Unwanted approaches: An example of everyday sexism in my social network

I was having a conversation with a man on social media the other day, when he said to me that women “don’t really experience unwanted approaches on the street”, and that if they do they are “mainly lighthearted and easily deterred”. He didn’t believe me when I said that for almost every woman, unwanted approaches are a common experience, not just in social settings like pubs and clubs, or even in the evening, but when going about our normal business in the daytime, like walking to the shop, catching a bus or train, in our workplace or educational establishment. I said I thought most women would be able to recall a recent unwanted approach, and an example in which the man became antagonistic when he was ignored or rebuffed. He was incredulous and felt this was an exceptionally rare event.

So I asked my network on twitter whether any women aged between 18 and 40 would answer a few quick questions on the topic. I phrased the questions as neutrally as possible:

  • Can you think of a time that a male stranger whistled at you, commented on your appearance or made another form of unsolicited approach to you in public?

  • If so, how long ago was this?
  • How did you respond?
  • What was the man’s reaction to your response?
  • How often have you experienced a negative response to rejecting or ignoring unwanted approaches or comments from strangers?

  • If you want to make any more comments, or state your age, or tells us any more about the situation feel free to do so here.

It wasn’t a research study, and I had been explicit about the topic when asking the question amongst my network, but none-the-less I felt that it might bring up some negative memories for people, so I tried to signpost people what to do with that at the end.

  • If this survey has brought up any bad feelings or memories, please seek appropriate support from your friends, family, GP or a listening and advice service such as supportline (who can be contacted by phone on 01708 765200 or by email at info@supportline.org.uk)

Before you read the results, if you want to add your responses to my survey, feel free: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/VWLKQS5

So, what were the responses?

To date I have received 97 responses from women aged 22 to 37, and the results were depressing if not surprising.

Fewer than 4% of respondents said they couldn’t immediately recall an example of an unwanted approach in public from a male stranger. 79% of the women said that they have experienced “numerous” examples of unwanted approaches, most of them overtly sexual.

Screen Shot 2017-03-14 at 22.27.21More than 42% can recall examples within the last month, and 72% within the last year.screen-shot-2017-03-04-at-01-11-3580% ignored the approach, 19% gave some kind of negative response. screen-shot-2017-03-04-at-01-11-49But here is the key part – whilst 59% of the time the guy then backed off and 10% of the time he was friendly or accepted the person was not interested, more than 31% of the time he was “negative, unpleasant or threatening”. screen-shot-2017-03-04-at-01-11-57Only 13% of women surveyed couldn’t remember a getting a negative response from a man after being ignored or told they were not interested. More than 50% had experienced negative, aggressive or unpleasant responses on several occasions with 9.5% of women saying this happened to them “often”.

Screen Shot 2017-03-14 at 22.31.53

Thirty six women gave examples of unpleasant responses they could remember from the past year. These included:

“When you ignore them, they’ll usually say something about the fact you’re ignoring them e.g. call you stuck up”
“Shouted something along the lines of me being miserable because I didn’t respond”.
Typical responses are along the lines of “fuck off then”, “stuck up bitch”, “you think you’re too nice” or “you’re not that nice anyway”
“When I ignored him he grabbed my arm and pulled me towards him.”
“Called me a whore”
“It was along time ago but I remember being called a stuck up bitch but then nothing else”
“In groups, men will continue to shout and on occasion follow me down the street.”
“Started swearing at me, said I was ugly anyway”
[in relation to men offering money for sex from their car] “when i ignored them they shouted that i was a stuck up rich bitch”.
“I was followed home by a man who started walking beside me. I stated he was making me uncomfortable and that he should leave me alone. He wouldn’t leave stating that he just “wanted a hug”. When i refused he became quite hostile and his body language was aggressive but he eventually left.”
[when I told him to go away] “he got very up close to my face and then finally left”

“Continually returned to talk to me, vaguely threatening, called me a lesbian”.

“Laughed in response to my negative reaction, saying that what he had done (touched my bottom) was what men do in his country (Ireland)”

“He scowled and they walked off without further comment”.

“Verbally abused and insulted. Groped.”

[Told me] “You’ve got a black heart” comments that I’m a “snob” or “stuck up”

“He kept trying to talk to me and come into my personal space (within arms length), even after I explicitly told him several times that I didn’t want to talk to him and that I just wanted to go home so please leave me alone, and physically backed away from him several times.”

“Yesterday walking home from work, when I ignored his first calls and whistles, he continued and followed behind a safe distance [I kept walking past my home] until he got bored of no response”.

“Yelled who do you think you are etc, then made negative comments about my physical appearance”

[I ignore them now] “In the past when I’ve said something back [the response has been negative] examples have included laughing at me”.

“He swore at me and said something aggressive”

“Derogatory comments”

“More comments about being rude or stuck up. Its just a joke. Even more comments”

“Male strangers often act offended or aggrieved if you do not react the way they would like you to. You are told that you are uptight/rude etc”

“Usually it’s mocking behaviour. Worse if they have been drinking alcohol”

“swearing, name calling- normally whenever I don’t just choose to ignore the behaviour”

“sometimes they might make themselves as big as possible (as if reminding you they can physically over power you), some might follow for a bit”

“Being touched anyway (occasionally), verbal abuse (occasionally), more generally just a refusal to go away meaning that I have to continue to deal with them.”

“when I said I had a boyfriend, he aggressively said I shouldn’t have wasted his time”

“when asking men to let go of my arm/ stop pulling me towards them in a night club or bar, the most common response is for them to laugh. Very often (about) 1-2 times a month): men instruct me to “smile” or “cheer up” when seeing me in the street. If I meet this instruction with a negative reaction, almost always the man tells me to lighten up or not be so serious (or something to that effect) as he was just being friendly (as though attempting to make me feel guilty about my response)”

“People being rude swearing, trying to touch you or calling you arrogant.”

“Being told I was a bitch, ugly, or worse (if I ignored them); being told to shut up or receiving more sexualised comments (if I confronted them).”

“start laughing at me”

“He carried on as before with the harassment”

“Called me something along the lines of an uptight bitch.”

“They have commented negatively or have laughed when I have ignored them or told them to leave me alone.”

“Insisting, pushing, coming in my personal space. Not often, but particularly when the man was drunk.”

“You’re ugly anyway, are you a lesbian, why are all women so up themselves I could go on…”


“They’ve insulted me if I’ve ignored them or asked them to go away, usually the insult is about my appearance”

“I’ve been called a ‘fat slut’ when rejecting an advance, as well as ‘stuck up bitch’.”

“You must be f**king up yourself to turn this down!”

Sometimes misogynistic comments were coupled with racist ones:

A guy once asked for my number, when I said “sorry, I have a boyfriend” he proceeded to call me a nigger…which was particularly interesting considering he had JUST asked for my number but as I declined he quickly decided that actually my black self isn’t worthy… I still think about this often and as you can imagine it infuriated me and still does.

Remember, the majority of these incidents took place in the street or on public transport during the day, rather than during nights out socialising in pubs and clubs.

Other respondents recalled annoying but not as aggressive things like:

“A guy continuing to ask/plead to come into my home after I’d repeatedly, politely said no”
“Grinning and doing it again”
“He kept going with the analysis of my facial expressions until I left, and suggested that I get some more rest as I looked tired.”
“There was some kinda of “aw why not, love” type response”
Recoil/shocked [that I’d respond negatively]
“All right love I’m only joking, whatever.”
“Generally they look pissed off and then walk away”
“He moved on to another woman on the bus”
“It was a group in a car, they laughed and drive off”
Often males getting defensive or annoyed that I do not appreciate their approach.

Some gave specific examples or reflections:

I would estimate that I experience negative responses after ignoring unwanted approaches around 20% of the time. This can range from a particularly intense stare, the person making a clearly audible comment about me (but not directly to me), or being told directly that I’m ‘stuck up’, a ‘bitch’ or them retracting their ‘compliment’ to then tell me I am in fact ‘ugly’.
[I remember a] Group of teenagers (mostly male) blocking my path in park on way home. Several leered, one asked if he could “lick my pussy”. I blamed myself for walking that way at night and never repeated the journey.
I remember I was in a packed pub at age 22 said excuse me and went to make my way past a group of men. One rubbed his erect penis against me (through jeans) as I squeezed past.
I was wolf whistled at by a van driver last week then shouted abuse because I didn’t respond. My mother told me I should be flattered by the wolf whistling.
I remember a bad experience for me once when I was at college. I walked up the stairs at the train station and there was a group of lads from the college who were training to be footballers running down the stairs and one of them slapped my bum really hard on the way down. That was humiliating.
I’m 29, I feel that this kind of experience and way of approaching and interacting with women, viewing them as objects has been the norm and socially acceptable. It was only when I met my bf (now hubby) at 24 that I understood what acceptable behaviour (inc sexual) was and realised I’d been sexually assaulted by my previous 2 partners.
I was sitting on a train station bench, drinking from a straw, and three male passers-by asked me to give them a blow job. At first I ignored them, but they kept hassling me, and one said, “We’ll pay.” They were very persistent and only stopped to get on their train.
I get unwanted attention from men almost every day – it’s animalistic.
I am 24 and have experienced the above for several years. I can recall it happening since my early teens.

So that’s the reality of what women experience, and is probably familiar to most women reading this. Worse still it is normalised by the most powerful man in the world, who has attempted to brush off and justify repeated examples of sexual assault, walking in on women whilst they are changing, sexually harassing employees and those he deals with in business, and criticising the appearance of fellow politicians. He has even attempted to excuse “locker room talk” about women, such as discussing teenage girls and his own daughters in sexual terms and normalising sexual assault on women by saying that he can “grab them by the pussy”. We are in dark times indeed. A Polish MEP felt emboldened enough to say in a debate about the gender pay gap today that women deserve to earn less because they are smaller, weaker and less intelligent than men.

Most of the men I know are feminists and would be appalled to read the results of this survey, let alone by what the neanderthal MEP said. In the general population however, there is probably more diversity. I think some men are aware of the issue, but others are probably not. So feel free to share the evidence of what is happening, in 2017, to ordinary women going about their business in the daytime.

Of course many other groups experience harassment, and in some cases this is much worse than that women experience. For example, I am sure that the recent spike in xenophobia means that many people of colour, or whose religion is apparent from their dress or appearance are on the receiving end of much more aggressive and intrusive unwanted approaches, as the videos from public transport that have been shared on youtube over the last few months demonstrate. I am sure that gay people receive both harassment and unwanted sexual approaches, and I know that trans people are disproportionately targeted for harassment and sexual assault (in fact, I recently read figures that suggest that half to two thirds of transgender individuals have experienced a sexual assault). I am not saying that there are not some examples of men being targeted for unwanted sexual approaches by women. There are multiple factors which intersect, and multiple reasons for individuals being vulnerable to be targeted in this way. However, I simply surveyed the example with which I am most familiar and the example that was the topic of my conversation.

The incidence of sex crimes and is an embarrassment that we need to address, and too often blamed on the victim. We all need to be responsible for our own behaviour, and for gaining consent before we touch anybody else or engage anyone in any sexual activity – that is so basic that I shouldn’t even need to spell it out, and it should be taught to every primary school child as part of PSHE. No harassment is acceptable, and unsolicited sexual approaches to strangers in public outside of the context of a social setting should really be a thing of the past, no matter who they target.

Note: Minor edits to quotations have been made for clarity and anonymity, but never to change the nature or severity of the incident.