Homophobic/misogyny in the UK

Hello! Just wanted to share a nasty homophobic and misogynistic experience I had yesterday in my workplace as I don’t know what else I can do about my rage on this subject right now. To start off, im a solo traveller, 2 months in and have been to some awesome countries in Europe so far but my base at the moment is in Manchester, UK. I get whatever work I can find in the places I visit so here I’m bartending until I move on to another place. I’ve bartended in a few different countries and dealt with a lot of drunk and ‘difficult’ (to put it nicely) men but nothing NOTHING has shocked me more about the behaviour of British men. Over the past week I’ve been verbally put down while serving drinks, and even had drinks poured on me because I won’t stand for their inappropriate sexual things they have said and tried to do to me. This one really sent me over the edge however - this one guy kept asking me out, saying how gorgeous I was and whatever usually I say “I’m not interested thank you but have a great night” (along the lines of that) but this guy kept interrupting me serving other people drinks and hassling me for my number asking things like “why won’t you go out with me? Do you think you’re too good for me or something? Things like that trying to get me to talk back. I don’t bring in my personal life usually because I don’t need customers knowing anything about me - but I decided maybe he would get the point if I was truthful and I just said “look, even if I did date a customer, it wouldn’t be you or any other man because I’m a lesbian”. I realised automatically this was the wrong thing to say because his facial expression got real mad real fast! He started shouting at me saying the most out the gate things - this is a list of things he was saying - “oh so you and your dyke friends need objects that look like penises to get off” “women just haven’t found real men” “a women’s value is defined by what men see of them” “no man will sleep with you after fuckinh so many people”(I don’t know where he got some of these random points from because it had nothing to do with being gay) but then after me poppin of back at him our argument turned into something else and he started bragging about fucking girls all the time and how real men fuck women but only once because now he knows they’re just sluts and aren’t good material for marriage - women’s values decrease with every man who loosens her up” and then because I OBVIOUSLY was fuckinh raging at what he was saying I argued back just general stuff like “women are more than their bodies… etc… I shouldn’t even have entertained this person but I was livid because this dude actually believed what he was spouting and to make it worse he asked 3 other men around the bar if they agreed with him and they all agreed. I could not believe what I was hearing - then he called me “a feminist dyke hippy bitch” and continued to say other hateful things towards me. End of story is that this dude got so offended that I wasn’t remotely interested in men that he started a bloody incel strop in the bar. He was raging - I mean he was sickened and that’s what really scared me is that after I got him escorted out I told the bouncer i actually thought he might wait around for me after my shift and do something to me.

Oh yeah and earlier on in the night he kept trying to show me a picture of his penis across the bar at me. 🫣

Now I’m sure not all men are like this here but besides that extreme experience, I have heard a lot of stuff come out of men in particulars mouths while working (being in a room full of drunk people can be revealing of the sort of culture you’re in). I’ve heard men use gay slurs like no body’s business. The gay village here is near where I work and they’ve said some awful things about if they saw one of the drag queens they would beat some man into them. I’ve heard guys say that they would never let their girlfriend go near their butt because it’s gay and gross. I’ve even heard a guy get coerced into sharing a girls nudes with his friend group because if he didn’t “he was gay and hiding it” - also a lot of nasty other words used against people of the rainbow community in general conversation. Rant over!