Kid (Kidmagnet) said:

We've got a whole new sexual revolution happening and hopefully it creates some change.

Hear, hear.

I've been harassed by random strangers, but never by anyone I worked with (thankfully.) I know what I'd say and do to them today, but when I was 20? Not sure - but I hope I would have told them to go f* themselves, and reported them to hell and gone. But I was lucky - I have always had family support I could rely on if I needed to. I could have quit any job, and not starved, and I wasn't tied into a profession that demanded I put up with crap. (Like many scientists and entertainers are, where there's just a small industry.)

Cstar1 said:

but I hope I would have told them to go f* themselves, and reported them to hell and gone.

Yup - but the boss I would have had to report to was male and I had zero knowledge of what he'd say. And it wasn't like it really bothered me, it was more like - that's how some guys are, like if a co worker stunk. It was tolerable because it happened so often. Of course it is not acceptable at all! But that's how I grew up.

12 years old and on a school trip to our provincial capital and a group of us school girls pass by a car where a man is masturbating while watching us! Did we report it to our teacher? Nope, we said Ewwwwwwwwwwwww rolled our eyes and moved on.

One time my best friend had told her father about a similar indecent, he grabbed his rifle and went out looking for the guy. That actually factored into our NOT telling. These things did not start when we were teens or even pre teens. My memories go back to second grade at least. Even in first grade I ran past the gas station near my school because the guys sitting out back smoking would comment on my dresses.

Anyway of course it is not acceptable and while we are teaching our boys that grabbing girls chests, making sexually explicit comments, and other rude things we need to teach our girls to speak up the moment someone crosses a line. Because ignoring them does not send any sort of message at all.

Kid (Kidmagnet) said:

Because ignoring them does not send any sort of message at all.

You're absolutely right, there.

I think I slapped the boy that snapped my bra strap in the 4th or 5th grade. I bit the boy that wouldn't leave me alone, and chased me into my house. (I got in trouble for that one.)

I never told about the man that approached me on the street on my way home from church, asking if I wanted to "make some money."

I was terrified of the men who chased me down in a car when I was walking home along a busy street at about age 13. I grabbed the first woman I ran across, and asked her to walk me the rest of the way home.

I was just pissed about the boys standing outside the south door of the high school grabbing girls' breasts as they walked out the door - didn't report them, but damn, I should have!

This sort of shit was every day... and there's not one bit of it that's acceptable, 

I hope that every one of the men and boys that perpetrated it are awash with guilt and shame every single day of their lives.