We Need to Discuss the Pervs of London

We need to discuss the pervs of London. They are builders who whistle and married men who slip off their wedding rings when they see an attractive woman on the Tube. Others grope women on public transport or tell women they have never met to smile or “cheer up” if they aren’t greeted with an overwhelming smile while walking home from work.

Sadly for the pervs of London, women don’t want the attention of bored builders who should be painting a door rather than yelling “legs”. What does that even mean?

Unwanted “compliments” might very rarely have innocent intentions and be meant to make a woman feel “flattered” but there isn’t really any excuse for calling out a woman’s looks while she’s walking to work at 8.30am.

The worst offender is the Great British builder. Every work site seems to have one guy who can’t help but leer and shout at women who are merely going about their business. These guys need to write a pamphlet explaining their sexist comments because we sure as hell don’t understand them!

But isn’t it all our fault? How dare we go out in a dress and bare legs when it’s 28 degrees outside. Aren’t we just inviting this attention? If we’re not ready to dress in a snowsuit mid-summer shouldn’t we just expect the attention and not moan? Many women have been told repeatedly that it’s their fault when they’ve complained about being shouted at and made to feel unsafe. No, it’s obviously not our fault! We shouldn’t feel guilty about anything we wear and nobody is at fault apart from the perv with the half-witted pick-up line.

It’s obviously not just builders who chuck unwanted attention at women. London has a much broader problem with harassment, whether it’s shouting at women, groping or making unwanted conversation.

A Thomson Reuters Foundation and YouGov poll found that 32% of women had been verbally harassed on London’s public transport and 19% had been victims of direct physical abuse. Thomson Reuters published a list of the world’s most dangerous transport systems for women. London ranked 13, making it safer than top-ranked Bogota, Mexico City, Lima and Delhi but more dangerous than New York, Beijing and Tokyo.

An ActionAid survey in 2016 found that 36% of British women felt at risk of harassment on public transport but that percentage rose dramatically in London where 51 per cent of women surveyed said they felt at risk.

Any moron should know that women don’t really want to be asked where they’re heading at 7 pm on a weekday, nor do they want to listen to cheesy chat-up lines, such as “I’m a man, I just had to come over and talk to you…”

The pervs of London need to give it up: we just don’t care and it’s downright creepy.

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