At around 9pm on Wednesday 3rd of March, Sarah Everard left a friend’s house in Clapham, South London, to make her way back to her home in Brixton, a journey that should have taken a mere 50 minutes. Sarah never made it home. Instead, almost a week later, her remains were found in woodland over 56 miles from where she was last seen alive.
Here at Her Campus Leeds, our team of writers and editors have watched the unfolding events of this past week with immense sadness. We have all felt unsafe on the streets at some point or another and we all know how dangerous it is to be a woman in today’s world. Sarah’s story is undoubtedly distressing, but frustratingly, it is not surprising. According to a recent survey, 97% of women aged aged 18-24 say they have been sexually harassed, while 80% of women of all ages say they have experienced sexual harassment in public spaces. These figures are not new; ask any woman you know about sexual harassment and it is likely she has a story to tell you. We’ve decided it’s time these stories were heard.
The following letters were written by our very own team here at Leeds (who we have chosen to keep anonymous), each refers to a contributor’s own personal experiences with sexual harassment. We felt using the form of a letter would give our writers a sense of empowerment in telling their stories. By providing a platform that society often denies victims, we wanted to help demonstrate that sexual harassment comes in a variety of forms and to also raise awareness of just how real that 97% figure is.
This article is dedicated to the memory of Sarah Everard and the countless other women who have suffered in similar circumstances – it’s time for change.
To the man on the train,
I had a wonderful day in Manchester with a friend and just wanted to get home in one piece. You, however, may have had other ideas. Do you remember?
It was March, 2010- you got on a train and sat next to the girl sat in the window? The train was nearly empty but you chose to sit next to me. I was immediately uncomfortable.
You didn’t look intimidating at all, it was just the fact that you sat next to me and trapped me in a seat. You put me in a place that I couldn’t easily escape. You didn’t ask if I was ok with you sitting next to me. You just did it.
Why did you think it was acceptable to then talk to me, a complete stranger, who was obviously uncomfortable? I would have understood if you were asking if it was the right train, or the time, but the conversation you decided to have with me was discussing my hair. You declared that it was pretty. Then, without my permission you started to touch it, trying to smell it.
I pulled away, but you leant over, I looked around for help; the train guard walked past, saw that I was uncomfortable and then carried on like nothing had happened. Several men got on the train, saw what you were doing and carried on as they were.
That was the moment I started to fear for my life, you had hold of my hair. I tried to pull your hand off and tell you to let go but you wouldn’t. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to get out of the situation. More men walked past, saw me trying to remove your hand from me and continued to ignore the situation.
It was at that moment an announcement was made on the train. The train was broken and we needed to get off.
As soon as you stood up and waited to let me get up so you could (in your own words) ‘walk to our next train so we could sit together’, I was out of there; you tried to grab me, but I was too fast for you.
I have never run so fast in my life. I knew you were following me so I was looking for the police, a member of staff, or anyone who could help me. But because it was late at night there was no one around.
I looked behind me and could see you still following me. I was freaking out, I didn’t know what to do. I arrived at the platform that the new train was at and saw a woman around my age looking in my direction. I approached her and quickly explained the situation. She quite possibly saved my life that day. She immediately acted like she knew me. We were going to the same destination so we sat on the train together and got to know each other.
Once you saw me with her, you left the platform. I never saw you again. I also never saw that woman again, but that day I learnt a lesson. You are never safe.
From,
The girl who got away by a sheer luck.
To my ex-boyfriend (and the first person I had sex with),
Retrospectively, I understand how weird and perverted our relationship was. The power dynamic was undeniable. You were 11 years my senior, when I was barely 18.
When you asked if we could do an*l, I refused outright, saying that I didn’t feel comfortable, that I was still getting used to having vaginal sex, having suffered with vaginismus for as long as I could remember.
You said that that was okay, but that you’d “eventually wear me down”. I said that that sounded like rape. You said (referencing the fact that we weren’t exactly vanilla): “Well, it’s always a bit rapey with us.” You continued to ask, no matter how many times I said it made me uncomfortable.
Sincerely,
A girl who has moved on.
To the boy who I thought was my friend,
I don’t really remember much of that party; I don’t remember what I wore or what I drank, I don’t remember who was there or what it was even for – but I do remember you.
I remember feeling drunk, dizzy and tired. I remember wanting to just lie down and sleep. I remember choosing you as my port of safety; the boy I walked to school with, the boy I ate my lunch with, the boy I thought was my friend. I also remember being woken up sometime around 4am by another friend who had watched you grope me while I slept. I was moved to a ‘safer’ spot and told you had just taken an ‘opportunity’, that you were ‘desperate’, that it ‘wasn’t a big deal’. I believed them and so I laughed along at the joke, I didn’t want to bring the party down, I didn’t want to make it a big deal.
The next morning as we all recovered from hangovers in the living room, it became clear that everyone else knew what you had done too. They laughed and teased you for it and you laughed too. I went home telling myself that I was overreacting and so I told no-one else what you had done. I got a message the next day from our mutual friend. She asked me not to bring it up again, she said you were embarrassed and that, really, I should be ‘flattered’. I agreed.
Five years later and I still don’t understand why you did what you did, I don’t understand why I wasn’t more upset, I don’t understand why everybody laughed – I don’t think I ever will. I will always remember though, I’ll remember what you did and I’ll remember how it felt to be assaulted by the boy I thought was my friend.
Sincerely,
The girl who remembers.
To my ex-clubbing friend,
I used to love going clubbing with you. You were the only other gay person I’d met in Leeds, and it was very exciting to meet other people like me. That’s why I laughed when you first kissed me. You’re a gay man and I’m a lesbian woman. It’s funny, right? Maybe the first time. That first time when you asked.
But somehow saying yes to that one funny peck and laughing after led to kissing being a regular activity for us on a club night. It wasn’t funny anymore, but it wasn’t uncomfortable either. I was just bored with it.
Then you started to draw lines from my pubic area, up to my stomach and between my boobs.
I still didn’t do anything.
I didn’t react until you made my best friend cry because you did the same thing to her. That’s why we ran off that final night. That’s why I called the security guard at McDonald’s a not-so-nice word for not letting us use the bathrooms to calm down. That’s why I stopped replying to your messages.
I wish I had stood up for myself – but I am proud that I stood up for my best friend.
From,
Your ex-‘fave lesbian’
To the group of boys who assaulted me in broad daylight,
You were young. That isn’t an excuse, but rather a scathing indictment. You were so young. I was walking past a city park, in broad daylight, with a friend. We could see you walking towards us, being a bit laddish – you were all at most 14, what else did we expect?
As you walked past, you smacked me on the ass, and hit me upside the head, and ran away laughing. My bodily autonomy was a damn joke to you. I can imagine the kind of men you’re going to grow up to be.
Sincerely,
A girl who wishes she’d reported you.
To the regular at my workplace,
I am working a shift alone in the farm shop. You come in and we greet each other by name. I know you by now, and you know me. You ask how I am, maintaining eye contact with my t*ts for the entire conversation. You ask what kind of lunches we have available. I tell you that we only just sold out. You shrug and move to leave. You leer in the door, all the while continuing to stare at my chest, and say “God, I wish I were younger so I could have you.”
Sincerely,
A woman who is young enough to have been your granddaughter.
To S, (trigger warning)
If I could go back on that invite I extended to you to spend time with some friends I would have rescinded it. But that is what hindsight, you can’t turn back time.
Maybe it was unwise to let someone who was older than me and male to sleep in my room because they had missed their train home. But you agreed to sleep on the floor. We fell asleep not long after we got home.
I was asleep. I could not consent to what happened next, in my room at university.
I woke up to your hand in my underwear and I just froze while you carried on. To this day I cannot remember how long this went on for, I just know that I closed my eyes and imagined myself someplace else. I wish I hadn’t frozen that night, that I had left my room, screamed for help, anything. But I just let you carry on. I replay that night in my head repeatedly, wondering what would have happened if I had done anything differently.
In the morning you were back on the floor as if nothing had happened. We got up, I tried to carry on as normal, but got you out of the building as fast as I could without making it obvious, I knew what had happened. We parted ways as I went to my lecture.
I don’t think I realised exactly what had happened until I spoke to a friend about it. That friend ended up contacting university because I tried to keep it hidden. My tutor pulled me into a meeting, and that is when I broke down. The problem was because a few days had passed even if I went to the police it would have been my word against yours, so the university actually implied it wouldn’t be worth reporting. I wish I had, because I found last year you had done it to some other girls too, one of which had taken her life.
You ruined my second year of university, I had to repeat it while you carried on without a care in the world. The scary thing is, I know you are still carefree. And I want to report it still, but it happened 11 years ago now and I don’t know if I remember enough.
From,
K
To the stranger in the club,
It was my first night out after only turning 18 a few days before and I was so excited to be able to spend the evening celebrating my birthday with my friends.
However, you soon changed the experience from a joyful one to one that I couldn’t wait to be finished with. I was simply minding my own business, dancing, and having fun with my friends when you came up behind me and proceeded to inappropriately touch me. I initially froze, confused, trying to understand what had just happened, followed by an overwhelming sense of humiliation, anger, and uneasiness.
From that moment on I just wanted to leave the club because I no longer felt safe, and I couldn’t enjoy the night that I had been looking forward to for so long. You took that away from me. The worst part of it is that I blamed myself because I chose to wear a skirt that night. How ridiculous is it that I blamed myself for your actions? All because society perpetuates this narrative that if a woman experiences sexual assault or sexual harassment then she must have done something to provoke it, and I had internalised this myth. But this myth only exists to serve the patriarchy, which gives men like yourself the power to feel like you can do whatever you want to women.
For so long after that night I was very conscious of what I wore, often casting my mind back to what had happened, not wanting the incident to repeat itself. That was until I was out wearing jeans and a long-sleeved top (the complete opposite to what I wore in the club), and I was wolf-whistled at by two men. This made me realise that it doesn’t matter what I wear, it never seems to stop men like you from thinking it’s perfectly acceptable to treat women like we’re objects. You shouldn’t be allowed to have this power over me and after spending some time learning that I didn’t bring your actions upon myself, I now wear what I want to because why should a man like you be able to wear whatever you want to and live unafraid but not me?
From,
A woman who no longer lets a man’s actions dictate what she wears.
To J,
I get that your intentions were well meant initially, and I know that you went through a tough time, but that does not make what you did any better. Why did you think that going behind my back and contacting all my seminar tutors and asking if you could attend the seminars with me because ‘she gets nervous in new situations and needs moral support and she said I could contact you.’
Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to receive a phone call from the head of the school and to be pulled into a meeting in the second week of term with all your seminar tutors and not know what you have done? I was mortified. You were using something I said and twisting it to your own needs.
I honestly felt awful at the time when they told me that you were being brought into that meeting too, to discuss how we move forward. And then I found out that you’d told one tutor I was your girlfriend? That was an awkward meeting.
Uni actually suggested I report you to the police because of some of what you had said one of the tutors in the email. And I said no because I had known what you’d gone through that year and thought you didn’t need extra stress.
Why did I protect you for basically trying to control my life because I rejected you as a partner?
Uni told you to stay away from me, which was easy as we only had one lecture together. They told you that, in that lecture, you had to sit in the opposite side of the room from me, but you just stopped turning up. I then heard you weren’t attending anything so you ended up failing your degree. Which was somehow my fault.
Do not blame me for you failing your degree, that is your own fault. Accept that you were in the wrong.
From,
K.
To the man who won’t remember me,
It was one of my first nights out, I was having a good time and felt safe as I was with a large group. The minute that it was just a group of girls left, you and your friend came over to us.
Based on appearances I would guess that you were in your late 30s or early 40s and for some unknown reason you thought it would be okay to come over to a group of 18 year olds that clearly looked far too young. Out of politeness we laughed at your jokes and silly comments whilst subtly glancing at each other with a look of worry.
You then proceeded to make a comment about my teeth and the way it made you feel, then asked to watch me have a drink. I am now afraid to smile. You knew we all felt uncomfortable. You literally said ‘don’t worry, I’m not a pervert’. I looked around and there were a couple of young men watching, I think they were checking to make sure we were okay but I wish they had said something.
Eventually you left, and me and my friends laughed it off because we expect this to happen when we go out. That’s the saddest part of it. We expect it. Women should be able to go out and enjoy themselves without men making them uncomfortable, but you choose to do it anyway.
From,
The woman who just wanted to enjoy herself.
To my bosses at my old workplace,
I can’t say I was especially surprised to learn from a male colleague that you’d said this, but as I understand it, “I’ll bend her over a table and f**k her until her legs break, and then she’ll have something to moan about” is not appropriate workplace language.
Sincerely,
A woman who never wants to work in hospitality again.
To the stranger who walked past me,
Back in 2016, you were my first real experience of sexual assault. I was on a school trip; I was there for my GCSE’s. You groped me.
I was walking with my friends on the edge of a crowd, you and your friends walked past me. You looked like a man, you were twice the size of me, and you groped me. As you walked on, I turned around to try to catch your face, but all I saw was you and your friends laughing. You were with male and female friends, and you all laughed as you looked back at me, fear on my face.
You also gave me my first big panic attack. The two friends I was with took me to the side, asked what was wrong. They offered to find security and report it, but I didn’t want to, I was too scared.
I was 15.
In the following years, more people have touched me without my consent, but none of them impacted me as much as what happened that day.
Sincerely,
A stronger me.
To F,
I will never understand why you did what you did to me. Why could you not accept it was over when I said I wanted to end things because I wasn’t in the emotional headspace to have a relationship? Did you know what you were doing when you decided to keep sending me flowers? When I asked you to stop? When I told you I was going to the police? Why flowers? You knew how much they meant to me, the connection to my family. Did you just want to destroy me? Did you know it almost worked?
It took me receiving 10 unsolicited bouquets of flowers for the police to do anything about it. I wanted them to ask you to please stop because it was inappropriate. But you didn’t listen, at all. You carried on.
You made me terrified of delivery vans at work, even now when there is a van outside my heart drops, and it has been over two years since the last flowers. Do you know how scared I am to think this could all start again the moment you get out? Are you planning on sending me another 50 bouquets of flowers? How did you afford that when you were unemployed at the time? How on earth did you not see that it was wrong?
And how did you know about the baby that I lost? How did you know it’s due date? Why did you think it was appropriate to send me flowers for that? What is going on in that brain of yours? And how did you send some on what would have been their first birthday? Did you not see how sick that was? You need help.
I had a restraining order against you, that didn’t work. They sent you down for 12 weeks, and that didn’t work. You are now serving 20 years.
When you got coronavirus last year, I genuinely hoped that it would kill you, just so that I didn’t have to be afraid that as soon as you got out the flowers would start again. That made me ashamed to be me.
But you know what? I am stronger than you. I will learn to love flowers again. I am learning to be able to see flowers without thinking that they are a form of harassment and instead being a form of affection. I will win.
I just wish you could see what you have done wrong and how you can learn from it.
From,
K
To the men with no faces,
There’s a lot of you that this is addressed to.
You are the men who catcall girls and women whilst driving past because that’s what you call fun. It’s a universal experience for young girls to be catcalled whilst walking home from school and sadly I experienced it a lot.
I was 11 when I first remember being catcalled and actually understood what it was. You shouted out of your car windows, laughing and joking about, you pressed your car horn, you slowed down your car when driving past me. You took away my childhood innocence and forced me to realise that the world is not a fairy-tale.
From,
The girl who is scared to walk home.
To the guy from school, on New Year’s Eve, (trigger warning)
I don’t have many regrets – but you were the biggest, yet most silent one of all. The universal excitement of New Year’s Eve is rooted in hope. The prospect of setting resolutions to be the best version of yourself in the coming year by reflecting on the previous year is reassuring. It provides us with a sense of control, a natural human desire, which soothes our anxiety of the unknown. Little did I know, this night would be the polar opposite – it was the beginning of the end.
I remember getting ready at my best friend’s place with a few other girl friends, trying to focus on the excitement of going into the new year, instead of the argument I just had with my boyfriend on the phone. We were all dressed for a white party; I had on a white frilled top, black patterned leather skirt, a black choker, black high heels and had done my hair and makeup. I convinced myself that I would have a good time that night and that I would stay away from my phone.
The party took place at a three-storey club, on a rooftop which would give a perfect view of the fireworks and the skyline. The girls and I had planned to meet a group of guys that two of them were in relationships with while I was just acquainted with them, occasionally passing by them in school and engaging in small talk. My then boyfriend was supposed to be there but couldn’t make it because of family plans. So, I floated around not saying much and kept myself occupied with drinks.
You were part of that group of guys. At one point, I remember standing by the bar with you, your friend and one of my girl friends, having the last few sips of my drink which was a vodka and coke. You gave me a funny look while asking, “Uh, do you want another?”, suggesting that I was going through my drinks pretty quick. Not knowing any better and trying to escape my sorrows, I agreed. This is where it begins to get blurry, quite literally.
For me, I recall this night as if I stuck an old and scratched up DVD in the player, watching the scenes glitch and cut out occasionally throughout the movie. To this day, I still can’t put the pieces together and the fact that my friends were also slightly drunk didn’t help.
You asking me if I wanted another drink was the last memory I had in the club. From what my friends could tell me, I couldn’t keep myself up for the rest of the night. I was told that one of my girl friends had to attempt to carry me on her shoulder the entire night and apparently getting down the stairs was a nightmare. I was told that I puked on her shoes and my other girl friend had to walk to the next club to get me some tissues. I was told that strangers came up to us at different points in the night offering their help.
The next thing I remembered through my blurry vision was being dragged by my girl friend on the road but I don’t remember when we left the club and how we got there. I remember a random drunk guy in close proximity to us, yelling something indistinct. I remember you eventually picking me up with both arms and carrying me, causing my head to spin and shutting my eyes in hopes of reducing my dizziness.
The next thing I remembered was being in the backseat of a car next to you and you picking me up to place me on your lap, the sudden movement making me dizzy again. I don’t remember the car ride. I don’t remember how I got into the house. I was told that you took me to your ‘guest room’. I was told that you changed me into your shirt. I was told that you brushed my teeth. I was told that you put me to bed.
The next thing I remembered was laying on the edge of a bed in a dark room, with some light from the hallway shining in and seeing one of my girl friend’s boyfriends about to walk out from the other side of the room. I remember waving at him to which he chuckled and said something indistinct before I shut my eyes.
The next thing I remembered was being woken up by you pulling me against your body. I don’t remember how it went down. I don’t remember you penetrating me. It felt like a dream; one that you can vaguely remember what it was about right after waking up but not the order of events or the details.
The next thing I remembered was hearing the bedroom door slam – and that’s when I woke up. I began to sober up, sitting on one side of the bed in tears and trying to process what had just happened. But all I could think of was my boyfriend and how he would feel. I felt a heavy weight pressing on my chest. All of this while you sat next to me in silence, interrupting my cries occasionally claiming that we both were just drunk and things got out of hand. The room was pitch black at this point. I remember picking up my clothes from the floor and getting dressed.
I remember not crying anymore hours after. I remember us starting to talk about other things, unrelated topics that would get my mind off my sadness and guilt. I remember it actually being quite pleasant at the time. The room gradually became brighter, with sunlight seeping through a window next to the bed and I could finally see the entire room. A wall and sliding door was across the bed, partitioning the room and at this point I knew that my friend and her boyfriend were on the other side of the room. I waited for my friends to wake up before we left.
My girl friends and I sat in deafening silence in the car ride back to the girls house that we got ready at. All of us were equally afraid to address the elephant in the room – what happened between you and me last night. One of the girls pointed to my neck, saying that I had a hickey from you. I don’t remember when or how it happened. I shifted my choker to cover it up and I felt like the most disgusting person at that point. I couldn’t bear seeing myself and being in my own skin. I wanted to peel myself away.
For years, I stayed silent about it for the most part. I told some of my closest friends but what I told lacked bits and pieces. The only extra information I found out was that it was one of the girls who opened the bedroom door and shut it as soon as she saw what happened, assuming that I was in the act of cheating on my boyfriend. But I remember one of the other girls texting you during the car ride, saying “you f*cked my friend”. To which I was told that your reply was, “I could barely hold her up”.
We were all young and naive. Especially me, I ignored the two people who suggested that I had been raped. Rape and sexual asault was foreign to me, I had never heard of it and I didn’t ever think that it could happen to me.
I was already struggling with my mental health due to other unrelated events at this point. I would use my nights out and alcohol as an escapism from the war in my head – so my drunkness that night wasn’t unusual to my friends. But what happened that night, in that bedroom, had never happened before.
Fast forward a year and six months since that event, you admitted to me that you knew what you were doing that night and the guilt of it always sat inside of you. I had defended you when people would ask about it, I would explain what I knew and shrugged it off as a stupid mistake for both us. I was lied to and I lost so much while you watched it in silence.
My self esteem had been deteriorating for years, but that night was the turning point. My school being small, the news spread like wildfire and I endured years of people sl*t-shaming me. I fed into it, I believed that I was unworthy and disgusting. Living had always been a struggle for me but this event, the haunting effects of it and your confrontation led me to two suicide attempts.
The worst part of it that I still struggle to forgive myself for – was getting into a relationship with you shortly after the event because I couldn’t live with the guilt of staying with my then boyfriend and you were the only one I could talk to without feeling ashamed because you were part of it. I now know that getting into a relationship with you was the stupidest mistake I could make, which I will carry with me to my grave.
But I also know that I am worthy. I know that you saw my vulnerability and you took advantage of it, not stopping once you did. For that, you are my biggest regret. My next biggest regret was not speaking up about it. If I could go back in time, I would be as loud and unapologetic as I could be. As every girl should be in this situation when they have been done wrong.
From,
The girl who deserves better.
To my first and ex-boyfriend,
In the lead up to the summer of 2018, you coerced me into having sex with you. It was my first time. You knew I was unsure and that I changed my mind, but you persisted until I reluctantly agreed. At the time, I tried to not think much of it, I consented in the end so it couldn’t be bad, right? It wasn’t until opening up to my friend about it months later that I realised coercion doesn’t equal consent.
Our whole relationship was toxic, manipulative, and emotionally abusive. How you thought you owned me and had the right to my body. You watched me while I ate and you knew it made me uncomfortable. You would make me tell you everywhere I went and who I went with. You wouldn’t allow me to talk to my guy friends. You made me take pictures for you. You threatened me if I didn’t send you pictures, saying that it’s all you had of me when we were apart. You made me do and say things that I didn’t want to. You controlled every part of me.
If it weren’t for that same friend, I would’ve never escaped you. I would perhaps even still be with you. Thank goodness I only suffered a little under a year. Thank goodness I listened to her and told her when I did.
Everything you did and said to me still impacts my relationships now. I was young and naive, and you were older, you should’ve known better. It makes me angry that after all these years the things you said and did still consume me. I didn’t report you; I don’t want to live through that part of my life again. I feel guilty that it means you could do the same things again to another girl, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Maybe someday I will.
For now, I have people who truly care for me and who want to help me forget you and everything you put me through. You won’t affect me forever, I know it, I’ll make sure of it.
Sincerely,
A stronger me.