One of the things that many men fail to understand is how pervasive the sexual harassment, assault, etc. is in a woman's life. People talk about some of the biggest events and they think , “Well it happened once or twice.” Just today I saw a comment from some guy who couldn't understand why all men were being blamed when only a 1000 or so men did this sort of thing. I guess that was what finally catalyzed me into writing this, because well over a hundred men have done something to me. Before I aged out of this sort of thing, probably 15-20% of the men I knew or saw out in public did something or said something or otherwise made me feel unsafe. Millions of men have done something, not around a 1000.
For me, the harassment was basically continuous from age 11 when I sprouted a 40 inch bustline until I left for college (a women's school where I felt safe for the first time in years.)
Every time I walked anywhere in public, the sidewalk, a restaurant , a store, the halls of my school, I faced catcalls and some truly disgusting suggestions or stares. This started at age 11 when I sadly went from a 6X little girls size to a 14 Missus. As if it wasn't bad enough to have your body change that drastically so fast, the part where I stopped being a person and started being an object was worse.
It wasn't just catcalls though. Boys in my class felt the need to snap my bra (that hurts in case you are not aware); they felt the need to grab my boobs; they felt the need to stare unwaveringly at my chest.
And not just boys in my class in school. Adult men did the same things. Every damn day, through my pre-teen and teen years, at least one person harassed me
And if I didn't feel safe in the public arena, home was worse. My father was emotionally abusive my wholelife. After I developed, he became sexually abusive as well. He never actually raped me that I remember (although honestly I blocked out a lot of those years), but he forced kisses on the mouth with tongue(ewww, I have never enjoyed kissing since) and he grabbed the boobs daily. And the leers were always there as well.
In all those years, no person everstood up for me even though many witnessed what was happening. That taught me well that there was no one I could trust or turn to.
College was better because at least I was safe on campus. But out in town or at a party, well, all bets were off. At once point I took a class at a men's college that was nearby. One of my classmates told me that by being on his campus, I was agreeing to sex with any man that wanted it. He was pre-law, If you were wondering what shapes the attitudes of judges that don't send convicted rapists to jail because it would ruin their their lives, this is it.
It was an era when men wanted sex on athe first date or there would be no second date. I never had a second date until after I graduated. It wasn't that I wanted to be a virgin, but that I wanted the guy to at least know what my name was.
It was after college that the really dangerous stuff happened. I went to work for the US Navy as a civilian employee in a job with 50% travel. I had my boss try to break into my hotel room at 3 am. I didn't open the door and the next day we both pretended it had not happened.
I had a colleague ask me to walk up the stairs because he liked to watch my boobs bounce. I had a team of guys, who worked for me, spend some time speculating on what my bra size was when they thought I was not in my office next door to theirs and they only shut up when I told them they all were wrong.
And I had a boss who said “Fuck“ literally (yes I do mean literally not figuratively) several times a sentence. My delightful coworkers took it into their head to dislike a different woman in the office and took great joy in rubbing their cocks on her coffee cup. Then they bragged about it after she drank from it. Who knows what they did to my stuff that I never heard about.
I still had had the constant stares and catcalls too and total strangers grabbing my boobs in a bar. One guy I went on a date with suddenly said. “Hey you're pretty.” It was about two hours into the date and the very first time he had taken his eyes off the boobs to look at my face.
I got date raped twice by two different guys. I got raped by a coworker at a party after I lay down to sleep off some booze and I woke up to find him pounding away inside me. Why didn't I report it? I guess you forgot the part where junior high and high school made me realize that no one would ever stick up for me. And it was shortly after the next incident I am going to describe.
One day in the office, I was sitting there doing some mathematical calculations and concentrating very deeply, when Wham!, I was on the floor with a guy (who was a foot taller than me and weighed over 100 pounds more) on top of me trying to rip off my clothes. In the office, in full view of twenty other men. Not a one lifted a finger to help me. I don't know how I got him off me, but let's just say adrenaline is a wonderful thing.
After, my boss (yeah the same one who later tried to break into my hotel room) called me into his office and told me that if I pressed charges, my career was over. Every single one of those 20 men told me they would lie under oath if I had the guy arrested. I later spent over a year traveling on the same team with this guy. 30 years later I broke down in tears when we moved to a new office and all of the cubicles were facing so that people would approach from behind. At least times had changed enough that when I told them why I would have to quit rather than sit there, they rearranged the cubes for me.
After 40, I mostly aged out of this sort of thing, although I did have the occasional stalker in the grocery store who couldn't understand why I didn't want to go on a date and the former coworker who asked me out two days after my boyfriend of 26 years died.
I don’t hate men. I have known and worked with some really great guys. But it is not just a few bad apples and not just a few times in a woman’s life.
For guys who are not supposed to be voting in the poll, in the upper right corner of the poll is an option to see results. Please view the results if you are a guy, I think most decent men will be shocked.
Update:
I am humbled and honored with the response to this diary. Apparently I struck quite a nerve.
Thank you for those who helped shut down a couple hijackers.
Thank you, too, for those who offered sympathy. I do want you to know, I am doing OK. It took a long time and some fairly heavy therapy. And of course aging out of much of this nonsense helped immeasurably.
I am so grateful that many women found this a safe place to share your own experiences. I could wish there were fewer such experiences to share.
And for the women not yet ready or able to talk about their own experiences, know that there are many of us who understand. I felt so alone when a lot of this happened because we didn't discuss such issues and there was no way to know how many other women, too. Secrecy is part of what causes harm.
I could tell some men are getting annoyed that women continue to speak on this subject. But the main point is to get people start to see this pervasive, it is not just a few bad apples. We can't fix this until we understand the impact on so many women. I am sorry that disturbs some of you. I hope the diary did open some eyes.
I think the poll was key. If you didn't vote, please make sure to see the results. And notice how many women chose to vote. Again it shows the pervasiveness of the issue.
We need to figure out where to go from here. In a way, I am glad I did a data dump on most of the names of the men involved so that I don't have to decide if I should destroy their lives as well. I really think revenge is not healthy, but I also know there must be consequences or society will not change. We must be careful not to destroy people for things that were commonplace at the time, but really only pursue the most serious events from the distant past.
We need to do better at speaking up and especially men and women who observe others being harassed need to intervene. It's a lot easier to shut down this behavior if the witnesses are on the side of the victim as they were not for me. We also need to recognize that the pervasive atmosphere of harassment means we need to start shutting down the events which individually don't seem so serious. But we also need to recognize that if a person stops when confronted, then the minor events don't need to be pursued further. The serious rape and attempted rape type things should be pursued, but honestly women aren't going to do that as long as the culture of victim blaming continues.
And mostly we need all men to start to understand that women's experiences in this area and their perception of the harm they suffer from them are often very different from the way men see them. We need to keep sharing and talking until there is more understanding.
We need to teach young men how to let young women know they are attracted and how to accept that women get the choice of what happens to their bodies and that anything except an enthusiastic yes is a no. We need to teach young woman how to speak up and get help. We also need to talk about what is and is not acceptable in the workplace. Perhaps we need to encourage more people to consider coworkers as off limits as their sisters and daughters. Having an incest taboo at work could solve a lot of this, I believe.
And finally, someone messaged me to let me know that he had shared this with his sons. Thank you and I hope others will share with their children. They can change our culture.
Please also read about the private message I got in response to this diary.
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