I was telling my husband all the shit I had to put up with when I was younger. I lived in a small market town and always had a job in a shop somewhere, so I often had to smile at people when I served them.
As a teen, it shocked me that just a smile was enough encouragement for some.
I had one bloke, someone's Dad, follow me home from my work (newsagents) in his car for months, slowly curb crawling. In the end I asked him loudly in the shop if he would stop doing that, because it was a bit creepy. It stopped.
Another job I had, off-licence, the boss moved the till counter so he had to rub himself against us when he came to empty the till.
I worked in a pub and that was odd, if you work behind a bar they all think you are their property. That got a bit dangerous.
And as you say, the comments from builders, etc, for just being out and breathing air.
In my freelance life, I attend networking events, and those men are still out there, with their little wife-hating jokes, testing the water to see if they have more misogynists in the room - often, sadly, they do.
I followed the Gregg debacle; my reaction was spontaneous nausea and a slight nervous tremor of my right hand because it—all of it—was so familiar. The accusations but also his rapist-brained belief that it was his right. It’s the same somatic trigger response I get when I see a man indicted on 34 felonies, who was accused of raping a 13 year old, who was best buds with Epstein, and he is heading back to Washington where he is appointing men just like himself because this is his norm, they will all protect each other, and they will be on the world stage for another 4 years. I grew up in the 70s, when it was commonplace to see dodgy guys around young girls, their family jewels on display. It was commonplace to be groped (and worse) everywhere from the schoolyard to the subway, and when this happened to me (subway) when I was 12, my mother (a glam queen television singer during the pre-Mad Men era) simply shrugged and said “Honey, that’s just cause he thought you were so cute.” (Many more similar occurrences; many more mother comments, which bordered on a twisted pride, but that’s for another time.) So on the one hand, we have to deal with the act itself and the self-loathing, shame, and fear (of reprisal, of not being believed, of the objectification, of dredging it all up) it engenders, and on the other hand, the utter normalization of rape culture. We’re now at the point where every woman who has endured this shit over and over and is now in blessed middle age understands at the visceral level that no one will protect us beyond ourselves. We’ve had it; we’re done. But look at the American Republican Party and the men who lead it, and look at Gregg (and Bill Cosby, and all the others), and look at Gisele Pelicot, and it’s absolutely evident to me that we will no longer remain quiet, no matter how hard it is for us. And yet, after all this time I *still* have to remind myself that the shame I carry is misguided and misplaced, and a knee jerk response to the sensibility swirling around men that requires their cultural protection, and enables them to continually get away with criminal behavior.
Saturday night I was at a retirement party. I ended up being the only woman on a particular table, the rest being male coworkers of my friend (he was at another table). They started talking about how it is great getting older because you get less choosy about the women you’d fuck.
I got up to leave.
They looked briefly embarrassed and then dug in. Just a joke.
I told them that if I joined in, they would definitely not enjoy my contributions and joined another table.
I called out some misogynistic behaviour recently (belittling, rather than sexual, but amazing to hear in 2024). And again had to check myself: do I lack a sense of humour, am I being uptight? No: in a professional setting, this is not ok and it was clear he was engaging in some self censorship due to the choice of words so must have known it would have been received badly at some level. I was left thinking "my god, they really hate us, don't they?"
same age as you Sam - line for line, EVERYTHING you wrote, same here - am freshly furious about that fucker (all the f's) but gawd it's exhausting isn't it?
Also, living in America at the moment, I feel acutely aware of the approaching tide of rampant, govt endorsed misogyny that's coming. Why? Why is this happening now, in 2024? The work we do to resist this has never felt so urgent.
I’ve been writing about this, too. I grew up in NYC in the 70’s and 80’s and I can’t tell you how many times I was flashed as a little kid, and then grabbed in a stairwell and worse. And the events that are not “that bad” are normalized, and the ones that are that bad, well, you’re lucky if people believe you. And somehow you’re supposed to make sense of all that as a girl and then a woman in this culture. And now I have a 15-year-old daughter and the rage I feel is hard to describe. She was harassed on the street a few months ago, a guy scared her enough she was pressed up against a streetlight, frozen. And she told me there were four guys standing nearby watching, four dudes who looked like they’d just come from the gym, and they just watched. Sheer luck, a female teacher from her high school drove by at just that moment with her own daughter in the car. Pulled over and told my daughter to get in, which she did. I enrolled her in self defense classes the next day. But I feel like I could breathe fire, Sam.
I have no clue. It’s one thing if it’s a guy alone and he’s scared for his own physical safety I guess, but FOUR guys together watching a man harass and intimidate a child? I can’t. And honestly, it would have been so helpful and still would be if men would meet your eyes and say I’m so sorry, that is not okay, that should not be happening. I mean as a kid, walking by a construction site or anywhere really. Other men pretend they don’t hear it, so the message is you’re on your own with this. It’s infuriating.
Oh man, I wasn’t familiar with this story but it’s the same shit: entitled man feels that he has a right to do whatever he wants because he’d likely get away with it.
I’m so done. My country is being held hostage by a felon and a rapist and it brings up all the past injustices I’ve endured. And that women all over have endured.
On The Rest is Entertainment Richard Osman had an interesting point. If Wallace doesn’t watch his own playbacks he never sees the systemic cleaning up of his messes so literally can’t see that people found it unacceptable. These guys are actively protected from consequences and it isn’t special to the BBC.
I have followed the Gregg debacle; two of my best friends are native Londoners. We have discussed this and what goes on here in the States.
Like me, working my first job in retail, and boys trying to corner me in the stock room when I was 15. There are millions of us with millions of stories. If I could share photos here, I would share what I saw on Instagram today. Let's see if this link works: https://www.instagram.com/p/DCP2uCgIEbT/
Thank you for calling this out as again. Depressing isn't it, same shit, different person.
Sadly so much is systemic and I still despair about beautiful young female pop stars who think they are empowered by gyrating their barely clad bodies to the tunes they think are their own. That sadly in reality still belong to the man.
Meanwhile we still get the comments, behaviour, feel unsafe, not heard.
We are still subject to the patriarchal crap, even if it isn't voiced quite so loudly.
Sadly power, physical, wealth etc still wins.
Middle age is no protection, we are vulnerable in a different way.
We still, hopefully, support each other and have to hope that can remain how we stay safe.
I have spent the last few years having to work with a man who belittles me and controls me, and uses the most misoginistic and quietly bullying language. I feel so angry about it, and know he would never use this kind of language to speak to a man. It's made me so angry, and it's made me stressed to the point of feeling genuinely unwell each time I have to correspond with him, too. He is a Gregg Wallace type, and yes, he makes me feel full of rage. I spend a lot of time talking to my daughters about these kind of men, educating them about their rights and boundaries when spoken to like that. It's gross, and yes, makes me feel full of rage. Thank you for voicing this Sam.
Yes, we are.
I was telling my husband all the shit I had to put up with when I was younger. I lived in a small market town and always had a job in a shop somewhere, so I often had to smile at people when I served them.
As a teen, it shocked me that just a smile was enough encouragement for some.
I had one bloke, someone's Dad, follow me home from my work (newsagents) in his car for months, slowly curb crawling. In the end I asked him loudly in the shop if he would stop doing that, because it was a bit creepy. It stopped.
Another job I had, off-licence, the boss moved the till counter so he had to rub himself against us when he came to empty the till.
I worked in a pub and that was odd, if you work behind a bar they all think you are their property. That got a bit dangerous.
And as you say, the comments from builders, etc, for just being out and breathing air.
In my freelance life, I attend networking events, and those men are still out there, with their little wife-hating jokes, testing the water to see if they have more misogynists in the room - often, sadly, they do.
Yes, our buckets are full. We don't need more.
Ah the shop work, the pub work, the entitlement… it’s just never ending
I followed the Gregg debacle; my reaction was spontaneous nausea and a slight nervous tremor of my right hand because it—all of it—was so familiar. The accusations but also his rapist-brained belief that it was his right. It’s the same somatic trigger response I get when I see a man indicted on 34 felonies, who was accused of raping a 13 year old, who was best buds with Epstein, and he is heading back to Washington where he is appointing men just like himself because this is his norm, they will all protect each other, and they will be on the world stage for another 4 years. I grew up in the 70s, when it was commonplace to see dodgy guys around young girls, their family jewels on display. It was commonplace to be groped (and worse) everywhere from the schoolyard to the subway, and when this happened to me (subway) when I was 12, my mother (a glam queen television singer during the pre-Mad Men era) simply shrugged and said “Honey, that’s just cause he thought you were so cute.” (Many more similar occurrences; many more mother comments, which bordered on a twisted pride, but that’s for another time.) So on the one hand, we have to deal with the act itself and the self-loathing, shame, and fear (of reprisal, of not being believed, of the objectification, of dredging it all up) it engenders, and on the other hand, the utter normalization of rape culture. We’re now at the point where every woman who has endured this shit over and over and is now in blessed middle age understands at the visceral level that no one will protect us beyond ourselves. We’ve had it; we’re done. But look at the American Republican Party and the men who lead it, and look at Gregg (and Bill Cosby, and all the others), and look at Gisele Pelicot, and it’s absolutely evident to me that we will no longer remain quiet, no matter how hard it is for us. And yet, after all this time I *still* have to remind myself that the shame I carry is misguided and misplaced, and a knee jerk response to the sensibility swirling around men that requires their cultural protection, and enables them to continually get away with criminal behavior.
As for Gregg: he is an animal.
There are too many of us. But we will not stay quiet any more xxx
Saturday night I was at a retirement party. I ended up being the only woman on a particular table, the rest being male coworkers of my friend (he was at another table). They started talking about how it is great getting older because you get less choosy about the women you’d fuck.
I got up to leave.
They looked briefly embarrassed and then dug in. Just a joke.
I told them that if I joined in, they would definitely not enjoy my contributions and joined another table.
Only the 40something still looked embarrassed.
Bloody hell. It never ends..
I called out some misogynistic behaviour recently (belittling, rather than sexual, but amazing to hear in 2024). And again had to check myself: do I lack a sense of humour, am I being uptight? No: in a professional setting, this is not ok and it was clear he was engaging in some self censorship due to the choice of words so must have known it would have been received badly at some level. I was left thinking "my god, they really hate us, don't they?"
I can’t decide whether it’s loathing entitlement or just habit
same age as you Sam - line for line, EVERYTHING you wrote, same here - am freshly furious about that fucker (all the f's) but gawd it's exhausting isn't it?
“What’s all the fuss about?” 🤬
yes exactly - "calm down, you're over-reacting" 😬
Also, living in America at the moment, I feel acutely aware of the approaching tide of rampant, govt endorsed misogyny that's coming. Why? Why is this happening now, in 2024? The work we do to resist this has never felt so urgent.
I’ve been writing about this, too. I grew up in NYC in the 70’s and 80’s and I can’t tell you how many times I was flashed as a little kid, and then grabbed in a stairwell and worse. And the events that are not “that bad” are normalized, and the ones that are that bad, well, you’re lucky if people believe you. And somehow you’re supposed to make sense of all that as a girl and then a woman in this culture. And now I have a 15-year-old daughter and the rage I feel is hard to describe. She was harassed on the street a few months ago, a guy scared her enough she was pressed up against a streetlight, frozen. And she told me there were four guys standing nearby watching, four dudes who looked like they’d just come from the gym, and they just watched. Sheer luck, a female teacher from her high school drove by at just that moment with her own daughter in the car. Pulled over and told my daughter to get in, which she did. I enrolled her in self defense classes the next day. But I feel like I could breathe fire, Sam.
That’s the thing that enrages me the most - where are all the other men? The “good guys”? Why do they never ever step up if they’re so good…?
I have no clue. It’s one thing if it’s a guy alone and he’s scared for his own physical safety I guess, but FOUR guys together watching a man harass and intimidate a child? I can’t. And honestly, it would have been so helpful and still would be if men would meet your eyes and say I’m so sorry, that is not okay, that should not be happening. I mean as a kid, walking by a construction site or anywhere really. Other men pretend they don’t hear it, so the message is you’re on your own with this. It’s infuriating.
Oh man, I wasn’t familiar with this story but it’s the same shit: entitled man feels that he has a right to do whatever he wants because he’d likely get away with it.
I’m so done. My country is being held hostage by a felon and a rapist and it brings up all the past injustices I’ve endured. And that women all over have endured.
It's endless. And not stopping any time soon by the look of it.
Nope. I can’t change that, but I can certainly change my own behavior. My bullshit tolerance is now ZERO. I don’t care who decides they don’t like it.
On The Rest is Entertainment Richard Osman had an interesting point. If Wallace doesn’t watch his own playbacks he never sees the systemic cleaning up of his messes so literally can’t see that people found it unacceptable. These guys are actively protected from consequences and it isn’t special to the BBC.
I agree about the systemic protection but I don’t think for a minute that he gives a damn
Only that he got caught.
I have followed the Gregg debacle; two of my best friends are native Londoners. We have discussed this and what goes on here in the States.
Like me, working my first job in retail, and boys trying to corner me in the stock room when I was 15. There are millions of us with millions of stories. If I could share photos here, I would share what I saw on Instagram today. Let's see if this link works: https://www.instagram.com/p/DCP2uCgIEbT/
Thank you for calling this out as again. Depressing isn't it, same shit, different person.
Sadly so much is systemic and I still despair about beautiful young female pop stars who think they are empowered by gyrating their barely clad bodies to the tunes they think are their own. That sadly in reality still belong to the man.
Meanwhile we still get the comments, behaviour, feel unsafe, not heard.
We are still subject to the patriarchal crap, even if it isn't voiced quite so loudly.
Sadly power, physical, wealth etc still wins.
Middle age is no protection, we are vulnerable in a different way.
We still, hopefully, support each other and have to hope that can remain how we stay safe.
I have spent the last few years having to work with a man who belittles me and controls me, and uses the most misoginistic and quietly bullying language. I feel so angry about it, and know he would never use this kind of language to speak to a man. It's made me so angry, and it's made me stressed to the point of feeling genuinely unwell each time I have to correspond with him, too. He is a Gregg Wallace type, and yes, he makes me feel full of rage. I spend a lot of time talking to my daughters about these kind of men, educating them about their rights and boundaries when spoken to like that. It's gross, and yes, makes me feel full of rage. Thank you for voicing this Sam.