Written submission from a member of the public (SPP0064)

1. This document is submitted by me, in a personal capacity in response to the Women and Equalities Committee’s inquiry into sexual harassment of women and girls in public places.

2. I acknowledge that this written submission is brief and will not give the Committee an extensive insight into the extent of the problem of sexual harassment in public places; however, the harassment that I have experienced has had a deep impact on my life and this is the first opportunity that I have had for my voice to be heard in relation to this issue. As such, I would be grateful if the Committee would take this evidence into consideration as part of its inquiry, because I know that many women and girls have had experiences like mine. I recently gave birth to a little girl; I hope that she will grow up in a world where men and boys no longer feel entitled to shout at or touch women and girls in a vulgar and sexual manner without consent. I am grateful to the Committee for receiving this submission and hope that the Committee’s inquiry will lead to steps being taken to achieve this hope for my daughter’s future.

3. In relation to the scale and impact of sexual harassment of women and girls in public places, my experience is that such harassment is widespread and can have a material impact on the lives of the women and girls who experience such behaviour. I am now [25-34] years old and I have experienced sexual harassment in public since I was a teenager. I know that my sister and many of my friends have also experienced harassment. When I was at secondary school (a female-only state school), stories of sexual harassment were widely shared because it was such a ‘normal’ thing to experience and to talk about. I vividly remember one girl casually telling our English class that when she was on the way home from school on the train a man had sat down opposite her and started to masturbate whilst staring at her. Although the class was shocked, there was also sympathy with her decision not to report the incident to the police because she did not feel that the police could do anything about it.

4. Personally, my worst memories of sexual harassment are of times when I was walking home from school whilst wearing my school uniform. I had to walk down a busy road to get home and it was normal for men to lean out of vans to wolf-whistle or to shout inappropriate things at me. I remember on one occasion, when I was [under 18 years of age], a man shouting “Great tits, can I have some pussy?” On another occasion, whilst walking to school to sit one of my A-level exams, a man followed me up the road whistling and shouting to attract my attention. I ignored him because I wanted to focus on the notes I was reading as I walked. He caught up with me at a pedestrian crossing and persistently asked me to go for a drink with him. I politely declined and explained that I was about to sit an exam. In spite of this, he repeatedly asked me and continued to walk behind me until I got to the school gates.

5. Quite often road works would be carried out on the road in question. I used to dread walking down that road in the summer if the workmen were there undertaking the road works, because they would shout such vulgar things at me. For example, they would comment on the colour of my bra (our school blouses were unfortunately transparent), shout suggestive requests at me and on one occasion they took great delight in shouting sexual innuendos because I was eating an ice lolly. Sometimes there would be days when I couldn’t face walking down that road because of the workmen, so I would take a longer alternative route home just to avoid seeing them. These men terrified me; I felt intimidated and dirty because of their words and their leering stares and always wished that an adult would stand up for me, but they never did.

6. As an adult on one occasion (aged [18-24]) I had to walk down that road while road works were taking place. Memories of my teenage years came flooding back and I braced myself for the inevitable onslaught. I was smartly dressed (I was undertaking work experience at a law firm at the time) and was on my way to an evening service at church, but even still they intimidated me and made me feel awful about myself. As expected, the wolf-whistles and vulgar comments followed me along the street. As I went into the church the men loudly expressed great surprise that I was going to church; they seemed to expect that a “woman like her” would not be a churchgoer. I was embarrassed and felt that somehow I shouldn’t be worthy of going to church, even though with hindsight I realise that there was nothing inappropriate about my outfit. I think that even now I would be nervous to walk down that road when the workmen are there.

7. Another incident that has always stuck in my mind is from when I was [under 18 years old]. I was meeting some friends in my local park on a hot sunny day. The park was full of families with small children and it was the middle of the afternoon, so it was not dangerous or inappropriate for me to have been walking on my own. A group of boys or men (I think they were older teenagers but possibly were in their early 20s) came up to me and surrounded me as I walked. They kept saying things like “Where’s your boyfriend? You know he shouldn’t leave you alone, you could get raped.” Although I knew that I was not in immediate danger because of the number of people around me, it was a terrifying and deeply intimidating experience. I was extremely nervous for the rest of the afternoon and kept looking over my shoulder as I walked home in case they had followed me.

8. What I find most upsetting about the incidents that occurred while I was a child is that the men in question clearly knew that I was a child (I was wearing school uniform when many of the incidents took place) and yet this did not deter them from behaving in such a manner. When I look back now, as an adult and a mother, I am horrified that none of the other adults around at the time intervened on my behalf as a child or reported the men to the council or the police. I know now that the way they behaved was totally unacceptable, but I was so scared that I didn’t know what to do and didn’t think that the police or anybody else would want to listen to the experiences of a child. Because the men were so much older than me, they knew that they scared me and that I would not do anything about their behaviour, which in turn meant that they knew they could continue to get away with what they were doing.

9. The level of harassment that I have experienced has declined as I have got older. I don’t know whether this is because attitudes are changing or because I am now able to defend myself better. On occasion I have shouted back at the men who cat-call or wolf-whistle or have shown them my middle finger, which they seem to find offensive (as if their behaviour towards me was in no way offensive). This said, I have experienced three particular incidents as an adult that have deeply affected me. The first I have outlined in paragraph 6 above.

10. The second occurred when I was [18-24] years old and was walking in the town centre during the middle of the afternoon. A group of intoxicated men were walking behind me, which had made me feel uncomfortable. I had sped up to walk away from them but they kept pace with me. Suddenly one of them groped my backside as he walked past me and then turned to his friends to laugh before turning back to me and laughing (or, more accurately, leering) in my face before walking off. I now know that he committed a sexual offence, but when I was growing up I had never been taught that something as ‘minor’ as an unsolicited grope on the backside was illegal. I was mortified and did not know what to say or do, so I continued with my shopping and tried to forget about it. However, I did not forget about it and remember crying in bed for hours that night. I occasionally think about it to this day, and it still upsets me today like it did then.

11. The third incident occurred while I was on a [location] train home from work. I was working on a presentation so had not been paying much attention to what was going on around me. Suddenly there was a loud noise as a man dropped his empty drink can; I recall that it was a can of pre-mixed whisky and cola. I looked up and saw that he was holding his phone but didn’t think anything of it until a different man said to me “Excuse me, he’s taking pictures of you.” The train was pulling into a station at that point, so the man taking photos got off the train and ran up the stairs at the station before I could say anything to him. The man who informed me that I was being photographed also got off at that station and quickly followed the first man up the stairs, but I do not know if there was any kind of confrontation because I remained on the train. For a long time afterwards I felt scared and violated knowing that a man who I did not know had photos of me on his phone; I had not consented to him taking my picture and did not know what he planned to use the images for, which terrified me.

12. As I have outlined above, my experiences of sexual harassment have had a very deep impact on me. I am very nervous around drunk men as a result of the incidents outlined in paragraphs 10 and 11 above, and I dread walking past building sites and road works because of the things that have been said to me in the past.

13. In relation to why sexual harassment of women and girls in public places happens, I find this very difficult to answer because I cannot bring myself to see the perspective of the perpetrators. However, I believe that in part this is a learned behaviour and that the cycle of learning has not yet been broken. I remember some boys who I was friends with as a teenager candidly spoke about how great it was to have passed their driving tests because they could now drive around and wolf-whistle or shout at girls out of their car windows. In light of my experiences, I chastised them and explained to them how intimidating and hurtful that kind of behaviour was. They tried to defend themselves by saying things like ‘But other men do it all the time’ and ‘It doesn’t actually hurt anyone’ or ‘Girls probably like it, it makes them feel good’.

14. It is alarming that one of the reasons they believed their behaviour to be acceptable is that they have seen other men behave in such a way. Unless and until boys are taught that the behaviour they see from older men is not acceptable and that it must not be copied, I cannot see how the cycle of harassment will end. When I was at school we were repeatedly taught how we could prevent ourselves from being raped or sexually assaulted. I have asked my male friends on many occasions whether they were ever taught not to rape, sexually assault or sexually harass people. The answer is always ‘no’. It seems to me that education is focused in the wrong place, or at least it is not entirely focussed in the right place. Boys are not explicitly taught how they can and cannot behave around girls; until this becomes a standard part of the school curriculum it is difficult to see how attitudes might change. Similarly most of my friends have never explicitly been taught by their parents about rape or sexual harassment; parents ought to be encouraged to broach these topics with their children to ensure that boys learn not to follow the examples of other men they might see in public.

15. The defences put forward by the boys I referred to in paragraph 13 also highlight an unfortunate passivity to the problem of sexual harassment in Britain; people fail to see how it can be hurtful or intimidating and too many people suggest that women like me are overreacting and should instead take the wolf-whistles and cat-calling as compliments. It is clear to me that people who suggest that being harassed is a ‘compliment’ have never felt as intimidated or hurt as I have by the actions of the men who behave in such a manner. I also suspect that they are unaware that harassment of young girls is so commonplace and that grown men are verbally harassing schoolgirls in the street.

16. In terms of preventing and responding to sexual harassment in public, I refer to the views that I have expressed in paragraph 14 in relation to educating boys regarding this topic. I also feel that there is an onus on bystanders to take a more active role in preventing harassment. It is difficult for me as an adult to stand up for myself effectively and it was impossible for me to have done so as a child. All too often I hear or read men saying ‘Not all men are like that’. I acknowledge this, but these men need to play a more active role in preventing harassment by actively challenging the men who do behave in such a manner. When I was a child, why did none of the bystanders defend me? Even now as an adult, why has no man ever intervened to challenge the perpetrators regarding their behaviour? There needs to be a strong shift in the attitudes and behaviours of all men to realise that harassment will not end on its own; the men and boys who take a respectful approach towards women also need to actively educate the perpetrators and to intervene when they see harassment taking place.

17. Similarly, women and girls need to know that they will be taken seriously. I would not have reported any of the incidents that I experienced to the police because I did not think that I would be taken seriously or that there was anything that the police could do. British police forces need to make clear that they are taking this issue very seriously and must take steps to reassure women that if they come forward with a complaint regarding sexual harassment (however minor) that it will be dealt with seriously and efficiently. This said, police resources are scarce so it is also imperative that the Government provides adequate additional funding to equip the police to do so.

18. I thank the Committee for taking the time to review this submission and would be happy to assist further if needed.

March 2018