This month, a train passenger became the first person to be sentenced under new harassment laws after he grabbed a woman’s hair on the train, asking to kiss her, constantly leaning on her and telling her she was magical. All while she was on the phone to her boyfriend, who was so concerned that he who called British Transport Police. When the man was arrested at London Bridge, he told police it was “just banter”.
If you’re a woman, I’d bet you’ve had an occasion at least once where you’ve been made to feel uncomfortable by a man: be that stroking, touching, whispering in your ear, using their physicality to dominate you… there’s a myriad of ways. But if challenged on their behaviour, the response is too often a version of the aforementioned “banter” line, accompanied by a laugh – because we are “blowing things out of proportion”. Making “mountains out of molehills”.
It’s at that point that we reach a crossroads. We have to make a mental calculation in terms of how to get out of a situation that we neither asked for, nor encouraged. We weigh it up: do we laugh along with the “banter” to diffuse the situation; become quieter in the hope he’ll get bored and move on – or verbalise our discomfort and deal with whatever may come next?
