Harvey Weinstein-the start of something?

[Kenickie]

Massively good for you for being so brave, Marth. I hope you're as ok as you can be. X

[Marth]

So so many men.
I'm fine thanks. It was a long time ago, but it only recently made me examine the really adverse and angry reaction I have to male doctors around certain issues. (such as the consultants involved in my breast cancer scare recently) I could barely speak to them, become really monosyllabic and feel anger and proper dislike towards them. For a woman that is a feminist and does feel "woke", I am quite unexamined sometimes.

[Edith Bacon]

It’s the understanding that it’s not ‘other’ people and that these people walk amongst us that is so jarring. And that understanding opens us up to an awareness to which most people prefer to close themselves down. It’s about ‘not making a fuss’ and ‘not getting involved’ and ‘minding our own business’ and I get it but it makes me so angry.

[Marth]

We’re still waiting for A’s friend’s dad’s court appearance (downloading and distributing child porn). I’m sure no children we know have been involved but it’s so unsettling to realise that someone you know and never suspected has those tendencies.

Thats so horrible.
I could run off quite a list of dodgy men.

[Lily]

Fair play, Marth. That took real guts.

[Zoomer]

Yes, well done Marth.

[Kenickie]

I think it's always really tough to go back to something like that so props.

[Kenickie]

I think it's always really tough to go back to something like that so props.

[Rosa]

Good for you, Marth. x

[Texaco Shirley]

Well done Marth. It takes so much dedication to open an old can of worms like that.

[Disco]

It's very brave of you, Marth. I hope everyone who is dealing with the after effects of abuse is ok.

A man was filmed and arrested outside Monk's school. He was in his car wearing pyjama bottoms masturbating. And my friend's 11 year old daughter has been followed home for several nights in a row by a man who then sat outside her house in his car for an hour. The police went to visit him but nothing else has happened. Another friend was in a children's home Sh.ir.ley Oa.ks and was abused for years.

[Lily]

My God. How can this be so common?

When we were in our teens my friend's cousin fainted at school and finally told teachers their grandfather was abusing her. He went to jail for a few years from what I recall. The pair of them were very odd as my friend was highly allergic to dogs, and when she went to stay there her gran wrapped her in the dog's blanket. But my friend was scared her grandfather had abused her too and she'd blocked it out. It seemed so rare, when it came out - we couldn't believe that it was happening so close to home. Yet it appears to happen everywhere, FFS.

[Panda]

Almost every one of my friends has some hideous story to tell and it makes me so mad.

When I was around 6 years old my sister and I used to play with the kids of my parents friends a lot, a brother and sister. The boy used to always want to play “tents” and would put up a blanket around the bottom bunk of our bunk beds, and then try to get me and my sister to go inside so he could touch us. Whenever this happened his sister would go really passive, start sucking her thumb and hide under the blankets. He also once whipped my sister with his judo belt when she refused to go in the “tent”.

Then suddenly the parents split up, the Mum and kids moved miles away and he apparently moved abroad. My parents never spoke of it, and it was years later when my sister and I finally discussed it with each other, and wondered if he had been arrested instead.

What the fuck was being done to those kids to make them behave that way? Makes me feel sick even now when I think of it.

[olive]

The thing is when you speak to other women there is to a always a degree of acceptance of this kind of occurrence. None of these stories shock or surprise me too much anymore which is shit when you think about it.

We had an email last year about a sports coach at T’s school and I had to very gently ask T about any odd behavior. It was pretty awful even imagining for a second that he could have been involved in something like this but every single person that steps forward helps us not ignore it out of fear which is what would have happened previously.

[Turtle Bean]

I don't even know how you would begin talking to your kids about something like that, what an awful thing to have to do.

Good work, Martho. I hope it goes OK. I feel bad that I never reported the diabetic consultant who used to rub his penis against my knees when I was sat on the edge of the hospital bed. He is probably dead now though. Also why did I just accept that? Zirk was in the next room or sometimes my mum.

[Toast]

Good on you, Marth. That's not an easy thing to do.

This is all so depressingly common.

[Chicky]

Can someone help me construct a reply to a Facebook post from a friend? She’s posted an article about bad female bosses and I want to say something coherent but I’m struggling. Can anyone help?

[Luce]

They’re actively taking part in the whole ‘problem’ that they think exists. Self fulfilling prophecy urged on by internalised misogyny I wouldn’t bother saying anything though, conversations like this on Facebook only tend to go one way and make people more entrenched, I find.

[Lily]

I don't think anyone DOES think all women get on, do they?

I'm a little disappointed in The Pool's articles of late. (I'm sure they are devastated.)

[Morganna]

Something like 'If some of the best and some of the worst have been women, by definition that must apply to men, too, unless they were all mediocre.'

It will end up with 'I am only speaking from my own experience ', though.