sexual harassment (related to the recent C4 undercover program)

dowie

dowie

dowie

Caporegime
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This could be interesting to discuss given the forum membership is mostly male, posted in here to discuss the subject more whereas I get the impression the TV forum is more "entertainment" oriented and this certainly isn't entertainment to say the least, it's pretty serious and really the purpose of this thread is to discuss the issues highlighted in the program.

This is the promotional clip for the episode and it's the worst in-person encounter the reporter had with some very creepy guy:


The first part of the program dealt with online stuff and I'm a bit critical of that; basically, this journalist used some younger pictures of herself inc some tanned bikini pic, set her age to 18 and went on an unnamed dating app. Her creepy matches are apparently middle age men but in order to match with them she's surely had to set her age range that high else they'd not see each other?
Also, we don't see their profiles, if a middle-aged man has stated they're looking for hookups then gets a match from an apparent 18-year-old in a bikini surely they're going to assume it's some sort of hookup/sugar daddy situation and messages might well be a bit sleazy. Of course, none of that excuses the unsolicited pics of genitalia she received or indeed a disturbing video.

In the next bit she visits a school and talks to girls about harassment, they share some stories with her (inc a worrying one about a bus driver), but they're also part of some campaign to ban adult "sexy schoolgirl" outifts/costumes, which I'm not sure are necessarily linked to harrasment.

In the last bit we get the interesting stuff, the hidden camera journalism, she goes out on two nights in two different cities (Liverpool and London) and on both occasions is pestered by utter creeps. The Liverpool bit is the creepiest, the guy actually goes with her all the way to her hotel room; he also leaves when told to and I suspect would have left earlier too if she'd been direct about it but the worrying thing is that a real drunk girl might not be in a state to be direct like that and that situation could have been very bad. London was a bit of a let down as she was targeted by two guys who were together but despite having film crew, security and police around she's like the polar opposite of Ross Kemp on gangs; she got scared ditched them then went inside for some moral support from the production team, then there was another creep but he stopped trying when she went inside her hotel.

She commented that no one offered to help her while she was wandering around drunk, but she just looked like one of many girls who'd wander around drunk in city centres and don't really need any help. She also commented about how this happened while there were lots of police around though I suspect in the case of London (though it does seem predatory/creepy) those guys probably still just saw themselves as trying to pick up a girl, plenty of drunk men and women will start chatting outsdie bars/clubs and end up hooking up, the guy in Liverpool seemed to be foreign and rather clueless.

I'd be curious as to what others thought of it if you did see it or indeed about the issue in general? How to better prevent creeps trying to take advantage of drunk girls etc..could be a bit more complicated than it initially seems.
 
It was absolutely harrowing. I know these things go on, I know how much of an issue sexual harassment and sexual assault is but the brazenness of it was upsetting. And, how quickly it happened.

We, as men, just won’t ever be able to understand the constant fear and worry that women have just doing everyday things. I asked my partner what I can do to help and she said the best thing is to call out inappropriate behaviour that our friends do. Be it inappropriate jokes, sharing private pictures, or calling out harassment. It’s a great point and too much we, as men, probably shrug things off as banter but for the women it’s not banter and we need to do more to stop it.

I said to my missus that if she wanted to go out, I’d happily pick her and her friends up and would be happy to discuss this with her friends partners to have some sort of sharing of this. It’s a nightmare getting a taxi nowadays and seems a sensible easy thing for me to do to make my partner and her friends feel safer. I’d be happy to have a sober night now and then to facilitate this.

We need better policing, courts need to come down harder and victims need to be believed. However, it’s us men who are the problem. We need to call out inappropriate things when we see them. We need to appreciate we won’t ever be able To understand the extent of harassment women and girls are subject to and we need to be an ally. Little things like crossing the street if it’s late, and there is a lone woman, is an easy thing to do that may make them feel safer. No reason not to do it.
 
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Ahleckz said:
We, as men, just won’t ever be able to understand the constant fear and worry that women have just doing everyday things.
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This really, it honestly must be horrible for women who find themselves at the butt of this kind of behaviour, only for men (who can never really know what it's like) to then blame them (the woman) for X, Y Z reason (usually clothing / makeup choice).
 
Ahleckz said:
We, as men, just won’t ever be able to understand the constant fear and worry that women have just doing everyday things. I asked my partner what I can do to help and she said the best thing is to call out inappropriate behaviour that our friends do. Be it inappropriate jokes, sharing private pictures, or calling out harassment. It’s a great point and too much we, as men, probably shrug things off as banter but for the women it’s not banter and we need to do more to stop it.


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Have to ask, why do you do things like that and why are you friends with people who harass women and shrug it off as banter? I don't think I've ever been friends with someone who harasses women and if they didn't stop at the first time of asking I don't think they'd be my friend for long.

Ahleckz said:
Little things like crossing the street if it’s late, and there is a lone woman, is an easy thing to do that may make them feel safer. No reason not to do it.
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Which way would you cross the street though? If you cross away from the lone woman then you won't be able to assess whether she's drunk and vulnerable or being followed by a man to ask if she needs a hand (which is what some commentators seems to think other men should have done for the woman in the video), but if you cross over to walk past her in order to do so that could look a bit threatening...
 
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GreatAuk said:
they didn't stop at the first time of asking
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This is a key point though. A lot of folk argue that women shouldn't need to ask men to **** off, yet millennia of courting has been about taking your shot and then being told yay/nay (with some subjectivity around how much pressure you put on).

A process that relies on taking your shot versus an argument that women shouldn't be required to tell folk to back off.
 
montymint said:
This really, it honestly must be horrible for women who find themselves at the butt of this kind of behaviour, only for men (who can never really know what it's like) to then blame them (the woman) for X, Y Z reason (usually clothing / makeup choice).
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Don't forget 'men downplaying their concerns' as well. Oh and only 5 posts before a rape joke, stay classy men of OCUK.
 
Didn't see the show, only that clip.

I had some guy follow me before, pretty much as in that clip. Just walking home from town and he comes out of an alley and follows me for ages. At first I think he's just going the same way, but it becomes obvious he's not, so I just keep walking and he decides it's too far and gives up. Obvs different for women, I could have fought this guy off if it came to it.

On a different occasion, I had some drunk girl throw herself at me, didn't know her, wasn't interested, but she was pretty insistent. Literally asking for it. Popped her in a taxi coz that wasn't going to end well for her. Not that a taxi is 100% safe either, lack of a better option tho.

IMO a good start would be getting rid of booze/nightclub culture, obvs where a lot of this goes on, and it's a burden on A&E, and is expensive.
 
dowie said:
I'd be curious as to what others thought of it if you did see it or indeed about the issue in general?
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I see a lot of ads lately which talk about calling it out - but it is far easier said than done - in the real world these situations are rarely as black and white as the situations portrayed in these ads as if it is always that easy and people are just being lazy or shunning responsibility not calling it out, etc.

One of the more effective measures IMO is education at work and community levels, though in some cases that will just mean people hide their behaviour more, so as to not appear as unacceptable, rather than change unfortunately.
 
GreatAuk said:
Have to ask, why do you do things like that and why are you friends with people who harass women and shrug it off as banter? I don't think I've ever been friends with someone who harasses women and if they didn't stop at the first time of asking I don't think they'd be my friend for long.



Which way would you cross the street though? If you cross away from the lone woman then you won't be able to assess whether she's drunk and vulnerable or being followed by a man to ask if she needs a hand (which is what some commentators seems to think other men should have done for the woman in the video), but if you cross over to walk past her in order to do so that could look a bit threatening...
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Wow; your post seems incredibly hostile! Not sure why…

To answer your questions, I don’t have friends that harass women. When I said “our”, I meant men in general.

Not sure how close you get to assess this, but I imagine you can do that assessment from a distance. I did mean more if there was no one around. But why the hostility?
 
dLockers said:
GD is on par with a Wetherspoons pub chat, not sure why folk think otherwise (or take it too seriously).
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No, not at all. It's nothing like Wetherspoons here at all. It's far worse[!]

That said, I was in a Wetherspoons on Sat night with my wife watching the football. Some creepy guy at the next table started a conversation up with her and started casually touching her during it, also saying "let me show you a Japanese band with really hot girls". I told him to stop, to which he said, "I was just making conversational points" to which I said, "you can do that verbally". He turned around and left us alone after that. Old pervert.
 
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Ahleckz said:
We, as men, just won’t ever be able to understand the constant fear and worry that women have just doing everyday things. I asked my partner what I can do to help and she said the best thing is to call out inappropriate behaviour that our friends do. Be it inappropriate jokes, sharing private pictures, or calling out harassment. It’s a great point and too much we, as men, probably shrug things off as banter but for the women it’s not banter and we need to do more to stop it.
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I 1000% agree with this.
 
Need to watch the full show, but no surprise that men try and prey on drunk women, sadly.

Since it will be 99% of men posting about this here, perhaps we should state if we have partners or not whilst discussing this? Might give some insight in to where we are coming from because 1 or 2 posters on OCUK give off incel vibes.

Me - Married for 4 years, in a relationship for 12 years, and when I see stuff like the clip above it does make me concerned when my other half is on a "girls night out". Often I will volunteer to pick her at the end of a night, as the town she tends to go out with her friends is 15 miles away and I'd rather collect her and know she's ok than wait for her to get in. Though we do also know a taxi driver who is a decent bloke.
 
Ahleckz said:
Wow; your post seems incredibly hostile! Not sure why…

To answer your questions, I don’t have friends that harass women. When I said “our”, I meant men in general.

Not sure how close you get to assess this, but I imagine you can do that assessment from a distance. I did mean more if there was no one around. But why the hostility?
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I don't mean to be hostile, more a 'challenge'. Isn't that kind of challenge to people who say they harass women the kind of thing you want to encourage?

Your response seems to be the 'approved' response that you see whenever this sort of thing gets raised on social media etc, but I'm really not in board with it, probably for 2 main reasons:

1. You imply that you and and your friends do things like harass women etc and say "us men who are the problem", tarring everyone with the same brush, but then back out when challenged on why you specifically are a problem. I don't think it's helpful to imply that all men do this when in fact they don't. It annoys those who don't do it (like me), it's a negative stereotype which should be avoided, it gives a false impression of how widespread it is to men that do (possibly inadvertently making them think it's actually not that bad because everyone does it).

2. It's not a real solution. It may well work for some friendship groups where there are some men who think harassing women is wrong and will call it out and other men who do it, and it may well result in some of those men not doing it any more and not moving on to physical assaults, but I suspect many friendship groups aren't like that... Also much predatory behaviour seems to be undertaken by lone men or men in small groups who probably have specific plans to rape / assault / harass. By using that as the go-to solution it shuts down consideration of other factors and issues. As I see it it's a false solution that might prevent further discussion that maybe should take place.

On the other topic I also disagree with advice to cross the street to avoid lone women, which seems to be the way round you think men should do it. It feeds into the negative narrative that all men including yourself are inherently dangerous to random women merely by existing, and actually does nothing to prevent real harm (as the rapists will not be the ones crossing the street to avoid them...). Ability to assess a situation will be much worse from further away too. I just don't think it's a reasonable response to the situation - if a lone woman feels scared of me walking down the street then she can make her own best decision and cross the road herself if she wants to - she's just as much an adult with decision making capabilities as I am.
 
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GreatAuk said:
Have to ask, why do you do things like that and why are you friends with people who harass women and shrug it off as banter? I don't think I've ever been friends with someone who harasses women and if they didn't stop at the first time of asking I don't think they'd be my friend for long.
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Yeah, that's the bit that I do find iffy about the group identity arguments, I don't know anyone like that foreign weirdo who approached the journalist in Liverpool, aside from sharing a biological sex he's not my responsibility; I'm no more responsible for him than say any woman who is also unknown to him.

I think there is a valid point to be made about some male "banter" that spills over into harassing people outside of a friendship group, likewise, I think safety advice towards women can and should involve stuff about staying with friends, trying not to get too sozzled etc. She played a drunk girl in the documentary for good reason, because she knew playing a vulnerable drunk girl would attract attention from creeps just as putting valuables on display in your car will attract thieves. Unfortunately, sensible advice on the former will attract cries of victim blaming but sensible advice on the latter will simply be accepted, but in neither case is the victim being blamed, advice about risk isn't saying that it's your fault if you do those things, it's still entirely the fault of the criminal.

Conversely, I'd also see trying to be puritanical about some laddish humour as rather flawed/misplaced in the same way that trying to be puritanical about short skirts and risk of harassment is rather flawed/misplaced.

GreatAuk said:
Which way would you cross the street though? If you cross away from the lone woman then you won't be able to assess whether she's drunk and vulnerable or being followed by a man to ask if she needs a hand (which is what some commentators seems to think other men should have done for the woman in the video), but if you cross over to walk past her in order to do so that could look a bit threatening...
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I remember an interesting perspective on twitter about this from a black man re: the expectation that you have a duty to cross the street:


Broadly trying to shame all men collectively for this stuff or to demand certain behaviour of men simply because of some general phobia towards all men is dubious and unlikely to be tolerated if the same sort of demands were made based on some other group identities.
 
Why put yourself in this position, why the need to get so drunk and wander the streets alone.
Yes it's bad that a few men are such a threat but the reality is most of those will never change, you aren't going to educate or persuade them, you could ban every man from going out at all.

Drunkenness produces bad behaviour, don't get drunk, it's not that pleasant anyway.
 
dowie said:
I remember an interesting perspective on twitter about this from a black man re: the expectation that you have a duty to cross the street:

...

Broadly trying to shame all men collectively for this stuff or to demand certain behaviour of men simply because of some general phobia towards all men is dubious and unlikely to be tolerated if the same sort of demands were made based on some other group identities.
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Yes I think it's a fascinating comparison to make... I remember it coming up in different contexts around the time that BLM was launched. In some spaces there were black men saying they found it racist when people crossed the road or seemed scared of them due to their race, and not crossing the road to avoid black men made it into some of those 'how to stop being racist' lists because it made black men feel like people saw them as threats to their safety. Around the same time was when I first saw widespread discourse around how men should cross the road to avoid passing women as it apparently made some of them feel unsafe. Trying to integrate these viewpoints would be very interesting!
 
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