When A Strange Man Talks To A Woman Alone, It's Not Innocent

 


Hi Dragonflies,


I wrote a post about this recently on reddit and I had 86 up votes and a few women commented saying they experience this a lot too and that it really annoys them. In the past two weeks I have been harrassed by strange men while I was alone twice. But I have also noticed that when I visit a local cafe in my neighbourhood which I would describe as 'mumcore' I don't get approached at all except by the workers. So it's in other public spaces that aren't predominately occupied by women.

Yesterday was a strange day. Firstly I sat on the other side of a train seat and this older man preceded to talk to me as if he knew me. It was definitely like he had 'male character syndrome'. I was using my work app at the time and it called me as part of my sign in. Then he stopped talking for a while. It suddenly dawned on me that I could use this sign in technique to my advantage. So I got out of the app and signed in again. This time when my phone called me I answered and said "Hi, Oh your at the end of the train are you? I'm coming." Then I moved out of the train compartment and kept my phone glued to my ear as I left to sit in another carriage. Unlike the men who harrassed me last week, this man didn't take my short responses as 'she does not want to talk.' So I knew I had to move or be bothered some more. Just now I saved the number in my phone as 'Jessica Trevillea' So I can use this technique again. I don't know anyone called Jessica Trevillea haha.

The story gets worse, as I moved to a new carriage there were some teenagers laughing and having fun. Two boys and one girl. The girl was sitting next to me and an older man who looked like he was in his 70's or 80's came up to the girl and verbally attacked her for having her own rubbish on the seat. There was no bin close by so she hadn't even had a chance to throw out the rubbish and he was harrassing her as if she was littering and getting in her personal space. He then preceded to go upstairs and stare at her from upstairs. The poor girl feeling uncomfortable went to the other side hiding behind her bag saying 'I'm hiding from that paedophile.' Which is exactly how he was seeming. I then got out my book and the girl told me she had read that same book. I was impressed that a 14 year old girl was reading feminist books. (I hadn't read my first feminist book until my late 20's which was the Female Eunich by Germaine Greer). We then talked about the creepy old man and I saw him come so close to her face later on. He came so close to her that he could of kissed her. 

It shocked me and appauled me that this kind of thing could happen. I used to be harrassed by older men when I was a teenager as well but they often said they thought I was in my 20's. But what if that was a lie? This girl did not look older than 14 either. She wasn't acting like a 20 year old too (I think I probably acted older than my age because I had teen parents and had to grow up too fast at times.) I think it was great that she was acting her age too but she was also being sensible as even young girls are taught to behave more than young boys are taught to. Both me and the young girl where scared of this older man. Which shows why domestic violence is often gendered violence. This also shows that a lot of men's attitudes towards women can drive a man to be violent. So when a man approaches a woman alone, even if it's seemingly friendly, he sees her as vulnerable because she is on her own and that's never friendly.

My advice would be if your gut tells you that you are in trouble when a strange man tries to talk to you, always listen to that gut instinct. Maybe try and fake a phone call like I did.

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