University

BFS

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I was at uni with one of my housemates who I considered a good friend at the time and one day out of nowhere he playfully wacked me on the bum with a tea towel but then continuously would do it with his foot. At first I didn’t know what to make of it and confronted it with him and he said it wasn’t’ deep and just not to mention it to my boyfriend. When I did tell by my boyfriend he made me realise it was assault it was sexual assault. Then on nights out he’d get drunk and actually smack my bum and once tried to kiss me and a friend (on a seperate occasion). Whenever I tried to bring it up he said he didn’t remember it and because he was ‘normal’ most of the time I found it so hard to deal with and my friends couldn’t understand how I could differentiate between it or deal with it as we were friends.

Mari-Anne

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I started a professional training course in 2021. There was a slide on dress code. The trainers knew better than to be explicit about the length of women’s skirts but that was still the message. There was a picture of a woman in a mid thigh dress. No comment was made about it but it was clearly included as a not ok example. I bought a load of fishnet tights to wear to work. With skirts. That are mid thigh. Because women’s clothes are not the problem.

H

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After two years in a PhD program in a science field, it was time for my doctoral exams, in which you have to stand in front of your thesis committee and answer any question that they throw at you in order to progress. It is a big deal. I was working in my chosen specialty, and my advisor was a young superstar in the field. My (male) partner was a new professor in another department, and coincidentally had gotten his job after I was accepted into my program. So the day of the PhD exam, I’m standing in front of my (all male) committee after having studied for months, and my (male) advisor ‘introduces’ me (even though I knew all of them well) with “H came here to study for a PhD because her partner got a job here.” I was so shocked I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t answer a single question. Just stunned. And nobody in that room thought twice about it. After a few stuttered attempts to answer their questions, they cancelled the exam. I did finally earn my PhD, after having to move away and block out of my mind all of the other sexist shite that my advisor said to me over the years. When asked, all the other (entirely male) faculty would say about him was “oh, he has issues with women.”

XX

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I used to work in a bar as a waitress. One time while I was working someone touched my ass. At the University we had an old proferos who was telling very sexist ‘jokes’.

Ruth

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I am almost 40 and a full grown woman, yet I am still sometimes referred to as “girl”. Men don’t realise the issue until I raise how weird it would be for them to be called “boy”. The other day I was not told “don’t worry about that little one” (I am 1.80m tall)

Emelia J.

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In my first year of university I was sexually assaulted, two of my neighbours assaulted me multiple times. In my third year of university I was emotionally and physically abused by my boyfriend (now ex). I tried to reach out to my peers and lecturers but a lot of them laughed and thought I was being dramatic, “enjoy it while you can.” One said giggling. Throughout those three years I felt so pathetic, I was treated like a toy and that haunts me. Although I’ve had EMDR therapy I still feel dirty and even though I know it isn’t my fault, I fear I’ll never feel ‘normal’. One of my assaulters went on to be a teacher and that scares me. Last year, 1 year after breaking up with my boyfriend I went on a date, my roommate set me up, it was near the end and we were walking back, it starts pouring down with rain and we were by my apartment, so I invited him in for tea. I went to get changed. We sat on the sofa and watched a TV show, he gets close and wraps his arm around me, I think nothing of it, a few minutes later his hand drops and starts to grope my breast. I told him to leave firmly and later that week he messaged me saying I led him on and it was my fault. I have sensitive eyes, so I wear sunglasses, this day it was partly cloudy and I was struggling to keep my eyes open, the sunglasses help that. I was walking towards the food market and out of a car is a catcall followed by “summer time baby.” I told a few of my friends and they said “oh but it is flattering.” I am not an animal to be whistled at and for me to come running, a car horn isn’t a flattering approach to any person either. In college I liked drawing self-portraits and one classmate pointed at the drawing and said, “why do your breasts look that big? You always wear baggy clothes, I can’t tell.” I felt violated.

Marta

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We were having beers after work with some colleagues. There are 2 colleagues, and one of them usually says that they two are both perverts. We usually take it as a joke because this coworker is all the time saying nonsense (as we think but I don’t know) and the other coworker is very shy. Okay, so after some beers they start telling stories, then the shy guy starts telling stories about his college. He joked that in his college the showers are mixed, both men and women use the same space. His joke was that they would go to watch the female students taking showers. And the peak of his joke was that sometimes someone would say: “hey, there are girls in the showers, let’s go!” they would all go and maybe discovered that those girls were not pretty so they would be very disappointed. When he told this, I froze and the only thing I could say was that I didn’t like it at all but nobody else reacted except for laughing at his joke. Then I spoke with a friend who also went to the same college and she told me that the showers were individual but that they were open at the top so it could be that someone would try to look from above or hide to see, so she was all the time scared and afraid, she and others would try to go when there wasn’t anybody else in the showers. So my “pervert” coworker not only made a super cruel joke, he and his friends were probably looking over the top of the showers.

Jen

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A younger colleague in his mid 30s has for 5 years been excused of behaviours such as bullying, intimidation, incompetence, bad judgement and insulting clumsy rudeness…very often with a slight smile from manager and shrug (“He’s young” / “He needs to learn” / “He lacks confidence in himself which is why he overcompensates”.) Now despite this all I see him still being indulged and mentored by two older male colleagues. Watching them in meetings together is like watching three male dogs wrestling and playing. Not for one moment have I exhibited similar behaviours, I do my job, take initiative, am professional…and unmentored, and generally ignored and/or talked over in meetings. Somehow, I am at a loss to explain it, he continues to be given more responsibility.

Kale

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Getting wolf-whistled as I passed a group of boys whilst walking home from university. (Swansea, UK)

A

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To the post on the 20 January 2023 about men with long hair not being asked if they’re gay… Nah, that does happen, a lot. I’ve been called gay, a fag, homo, and many other things. I’ve also been groped and sexually assaulted by women and men. Sometimes the men don’t realize that I’m a man until they grab and I turn around. That one is always fun to see their faces but then they immediately follow it up with a “you fag.”