5 hours ago
9
Re Lucy Pasha-Robinson’s article (A man pushed me in the street, he wanted to teach me a lesson. Is that OK now?, 17 February), I noticed many years ago how almost all women move aside, unconsciously, out of the path of oncoming men. Sit at a cafe watching – it’s shocking once you realise that this happens all day every day.
I decided to challenge myself to hold my line when walking, and the results are amazing. Men simply presume I am going to move away, and look shocked at me when I don’t. Luckily for me, I am almost 6ft tall and in my 60s, so perhaps I am less vulnerable to the usual aggression. I look like I might verbally “hit back”.
I urge all women to take time to watch from the sidelines, or try walking along your chosen line. Try to experience just how strong the urge is to move aside – to allow men to pass freely through their world unhindered, untroubled by anyone more vulnerable than themselves.
Learned perhaps from childhood, I am sure men mostly have no idea of the amount of space being made for them wherever they choose to go. If we need a new definition of masculinity, polite awareness of all the people around us in public might move us toward harmony. Loosening the grip men hold over all public space would go a long way toward helping women feel less oppressed.
I fear that men who are so angry that they are lashing out at random women for their need to feel power are totally lost to us already.
Elizabeth Johnston
London
I found Lucy Pasha-Robinson’s article upsetting, but also, weirdly, I felt that at least I was not alone. Two days ago I was loudly shouted at by a man, perhaps in his late 40s, in a service station car park.
He had thought, wrongly, that I had hit the side of his vehicle with my car door. I automatically apologised (I don’t know why) and tried to explain that I hadn’t caught his car, but he just carried on shouting, unprepared to listen. His parting shot was to shout “Idiot!” at the top of his voice.
I am 73, small in stature, and I was alone. My husband was convinced that this man wouldn’t have acted as he did had our son been with me. We also, like Lucy, wondered how he might behave behind closed doors with women unfortunate enough to be family members, if he was willing to yell at an elderly woman in public.
Lucy is right that many women suffer much worse at the hands of abusive male strangers than either she or I have, but she is also right that something has shifted in terms of public behaviour. Shouting at grannies, or physically barging into women in the street, would have been unthinkable not so very long ago.
Theresa Gill
St Andrews, Fife
Lucy Pasha-Robinson’s piece stopped me in my tracks – a bit like the man who called me the C-word at Oxford Circus tube station, as he passed me and my husband. He put his face to the side of mine and just said it. I could not believe it.
I ran after the man and caught up with him, because in seconds I went from surprised to shocked to furious. I asked him what the heck he thought he was doing (or words to that effect). His answer: “I’m having a bad day, sorry.” Lucy is right. Loads of women could recount a tale of this kind. Something has shifted. We cannot let it slide.
Anthea Eastoe
Streatham, London
Lucy Pasha-Robinson’s account of casual abuse breaching our social contract is not confined to the street. Years ago, a female friend and I headed to a late night eatery after a few beers. We were school friends back in our home town for the weekend.
The only other diners were two blokes on the opposite side of the restaurant. Despite initially ignoring their catcalls, my response was to ask them to leave us alone as we were trying to talk. For this, one of the two men walked over to our table, picked up my drink and poured it all over my plate of food.
In public or private, it never shocks me how simply rude men are. This behaviour is on a spectrum: what starts as an attitude of entitlement can progress to verbal/physical abuse, violence with disastrous consequences.
Rachael Elliott
London
I’m a native New Yorker and this happened to me in my early 20s. I don’t know if I would dare to do this now. On a rainy day I was waiting for the subway train. A man standing behind me pushed me forward. I turned around and nicely said “Please don’t push me, it’s not safe.”
A second time, my same response. The third time, a more forceful push made me turn around and raised my umbrella threateningly at him saying “I told you not to push me!” It alarmed me that I threatened violence to a stranger, but he and sadly everyone else quickly backed away from me.
Naida Sperling
Palo Alto, California
A lens of misogyny can be very useful to help understand women’s experiences, but it can often obscure our understanding of perpetrators of such bad experiences. Plenty of men like myself can also report the exact same bad experiences mentioned in the article.
The issue with the perpetrators is a more generalised one linked to assertion of power through violence and antisocial anger. Seeing it as merely misogyny leads to misunderstanding of the motives involved, and what the viable solutions could be.
Liam Riley
Salford
Regarding Lucy Pasha-Robinson’s recent article on being shoved by men in the street, this also happens to men. It happened to me (a 6-feet tall, fairly well-built man) last week in London. It happened to me, more seriously, some years ago on the Tube when I was assaulted and threatened. It happened to me last year in Regent’s Park when a runner ran into me deliberately, and then turned around and shoved me hard in the back for good measure. Cowardly and inconsiderate men are generally the perpetrators, and they shove both genders, in my experience.
Tim Gough
London
I witnessed the exact same thing walking down Fulham Road in London at 7am last month. A woman was walking towards me on an empty pavement, and I saw a man walk up quickly behind her, barge into her and shove her quite hard from behind. He then shouted “watch where you’re going, (b-word)!”
I was utterly shocked – it was unbelievable; so obviously intentional and at the same time completely unnecessary, as there was nobody but us three anywhere on the pavement. So I shouted at the man “what are you doing? What is your problem?”, which was the best I could think of, and he stared at me angrily but clearly thought better of treating me in the same way as he had the woman, and walked off quickly.
The aggression and misogyny in his action was so barefaced and obvious, it shocked me deeply and it stayed with me for weeks. I’ve since discussed this with my wife and a few female friends, and sadly they all confirmed this is has either happened to them before, too, or that they know someone who’s been attacked in this way.
Men everywhere need to call this out and be ready to challenge perpetrators of such sexist intimidation and attacks, wherever and whenever they happen. This will be effective because those men are clearly cowards (aside from whatever else may be ailing them psychologically), and it’s up to us men to help call it out, end it, and ensure the perpetrators cannot get away with it. Thank you for reporting on this issue – it’s past time for this to end.
Markus Ickstadt
London
Lucy Pasha-Robinson’s piece resonated deeply with me because it captures a particular kind of disturbance: something seemingly small happens, yet the body’s reaction reveals that something larger has been threatened. What she describes also feels far from local or isolated. Living in Germany, I have increasingly encountered similar situations, typically without force, but with the same dynamic in muted form: men choosing unnecessary proximity.
I think of moments at a bus stop or on a wide pavement, in an almost empty public space, when a man passes far closer than necessary. No shove, no words – just a proximity that feels deliberate and triggers an instinctive alarm. I step aside automatically, and in doing so will never know whether he would have collided with me. What I do know is that he could easily have kept his distance. Even without physical contact, being passed by a stranger with inches to spare amid such a “huge expanse of empty pavement”, as Pasha-Robinson puts it so aptly, is unsettling enough.
Like the author, I find myself asking why. Why does the burden of awareness, adjustment and de-escalation fall so predictably on women?
It is tempting to explain this away as individual rudeness or post-pandemic fraying of social norms. But that feels insufficient. Is this kind of behaviour connected to a broader backlash? As women occupy more public and social space, some men appear to experience this not as neutral change but as provocation, responding with micro-assertions of dominance – reminders about who is expected to yield.
There is something quietly hopeful, though, in naming it. Each time we recognise the pattern, share it, and refuse to dismiss it, we reclaim a little of the space – and mutual respect – that should belong to us all.
Vera Wichers
Munich, Germany
Quite a few years ago, I started playing a game/experiment called “patriarchy chicken”, in which, as a woman, I refuse to cede space to a man if we are walking directly toward one another. I remain on a straightforward path, no matter what. I do this on the sidewalk, wandering around museums, on subway platforms, in intersections when crossing the street, in the park, etc.
This has resulted in many, many collisions due to men’s inaccurate presumptions that this woman will move out of their way. Although once it resulted in a ridiculous standoff after a man stopped in his tracks, and so did I. Neither of us moved off to the right or the left into the grass; we both stood our ground on the narrow dirt path, face-to-face, mere inches from one another. He told me I was a “very odd woman” for not moving to let him pass. I wish I’d had Lucy Pasha-Robinson’s words – why is sharing public space only a woman’s job? I guess I was lucky not to have been literally shoved aside.
Anneliese Dickman
Castle Rock, Colorado, US
What’s going on with men and their sense of entitlement these days? Where does this hubris come from? What has happened to basic human kindness and respect?
One morning, I was walking along a concrete path holding the hand of my three-year-old grandson in a local park in an inner-Sydney suburb. Two strong-looking men in their 30s came striding along the centre of the path towards us. They didn’t acknowledge our presence in any way, did not attempt to move to one side of the path or slow down. We had to leap out of their way for fear of being bowled over.
I spent a good part of the rest of the day feeling angry, disrespected and wondering what this says about men’s attitudes towards women in Australia. I have no answer except to observe that disrespect and a sense of male entitlement is, sadly, a growing trend.
Judith Radin
New South Wales, Australia
Lucy Pasha-Robinson’s story of multiple encounters on British streets with men who have pushed or berated her was so triggering that I waited a day before writing. Sadly, the societal fraying she reports is not just a British thing. Many years of encountering American men while out running, bicycling or just walking alone has taught me to expect the worst. Not that long ago, I was home in the US, driving on rural roads I know well. When I pulled into traffic to make a legal turn on to a long highway, a man in a truck sped up to swerve around me, pretending I had cut him off, manoeuvreing around my car, shaking his fist and screaming, his face contorted with anger. My heart raced for miles afterward. And, yes, I worried he might have had a gun.
Lori Fontanes
Paris, France
