I was mortified and didn’t know how to respond

When I was in my early twenties, I organised a meeting with three older male colleagues – two at senior management level and an external PR professional who was working with us on some projects.

As I started to introduce the meeting, the PR derailed me by saying: “That’s a nice skirt Rachel, but it would look better on my bedroom floor”. I was absolutely mortified and didn’t know how to respond. I was very young and didn’t have the confidence and composure that Taylor Swift does.

Neither of my two male bosses called it out. In fact, I think they sniggered. I managed to collect myself to some degree and continue the meeting, but I felt undermined and powerless in the dynamic. That, of course, is the intention behind such acts – to remove someone’s power and assert your own.

Rachel, Kent

He placed his hand down the back of my trousers and squeezed

I am an openly gay man working in a large bank. I was attending a large work function at which I knew several people. Towards the end, a man who I knew from another department approached me from behind. He placed his hand down the back of my trousers, gently squeezing. As he did this he leaned into my ear and said: “Do you want to go out after this? I know you like to have a good time”. I quickly moved away and blurted out: “I need to go home”.

Anonymous bank manager, London

The management committee decided there wasn’t enough evidence to act

I was a support worker in a hostel for young homeless people and regularly did night shifts with more senior workers. I was harassed numerous times by a male staff member who took exception to my sexuality. Did I use dildos? Who played the man in sex with my partner? He told me: “I just hadn’t been shagged properly and he was the man to do it”.

When I found out he was questioning young women in the hostel I made a formal complaint. The management committee decided there wasn’t enough evidence to act, despite me being the third staff member to complain about his behaviour.

He was eventually sacked for gross misconduct, not for sexually harassing women but financial impropriety.

Anonymous support worker, London

They were competing over who could sleep with me first

I was the new girl in a company predominantly made up of men.

At least three of the men had made sexist remarks to me and there were rumours that they were competing over who could sleep with me first.

At the Christmas party about a month after I started, the company owner’s son started touching me inappropriately and asking me to go back to his room. He wouldn’t take no for an answer so I called my boyfriend to pick me up. The same guy continued to make advances the whole time I worked there, including on work trips. I couldn’t say anything because he was the owner’s son.

Anonymous marketing executive

Men would try to throw balls of paper down my cleavage while I was working

I had just started a job as a reporter in a male-dominated newsroom. Soon after starting, there was a staff event to celebrate the newspaper winning an industry award the previous month.

I was young, shy, and didn’t have a clue what to say when two very drunk section editors lurched towards me to tell me that the editor who’d hired me was right when he’d told them that I had large breasts. About an hour later, one of those editors came up behind me and grabbed my breasts for several seconds before stumbling off.

Throughout my time at the publication men there made regular comments about my breasts, and they even played a “game” where they would try to throw balls of rolled up paper down my cleavage while I was working.

Anonymous journalist, London

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