Didn't we all?

I was waiting for the bus once and there was an elderly man sorted of hanging back. As soon as I joined the queue he stood behind very close. He was pressing something into my back. I thought it was his shopping bag or something. It obviously wasn't!

The article about Camilla does read as if this was an unusual thing and suggests that it influenced her decision to speak out for abused women in later life.
I suspect the article was written by a man who has no idea how common this was.
I also believe that most decent men would be shocked and appalled if they realised what their wives, sisters and daughters have experienced

According to my 20 year old GD things haven't changed that much.

There were quite a few ‘flashers’ around when I was young but you don’t hear about them so much these days. Hopefully there are not so many ( more likely people don’t bother reporting them )

One day my superior stood behind me and grabbed my breasts. I jumped and screamed and he said sorry and we remained on good terms, and he never tried it again. I was singing "I'm just a girl who can't say no" from "Oklahoma, so perhaps he thought that it applied to me.

When younger, my niece h now a gran herself) was sexually assaulted by a man on a late night tube in London.
BIG MISTAKE!
At the time she was in the top 5 in the UK in her weight division in Judo. She dumped him out at the next stop with a suspected dislocated shoulder 😊

No we did not.

I used to type up medical reports, we had one creepy doctor who would dictate on every medical done on a female,
‘Both breasts looked equal in size and weighed the same’. He was manhandling those ladies, none of whom complained. When I raised this issue, I too was told to leave it because that’s Dr Soandso’s way’

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It was 'successful', but you didn't consider that you had been sexually assaulted?????

How odd. Maybe you could explain more?
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I find it too difficult to talk about in any detail, but I was regularly abused by a lodger in my teens.
And various other gropings etc, just like most women seem to have to endure.

Without a doubt. It was just accepted. I fought a family member off after he gave me a lift home and stopped the car. He had his hand up my top and was trying to get his other hand in my trousers! Walking across a busy bar men often tried to grab me! I just used to shove them off and carry on! Wouldn’t be acceptable today thank goodness. I hate the thought of my beautiful granddaughters having to put up with it.

It was par for the course in the past but the majority of us just learned to deal with it and I think it made us stronger. I'm not in any way saying it was OK for men to act this way and obviously some cases were far more extreme than others and I would never want to minimise those. I do however think it's a worry when cases are brought to court and include things said or done many years ago when things were so very different.

Reading all these accounts and remembering my own experiences of casual groping, explicit comments shouted at me in the street etc really brings it home that we put up with a lot.

I doubt that any female under 40 will ever understand what women had to accept as 'normal' male behaviour.

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Exactly my experience ViceVersa except the bus wasn't even crowded

Very odd that he chose to sit next to me instead of in one of the multitude of empty double seats.

He actually moved from sitting next to a pretty young lady - she was obviously more confident than me and 'saw him off'. She looked behind at me.

He was running his fingers up and down my outer thigh (mini skirt days). I had stiletto brolly that I could have stabbed him with. But like you I was totally numb. He got off the stop before.me and turned and smirked.

I was disgusted with my lack of action and felt thatf I saw him again I would be stronger. But I never did.
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Often happened on the tube in the morning rush hour. I was not pleasant after a 12 hour night shift and was a good high kicker!

I'm so sorry you went through a very similar experience, Barbadosbelle. I think unless you've actually experienced that 'freezing' response, it's very hard to explain. I've never really told anyone what happened - I felt (and still do) so ashamed that I never called him out, or hit him or at least did something. When I did attempt to explain to a family member, it was laughed off, so I've just carried with me ever since.

One of the fathers in our teenage friendship group was a real nuisance groper. My sister and I told our mother, who knew all about him. She must have said something to him, because nothing else happened.
I remember having to use my elbows in a crowded lift and on the tube.
I really hope times have changed.

Reading these messages it’s shocking what women have to put up with.

Men have put up with it too since childhood but they discuss it even less...

Fortunately for me I was the eldest, and soon had to learn that it was my responsibility to look after my siblings, especially my next sister. So whilst I would be far too embarrased to ask to visit the toilet or whatever it was myself, I got used to asking on her behalf, and found that I could do this, and grew used to doing this with adults or whatever. I also had a very clear idea of what was fair or not. So one day queueing for bread in the shop, the woman behind me tried to ask for a loaf over my head. I spoke up quite loudly to say that I was next and my mummy was expecting me at home. So with this background from about 9/10 years old .

Then in London working in various places and travelling by tube , of course , I got inappropriate touching etc. But my best answer was to ask in a very polite but loud voice , " Oh man in the blue jumper, will you please stop rubbing against me," or "will the man in the grey suit and blue tie stop leaning against me" It usually worked a treat with the man concerned often blushing and I also developed a good stare without blinking which I looked at them as long as they or I was on the tube. As I grew older, any younger woman in my office who said there had been a problem, I would try and check it out and of course it would often be just that one person that was a problem to many , thinking that by being in a higher level he had the right to behave so badly, but of course never when other people would see him. My useful method then was to wait for times such as in a queue in the dining room, or at a t break when there were plenty of people about, and then say in quite a loud voice to the person who had been treated badly things like " what was that when you were getting photocopies ?" or " you dont have to put up with that. Meet me at lunchtime and we will talk it over" Of course quite often we could not prove it that would work in a court of law, but it usually worked as the person responsible knew that I knew and was likely to make an issue of it and definitely would not let them get away with it. (By the way I had quite auburn hair and was used to standing up for people) I have had the odd time when I have been threatened specifically or indirectly but they learnt that that only made me more likely to carry on. I didnt choose to deliberately start anything but if I felt that this was the truth or knew it as other women had had similar things happen previously , I would do something and if possible would try and get several women together, so that they could not say it was a mistake or that the one woman had misunderstood a gesture, and once we had done something like that , there was rarely any repeat of the behaviour as the person concerned would then realize that we had got the measure of him and he wouldnt get away with it again.

It was the mid 60s and I was 15, travelling home to our little east midlands village on the last bus of the day (about 8pm!). There were very few people on the bus and, just before it left the bus station, a middle-aged man from the village got on and immediately sat next to me despite all the empty seats around. I barely knew him although I knew his name was Mick* and he'd done a few odd jobs for my dad.

He reeked of stale beer, unwashed body and cigarettes so , politely, I asked him to move adding as an excuse that I had a cold which I wouldn't want him to catch. He dismissed this, said(slurred) that being in company and enjoying the craic was more important than a few cold germs. I couldn't ask the conductor for help because our buses had recently gone over to one-man operation.

For the whole 30 minute journey, he kept up a one-sided conversation full of innuendo and lewd references and I was squirming with embarrassment. The few other passengers got off in intermediate villages and by the time we reached our village, Mick and I were the only ones left.

The way home from the bus terminus was up a quiet lane with houses set well back from the road. Mick lived with his girlfriend in a house about halfway along the lane, I lived at the further end.

Of course, he wanted to walk with me and by this time was droning on about how much he enjoyed photography and would love to take my picture and, if I wanted, I could bring my friend Nina* and he'd photograph the two of us in our beach gear ... I wasn't saying anything, just wanting to get home and away from the creep.

Suddenly, in the darkest part of the lane, he turned and lunged at me, mumbling, "Gissa kiss, gorgeous," shoving his stubbly face into mine. I pushed him away and told him to give over but he made another lunge and managed a clumsy kiss (yeeeuk) while grabbing my right breast with one hand.

That was it! I didn't stop to think, just did what my mother had told me to do and brought my knee up hard and fast.

I must have hit the right spot because he doubled over, clutching himself and howling. As I walked briskly away, he sobbed something about what was he going to do now? So I told him his best bet was to go and explain to his girlfriend why he was in that state while I went home and told my dad.

We moved to another part of the country not long after and I didn't tell my dad for nearly 30 years! One day, we were idly chatting about life in that village and some of the people we had known. Dad asked if I remembered Mick and I said only too well and told him about the incident. To my astonishment, he burst out laughing and said he'd been wondering for years what he had done to upset Mick - who had suddenly stopped acknowledging him and would cross the road if he saw Dad coming!

I've never used my knee since although I have slapped an office bum-pincher, publicly called loud attention to a groper on a bus and lambasted a much older male colleague whose behaviour was making two 16 year old new girls very distressed.

I don't tolerate fools gladly and lechers and gropers not at all.

*Not their real names.

Yes to the usual transport and office problems. The worst was when I was following my kind ex-MiL into the kitchen and the door was pushed shut in front of me with my exFiL pushing himself against my body trying to get his hand up my skirt, behind the door. How did this frail old man get from the armchair and to the door so quickly. I push him off, he was stronger than he looked. I was very wary of him after that but unfortunately, it did happen a second time but not a third. This was while his wife was in the next room. I was divorced from their only son but I was made welcomed to visit them so that they could see their DGD.
However, the repercussions were, that when I moved countries, I could never let their DGD stay with them.

I was forced to have sex , I was about 13/14 a friend who's car I was in told me he would put me out the car ( miles from home) unless I did it . When aged 15 working in a shop the owner harassed me constantly for sex . I remember it so clearly because I didn't know how to react or what to do . I was afraid of losing my job and never told my parents . I left the job as it became so uncomfortable to be in the presence of this man . Again when I was 17 learning to drive the teacher often put his hand on my leg or looked up my skirt when I got into the car . I realise now non of this was my fault but I believed it was . I now know I was gullible and naive. So pleased the young are more educated now .

So sorry Toetoe being raped is very different to being touched up.

I feel quite shocked at the number of stories on here referencing medical examinations. At my medical with
a designated doctor (not my own) in Leeds for entry into
the WRAF in 1973 he instructed me to strip down to my
knickers and then run and jump on the spot, braless.
I thought it very odd and painfull but was reassured by
the presence of the cleaner sat in the corner. How
innocent can you be.
It does strike me though reading through this thread
that being a doctor in those times was a bonanza for some
of them.
My first sexual attack was aged 16 by a boy who suggested
a walk in the park at dusk He amoursly pulled me over
and then ripped open my blouse My sister was more
furious than sympathetic, it was her blouse I had nicked
for the date!