I am not a piece of meat.

[burntcopper]

There are things in this life I have come to accept.

One is that, being blonde, nicely shaped, and short (and therefore not threatening) means that you will get a certain type of bloke calling out 'hey, pretty girl, talk to me, what's your name?' whilst walking to destinations (and yes, this includes when they haven't even seen your face - blonde, short and curvy is enough as far as this type is concerned). To which you tend to not reply or go 'none of your business'. Reponse from them is normally 'Come on, talk to me, what's the rush', etc. After about fifty yards they tend to get the picture.

Yesterday afternoon, walking through Russell Square, one of them sees me coming and starts up with it. I ignore him and keep walking. Only thing is? When I'm passing him, he grabs at my arm. Fucking *grabbed* at me. Fortunately, it didn't take and keeping walking pulled my arm out of his hand. And yes, he did keep going with the 'what's your rush?' as I kept walking. And then about a hundred yards out of the park, passing the British Museum, I hear him again with a 'come on, talk to me, oh well, at least I get to watch you walk, keep shaking those hips'.

To say that I was skeeved and a wee bit freaked out is a given. If the grab had held, there would have elbows, fists, screaming and yells of assault (which it is).

Fucking grabbing at a passer-by? Who does that? Under what fucking circumstances is that acceptable?

Comments

[olympia-m.livejournal.com]

bloody hell!!!

that is completely unacceptable!
*shakes angry fist at bastard men*

[kingbantam.livejournal.com]

I think you'll find that's a problem with being female rather than being a particular type of female - at least in my experience of these things.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

What? Is this fuckwit week or something?

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

It's not acceptable under any circumstances. In fact, it's sexual assault, and yelling STOP GROPING ME OR I'LL CALL THE POLICE is entirely justified.

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

UGH. Fucking bastard.

[gmh.livejournal.com]

This sort of thing makes me see a bright and shining shade of scarlet; it makes me wish that Hothead Paisan existed and ran a call-out service.

I could rant about this for hours, but I suspect that none of it would be particularly original or constructive. Ugh. I'm just disgusted that this sort of shit happens to any woman anywhere.


A question - I suspect that there's no single right answer, but...

As a male passerby, would intervention be appropriate in such cases?

Generally speaking, if the woman seems to be OK or capable of defending herself, I'd hold off unless things got physical - it doesn't exactly help to reinforce the idea that women need male protection; and (alas) women are generally far more used to handling this sort of behaviour without it escalating to physical violence.

If there's an obvious mismatch in size or vulnerability, or the woman seems to be in imminent danger, I'm more inclined to intervene; generally, it's a case of playing it by ear and providing help if help is asked for.

It's infuriating, though; there's always the nagging feeling that by not stepping in, I am failing to oppose this sort of abuse by scumbags like the above.

[tirinar.livejournal.com]

Definitely a woman thing. In the kingdom of the blinded by lust the one eyed snake is king.

Punching the arrogant fucker is a totally justifiable response.

[be-themoon.livejournal.com]

*fumes angrily* argh I really want to just smack the hell out of him right now for that.

Are you feeling okay? That had to be scary. <333

[omylouse.livejournal.com]

Eeep! How annoyingly scary! Makes me glad I'm brunette & pretty much average on height & appearance!

I hope you don't run into him/another like him again :s

[silly-swordsman.livejournal.com]

AOL!

Sorry, not really coherent enough to say anything other than agreeing with this. Too seething with anger.

[cidercupcakes.livejournal.com]

Oh, JFC. I just find it so fucking offensive that you even have to "accept" the hollering and such, because that should not be acceptable. Let alone this shit. It's scary and it's absolutely infuriating besides. >:(

[ladydchaos.livejournal.com]

been reading up on this, seeing if there i a law against street harrasment since it always only ever seems to be the men doing it to the women, regardless of your look.

found nothing yet but there does seem to be support groups agains the whole thing.

We don't do it to men so why do they feel they have to do it to us? even the married ones. i'm baffled but i can ask my consruction worker mate for his side?

Grabbing was completely out of the question and you should have asked to speak to his manager saying his actions were completely out of order and you should get him fired for such actions as it's not tolerated in the work place where ever you work.

[eruvadhril.livejournal.com]

Under no fucking circumstances. I would have punched the skeevy bastard in the throat.

[sbp.livejournal.com]

Yesterday there were a couple of blokes who were shouting after a woman walking down the street. So as I walked past I said "leave her alone" and then they started effing and blinding at (male) me instead.

It's crap that you just have to accept it. I don't know what people can do though, apart from tell their male friends it's not acceptable, but most sane people know that anyway. Grr.

[minim_calibre]

The only situation where it would be acceptable to grab a complete stranger is if they were about to get hit by a runaway vehicle and you're pulling them to safety.

Any other unasked, unwanted grabbing is grounds for a punch in the face.

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

Construction workers tend to *never* do this beyond a whistle and a 'Hey, how's it going?'. Absolutely nothing offensive or creepy. The 'talk to me' lot are 90% suits.

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

yeah. more angry than anything after about ten minutes.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

Seconded, speaking especially as someone else who gets this sort of unwanted attention all the blasted time. I always make sure to speak up and say very clearly, "I want nothing to do with you."

[xenaclone.livejournal.com]

::HUGS::

I've found that deepening my voice and saying, 'GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!' very loudly is pretty effective. Ditto on the Police option.

[luckykaa.livejournal.com]

I agree with that. Actually, hitting him is probably perfectly justifiable.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. 'Reasonable Force' is permitted, although that's a pretty elastic concept. A smaller woman could probably get away with quite firm use of force to defend herself against non-violent but sexual touching from a larger man, on the basis that she'd have reasonable fear of what it might be leading to. But getting help as fast as possible is the best option.

[kittynic]

Completely agree!

It annoys that that some people think it's ok to invade a stranger's personal space in that way.