University

Ellie

I was on set and I was one of 3 women and there were over 7 men. I was being completely ignored the whole time and so were the other women on set. I spoke to the director afterwards and he laughed while apologising and didn’t even say sorry before continuing to ignore me for the other guys. Our voices in that crew did not matter to the men and they’ll never know what they missed out on.

Maria

I’m 49 and my list is obviously so long that I don’t know where to start. My father’s friend that played hide and seek with me in a pitch dark bedroom, the stranger that stopped his car as I was walking home from school, opened the door and masturbated (I was 13, it was the first penis I had ever seen), policemen, teachers, friends of teachers, professors, construction workers, fellow bus and metro riders, I can go on. I’ve just discovered this site through the book you’ve written, and I bow to you and to all the girls and women that have shared their stories here.

Anon

My list of male abuses is very Long As a child I was sexually assaulted many times. By a school teacher, a neighbour, a lawyer, my uncle, my brother and a sales man. I saw flashers, had my backside groped, horrid sexual jokes and language, sexist jokes and so on. I thought for years it must be something about me. BUT I absolutely now know it was the pervasive systemic culture of our country that allows boys and men to think this is all ok. I continue to be shocked by how common this still is. Woman continue to be blamed and often I hear people say it is so different today. It is not. We continue to say of rape victim “she was in the wrong place at the wrong time’ . NO SHE WAS NOT! Stop blaming the women. She had a right to be where she was and only when we start holding men and the system accountable will this change We need to think deeply about our unconscious bias, what we say and how we challenge. How we support each other to challenge and be brave

My List

– When someone online threatened to rape me (12) – When i was groped at a festival (13) – When i was wolf whistled by men as i walked home at night (13) – When i got sent my first unsolicited dick pic (13) – When a man honked and cat called me from his car, when i was with my family, and my mum was proud of me (14) – When my older cousin made jokes about me being ‘on my knees’ because i wore ripped jeans (14) – When i woke up to see my older cousin watching me as i was sleeping (14) – When an old man asked me (15) and my younger sister (13) to touch his penis, as we were trying to have a picnic in the park – When a boy in gym class grabbed my backside and then laughed with his friends at me (15) – When i was cat called by a car of boys at night (16) – When a group of boys surrounded me on the bus and rated my looks and body out loud (16) – When an older man came up to me at the library, and started complimenting my looks and body “you look European” (16) – When i was waiting tables and people would stare down my shirt (16-17) – When i was groped at work while waiting tables, and when my dad picked me up from work he said “All women find themselves being groped at some point in their lives, just like men find themselves in a strip club at some point in their lives” (17) – When my co-worker followed me to my bus stop, to see which bus route i took (17) – When my manager asked me if i was a virgin (17) – When my older manager would give female employees shoulder rubs/ back massages when they ‘looked tired’ (17) – When an older man stared at me for the entire bus ride home. An elderly lady behind me pointed his staring out to me (as if i should be flattered) and he agreed with her, that he thought i was attractive (17) – When, just after i had sex for the first time, the boy asked me if i wanted to give him a blowjob. I repeatedly said no, but he kept asking. Eventually he took his penis out, and held it up to my lips until i did (18) – When i was groped the first time i went clubbing (18) – When a man knocked on my door when i was home alone to ask for a massage (18) – When my close male friend from high school texted me, after months of not talking, to ask for nude pictures (19)

“gender equality”

University has mixed accomodation and places a group of girls in same flat as creepy old man. But you can’t complain because you aren’t meant to complain about that sort of thing. It discriminates against women in the name of equality.

Kayte

Hello Laura, Thank you so much for creating a safe forum for women to share and unburden themselves. I was raped in the late 60’s in Canada by a US Marine. I had had many pleasant conversations with this man and I thought he was my friend. One evening he offered to give me a ride home from my student job, ostensibly to save me the taxi fare, held a military issue knife to my throat and raped me. I was terrified that cutting my throat was going to be part of his fantasy. Some time later I read that groups of US soldiers in Viet Nam would walk into people’s homes and drag young women from their family dinners out to a hut nearby and group rape them. After the rapes the soldiers would allow the woman to start running away and then shoot her, saying that they had shot a Viet Kong trying to escape. I realized after reading this that if I had not been in a western country where murder would have been messy to conceal, this man would probably have killed me as part of his carefully planned and ritualized practice. I did not report the incident. There was a great deal of victim blaming and vicious grilling in courtrooms at the time. I’m not sure it has changed very much. Now in my 70’s, I see that rape culture is still active and in professional roles women’s contributions, even when excellent, are still often minimized in relation to lesser contributions from men. I’m very pleased to see many more women in the sciences, some female leaders of countries and the first female Vice President in the US. Back in the 70’s I optimistically expected to see female equality in my lifetime. I realize now that we still have a long way to go. The invention of social media is a huge game changer. Thank you so much, again, for creating this site.

r.

I was walking outside during winter, wearing a dress and bare legs; I had no tights left at home and I went to buy some because it was cold – the store was only a minute walk from my home. while I was walking, an older man (with his wife!) made a nasty remark: “mmm, nice legs” and went on with his day. I was walking to a party with a friend of mine, when a man approached us; he grabbed my ass, and when I asked him to stop and told him ‘no’, he said “but you have a nice ass anyways”. I was at another party, and a person I vaguely knew and did not even talk to, kept on touching me – I said ‘no’ plenty of times. he stopped touching me the minute I said that I had a boyfriend (which was a lie) – he respected my ‘boyfriend’ more than he respected me. I once went to the dermatologist for my acne, and one consultation he kept saying “well, you have skin that’s sensitive to hormones, but that’s good! you’ll have no problem getting pregnant when you’re older”. he repeated this a couple of times. a lot of things like this happened in my life, and I didn’t really thing much of it – I felt uncomfortable and violated, but I also felt guilty for walking outside with bare legs, for maybe “asking for it”… I normalized all of it, thinking that there are worse things that could happen, while we should NEVER normalize things like this. never.

Sophie

I recently had a conversation with a cisgender male friend of mine about walking outside at night. He frequently drops a roommate off at McCain Auditorium after dark so she can practice since she is uncomfortable walking or driving herself when it’s late. The parking near McCain is very poorly lit, so it makes obvious sense to both of us that she should be dropped off by the door instead. However, our male friend usually drops her off a distance from the door and then immediately turns to leave, without waiting to make sure she gets inside safely. The two of us mentioned it to him recently, asking him if he could wait just briefly to watch her walk for fifteen seconds in the darkness. He began to protest, gaslighting our worries and telling us we were overreacting. He said that he walks around in the dark all the time, so it’s not like there are scary men waiting to jump out from every corner. It completely does not occur to this 6-foot-tall man that his 5’3” friends who appear very feminine no matter what would hold reservations about walking through secluded areas after dark.

CC

I was at a university football match (women’s football). The male referee came over to us and we asked if we needed to provide someone to run the line. He said something along the lines of ‘no, I find that when the girls run the line they get things wrong, and when they get told that they’re wrong they go off and cry’. Some of us made comments saying how that was stereotypical and sexist and he first seemed shocked that we were offended, and then tried to backtrack before we told him to go away.

Elisa

I’m not sure whether my experience can be strictly categorised under sexism, but I guess it’s related and serves no harm to share. I’m (very luckily) studying in one of those “woke” institutions, and there’s quite a lot of feminists around me. Being in this environment, I find it difficult to accept and appreciate kind actions from guys, because I’ll be extra conscious about whether I’m succumbing to gender norms. “Does it make me a weak woman if I allow him to open this door for me?” Thoughts like this would come to my mind. This is one of the things that prevents me from forming intimate relationships with guys. It’s also a barrier to me finding boyfriends because I would be so extremely conscious about avoiding guys who would subject me to gender roles. This whole problem definitely isn’t the direct fault of the guys who tried to do kind things to me. It’s just really annoying how social constructs is acting like a third-party preventing me from maximising my fulfilment in human relationships