When spreading the message that #NotAllMen requires street harassment

[lokifan]

Bloke saw me checking bus timetable as I got off my bus at 2am, asked what I was looking for. I replied I was fine in the tone that the women reading this will definitely recognise: friendly because probably dude is harmless, polite because maybe he isn't, final because no more of this interaction please.


He then came towards me calling out that he wasn't a bad man, wasn't a man like that. I said fine again and started walking away towards home. He kept following me, now about three metres away, to insist he wasn't scary or bad. At this point I got pissed off and stopped (so did he) to say “I'm sure you are nice but men who think they're nice shouldn't follow girls”. I started walking away again. He called after me (not sure what he said) and then STARTED FOLLOWING ME AGAIN.

He followed me for five minutes, which is a really fucking long time in that situation, calling out that he didn't know where I was going, where were we going, slow down, he wasn't like that, he wasn't a bad man, I was a lovely-looking girl, etc etc while I calculated how fast I could run if I dropped my bag of clothes and shoes and new books including ARCs. I couldn't drop the other bag, it had my keys and address-having stuff in it.

Thankfully he eventually stopped and went away. Of course I felt the need to stop and hover about 20 yards from my block of flats to see if he was still following me and had just stopped shouting. Not to mention wondering if I should just stop being out past 1am, since I've had an incident of dudes being varying degrees of creepy EVERY TIME I'VE BEEN OUT LATE SINCE I MOVED TO MY CURRENT PLACE, before realising that tonight, and the time before, I had left my social thing before midnight and had trouble with the trains. And also having to think about this shit is just. Fuck this. #YesAllWomen

Bonus: this was not my first incident of after-midnight harassment of this month. Or this week. Or this JOURNEY HOME.

PS: Loncon has been great! I will post about that today or tomorrow. But I just had to express my OMG NO.

Comments

[alafaye]

Ew. *hugs* An argument can be made that by trying to prove he's not one of them just makes him part of the problem.

Have you tried the buddy system? Maybe someone going by or near your place to walk with you??

I'm hoping these things stop happening soon!

[lokifan]

He's DEFINITELY part of the problem. If he wasn't, he would have put the fact that he knew he was scaring me over his need to have me acknowledge that he "wasn't like that".

Unfortunately none of my friends live close to me, it's over an hour by night bus from theirs to mine.

[alafaye]

Exactly. Rather than affirm that he wasn't, he should've stepped back to become part of the solution. (Oh, wow, now that should be a meme.)

Darn. Maybe a neighbor could be there for you?

[laurashapiro]

Ugh, that shit is the WORST. The epitome of "not all men" thinking. Total failure to empathize. Gah.

[lokifan]

EXACTLY. Just. YOU might know you are not going to assault me but how am I meant to know that?! It sucks. I remember my first boyfriend, who was tall and pretty big - a rugby player - was taught by his similarly tall dad to change to the other side of the road if he found himself walking behind a woman alone at night. I wish more guys were taught stuff like that. I mean, it's definitely bullshit that it makes such a difference for a man to kind of quietly signal harmlessness and go further away physically, but... it does.

[laurashapiro]

It does.

In this case, I'm stuck on the fact that the guy's idea of who he was -- and the urgency of communicating that to you -- was more important to him than your sense of safety. He's a total stranger, but he's so desperate that you not judge him that he is willing to invade your space and act exactly like a predator. Boggles the mind.

[lokifan]

That demand that women validate men is so awful. It reminds me of that Margaret Atwood quote - men are afraid that women will laugh at them, and women are afraid that men will kill them.

[woldy]

Gah! My sympathies on the creepy guy. If it's the same geographical area each time that you encounter the creepy dudes then you could talk to local police community liason or community support people about it in case they can do something (e.g. more active police presence after the pubs are kicking out). I'm not sure I'd hope for much help there, though. The buddy system suggestion is a good one, but if you're not out with people who live nearby then it's a huge hassle :-(

[lokifan]

That's not a bad idea. It usually is the same area - there's a row of bus stops and an Overground station, and I pass them on my way home, so obviously quite often there's a bloke or two there who feels the need to say hi or comment on how pretty I am or whatever the fuck.

:( Yeah, none of my friends live close - most of them live on the opposite side of London. I've decided is no more going home past 11 if I'm with the ones who have a sofa etc and are happy for me to stay, which luckily is most of them. That's something I do a lot anyway, though obviously it's fairly infuriating to feel pushed into ALWAYS going home earlier or staying over to avoid being creeped on. But last night, especially with the bonus creep on the bus, was kind of the last straw.