So does that mean you would be for banning all showing of breasts during Mardi Gras? And arresting women who do it for indecent exposure?
There are pros and cons to everything, and everyone has grounds for complaint. For every woman who’s been sexually harassed, I’ll show you a guy who’s been manipulated and lost a great deal (money, job, even family) by a woman or women who used their sexuality to take advantage of him. Or I can show you a woman who’s used her sexuality to compete with other women, or to land a job or promotion or movie role, etc. And this is not to mention that even now underserving women get the kids and money in divorces that even they cause. In the minds of some men, even with harassment women still have the upper hand overall. Clearly rape and outright assault are awful and intolerable and deserving of criminal sanction. But the whinging currently going on simply because some guy flirted with or approached a woman in a way she doesn’t like is going way too far (and is confused by the fact that the line of what’s acceptable is fluid and often depends on the attractiveness, wealth, or status of the guy involved), and is yet one more expression of the victimhood/villainization mentality that has overtaken society the last several decades and which has so much of the country at each other’s throat.
I think the issue is not that people don’t understand that this sort of thing happens at Mardi Gras. The issue is whether this sort of thing encourages sexual harassment.
And yeah, including as part of a “fun festival atmosphere” the expectation that women will be constantly requested to expose their breasts for men’s enjoyment does kind of seem like putting a “cute” face on sexual harassment.
If guys were just walking around at Mardi Gras with “Show Me Your Tits!” T-shirts, and the understanding that women could choose to comply with the request or ignore it, it wouldn’t seem so harassing.
But when they loudly and repeatedly shout the command at individual women, especially when they get more insistent (even if only verbally) when the command isn’t obeyed, then the “fun” aspect of this custom starts to seem a lot more one-sided.
I predict that one day relations between men and women will be what they’ve become with men and children, where men go out of their way to avoid looking at or being alone with them; in the case of women for fear of being accused of harassment or assault and losing their jobs or having to spend a ton of money defending themselves in court against allegations that “He approached/looked at me!”
Sex bots are arriving just in time. :rolleyes:
Is this what happens? I’ve never been. If so, that really sucks.
I doubt it. Pretty much every woman has been sexually harassed at some point in her life. But there are lots of men who haven’t in fact “lost a great deal” in terms of money, job or family due to women’s sexual manipulation.
Anecdotally, I can think of dozens of men of my acquaintance who have never “lost a great deal” money-, job- or family-wise because of a woman manipulating them. But I don’t know any women at all who have never been sexually harassed.
When men make these exaggerated comparisons, it just indicates how oblivious they are to the ubiquity of sexual harassment in women’s lives.
It’s certainly not every guy who gets loud and insistent. But even a minority of guys in a Mardi Gras crowd being loud and insistent can make a lot of women feel a lot more uncomfortable.
Maybe not, but there are many (most?) men who’ve been hurt or made to feel badly about themselves for having been subjected to the famous ‘bitch wall’ that women throw up whenever they feel a man they don’t want to be approached by encounters them. And most men haven’t been subjected to this “at some point” in their lives, it happens constantly.
As I said, everyone has grounds for grievance.
And many (most?) women also have had their feelings hurt because men they’re interested in are not interested in them. Rejection is pretty much a universal experience for people of any gender.
Not being liked in return by someone you want to like you is not really comparable to actually being sexually harassed.
Again, the fact that some men try to make such comparisons, and that they shove the goalposts around so readily from one allegedly comparable experience to another (“oh, but men can lose their jobs! oh, but men can get rejected!”) just emphasizes how little they understand about the experience of sexual harassment in women’s lives.
I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Could you elaborate on the concept of the “bitch wall”?
I have been to NOLA - not during Mardi Gras, but during a huge convention, and those guys hang on the balconies all the time.
“SHOW US YOUR TITS!”
Yeah, no. Despite the persistent urging of the guys on the balconies and the guys I work with…I did not feel harassed, I just ignored them. I also didn’t “Hold open my top and let them lower a rubber snake down my shirt.”
But I didn’t feel like a victim. Does that mean that no other woman would? I can’t speak for other women.
Is flashing for beads a form of sexual harassment?
No, merely low-stakes prostitution.
How is, “I’m not interested, please leave me alone”, in any way similar to sexual harassment?
I’ve been to Mardi Gras twice (I was stationed not too far away for three years) and my experience was the opposite. When “the command” isn’t obeyed and women turn away or just look disinterested, guys stop wasting their time and move to the next woman, who usually looks like someone interested in participating. They don’t become insistent because they know that doing so won’t get them what they’re asking for. There are plenty of women willing to flash; that’s what there focus is on.
As an aside, this thread, along with others related to Weinstein and other serial harassers, reminds me of a recent comment made by Bill Maher on the same topic: “All my life I thought I didn’t know women. Turns out, I don’t know MEN.”
“Shooww us yoouurr TITS!” is uncouth and juvenile for sure, then again, drunk tourists in Bourbon St. are being uncouth and juvenile by definition. As I understand it you won’t find many locals at it, and classier tourists will go elsewhere for the party.
Actually, the NOPD will advise you that strictly speaking it IS indecent exposure so you better be cool about it.
That’s great— you can stop. That’s all we need. Thanks for coming in. No, don’t call us. We’ll let you know.
Yeah, when I was there, there never seemed to be any particular focus on any individual woman. More like men yelling “Show me your tits!” at an entire crowd, and showing excitement as soon as any woman in the crowd complied. If a woman was getting individual attention, it was because she was flashing a lot, not the other way around.
I’ve never been, but based on descriptions here, sounds like Mardi Gras is rife with opportunities for both consensual sexual silliness and sexual harassment.
It’s all about context. I don’t know my feminist history very well, but I’m in one of the waves that doesn’t give a damn what grown adults do as long as everyone is comfortable. If the lady wants to objectify herself, by all means. Sex can be fun.
The problem with an event like that is that all the people involved might be participating for very different reasons. Some might go as tourists intending only to watch what’s happening, others go to be part of what’s happening, and the mixed intentions and goals could lead to some ugly scenarios. Especially considering all the alcohol involved.
Also maybe I should note that illustrating Mardi Gras as an example of a culture that encourages sexual harassment isn’t the equivalent of saying you want to ban Mardi Gras, or even that you hate it and would never participate. It’s just calling things what they are. You can see a pattern as problematic without wanting to do away with specific examples. I tend to see events like this as growing out of problematic cultural norms, not causing them.
There is this classic episode of Cops.