'I was flashed on train platform - our boys must be taught better at school'

28 November 2023 , 18:21

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Nearly half of female public transport staff have been sexually harassed at work, says the RMT union (Image: Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

The first thing I noticed were his eyes, glinting with excitement. Then he pulled down his jogging bottoms. He had nothing on underneath.

It was dusk, he was only a few feet from me, and everyone else on the train station platform was quite a distance away. As I froze in shock and horror, he started performing an intimate act on himself, a performance I did not stick around for.

Wondering what I should have done differently, I couldn’t help replaying the awful moment later, over and over. I still do sometimes even now. I wish I’d looked nonplussed, or laughed even, rather than giving him exactly the reaction he presumably desired. But I couldn’t, because I was so frightened.

Still, at least I’ve got a Flashed At On Public Transport story to contribute, when all my friends are sharing theirs. Many women have, of course, and if not, they’ve definitely got at least one example – probably more – of being touched/stroked/squeezed on public transport, had something they’ve very much hoped is an umbrella pushed up against them when crushed in a crowd of strangers at rush hour.

You don’t say anything though, of course. Well, maybe it genuinely was an accident? Perhaps they were just pushed into you by the throng of sweaty commuters? Even if not, we’re British. We don’t like to make a fuss. We’re far more likely to apologise than call someone out and have to stand there awkwardly afterwards while probably absolutely nothing happens as a result.

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Everyone knows it’s dangerous to be a woman travelling on public transport – among many all other places – but I’d never considered what it must be like to be a woman working there.

Now a survey by the RMT union has revealed nearly half of female employees on rail, bus, metro and passenger ferry operations have been sexually harassed at work. Even more depressingly, 70% of them didn’t bother reporting the incidents as they felt their complaint wouldn’t be taken seriously – and, worse still, more than 80% said sexual harassment on public transport is getting worse.

RMT general secretary Mick Lynch says the survey “shows employers have much more to do in the public transport industry and the authorities in wider society, in tackling misogyny and harassment against women.”

Here’s a crazy idea - what if, instead of having to protect women from the inexorable harassment coming their way, accepting the inevitability of it getting worse, we actually tried to… make men stop doing it? Teach this in schools, as part of the national curriculum. Regularly. Repeatedly. Educate little boys it is never OK to touch a woman unless you are 100% certain she wants you to.

Educate little girls that they don’t have to put up with this behaviour, and how to react if/when they are. Help kids learn, from an early age, to respect and value each other, regardless of gender. Drilling this into future generations seems the only way to turn the tide, our best hope, at least.

It really shouldn’t be too much to expect that women are allowed to move about unrestricted, without fear of being grabbed or groped. That they’ll never have the image of a complete stranger’s penis burned into their memory for ever. That they can go about their lives, unafraid, and free, on public transport, and everywhere else.

Polly Hudson