What a fantastic piece of writing by Marina Hyde (What happened to me was nothing – the nothing women know all too well, 12 March). I could feel her stress, her worry for her safety and that of her son, her desire to be rid of this obnoxious man, the fact that she was on her own and no one was coming to her aid. It’s been playing out over and over in my head since reading it. What makes her assailant think that he has the right to treat her, or indeed anybody, in this manner? What makes him think that he will get away with it in a public place, and why was no one willing to intervene and say stop?
Given the ongoing issues surrounding women’s safety, one wonders if we are heading into a time when people like this man will feel free to be even more extreme in their attacks and expect no consequences for their actions. I dread to think what might have happened if this had been a night-time encounter.
Gerry Shinners
Mountmellick, County Laois, Ireland
• Marina Hyde’s piece had me on the edge of my seat, my heart thumping, like reading the start of a novel that might not turn out so well. The fact that her experience was not fiction is so common for so many women. Hopefully the Clapham vigil for Sarah Everard, in the same vein as the Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movements, will have had some impact on men’s behaviour.
That anything positive emerges from such an appalling tragedy for this family, whose lives have been altered beyond imagination, is to be hoped.
Catherine Roome
Staplehurst, Kent
• The safety of young women on the streets of Britain is quite rightly the subject of much concern at the moment, but let no one think this problem is new. For us older women (70-plus in my case), life has included a catalogue of harassment and “near misses”.
From a serious sexual assault at age 10 by a boy my own age, through teenage years when my skills as a 200-yard sprinter came in very useful, to university in London where a journey by bus or tube often involved groping of some kind. (The city gents were the worst.)
As a young adult, I experienced propositions from friends, neighbours and colleagues – sometimes threatening. Most disempowering was contact with doctors who used their trusted position to get too close, to touch without a medical reason, and to carry out unnecessary intimate examinations. Of course, life has had many positive aspects too, but I don’t believe my experience has been unusual.
Maybe women all over the country reading this will be thinking “Yes, me too.” So has nothing changed in 65 years? It’s about time it did.
Name and address supplied
• Marina Hyde has no need to worry that her article was “convenient” for a journalist. On the contrary, women and men should be made aware of how frequent such incidents are. Yes, women often feel it’s their fault, that they have somehow asked for the attention, and yes, society encourages women to be able to defend themselves rather than look at ways men can be engaged in understanding the situation.
Perhaps this is an opportunity to embed such discussions in the PHSE curriculum. This should be an essential part of the educational “catch up” the government talks about.
Meg Timlin
(Educational psychologist), Walgrave, Northamptonshire
