We need to stop accepting violence and harassment of women as a normal part of life

“You f*****g b***h, you made me break the law and you won’t even talk to me.”

He was on a motorbike, helmet still on. He’d slowed down to a crawl and followed me down the street, trying to get me to engage in conversation.

I’d smiled politely - a natural reflex - but kept silent, picking up pace to reach the pedestrianised part of the street, assuming that would be an easy way to lose him.

Instead, he drove onto the pavement and continued until I turned to go into the first shop I came across with an open door - shouting abuse as he drove away.

This was in 2013, while staying at a friend’s flat in London. It was the middle of the day, and I was popping to Aldi for a few bits of shopping.

I am no different to any other woman. At 6ft 2ins, I’m perhaps a bit taller than most. But every woman I know can tell similar stories - if not much, much worse. 

I can’t remember the first time something like this happened. Eleven or twelve at the oldest - I remember one early event whilst I was in my middle school uniform (there is a part of the Midlands where three-tier schooling is still the norm) and giggling with friends after being honked at by a passing car.

Yes, giggling. It was a compliment, you see - or at least, that’s how we had learned to take it. Pretty girls got attention from boys - if we were getting attention, maybe we weren’t as ugly and fat as our mirrors and beauty magazines made us feel.

Even then, though, we knew there was something off about it. One particularly loud-mouthed friend liked to shout “pervert” at those who honked or shouted explicit comments from the windows as they passed. We giggled about that, too.

But it wasn’t long before I started to feel afraid.

Gangs of older boys would hang out in the park, shouting things to any girl passing by. I started to avoid the areas they frequented, embarrassed by what they might say.

On a night out in London, a man shoved his hand up my skirt as he walked past. On another occasion, a friend had a boob grabbed. Getting your backside felt up by strangers in a club was so normal it barely warranted mention.

“We know that these aren’t rare occurrences,” Laura Bates, founder of the Everyday Sexism movement, told me.

“These instances are completely normalised, they’re brushed off, they’re dismissed, they’re disbelieved.

“And of course when we dismiss these ‘minor’ issues, when we say that it’s not a big deal, we dismiss it as ‘just street harassment’ - some of these things escalate.

“Somebody who wrote to the Everyday Sexism Project tried to ignore four men catcalling her from their car, only to find that they screeched to a halt and tried to drag her in.”

• “It essentially says that women’s bodies in a public space are public property": Everyday Sexism Project's Laura Bates speaks out on harassment

Stories like that give me chills - I know I’m there but for the grace of God, as they say.

What would have happened if the guy on the motorbike had been having a particularly bad day, and got off his bike - or decided to use it as a weapon?

On another occasion, I had nipped out from after-hours Birmingham rock club Subside to get some cash from the machine over the road - a journey of perhaps 20 metres. On my way back, a man tried to stop me to talk, then grabbed my arm.

I tried to shake him off, but it wasn’t until I spotted another man passing by and called to him for help that he let go.

“Don’t interfere with me and my girl,” he shouted.

“I don’t think she’s your girl, mate,” my anonymous saviour replied, escorting me back to the safety of Subside before disappearing into the night.

What if he hadn’t been there?

Thinking about it, I’m not sure I even told my friends about that one. It sounds dreadful when retold now, and the potential consequences could have been devastating.

Let’s be honest - they could have been fatal.

But at the time, it was just another instance of a strange man accosting a tipsy girl on the street. Would anyone have even blinked?

“The normalisation of these so-called ‘low-level’ instances creates an attitude towards women in our society, it creates a normalised power imbalance,” Laura said.

“It essentially says that women’s bodies in a public space are public property. And once you buy into that narrative, it becomes easier for the more serious abuses like rape and domestic violence to flourish and to go unreported.”

Even when they are reported, there is often very little tangible action taken.

Home Office statistics from 2019 revealed only 1.7% of reported rapes were prosecuted.

And in 2019/20, the CPS revealed that the number of rape convictions in England and Wales had fallen to a record low, with 1,439 suspects in cases where a rape had been alleged being convicted either of rape or another crime - half the number of three years before.

Of course, rape and sexual assault are incredibly difficult crimes to deal with. But those figures are appalling.

I was only 20 when my best friend was raped. A boy we both knew was at her house, and refused to listen when she told him no. I convinced her to go to the police, and went with her, literally and figuratively holding her hand.

I listened as the officer told her that accusations of rape were difficult to investigate, let alone prosecute, and because my friend had been flirting with him they wouldn’t be confident about getting a conviction.

After that, what could I tell friends who asked me what they should do? 

When another close friend confided that she had been raped by a work colleague after a Christmas party - leaving her torn and bleeding?

Or when yet another close friend was attacked by her boyfriend’s best friend, who crept into their room while her boyfriend was passed out drunk, dragged her down to the floor - and afterwards told everybody she had not only been keen, but the instigator?

And how on earth could someone have confidence in reporting anything less than rape?

“This keeps on happening, and these things will keep repeating themselves, unless we recognize this as an epidemic and people in positions of power actually take action and create a systemic change that we need to see to prevent them happening again,” Laura added.

“We need to change our cultural attitudes towards these issues. We need to see a change in the way the media reports this. And we have to make a systemic change which involves the judiciary, the police force, the sentences and the kind of punishment for people who abuse women in the street, and it involves education and looking at what we’re teaching young people.”

I am just like every other woman. My friends are just like every other group of friends.

We’re not different, we’re not special.

In fact, we’re depressingly typical. Just this week, a YouGov poll of 18-24 year olds found that 97% had been sexually harassed - and 80% said they’d experienced sexual harassment in public spaces.

We need to stop telling ourselves this is normal.