Written submission from a member of the public (SPP0058)
a) As a teenager on a bus feeling a tickling sensation at the side of my knee which turned out to be an older man sitting on the same seat touching me.
b) Again on a bus a man feeling my breast when I reached over to my bag.
c) Having men plunge a hand between my legs while passing in the street – this has happened twice.
d) Men putting their arms round my shoulders or my waist or touching me from behind – these events took place in bars and were men I’d either never spoken to or had spoken to for less than a minute.
e) A shopping delivery driver texted me after he brought my order wanting to have sex with me and telling me he’d been tempted to ‘take me’ at the time of the delivery.
f) A group of men on their way to a lapdancing club in a shopping precinct harassing my cousin and myself in front of my [under 10] niece. They specifically cited the lapdancing club in their harassment, asking my cousin and I to perform for them to save them the cost of entry to the club.
g) Tens to hundreds of occasions where I’ve been whistled at, told to ‘cheer up’ or to ‘smile’ or simply had a man assessing my breasts or legs, or telling me what they would like to do to me sexually. Usually these events happened on the streets but I’ve been harassed like this elsewhere, too, including in shops.
a) Avoiding leaving the house (I now go out only 3 or 4 times a month maximum and never willingly).
b) Avoiding various routes to my destination and avoiding being out after dark as far as I possibly can.
c) Constant state of alertness when outside, being hyper-aware of people around me and avoiding eye contact and conversation as far as humanly possible. Crossing the road if a group of men is approaching me or if I see a van parked on my side of the road with its engine running.
d) Using an MP3 player to shut out all extraneous noise.
e) Developing fightback techniques such as standard replies to similar catcalls and even resorting to physical resistance. In the case of the man in a bar who attacked me from behind, for instance, my immediate reaction was to kick backwards.
f) Feeling obliged to go to the council’s licensing committee meeting to ask that the lapdancing club which had resulted in my cousin and I being harassed while out shopping should have its licence revoked. I was told that I should have gone to the police about the harassment but the club owner later said that the local police held social events there. If the police are openly participating an industry which objectifies women how could my cousin and I have expected our harassment experience to be taken seriously?
a) A culture where one can buy ‘future porn star’ tshirts, high heels and bikinis for girl babies and toddlers.
b) A culture where pornography is normalised and where those who express concerns about its effects are vilified and silenced. Pornography searches are becoming more and more extreme, the latest fashion being for ‘incest porn’, particularly involving a power imbalance such as a father and daughter. https://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/sex/a18194469/incest-porn-trend/
c) A culture where the rape prosecution rate is appallingly low and where ‘fake rape claim’ cases are often given far more media and police attention than actual attacks on women.
a) In my experience dismissal of both the severity of the harassment and the distress it causes. At an early age the message I received was that this is what men do and women have to endure it without ‘making a fuss’. Even now in the #MeToo age many men still refuse to believe this issue is endemic in workplaces and in public spaces.
b) I have never reported harassment to the police and would never do so as I have no faith in them taking such incidents seriously. Indeed, if I’d had to report all the instances of harassment I’ve suffered I would at times have been contacting the police several times a week.
a) Proper regulation of pornographic content on the internet and in social media. We currently have the situation on Facebook, for instance, where a picture of a woman breastfeeding is banned while one of a near naked woman in bondage gear pictured on her hands and knees ‘does not violate community standards’.
b) Prosecution of those producing and consuming violent pornography. At present only child pornography results in legal action being taken. Given that women are often trafficked, addicted or threatened (or any combination of these) into the trade I would like to see any pornography which involves violence and/or injury to a performer being banned and the perpetrators prosecuted.
c) Adoption of the Nordic Model for dealing with prostitution – decriminalising prostituted people while prosecuting pimps and johns. So called ‘safe zones’ such as in Leeds should be abandoned as they don’t make life any safer for either prostituted or non-prostituted women. As with measures to deal with violent pornography these would demonstrate that women’s lives and women’s bodies have a value beyond the sexual and that violence against us won’t be tolerated.
d) Improve the rape prosecution rate by using expert witnesses to explain victims’ behaviour to judges and juries. Finance support services for victims of sexual violence, including within police forces, so that victims need not be afraid to come forward.
e) Carry out educational campaigns through televisual, print and social media as well as in schools on the harms of sexual violence. Educate on ‘enthusiastic consent’ rather than ‘absence of a no’. Provide education on what constitutes harassment and the effects it has on women and girls being always a potential target in public spaces. Target campaigns at men and boys on how they can avoid being a harasser themselves and prevent their mates from doing it too.
f) Consult with women’s groups regarding plans for trans self-identification and the impacts of such legislation on women. Trans women can be harassers, abuses and rapists and women are right to be afraid for what few safe spaces we’ve built for ourselves. Trans people’s needs must be taken seriously and services provided for their needs, just not at the expense of current women’s services. As women have worked to do for decades, trans people must have their own safe spaces.
Sexual harassment is endemic in the UK. Its impact on women’s right to be in public spaces is shattering. Being a potential target every moment in public spaces is exhausting. It’s a massive factor in my agoraphobia and has impacted my mental health badly. I don’t doubt it impacts most women in similar albeit, for many, less extreme ways. It can only be tackled with a broad reaching campaign which extends into every area of our culture of women’s objectification.
March 2018