Catcalled on the street, harassed at parties, scared to walk at night: The Day-to-Day life of students

By Alfie Nolan

“I have friends and family members that have been raped at young ages, and it is so normalised that I wasn’t even that surprised”, one Queens student confided when asked about harassment in Belfast over recent years.

Over the last month, I have listened to many female students’ experiences of harassment, one student explaining “the stuff that happens to everyone all the time — the beeping cars, random guys yelling at you in the street”. With particular experiences sticking out, for example, one student described a time when a guy yelled “You have a nice ass” to which she ignored, however he then said she was a “stuck up bitch” for revoking his advances and said how he would “teach [her] a lesson” by sticking a “cock up [her] bum”. This is just one of many students’ experiences.

In 2023, Ulster University found that 98% of women in Northern Ireland have experienced at least one form of violence or abuse in their lifetime [1]. While shocking enough, even more shocking is that this harassment is often an experience for girls from the age of 11. I understand, as a straight white male,one might say this is not for me to cover. To that, I say if girls are getting harassed in Northern Ireland from the age of 11, that is a problem we all must get involved in preventing. The current culture in Northern Ireland of misogyny and harassment has meant we have the second-highest femicide rate in Europe, with 24 women murdered since 2020. These statistics are oftened just brushed off as numbers in a report, but these are real-life experiences that young women and girls have go through every day. I will now take you through personal experiences from Queens students over the last two years.

One 19-year-old Belfast student that worked in a bar told me about when a chancer wanting a free drink, grabbed her colleague and said, “awk go on, I’ll rev you the money in the morning”. This led to her dragging her friend’s arm away from his grip. However, despite having her hands behind the bar, he started laughing and because her hands weren’t there to grab, he decided it was totally acceptable to grab something else.

Another Student spoke about how she was groped by an older man at a Belfast club after her first-year formal, a night that is meant to be such a fun night for students, ending in tears because an old man decided it was okay to grope a 19-year-old. When I spoke to her, she went on to explain how when she was 11, her and her friends were surrounded by men and groped in Derry — during their first time out without parents.

Another Queen’s student described a similar story in Belfast when she was 12 and boys not much older than her would threaten “to rape us while me and my friend when we were walking to the shop”. She then continued to speak about her experiences of harassment in the last two years since she started at university. She told me about how when she was clubbing in Belfast, she kissed a boy who decided to take it too far, explaining how he was “trying to get into [her] underwear”. She told him to stop and remove his hand, yet he continued.

Another Student confided about how when she was walking home from a night-out, a group of men started shouting abuse and surrounding her. They said she should come home with them, but after telling them to “fuck off”, she was slapped and shoved to the ground. A random man then stepped in and helped her home. However, the next day, the man who helped tried pressuring her to sleep with him because he helped her. She still has scars from that night.

Another Belfast student described a bizarre experience of a man who she wouldn’t take no for an answer in a nightclub, and instead decided to put his tongue in her ear.

These are just five of so many untold stories from students in Belfast who are being harassed day-to-day, and I am sure that most women and girls reading will resonate with aspects of all of these stories.

As more people began to open up about their experiences, it became clear how normalised these ocurrances are. Society is reaching a tipping point where we, as men, need to join women fighting for change, before it’s too late. How many more of your sisters, of your cousins, of your teachers, or your nurses need to be harassed or killed before we all begin to make real change?

Sources

[1] Ulster University. 2023. “New Ulster University Research Uncovers Eye-Watering Levels of Violence against Women and Girls in NI.” http://Www.ulster.ac.uk. September 7, 2023. https://www.ulster.ac.uk/news/2023/september/new-uu-research-uncovers-levels-of-violence-against-women-and-girlsni.