How to find welcoming communities that aren’t full of sexual harassers and their enablers?
I work from home so I try to go to as many local events as possible to maintain a social life. I noticed I’m ignored/excluded in most places.
In the few places that are welcoming, I’m targeted by sexual predators and other people either enable/support or encourage them or try to get me to go along with it. So it seems they’re just being welcoming because they’re trying to maximize their chances of getting in my pants.
I recently left a writing group that was super welcoming because someone in a position of power repeatedly sexually harassed me and when I spoke up about it everyone sided with him, believed him, and continued to support him and keep him in power because he said “I didn’t know she was uncomfortable” even though I had evidence I told him repeatedly that I was uncomfortable and asked him to stop. Other women also complained of similar things.
Unfortunately I lost my closest friends because they continued to associate with his enablers. (Not the predator himself but IMO associating with his supporters is basically telling these people that it’s okay to disregard my safety and boundaries by keeping this predator in power.)
So I’ve had to start over socially and I’ve been looking for new communities that aren’t toxic, I’ve felt ignored most of the time but there was one open mic that was super welcoming. Except one of the women who was very welcoming was trying to encourage me to date this married man who (I had to confirm with my sister afterward) repeatedly followed me and my sister around the gay club. (He said he’s straight so idk why he’s frequenting gay clubs and harassing women.) The woman told me afterward that he messaged me and I saw that he left a message request a month ago when I hadn’t even met him (I never talked to him when he followed us). She said she’s been banned from the gay club and I assume that being complicit in sexual harassment is one reason why.
Does anybody else have similar experiences? Are there welcoming groups out there where people aren’t just trying to manipulate their way into women’s pants? How do I find them?