Didn't we all?

My brother in law, when I was thirteen, came behind me and fumbled my developing breasts and commented on them. I never told my sister but made sure that when I had a daughter she was never alone with him

"Witzend" Your story reminded me of something that happened about 20 years ago when I was travelling on the tube - not to me fortunately because I wouldn't have dealt with it in such a brave and effective way.

It was very crowded and the people standing in the space between the doors were crushed together. Then a girl said in a very loud voice "What the hell do you think you're doing?" I heard a mumbled male voice, and then the girl, again in a very loud voice "No, you weren't, you were trying to put your hand up my skirt". It was brilliant.

My friend and I were always careful to stick together when we were out, and we knew who to look out for at the places we to regularly. At college there was one lecturer who had a reputation. I ended up having a lift from him once, but he was put off because I was wearing jeans not a mini skirt. I did once get stuck in a flat near Victoria with a very persistent Yugoslavian boy. In the end I talked at him so endlessly that he gave up and took me to the station.

We all had that happen, didn't we? Most of us multiple times. For a few weeks when I was 17 I worked at the small company my father was also at. I had to make coffee for the men. One of them kept following me into the kitchen & putting his hand up my skirt. I kept avoiding him. There were other occasions, when other older men behaved like this. I never told anyone. My father certainly never knew.

Anyone easily offended, please do not read on!

But on a similar theme, when I worked for an airline a fellow stewardess was reputed to come from a somewhat upper- crust but very sweary family.

I wasn’t present, but this story - unsurprisingly! - went down in the annals. While they were down route somewhere, the whole crew were invited out for dinner. This girl was seated next a man who proceeded to finger her thigh under the table. He eventually put his hand under her skirts and proceeded to move it stealthily upwards.

She maintained her equilibrium - said and did nothing - until he reached a certain point, upon which she said very loudly, in her upper-crusty tones, ‘Would you mind taking your FUCKING finger out of my fanny?’ 😂

It seemed to me that it was more of a thing not to be propositioned/assaulted/terrified by a man back in the day. Women warned each other not to be alone with office pest. We all knew about it but didn't do anything because we knew we probably wouldn't be listened to.

my first job, i was 16 at the co op working on the fruit and veg counter it was 1979, boxes kept in the basement and i would have to replace when items ran out, 25 year old thought he was gods gift, kept trying it on, he cornered me and i grabbed his bits and squeezed as hard as i could, he said i was asking for it because i wore high heels and i was busty. he never bothered any of the women after that.

First was when I was only 15, my boss at my first Saturday job in a shoe shop, I only stayed for 5 weeks then left and went work in Woollies which was much better, then when I was 18 in Yugoslavia, my first holiday abroad, with friends in the back of a cab and a Yugoslavian waiter, that was a big eye opener, We were young and very naive, it was a definite learning experience in the 70’s, and no they weren’t reported, but they still occupy headspace to this day

Being groped in the bus stop crush was a regular occurrence. I had long nails and many a young man got on the bus with long bloody scratches down his hands.

Number 3 - I swung around and slapped him so hard in the face with my fist that his nose came flying off, and when he fell to the floor

How did his nose come flying off ?
Was it a false nose like a clowns?
Great story but might it have benefited in the retelling?

Like many I had several "experiences" as a teenager and did nothing about them and really just regarded them as an unpleasant nuisance. My feelings changed completely though when my daughter reached the same age and I could see that in many ways she was still a child and knew I would want to kill anyone who treated her that way.
I also became very cross with myself for not speaking out at the time - especially about a neighbour who was friends with all the adults in our road but all the girls knew what he was really like - and didn't tell the parents

It wasn’t an assault as such, but when I was a very new student at my first tutorial, and very nervous about the essay I’d written, the first thing the tutor said was, ‘Your essay was fine - I’ve given you a B. Now, how’s your sex life?’

Would any tutor dare to ask such a thing now?
I just said, ‘Fine, thank you,’ and he didn’t push it. Ghastly bloke, though - 25ish, mid Atlantic accent, evidently fancied himself absolutely rotten.

I was about 19 and had started a new job, which required a bus ride into town in order to catch another bus to the village where my family lived.

As I left the office, a man stopped his car and offered me a lift. I had been introduced to several people at work and, stupidly, assumed this was one of those people. Half way through the journey, he started to ask me personal questions - did I have a boyfriend, what did we get up to, etc. etc.? It was frightening but I didn't say anything. I asked to get out of the car early, using the excuse that I was meeting someone. Fortunately, he stopped and let me out. That taught me a real lesson.

I don't think I even told my Mum and Dad or my boyfriend. I felt ashamed of my stupidity. This sort of subject had never been broached at home.

I’m not going to excite the (hopefully small) cohort of male readers who seem to enjoy reading GNers’ sexual experiences but yes indeed … didn’t we all have to deal with boys and men treating us as commodities there to be groped, mauled or worse, because they felt perfectly entitled to that gratification. For too many of us it started in infancy, there’s nothing nudge-nudge, wink-wink about sexual assault.

I was about 13 and of an age where teens like us hung about at the bottom of the road. Probably about ten of us. One night I was walking home (5 mins away) and passed a derilict cottage. Three of the boys we had been with shoved me into the front garden and tried to get my jeans off. An elderly lady (as I thought when I was 13, probably in her fifties) was passing, heard my calls and came into the garden and whacked all three of the lads with her brolly! They scattered immediately and I was so grateful to her. Really, they were just developing boys "trying it on" but I'll never know how far they would have gone.

I never told anyone, not even my girlfriends.

I did know a boy whose teenage sister was made pregnant by their father - again, nobody thought much of it. When researching my family history I learnt that in years gone by if a wife died, the eldest girl would take her place IN ALL RESPECTS. Nobody batted an eyelid at this.

And yes, there was the flasher on the way to my friend's house. He was at the edge of the woods. We laughed at him. Never thought to report him, he was just an oddball to us.

I’m surprised by comments suggesting we didn’t make a big deal of it, as though that’s the right approach.
I’m also not convinced today’s men behave much differently.

Reading these experiences, I could weep for our young and innocent selves all those years ago.

I’m struck by how many of us are saying we didn’t know what to do - my mother certainly didn’t arm me with any strategies to deal with these situations and yet surely the previous generation had had to endure these lechers as well? Maybe they’d imbibed the myth that only girls who were ‘asking for it’ got harassed/assaulted.

I had a Saturday job in Boots in the late 60’s the day I started the two “older ladies” told me to never go in the stockroom with the manager as he was handy ! 6 months on I had forgotten and went in the stockroom , he came in stood behind me pushing himself against me to reach up and get something, as his arm came down he touched my boob! I stood there and didn’t say anything , but got out of there as quick as I could !! Didn’t tell anyone and just got on with life that’s how it was . You just knew them as dirty old men. ! Mind you I have seen women behave like this towards young boys in a factory job I did !!!

No, I didn't.

It was just an accepted part of life wasnt it? I had a boss who used to make suggestions. One day when I took the files back to his office he threw a cushion on the floor and asked me to get on it. I left his office and after receiving a nasty message on my disctaphone, eventually left.. I have been orally 'raped' I suppose, but as I was on holiday with the guy in another country what could I do?. He didnt get the chance again and we split up when we came back to the UK. It was so commonplace to get a very close rub in a club or a bottom pinch.

Many times. The worst was on a date. He had a tiny sports car. He climbed on top of me and begged me for sex. I was a seventeen year old virgin. I ended up crying and he reluctantly took me home.

When I was a teenager in the 70's it was part of life and we thought nothing of it. At school there was a teacher who would wander round twanging bra straps as we worked, also boys who did what is now called up skirting. Wolf whistles from lorry drivers or when passing building sites. Also I worked in a chemist and my boss would always need to squeeze through the dispensary doorway at the same time as any of us girls that worked there.

I went to see Battlestar Galactic on my own at the cinema just as the film started a man sat down next to me even though there were plenty of empty seats. He started rubbing his leg against mine so I got up to move and he grabbed my leg I was so angry I poked him in the eye. He let go so I moved and say next to a young woman who was with her boyfriend. She must have thought I was really weird playing gooseberry to people I didn't know.

I think all of us at some point! Never made a big deal of it in the 70's..never thought of it as sexual assault though!

butterandjam

Mine was my first boss at Saturday job, kept sending me up to the stock room to fetch xyz, , then he'd follow me up there and start groping and rubbing against me. Middle aged man, his wife was downstairs The next was the 50-ish son in law of our landlord . I was about 14.

I asked my Mum what to do; she told me, "Tell them if they ever touch you again you'll scream very loud then tell their wife". I told them and it worked perfectly.

My mother told me much the same, though she did say first to try just moving away from the man or moving his hand if he was groping.

It worked well, that threat about telling their wife, didn¨t it?