voice “no you are never alowwed to call her or anybody else that!” then he said “fuck off bitch” but I stayed and the Girl stood up nd went next to me to leave together, he tried to grabb her but I was Standing between them and I took her to the frnt of the tram. We sat down and she was crying so much and said that is my boyfriend. I was shocked nd began Talking to her that i can call the Police but she said to me no. She was also a Little bit drunk and said that her “boyfriend” punched her outside at the tram Station in the face. I wanted to cry with her.. I said you can report him and we can do it together but she said to me that she loves him and that ist her fault that everything of this happened because she slept with another guy. She said if she wouldnt have been so stupid he wouldnt have punched her. After a Long monologue of mine why it isnt her fault and People making mistakes is normal, and that ist never okay to get beaten, punched, insulted or anything! I wanted to bring her home, but her mom wanted to kick her out if she ever gets drunk at home again. then in a conversation with her I knew her mom was beating her too. I asked her if the youth welfare Office know About it (Institution in germany for Children and Teens with “problematic” parents). and they did know About it, but the women who is soppsed to help her wasnt available. She had no Money and I brought her into a safe hostel and gave her some Food. I tried to convince her to see how her boyfriend is going to drag her down. I gave her my number in case she wants to report him. And one women in the tram tried t help us, the rest was Looking away. My heart was broken to see a Young teenage Girl who thought it was all her fault.

Nicole

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Packed tram around 4pm. Guy sat across from me starts telling the girl sat next to me how good she looks and how well she dresses and asks if she could please tell other girls who dress like sluts how to behave and have respect for themselves. How these girls are throwing their lives away but maybe they can see the error of their ways if a peer tells them how they should adjust their behaviour to be more demure and value themselves more, as obviously they haven’t listened to any efforts to do so by their fathers and brothers. This guys is speaking eloquently in a very polite, soft and charming tone, but what he is saying is so patronising, misogynistic and unhinged, my jaw drops. On the inside. We’re all strangers, the girl and I are dressed in jeans and jumpers. Everyone around us can hear what he his saying. Everyone is trying to ignore him. My only option is to engage this girl, this complete stranger, in conversation about the traffic and where we’ve been travelling, ignoring the man’s repeated attempts to engage us in his view of the world. To try and get us both out of this awkward position, as confronting the man feels like opening a can of worms or even worse – provoking an aggressive response in a very small crowded space. Do I need to add this was in central Melbourne, not somewhere ‘dodgy’?