Bradford – Incidents occur on a weekly basis to me

I find myself shocked at the stories on your site, not because of the specific details of them but because of the commonality of them. Im a 40yr old woman and I have lived in Bradford all of my life, incidents of street harrassment have been a common theme throughout my adulthood. I have always felt that there was “something” about me that attracted these incidents and I wont go into details about the huge and negative impact that has had on my self esteem and self image as I now realise in that cliched way “im not alone”.
incidents occur on a weekly basis but I include some of the more memorable ones:

I have had men approach me when im with my son and make vulgar sexualised comments, men have approached me and said variations of “fucking ugly/ugly bitch/jesus I wouldnt fuck you”. I have also been approached by men who have assumed I would be keen to partake of sex with them and seemed outraged when I havent been appreciative of their advances.

Whilst walking my son to school when he was about 8yrs old we had to walk past a chicken processing factory, the streets outside the factory were crowded with parents and children going to school, one of a group of men at the factory yelled sexualised suggestions at me, i was embarrassed as much for my son as myself, my retort “I dont think so mate, you work in a fucking chicken factory”.

Last summer as I got off of the bus in bradford a man got off the bus directly behind me, in full view of everyone on the bus and everyone on the street he grabbed my arse and said “you have a beautiful backside”, all I could do was yell “fuck off”.
I could go on and on with the number of incidents ive experienced, we take them as par for the course, its an occupational hazzard of being a woman isnt it. If I were slightly less loving of human kind i could learn to hate heterosexual men and view them all as predatory apes.

I realise now that the sense of dread I feel on approaching a building site, or crossing the road when the traffic has stopped is not unique to me. More recently I have learned to drive and I am protected from some of the harrassment which I used to get at bus stops and on public transport but I still experience men stopping their cars alongside mine at traffic lights and making crude gestures.
I am just an average bradford woman, I dress very conservatively, there is nothing that makes me stand out from the crowd and yet the fact that im saying that could be interpreted as an attempt to distance myself from the woman who do “stand out from the crowd”, far from it, the common theme for all of us is that we are women. If it was only “attractive” women who were hassled on the street or seen as “deserving” of the attention then why have I been approached by men telling me how unattractive I am?

until recently i have concluded that there is “something about me” that leads men to think they can say and do as they please towards me on the street, I now appreciate that “there is something about society”

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