University

My List

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– 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”

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

Stella

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I was at a lake with my friends talking to one another last week, after we had gone swimming and were standing in our swimsuits in a wooded/bushy area about 30 feet from the main trail. I should note that we are 15 and 16 year olds. As we were talking, I realized that there was a grown man crouching in the bushes off the main trail, staring at us, partially obscured by bushes. I shouted, “The main trail is over there” to him, and then stared at him. Then, my friends turned around and stared at this voyeur for a solid minute, and he finally slithered out and away from the bushes and left us alone. When I was thirteen, I was running and this middle-aged man took pictures of my body as I ran by. When I was 13 and passing through a university, I had a college aged man comment “that girl’s cute” to his friend. My dad is going with me to buy pepper spray this weekend to protect myself, but when I first told someone about an incident, the first thing they asked was, “what were you wearing?” I felt hurt, angry, and violated, as these types of incidences have increased as I have gotten older. I am absolutely done. Shut your mouth and don’t violate strangers, it’s that easy.

Maria

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When I was in high school there was this guy that was obsessed with me. I had to sit beside him every German and English class, which means 6 hours per week. He would constantly touch my leg with his leg during classes. He also asked me ouț at least a dozen of times. I told the teacher that was responsabile for our class, but he did absolutely nothing (the same teacher that groped me at the prom).When the guy finally understood that I won’t go ouț with him he told me that he will become a gynecologist and I will be his pacient someday. I also told this to another teacher(female this time) and all she did was laugh. Now me and that guy are colleagues in med school. He left me alone, but he does the same things with other girls. I am terrified that one day this man will be a doctor. The system is so broken for not requiring a psychological test before entering med school.

Techie Third Wheel

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When at an open party at our university, my partner and I were talking to a guy we didn’t know. We both studied computer science and that made the guy think we would be really into computer hardware (a common misunderstanding). My partner knows next to nothing about computer hardware – he has only ever been interested in the software side. I used to work full time in a computer hardware store and, unlike my partner, have changed hardware on laptops and built a desktop computer from scratch using components I hand-picked myself. Yet, this stranger kept solely addressing my partner and looking at him while talking about hardware, even though my partner kept deferring to me and I also tried to interject with stuff like: “Yeah, there were actually quite a lot of recalls on that motherboard back when I worked for [company]”. The guy left the conversation after giving up on having a conversation about hardware with my partner, having pretty much only uttered a “hello” to me.