what makes guys think they can do this?

[Noos]

I, and many other women, have been subjected to a lot of sexual harassment in public in my life because of the way I look. That attention can take the form of positive or negative comments about appearance but whatever their tone, they are unsolicited and unwanted comments and women dread them.

 

Especially when I was younger, guys who were complete strangers would take it upon themselves to rate my looks out of ten. SOme guy came up to me at a beer fest about three weeks ago and commented on a quirky skirt I was wearing. Guys will yell out from car windows to comment or loudly ask their friends an opinion of your looks.

 

Why do guys think they have the right to insult women in public like this? I mean, these are people who are complete strangers. I've had a guy run a pool cue up my leg and lift up my skirt before too and a guy put his hand under my undercarriage (i was wearing jeans) and pull his hand back from the front to the back of my bum. I don't understand it - who do they think they are that can touch me if they want?

[lindya]

I've had a guy run a pool cue up my leg and lift up my skirt before too and a guy put his hand under my undercarriage (i was wearing jeans) and pull his hand back from the front to the back of my bum. I don't understand it - who do they think they are that can touch me if they want?

 

One time in a bar (quite a few years ago) a guy decided it would be a good idea to put his hand up my skirt and touched my crotch. My automatic reflex was to turn round and slap him across the face. Some guys I knew later told me it was incredibly stupid to slap him (ignoring the fact that the slap was an automatic reflex to an assault rather than a conscious decision) and that I was lucky not to get a glass in my face that night. I think up until that stage I'd always been pretty placid and non-challenging of men, but that opened my eyes.

 

A couple of years later, a guy walked up behind me in a bar and grabbed my breasts. I turned round and asked him what he thought he was doing, and he immediately got flustered and apologetic. If you're at all unsure of your ground and/or your right to not be grabbed and prodded by strangers, sleazebags will home in like dogs on the scent of a terrified fox - but if they know you won't stand for it, they're far more likely to back off (in public, at least). Be very clear that these guys don't have the right to handle you. Technically, you could report them to the police for assault if they insist on manhandling you against your wishes.

 

Other people (particularly guys, but some women too) will say that's an OTT reaction...or make some other comment that's designed to belittle any woman who shows a bit of self respect. I say screw people who think like that. If someone's not too shy to trample over your rights and handle you like a piece of meat, you shouldn't be afraid to make as much fuss and noise about it as you feel like making.

[Adunaphel]

Great post, Lindya, and excellent advice.

 

If someone's not too shy to trample over your rights and handle you like a piece of meat, you shouldn't be afraid to make as much fuss and noise about it as you feel like making.

 

How true. I think i'll print out that sentence and keep it around.

There is no reason to be overly-sensitive about the feelings of someone who treated you with no respect.

If they did not worry about touching you in a rude, inappropriate way, there is no reason to spare them the embarassment of pointing their rudeness out.

 

How was the saying? People will disrespect you only as long as you allow them to.

Shy people should rememeber that it's in their right not to allow jerks to treat them like a piece of meat.

[Outcast]

Some guys are idiots. No point in troubling yourself over the whys of it.

[lindya]

Shy people should rememeber that it's in their right not to allow jerks to treat them like a piece of meat.

 

As in the advice that if some perv uses the anonymity of a crowded train to have a sly grope, you should call him out as loudly as possible - however painfully embarrassing a scene it causes. Nice and feminine as it might be to be sweet, demure and uncomplaining, having a say over who touches your body (and how) feels even nicer.

[2sunny]

I go out in public forums a bit with this gal that has a similar body as mine. It turns heads anywhere we go.

 

Strangers tend to grab her as we walk by. She asked me why this doesn't necessarily happen to me and I told her:

 

I walk with an attitude - especially you need to move with confidence and like you know exactly where you are going.

 

After she tried it a few times she realized that men were no longer trying to grab her a$$ as she walked by, she was amazed. I do think it boils down to confidence and attitude.

 

If you have an attitude that is comanding respect, then people are less likely to mess with you.