Don’t know about you but I romped through Sally Wainwright’s new series Riot Women in a couple of sittings. Punk-rocking, middle-aged women spitting venom, smashing up cars and downing bottles of vodka – yum, yum yes please. It could just as well be titled 101 Reasons Why Men Are Absolutely Awful. While the brilliant lead actresses were given complex richly-drawn characters, the supporting male cast were like panto villains. Bullying colleague, spineless boss, abusive boyfriend, useless son – and all set in ‘ebden Bridge (informally, Britain’s lesbian capital). Bloody hell Sally, someone must have really, really pissed you off. Come on now, men aren’t all bad.
With that in mind, I was heading home on the Tube after dinner with friends the other night, earphones in, happily tipsy, minding my own business. When a young man, mid-twenties-ish, walks off from his mates at the end of the near empty-carriage and takes the seat directly in front of me. Interesting gambit, I thought.
There’s that split second when you run the risk assessment: What’s going on? Anyone else here? Is there an alternative explanation, or is it exactly what it looks like?
He wanted my attention so I ignored him and flicked a look to a bloke nearby: You seeing this? He nods back: Yep, I see it.
Two or three minutes go by and the young idiot doesn’t give up. He leans forward and stares even more intently at me. What’s the endgame here? It’s a weird way to pick up women. (So how did you two meet? “Ah, it was the cold glint in his eye as he harassed me on public transport. I knew he was The One.”) More likely, he clocked a woman going home alone and decided to impress his mates by trying to intimidate her.
Big mistake matey. I have decades of experience dealing with predatory men. I didn’t even give him both barrels. Didn’t need to. He immediately crumbled, not sure what to do, before he got off at the next stop with his pals, embarrassed and shamed. The other bloke saluted me.
Technically, no harm done but still my blood was at a rolling boil. Another woman, or a girl, it would be a different story. And it is happening everywhere, all the time.
Pathetic losers preying on women. It’s infuriating. Enough to make me turn punk. Sally, this one’s for you: “I’m a riot woman on the Tube, armour made of attitude. You think I’ll flinch? You’ve misjudged the mood, this bitch bites back, you ******* tool.”
