To the men who catcalled my daughter at a bus stop…

… I have one question: Why?

What makes a group of men in a car slow down and shout obscenities at a 14-year-old girl waiting at a bus stop?

I am genuinely and furiously bewildered.

Does it serve some kind of bonding purpose? Is it a power thing? Does embarrassing a girl, who is just learning to be a woman, make you guys feel better about yourselves? Or do you not think about it at all?

My daughter was much cooler about it than me. She shrugged it off. I can’t.

After 45 years on this planet, I am beyond enraged that this mindless, needless erosion of women’s self-confidence, freedom and dignity continues.

I know this is hardly breaking news, but it broke my heart.

When she came down from her room, ready to go, my lovely girl was wearing a tight top, sweatshirt and what I call teeny-tiny shorts. I raised my eyebrows, as I always do. I questioned her choice. as I always do. I warned her that she might get unwanted attention, as I always do. We went through the list of what she should do in the event of said unwanted attention, as we always do.

She’s 14 years old. I shouldn’t be doing any of this and she shouldn’t have to listen to it. But neither she, nor I, nor her 11-year-old sister who listened to the whole thing, are naive. We can’t afford to be.

Last month, we got a letter from her school saying there had been a number of reports of “children being approached by men in cars, on the way to/from school”. We were advised to discuss personal safety with our children. And so we did, over the dinner table, all together, because sometimes the 11-year-old walks home from school too.

Obviously, all I want to do is grab the neanderthals who did this by the scruff of the neck, pin them to a nearby wall and pummel some sense into them. But I’m not that big and even yelling at people can get you into trouble nowadays (yes, I am old enough to say ‘nowadays’ in a prim, semi-nostalgic way).

I don’t have to put up with this nonsense any more because I have, thankfully, transitioned into the invisible realm (and all the absurdity of this situation lies in that sentence). However, I do not want my daughter to have to wait until she too becomes invisible before she can relax walking down the street, or waiting at a bus stop. Her light should shine bright and unobscured and respected.

So, if anyone has any clue why men do this, please let me know, because surely if we know what is going on in their heads, we can start working to fix it. We are all wives, lovers, partners, sisters, mothers, grandmothers.

We know these guys. They do not emerge out of the sewers solely to knock our girl-women down  before they have a chance to stand up. They are here among us and I want to know what they think and why they do what they do.

My daughter is adamant that she is not going to stop wearing what I call “skimpy clothes” because of what happened. Damn straight! The only thing that is going to change is that I am going to stop raising my eyebrows. I am going to try to be as cool as she is about it because — even though I know what is going to happen — she is not the problem.

It’s an obvious statement but this is a hard thing for a mother to say because the thought of blokes leering at her, or at her sister, makes me want to break something. But if she can take it on, then so can I. She is brave and sassy and this must not be intimidated out of her by those who are craven and crass.

In the meantime, if you have a brother, a son, a husband, a lover, an uncle or a male cousin and you can find out from them why men persist in this obnoxious, belittling, degrading and unfathomably stupid behaviour, do let me know.

I probably won’t feel any happier for knowing but maybe then I can answer my daughters’ question: Why?