everyday sexism live feed:

Whenever I stick up for myself, in almost any situation (be it being cat-called, or told to "smile honey" or being told that he should be allowed in front of me in a line because his job is "more important" than mine), I am told that I am "unladylike", or "bossy", or "unattractive". Verbal abuse is hurled at me by men for doing EXACTLY what those men would do in the same situation.

My friends at school are all boys. As much as I love hanging out with them, they are constantly talking about sex and 'bondage' and all these topics that make me feel uncomfortable. I've expressed this to them a heap of times, but they just think it's funny so continue to do it, just to annoy me.
They also turn things that I say into sexual phrases and such, and react to things I say with sexual comments.
I don't mind enough to protest, but after a while it gets pretty annoying and makes me uncomfortable.
Nothing I say makes them understand though.

After being raped, I was told it was impossible by a couple of women because I am male, so I must have wanted it.

When I was 18, and working in a factory, one very hot day my shorts ripped, showing quite a lot more leg than I would have liked. I had nothing else to put on, so continued working, with packing tape holding the torn shorts together. One of the male workers in the factory, turning around from a conversation that I suspect was about me and my torn shorts, stuck his tongue out at me and waggled it around, indicating, I felt, what he wanted to do because my shorts were ripped and he could see my leg. When I complained to the boss about the tongue incident, I was told that I should really reconsider making any kind of formal complaint, that the worker concerned (of the waggling tongue) was really scared and that his career/job prospects might be severely curtailed if this was to 'get out'. He was really sorry, apparently, but too scared to talk to me face-to-face, and it was just a joke - the implication being that I was making too big a deal about how I had been made to feel, and that if was to have any chance of being 'one of the guys' (ie, not being ostracised by every other worker in the factory) I should just drop it. It wasn't serious, after all - surely I could see that. I was just being a silly little girl. So I did drop it, and will never forget how sick and defiled I felt about the whole affair.

When I was 12 and just starting to dip my toes into playground "crushes", I started "dating" another boy in my grade. Because we had that status, he thought it was okay to reach inside my shirt and bra and grope my breasts, and pull my hand inside his pants to touch his penis, despite me repeatedly telling him "no". It felt completely wrong to me. Because I had, in my eyes, let it happen, it was my fault and I couldn't complain about it. Not just that, but when others in school witnessed what was happening, I was slut-shamed endlessly.

The entire experience scarred me emotionally and left me with suicidal thoughts. What makes it worse is that, when I reached adulthood, I told the (now) man in question what he had done to me, that I had not been consenting, and how that had made me feel, and he told me that it wasn't his fault. Instead, it was just his "hormones" acting, and that if it affected me so much, I should see a counsellor. He thereby refused to accept any responsibility for his actions, and in fact saw nothing wrong with what he had done. Looking back now, I wish I had known that that was actually sexual assault, and that I didn't have to have gone along with it.

A few years ago I was 14 and went to the Bullet for my valentine concert. I was standing in the crowd on my own watching the show when someone grabbed my ass and when i turned around the men just looked straight ahead and pretended nothing happened. This happens on so many occasions at music shows. Back then I wasn't brave enough to do anything but now i would turn around and slap the closest man.