Women Are Human

An incomplete list of one woman’s experiences

Scroll down for the list of my own personal experiences. Please note also I am only listing the sexual attacks and harassments. The physical beatings and serious violence I experienced, including the time a boyfriend called Gary throttled me unconscious, headbutted me, and threw me to the floor, are another story. I won’t dive into those here.

Not all menners are fond of complaining that they, personally, are not dangerous so why are they painted with the same brush?

Well, you’re not. Unless I’ve mentioned you personally or you feel that the narrative relates to you.

However, men collectively are indeed dangerous and violent — so how are we to know which ones to fear? The bad guys don’t wear black hats in real life, and often work hard to appear non threatening until they can harm you without consequence.

Men commit at least 90 percent of all violence worldwide, and as men are almost always much physically stronger than us, females just have to assume males are dangerous until they know otherwise. We have no other choice.

Why make this list?

I have an excellent memory. It’s a bit of a curse. I’ve considered writing a book called I Am The Grudge Keeper, however as I am also the Keeper of Joy for many memories perhaps that could be the sequel. My memories have stood up to independent scrutiny by others repeatedly and I am aware of the fallibilities of memory. Although some of these may have become hazy over decades, the basic facts and the reality that they happened is not hazy or unclear.

One of the reasons I try not to dwell on negative memories is that I’m aware of some of the mechanisms of the mind. I know that every time I retrieve and examine a memory I’m at risk of reinforcing its negative qualities. In the end, I’d be retrieving a copy of a copy of a copy, as it were, with the bad being reinforced on each copy.

Of course, the reason I preface my story with this is that women often aren’t believed, about pretty much everything, let alone predatory men. So I cannot even tell my own stories without first appealing to authority. Nevertheless, I am (fortunately) obstinate, opinionated, and unshuttupable.

One day there will be nobody to bear witness to the things which were done to me by aggressive men.

I want to add my voice to the voices of women who have spoken of the misery inflicted upon women by predatory men.

It matters to me.

How Do Women Manage It?

The point of this article is not to have well-meaning (or not so well-meaning) advice hurled at me. It’s to record what has been done to me.

I also hope to expunge these memories somewhat. They serve no meaningful purpose anymore.

And I write them down for one other reason. Instead of asking why so many women fear men — I want you to reframe that.

How is it that so many of us still manage to love men? Despite going about our business daily in the knowledge that any member of the other half of the human race might turn out to be a monster — we find ways to maintain relationships and find love for the opposite sex.

Without Further Ado

Here is an incomplete list of sexual assaults/harassment and encounters I have experienced by men in my life.

Edit — It does occur to me that my list is fairly extensive because a) I walked around and took public transport around Glasgow from a very young age unaccompanied by adults — this was pretty normal for that era. I was often out on my own, going to and fro, I was a busy, gregarious and very sociable child and young woman.

So walking the streets of Glasgow, nearly every day for 25 years, a big, teeming city filled with men who drink too much and young people hanging around street corners — quite literally — probably skews towards a lot of harassment. It might not be so noticeable if you come from a small town, a more sheltered upbringing, had parents who owned a car and drove you around and so on.

But I absolutely guarantee that even those girls all have tales to tell, that they have normalised and mostly forgotten about. Lucky them.

• Age about 7 or 8, a grown man in the park started staring and leering at my best friend Jane and I as we were playing on the swings at the edge of Queenspark. We became frightened by his staring and his horrible fixed expression and ran away. He followed us until we reached a busy main road.
• Age about 9, informed that I’m flat-chested by a boy who called himself my boyfriend and compared with other female friends sitting there whom he ranked, according to what he considered attractive. It’s a minor event, but it goes to show young men are taught entitlement and objectification.
• Age about 10, grabbed by the arm by a grown man who ran a local corner shop with his brother. He started dragging me into the back of the shop. Jane and I started screaming and Jane ran to the door of the shop. A woman walked in, sparing us whatever else they had planned, they let us go, laughing.
• Age about 11, groped by a boy in the lift of the high flats I lived in at that time. I told nobody, I knew I’d have been blamed somehow. I just didn’t take the lift anymore.
• Age about 13, as a skinny, still flat-chested child in school uniform I was introduced to the world of being harassed by workies on scaffolding. I began to fear walking past groups of men because I knew they were likely to say something sexual. I started crossing the street to avoid scaffolds, tradesmen, and men in general particularly in groups of 2 or more. I was catcalled and wolf-whistled so many times by “workies,” as we called them, that I cannot recall every event. When the Walkman became available, I would wear the earphones even if the battery was flat on my deck, so I could pretend not to hear them.
• Age about 14, a man grabbed my bottom on Victoria Road, Crosshill, Glasgow, as I walked past chatting to my friend, both in our school uniforms. I screamed at him, and he called me a whore.
• Also age about 14, a group of boys followed Ann Marie and I through Queens Park. We were walking back from school, once again in uniforms. They started making sexual suggestions, circling around us. Nobody intervened. We kept moving and eventually they let us go.
• Age 15, a man flashed his erect penis at me and Jane on our way back to the train station at Drymen. We had been visiting Luss, we thought it would be fun to visit the town where Take The High Road was filmed. It was fun, up until then. It was the year Caroline Hogg went missing, I remember hearing about her on the radio that day.
• Age about 16, walking again down Victoria Road in Crosshill, Glasgow I saw a policeman walking towards me with his colleague. Both in uniform, both males. It was getting dark and nobody was around so I was happy to see the police. As they reached me one policeman turned to the other after looking me up and down and said to his colleague “she’ll be alright in a couple of years.” Please note, I have never had a bad encounter with a police officer before or since, but it really shook me.
• Age about 17, Ricky Humphries tried to assault (rape) me in a toilet at a friend’s party. I tried to fight him off but was very inebriated. Luckily I was wearing tight jeans with buttons which he couldn’t manage to get off of me easily and someone kept banging on the door so he finally gave up, called me a cunt, and left.
• Age about 18, a man masturbated in front of me on a bus going into town. When I sat down near the back the bus was empty, he sat at right angles to me and held his coat out so the driver wouldn’t be able to see at a glance if he happened to look. When I realised what he was doing I all but climbed onto the ceiling to avoid him and ran off the bus several stops early. I told nobody, of course, not even the driver.
• This one is etched in my memory, probably because it went on for about thirty minutes. Age about 18, getting off the bus near my mum’s house, going home for the evening, about 6pm. As I stepped off of the bus a large, dark haired man with a dissolute air was walking past. Apparently instinctually, he just grabbed my left arm. He was a total stranger. I tried to make light and laugh about it and keep moving. He would not budge and started insisting I accompany him to the pub for a drink, or home with him. Because I was afraid I was very polite but I asked him repeatedly, over and over and over again, to let me go, saying I had to go home my mum was expecting me. He refused and was becoming insistent. This went on for about 15 minutes and it was ramping up. At that point, Another man, blonde haired, shorter, very pale skin was approaching, he could see I was agitated and trying to pull away. He walked up to the man and asked him cheerfully what he was doing with his sister. I went along with the story, of course with great relief. The blonde haired man said he’d walked up to find out where I was as I was late and our mum was worried. He wasn’t entirely sober, but sober enough to pull it off. The dark haired man didn’t seem like he really believed him, but wasn’t sure and now there was a man involved didn’t want the fuss. He left. I thanked the blonde haired man profusely and tried to take my leave. He walked me to the traffic lights so it wouldn’t look weird (he said) and then asked me to go on a date with him. He was disappointed I “wouldn’t even” give him a kiss, seeing he had saved me from a possible fate worse than death. He did however let me go home without further insistence. I was flushed and distressed when I arrived home, but told my mum nothing of course. Even writing this it seems ridiculous, but that is exactly what happened nonetheless.
• Age about 20 I was sitting in Queens Park, a very busy and popular place in the heart of Shawlands. It was a lovely day and I was sitting under a tree next to a busy path, reading a book. I looked up because a man was staring at me. He just kept staring in a fixed manner. I became frightened and got up to walk away. He followed closely. I started running. He started running. Luckily I bumped into a friend unexpectedly (and almost literally) and when he saw us both together he backed off.
• I forgot completely about three dirty phone call incidents, until I read this article:

It’s almost beyond belief that so many things have happened to me — and that they are all commonplace and happen to so many girls and women — that I, who have an excellent memory, still need to have my memory jogged. There are just so many.

• Aged 18, 21 and 23 approx — dirty phone calls. At 18 I was at home, asleep when he called to enquire about my underwear. At 21 I was living with Andrea when her regular dirty phone caller reached me instead of her and started masturbating down the phone at me. At 23 approx I was living in London and a man called, I happened to answer the phone, he was panting and making lewd suggestions. Like I say — I’d actually forgotten these, Edited on 29th September 2021.
• Age about 21, a man kissed my shoulder while I was at the bar in the Tinto Firs hotel ordering a drink, he then followed me around the pub. He was a total stranger, and my boyfriend threatened him and we all nearly ended up in a fight.
• Age about 21, working at Peat Road Motors and one of the areas I had to walk through was littered with calendars of naked women. I was forced to walk past these pictures with men making comments about me and other women every other day.
• Age about 23, working at Hanlon Plumbers, gross sexual calendar in the back room, plumbers making comparisons of the desperate women to me. One of the apprentices, a young man called Craig, stood up for me and took it down.
• Age about 23, in Edinburgh on a day out with my friends. A man groped me when I was standing at the bar, I kicked up a fuss, he called me foul names and verbally abused me before leaving.
• Age 24 approx, I was living with my boyfriend Stuart in Cartside St, Langside, Glasgow. A young man aged approximately 16 started harassing me regularly. He was often around when I was leaving the house or walking up the road and would follow me making suggestions and commenting in the most disgusting terms. I pretended to be be unable to hear him, I would just not respond at all or even acknowledge hearing him. One night I went to the corner shop to buy some new tights to wear out, and he was standing there with his friends in a group. As I left the shop, he grabbed my bottom as I passed. I started screaming at him to leave me alone, and he was so shocked he backed down. He’d been harassing me regularly for about 2 months at that point. I like to think the fright he got might have dissuaded him from doing it to someone else.
• Age 25, working in London. There was a grossly sexual calendar hanging in one of the senior engineer’s work stations. He used to tell the women who worked there, including me, stories about live sex acts he had paid to see, including one story about a donkey.
• Age 25, same company, went to a company dance and one of the most senior partners in the firm grabbed me under my breasts from behind, while I was seated at a table, and tried to force me to dance with him.
• Age 27, living in So Cal, walking home in broad daylight, a guy pulls up in his car and tells me how good I’m looking, tries to persuade me to get in the car, I ran away up the hill. He was also going in the opposite direction to me, not that it matters of course.
• Age 30, living in So Cal, went to the supermarket late one night, it was a big brightly lit market in an uptown area and I drove there. There were only a few of us in the store including a man who followed me around from aisle to aisle. I thought I had shaken him off but then realised he was waiting outside as I left, and he followed me to the car and asked me for a lift. Of course, unknown man, I’d love to offer a lift to a creepy stranger in a deserted car park late at night. I ran inside and got the manager who minimised my concern telling me the poor guy probably really just needed a lift, although he did at least ask him to leave me alone.

Around that time, the assaults slowed to a trickle. There was still unwanted attention from the handyman on the complex we lived on, and in a video store where I took my young son, to name but two, but they started easing off.

The assaults slowed down because men prefer to assault more timid and easily accessible victims, the older the woman, the less timid. For example, if a man masturbated in front of me now he’d be lucky to leave with his genitals still attached and everyone within a ten-mile radius would know about it. But slowing down is not stopping, of course.

And they slowed because I didn’t start driving until I turned 26, but after I had my children I drove nearly everywhere and tended not to go out much at night except to friend’s houses or only with a large man by my side. So by accident or design I was less easily accessible.

It’s the reason I gave my daughter my car and bought a new car I didn’t really want to pay for, so my daughter would not have to take public transport or walk anywhere. You’re a little bit safer in your own car.

To be clear, these are only the ones I remember the most clearly. There are more. Many of them more difficult to quantify and explain. From boyfriends’ buddies sleazing on me, to the “accidental” breast brushing some indulge in, to shouts in the street from total strangers, to a taxi driver deliberately staring in the rearview mirror all the way home, to sleazy smiles, to hands that lingered just a little too long. On and on and on and on.

And though it’s slowed to a trickle, as I said, it still happens. Last week I was at the Coles nearby home, perusing fruit and vegetables and looked up to see a man nakedly staring at my cleavage. When I looked at him in disgust he leered and smirked, then scurried away.

They started on my daughter when she was 12. She reported her first disgusting, frightening incident of street harassment to me. She was wearing her school uniform and looked even younger than 12.

We keep saying it, and men keep arguing with us. It is absolutely a common and normal occurrence for women to be harassed by men. Harassment and groping are for the lucky. It could have been so much worse for me. It often is.

Despite the fact that women know we cannot, and must not, trust men as a sex, we still love men, nurture men, give birth to men, work alongside men and befriend and care for men. It’s terribly sad that a smallish percentage of men make all women’s lives much more difficult and dangerous than they should be, and make the idea of blindly trusting men ludicrous and utterly impossible. But what is truly amazing is that we still open our hearts to men, for the most part.

So there you have it. My testimony. Take it or leave it, your choice.

But if you do take, it what can you do?

There’s one thing that you, as a decent man, can do. When you see men smearing and attacking women in comment sections, defend women. Don’t allow men to attack women, back us up when you can if it is safe to do so. Never victim blame, never lecture. As we know it has been proven repeatedly that the numbers for false claims of rape and sexual assault are tiny. Pull your fellow men up when you hear them making false statements about the believability of women if it is safe to do so.

Women don’t usually even bother reporting assaults, let alone line ourselves up to be accused of being liars and harassed and hounded about that on top of the assault. Even if we have irrefutable proof we’re telling the truth we’re still smeared and attacked, the notion that women go around making these stories up is, for the most part, absurd.

And no, that one person you can prove definitely did make something up doesn’t alter that fact one iota.

If nothing else, you can practice thinking of us and discussing us as humans. And if it is safe to do so, back us up. Help contribute to the normalisation of believing women by behaving as you do towards men when they tell you something important to them. Use the facts, not the bias you have been taught, and accept that for the most part women are telling the truth about the range of sexual assaults we experience throughout our lives as a normal occurrence.

You’re not a judge, you don’t need beyond reasonable doubt, nobody is asking you to testify in court, you definitely can extrapolate and use your own wits, common sense and knowledge. All you need is balance of probability.

And on the balance of probability, you already know she is telling you the truth. Put aside your learned bias. Unless you have been locked in a windowless cell without Wi-Fi for the last ten years, no man can now claim what women endure as a normal part of our existence is of any great surprise to him.

You can help

You can help to normalise believing women unless you have a very good reason not to, just as you believe men without proof when they discuss their lived experiences, and you don’t demand a polygraph, four witnesses, and a trial by jury for that.

You can help to normalise believing women by speaking and acting as though you do.

You can practice thinking of women as fully human and believe us. Just like you believe men.

And you can listen to us and really hear us. Just the way you hear men.

Sources: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women https://www.ourwatch.org.au/quick-facts/ https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2018001/article/54978/02-eng.htm

More sources contained within this article:

Copyright Alison Tennent 2020, all rights reserved. Scottish by birth, upbringing and bloodline, Australian by citizenship. If you’re reading this anywhere but The Medium, this work may have been plagiarized.

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