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The Everyday Sexism Project exists to catalogue instances of sexism experienced by women on a day to day basis. They might be serious or minor, outrageously offensive or so niggling and normalised that you don’t even feel able to protest. Say as much or as little as you like, use your real name or a pseudonym – it’s up to you. By sharing your story you’re showing the world that sexism does exist, it is faced by women everyday and it is a valid problem to discuss.

If you prefer to e-mail me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. I can upload your story for you instead. Follow us on Twitter (and submit entries by tweet) at @EverydaySexism.

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#63560 Anon 2014-07-11 17:57
In one lesson at school today,I heard more than 10 rape jokes,mostly by the boys.I am 13 years old.If that's what they're like aged 13,I am truly worried at what they will be like in they are older.Rape culture sickens me.Also,in the 4 years I have had sex education at school,not one lesson talked about consent...
 
 
#63559 bec 2014-07-03 02:28
Sexism has been a part of everyday life for me since adolescence. Here are just a few of my experiences:

At a party I had drunk too much and went with my female friend to a quiet place to rest. A guy walked into the room, lifted my dress and penetrated me with his fingers. I was very drunk and tried to move away but he followed. My friend was able to push him away thankfully and stop it going further. I did not report this and at the time did not think it was rape, my idea of rape was a predatory stranger forcing sex rather than a friend of a friend not obtaining full consent. I was 15, and shockingly I still feel as though I would be blamed for putting myself in that situation even though that violation was completely uncalled for.

On another occasion I was plied with alcohol until I was almost passed out and then taken into a room. I was a virgin and this was extremely upsetting, I cried throughout. I was only 13 and the guy 18, I had no idea of the danger I was in because I was with friends. No one stopped it even though I was crying loudly. I was put on the back of his mates bicycle and ridden home with blood dripping down my legs when I was sober enough.

Another occasion when walking to school an old man (around 70) tried to call me into the bushes and told me he knew my brother. He told me to come back again at 6pm but I instead told my mum. He watched me walk to and from school sporadically for a few weeks but I never saw him again after that.

When I was about 20 I was walking along a popular walking path and a man was sitting in his car masturbating, within clear view of all the joggers/walkers. I was disgusted and took his number plate but never reported it regretfully.

Around the same age my drink was spiked and I lost all recollection of the evening despite only having 2 drinks. After going to the hospital the next day I was told nothing could be done, they didn't even have a brochure or a nurse that could speak to me about what I could do. At this age I was much more aware of my rights to my own body and wanted to report this behaviour. I attempted twice to report it to the police but both times I was put through to numerous departments and hung up on.

None of this behaviour prepared me for my husband, whom I married and had a child with at 23 & 24 respectfully. Once I was perceived as his possession he proceeded to emotionally abuse me by putting me down on a daily basis, sabotaged my friendships where he could, isolated me from my family in a small town, all the while physically abusing me. It was a very confusing and difficult thing for me to understand because I had married this man, had children with him, and had loved him.

I have become a much stronger woman after these experiences in life, particularly my marriage. Despite these instances, I don't feel that all men are predatory or sexist, but the men that aren't need to stand up and advocate for a woman's right to be respected and not treated as an object of mens desires or possession. This behaviour is much more endemic than we like to admit and my story is sadly not unusual. In this shortened snippet of my life I may have painted a picture of a rebellious troubled teen but I was a normal well adjusted girl experimenting with alcohol, just like my male friends - none of whom were ever exposed to the threat of rape because of having one too many drinks. If ever they were I would never have blamed them for putting themselves in that situation. This kind of abuse can happen to anyone and is never the victims fault - women also need to understand this.
 
 
#63558 Colleen 2014-05-30 05:11
I was passed out drunk at a party last year and a boy there took advantage of me and ended up raping me. At school, everyone was making jokes about me and calling me a slut because "it was my fault i was so drunk. We need to teach men not to rape and stop blaming the victim.
 
 
#63557 Lucie 2014-05-21 18:27
I remember at school when I was perhaps 14 a boy in my year was being inappropriate to my best friend in class, she was embarrassed and getting fed up with him stroking her arms and "flirting" with her unwantingly, I offered to switch seats with her thinking he wouldn't try it with me but he did. He kept touching my arms and neck, anywhere near my chest in the classroom in view of everyone. I told him to stop it and to shut up with what he was saying. I thought it would stop after the class was over but then several instances after he would say things about my breasts. during lunch break I was alone and walked passed him and his friends. He kept saying inappropriate things to impress his friends and as I walked passed him he groped my bum and as I turned to swot him off he grabbed my breast. Him and his friends all laughed. I was very upset, being so young and never experienced being touched in that way. I found my friend and asked her to come with me to see my mum who worked at the school at the time, even though I was upset she wouldn't come with me. After lunch I was due to have swimming class and the boy was also in the same P.E class as me. I was terrified of the thought of being around him in my swimsuit incase he tried anything else. I went to my mum crying and told her what had happened, she took me to my head of house and told him how the boy had been harassing me for weeks and I was scared of being in swimming class with me, I didn't want him to see me in my swimsuit. My head of year took him out of the class and gave him detention. But I was never asked again later if the harassment had stopped.
 
 
#63556 Em 2014-05-20 21:35
I was a early developer, and was wearing my first bra by the time I was nine years old. Once I started the secondary school, it's hard to not be noticed when you're pretty much the only girl in year 7 with boobs. This was when the torments really started. Rumours spread pretty quickly that I was a slag, and a whore and every other name under the Sun. I could deal with the comments at first, because I could just ignore them, as they simply weren't true. It was in year 7, that I had my first experience of proper victimisation in the form of grossly inappropriate touching, and a threat of rape if I told anyone what these two boys in my year 7 maths class were doing to me, which was horrifying and terrifying, and just plain nasty.

After year 7 ended things seemed to die down a little bit until I was about 15 years old, and I went on my first blind date with a guy that a "friend" had hooked me up with. Throughout my teenage years I was never really that interested in guys, I always considered my education to be more important, but my friend was insistent. I went along and things seemed fine, then things started to get heavy and I really wasn't ready for it. I tried to over power him, but he was 19 at the time (which I didn't know), and he was significantly stronger than myself, and if it wasn't for a black labrador that came jumping through a hedge chasing after a ball, that guy would of raped me. It was absolutely terrifying, nothing can prepare you for how scary it is. I later found out that the only reason why this guy agreed to go on a blind date with me was because my "friend" had told him that 1) I had big boobs, and 2) about my so-called slag reputation, so he deemed me to be a "easy lay".

Again after this things died down again, and it wasn't until I was 17 that I had any kind of experience of sexism again. At this age I got my first job working at a waitress. About a year into this job, I was started to get harassed at work, mostly by the customers, slapping my bum, wolf-whistling, and making crude remarks. I was able to tell my boss at work, and he was able to get them barred.

Nowadays I don't get comments made at me, and if I do I speak out. It's not needed nor wanted, and it's not okay!!
 
 
#63555 Claire 2014-05-07 07:56
When I was at secondary school it was quite normal for the boys to grope the girls. One day, whilst walking up the stairs to my next class, one of the boys put his hand up my skirt and groped my vagina. When I told a passing teacher he said "Oh well, boys will be boys".
 
 
#63554 Dina 2014-04-16 10:57
I find it frustrating when, after a 50 hour week at work we visit my inlaws house and I am still expected to help out in the kitchen and clean up after the men in the family. Especially as I know when I've been out working hard all week, my 29 year old brother in law has been sat in the same spot in front of the TV playing FIFA. My mother in law comes from a culture where this is just 'the way it is' for women. I often feel sad for her as she lives for nothing else.
 
 
#63553 Betty 2014-04-16 10:48
Out a a music event this Saturday witha group of 7 of us, 4 women and three men. Really lovely environmnet. lots of people of all ages out to enjoy listening to some great music. I am used to being harassed or gropped in London clubs, not something I am happy to say, but it's true. If I go clubbing, it happens. BUt for some reason, at this venue I felt certain something like that would enver happen, in fact I didn't think about it at all untill it did happen, twice. The first time to my one of my friends, a guy walked passed her, grabbed her arse and squeezed it. She grabbed him and told him it is not ok to do that, he looked indifferent. She was left feeling angry and furstrated for not having been able to shout at him how she'd wanted to, she hadn't felt able to get the words out. About half an hour later my other friend has a guy stroke the back of her thing and up towards her crotch, she screamed at him, he smiled. Both of my friends, me and everyone we were out with felt angry and helpless. What do you do? Screa, shout at them, hit them and cuase a fight? Say something and not feel like its enough? Say nothing and feel silently consumed with rage. There is no reaction which works or is helpful only these things not happening can provide any actual solution and when will that be?
 
 
#63552 Lauren 2014-04-16 10:40
A few months ago I was walking to the shops with my boyfriend at about 11.30 at night. The quickest route took us through a sort of back alley where some cars were parked. A girl in her early/mid 20s was walking towards us in the opposite direction. She happened to walk past a parked car with 4 guys sitting in, they immediately started shouting very explicit things "oi slut I'd fuck the shit out of you" etc, she carried on walking trying to ignore them.. one of them shouted "if you keep ignoring us like that you're gonna get raped."
I have never shouted at someone in public before but I completely snapped, my boyfriend tried to pull me back saying they might be dangerous but I was so angry! I walked over to them and said "Excuse me, how dare you say to that someone! Who the hell do you think you are to talk to a girl walking on her own at this time of night, no one should ever speak to anyone like that." All they said was alright luv calm down.
I made sure she was ok and walked her most of the way home.
Even though it happened a few months ago it's really stuck with me and I find myself thinking about those men and some of the other things they might have said or done. I'm unfortunately used to the daily acts of every day sexism but this for me was something I won't forget very easily.
 
 
#63551 Charlotte 2014-04-16 10:30
Walked to work the other day, at 7am in the morning. A car stopped and a man was driving slowly next to me. I had earphones in, and assumed he needed directions. I took my earphones out and he said hello and asked me how I was. I said I was fine. He asked where I was going, I replied I was going to work. He asked if it was in town, and I said yes. Then he asked if I wanted a lift. I politely declined and as I put my earphones back into my ears I could hear him go "why?" (because my mother told me to never get into cars with strangers..?)
He drove off and I thought that was the end of it. But no, he had parker further up behind a bush and was waiting for me. At this point he was scaring me, and I completely ignored him as he was trying to talk to me from his car. I have no idea what he said as I refused to take my earphones out. I shouldn't have to be terrified walking to work at 7 o'clock in the morning.
 
 
#63550 Sophie Thompson 2014-04-16 10:30
One man in my office always comes out with the rudest, sexist jibes:
Whilst making tea: "there are a lot of women in this office, must make it really inefficient"
Waiting for kettle, making tea for my pregnant friend whilst there is birthday cake on the side: "its always the women going for the cake first"
From my boss who thinks its OK to constantly comment on my (hopeful) ability to have a baby one day: "Are you ready to get pregnant then? Man up John" (this is in the middle of a team meeting, in front of my whole team and boyfriend who happens to be a colleague)
 
 
#63549 anon 2014-04-16 10:09
I was raped by my boyfriend at the time. We were at a mutual friends party and I had some drinks. He hadnt and asked me to have sex I said no he persitted to ask so I said im going to sleep. He came up to where I was sleeping and told me he put the condoms in the draw next to me earlier on. I said no. It didnt make a difference hed already planned tp have sex regardless of what I wanted.
 
 
#63548 Katie 2014-04-16 10:05
Referring to me as 'nurse' even after I've introduced myself as the doctor who is looking after your child.
 

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