That’s actually an old joke.
I was once loading my groceries into the car on a bright, sunny afternoon. Homeless guy walks up to me a bit too fast and starts to beg for change. I whipped around on him and suggested that it was not very intelligent to walk up on a strange woman in a parking lot. “Dude. You have no idea who is packing heat in her purse! This could be very dangerous for you, if women perceive you as a threat. Back. Off.”
And I feel very fortunate he was apologetic instead of deciding that mine wasn’t the correct response and just hitting me and grabbing my purse instead.
I would not be scared by this either, but it would still irritate the shit out of me.
Whoosh! dude, really.
You’re right, making excuses about how you were just messing with your kid seriously undercuts the sincerity of an apology.
I wouldn’t be scared either, in this specific situation, but I would be annoyed at teaching the youngster how to “talk” at women like that. Not cool.
The point was taken, but not well. Imo, it swung a bit too much in the woman’s direction though I do appreciate you qualifying women causing men fear with rarely and not never.
I knew a guy once who saw a girl passed out in a dorm stairwell and carried her back to her room and got her some water. The girl flipped the next day (not remembering anything much less that the guy helped her) and told her RA that she suspected that she was roofied. After a bit of snooping and gossip, the only guy that people could pin it on was the “samaritan” and he had to go through an entire investigation and was on probation for a semester after that.
This is of course an extreme but so is fearing murder ensuing a cat call.
Exactly. It goes back to the fostering of attitudes (in yourself as well as your kid) that I’ve already mentioned.
Nearly every woman has at least one “war story” about some creeper acting in a threatening manner. Many have way more than one. The lucky ones were just scared out of their wits. The unlucky ones were hurt.
I had one banner summer a couple years back where I was accosted, inappropriately touched, or followed something like 4 or 5 times in the span of maybe 2 or 2 and a half months. One of them even cyber-stalked me for a couple weeks ahead of time. All of them were total strangers to me.
My war stories: weird older guy followed me all over campus and I was afraid to go to my car. I made it to a guard shack and said loudly “Stop following me!” To which he responded with a complete screaming, cursing meltdown and ended with “You’re lucky I picked you anyway, bitch, you’re not half as hot as half the girls I have my eye on.” That was a jelly legs moment, stuck with me for years.
Unloaded two cans of mace in my teens on men who grabbed my arm in parking lots after following me out of a store. Both did in anger so after accusing me of “ignoring” them.
Followed home by a customer who parked in front of my house. 22 miles away from the store I managed.
Called names for ignoring catcalls. Guy who tried to get my attention at a traffic light showed up two hours later at my job in a different city.
There are a few more, but none that scary. I’m not even blond and don’t wear much makeup, no jewelry, no provocative clothing. Average in looks, pretty sure I don’t appear physically vulnerable. I don’t assume every comment will result in a confrontation, but I’m aware that it * might *, so I feel happier and safer when guys keep sexual comments to themselves.
I question if a lot of the male dissenters have ever had an overzealous girl or woman they weren’t interested in try something. I’ve never had anything as scary as some of them women here, but you know Manic Pixie Dream Girls. The romantic comedy chick who will grab your arm and force you to have fun? Yeah, they’re kind of really fucking terrifying if you don’t know who they and you’re the one they decided they want. I know it sounds like stealth bragging that this happened to me before (in fact, twice). It’s not, I swear on my life. When a girl at a dance or something just grabs your arm when you’re outside, drags you onto the floor, forces you to dance with her (especially since if you really hurt her feelings you’ll look like a dick), and then starts implying that you’re her boyfriend when you’ve never given her the time of day before? Yeah, that starts to ring serious alarm bells. And no, neither of them were ugly, they were pretty cute. Doesn’t change the fact that it’s kind of creepy. (I seriously don’t know if I just attract crazy stalker girls, or if I’m just too awkward to pick up on when non super eager girls are hitting on me)
Also, catcalling is obnoxious. I’ve never been cat-called at. (Well, once when I was in a suit for a concert and it was by friends joking around, but that doesn’t count). But I’ve been hanging out with female friends, and suddenly the asshole brigade drives by whooping and shouting and whistling and making remarks? Yeah… uh, it sort of ruins the whole conversation, creates an awkward silence, and makes the woman or girl feel really uncomfortable. I’ve seen this happen when we were as young as fucking 12! TWELVE! High school kids haranguing a 12 year old. With catcalls. Pardon me, but I’m… er… kind of forgiving of anybody snapping on somebody who catcalls at her when she’s had to put up with it since middle school.
This is also, incidentally, why I have the “have fun walking 5 miles home!” rule when guys ride in my car. Thank god I haven’t had to deal with anybody who would do it in 4 or so years, but I used to drive people to/from school who really, really wanted to catcall. I had to lock the windows and once I really DID kick one of the assholes out of my car for breaking the rule and made them walk about 4 miles home. Seriously. Fuck that shit. It’s obnoxious, it’s rude, and on a selfish level I really don’t want a girl throwing a rock at my car because you were an asshole. I might make an exception if we all know the girl and she’d find it kind of funny, but that scenario never came up so…
Quick drive-by from work. I am not in such a silly mood today (horribly busy instead), and would rather let this hijack drop.
No, it hasn’t swung to far in the woman’s direction. If you see someone passed out in a stairwell, you call the paramedics. Sounds like an overreaction?
- even if the assumption that she was drunk is accurate, you have no idea what her BAC was. North of .25, very bad things happen.
- if she’s in the habit of drinking herself to unconsciousness - during which she might choke on her own vomit, go into a coma, or be raped - waking up in an ER might be a valuable lesson.
- By calling 911, your friend would have established his own alibi as well as ensured that there was evidence to disprove the charge of drugging her with a roofie. ERs run tox screens.
- and maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t drunk but was hypoglycemic, had fallen and hit her head, had fainted due to illness, or some combination of all the above plus drunk.
Bullshit. This is what every single woman in this thread - whether she agrees with the response given in the OP or not - has been trying to communicate. There is plentiful reason for women to be afraid that they are vulnerable to harm from men.
I firmly believe that the vast majority of men are morally and ethically committed to not killing me or any other woman. The trouble is, there is no way to spot the misogynist asshole in the crowd of decent men. We can’t go on your appearance. We can’t go on stated beliefs. We can’t go on your friends’ opinions of you, because they aren’t vulnerable to the same risk.
The only thing we can go on is your behavior, and if you choose to dismiss a woman when she says “I don’t like that,” or “don’t do that, it bothers me,” or “stop”, then we know that you aren’t to be trusted.
Don’t like being lumped in with rapists, abusers, and killers? Then don’t dismiss our feelings as over-reacting or extreme. Even if you don’t get it. Even if you can argue that we’re perfectly safe. Even if you know plenty of other women who have no problem with the same situation. Even if you’ve done the same thing a thousand times, and you have never and will never hurt a woman.
I was just talking to someone about a similar situation the other day and I said to them that I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for actually hot girls-- the 10s of the world. I’m attractive enough, but I’m definitely not some knockout, and I get this stuff all the damned time.
FTR: OP, your comment was at best thoughtless and her response was totally appropriate. I probably wouldn’t have been as eloquent as she was and (based on previous similar situations recently) instead would have stopped, turned and looked at you directly, and said, “Are you FUCKING kidding me? Seriously?” Usually, when you do this, the guys slink away, apologizing. Guys who like to talk macho bullshit to women generally only do it because they get away with testing those limits.
Thanks, Jragon, this is good. Not much scarier than a car full of guys screaming and honking at a 12 year old kid walking to her friend’s house or home from school. I’ve been that scared, skinny little girl hoping an adult was home to let me in if I needed to run, hoping an adult was nearby to intervene when they came back, and sweating the yards or miles in between my destination. There is such a wide range of comments, compliments, and catcalls, but I’ve spent my life measuring them by the scariest confrontations. May not be fair to the nice guy who was overheard goofing around with his kid, but most women are conditioned to be wary.
I was staying at a hotel once – actually rented a house across the street from the hotel. I was walking across the street to the beach and this young girl, maybe about 14-ish, came running up to me, all wild-eyed and clearly scared out of her wits. She kept glancing over her shoulder at the direction from which she’d come, and asked me, “What do I do if I think someone’s following me?” I know that feeling, so I took her hand and told her “You go to a brightly lit spot with lots of people. C’mon, I’ll take you over to the hotel lobby and you’ll be safe in there. If you see the guy, they’ll call the police for you.” So I did that, took her into the hotel lobby, told the ladies running the place she was scared some guy was following her and could she sit in there with them for a minute? They took care of her. I didn’t ask details, but it was one of those Spring Break-y beach towns. Probably some Air Force guys or random dudes catcalled her and maybe followed her for a couple blocks.
The conditioning starts young.
When I was 13 years old, I was waiting for the bus one summer afternoon to meet some friends somewhere (I think the mall but I digress). I was wearing shorts and a tank top, nothing particularly provocative on a 100 degree summer day in California. The bus was late, so I ended up waiting almost an hour. During that time, several different cars of men (some alone, some in groups) drove by howling and whistling at me. One car actually stopped in the middle of the street and reversed by up to where I was, so they could tell me how much they wanted to fuck me. I can fairly comfortably say that none of the men yelling and hooting at me were a day under 30-- these were all grown, adult men. I put my head down and ignored them, looking at my old Nokia phone and acting like I didn’t hear them.
But it gets worse. A pick up truck with two men drove by. Then, a few minutes later, they drove by again. And again. Each time much slower than the last. On the last pass, they pulled over a bit ahead of where the bus stop was and both proceeded to get out of the truck. They reached into the bed of the truck and each grabbed something that fit into the palms of their hands (knives? I don’t know) and started briskly walking toward me, staring me down. I had 9 1 1 dialed on my phone and was about to push send when one guy grabbed the other by the arm and said, “It’s not worth it. IT’S NOT WORTH IT.” The other guy froze. They turned and rushed back into the truck and sped off.
And there I was sobbing at the bus stop when the bus driver pulled up a few minutes later.
When I was 15, I used to jog around my neighborhood after school to keep in shape for tennis practice. One neighbor a few blocks over would always wave and smile at me as I went by, perfectly innocently. A few weeks in, he started saying hello as I jogged by, which turned into him saying, “Hello, beautiful!” All innocent in my mind, so off I went. Until one day where he was waiting on the sidewalk for me. He grabbed me, threw me onto the ground (I hit my head on the cement), got on top of me, and started forcefully kissing me. THAT was my first kiss. By some pervy 30+ year old man, holding me down as I screamed on the concrete in front of his house.
I’m 27 years old and to this day I do not jog around my house alone-- even though now I live in a gated community. Even at my house, I make sure I’ve got my big dog with me, pepper spray, and a cell phone to call for help. Every day of my life is conditioned by the awful experiences I’ve had and me doing my best to not repeat them.
Those are two incidents of god knows how many. I’ve had men call me a fucking bitch after not reciprocating their initial “Hey, sexy!”. I’ve had men follow me out of the grocery store, to my car, and to my house (yes, more than one). So yeah, forgive me if I’m not going to give men cat calling at me the benefit of the doubt. Not everybody is a scum bag, but the scumbags have ruined it for the rest of you in my world at least.
That made my eyes water, DiosaBellisima. I’m sorry that happened. I have a feeling we’ll hear from some indignant guys who claim they’ve initiated hundreds of compliments/catcalls/come ons and with good results, it’s all in good fun, women can’t take a joke, why dress like that if you don’t want attention blah blah blah.
But you know what? I bet every single woman in this thread has been startled to petrified at least once in her life by this kind of thing. It’s not personal, (shakes, if you’re still reading) but women have valid reasons to be unhappy with unexpected attention from strangers. If we don’t know you; you all look the same. Like predators.
Oh jeeezus.
I’d pit you for this, but I have a spaghetti sauce to tend to.
Dude, we’re not talking about conversation in a bar, restaurant, party, line in the grocery store. Not talking about smiles, compliments; pleasantries. We’re talking about creepers in parking lots, guys who catcall, who ignore social convention and confront us in unexpected places. It sucks, and if you don’t understand why after hearing it from multiple women, might as well pit me so I can explain it in language you can understand.
With great power comes great responsibility.
I’ll just make one change to that : Like potential predators.
And if you don’t want to be taken for one, then the answer is very simple - act like a gentleman, and we’ll tend to assume that you are one. Act overtly disrespectful, and we’ll tend to assume you’re a predator.
Not that there are no predators whoa ct in agentlemanly manner to fool us; but if you want the right assumptions from a stranger, then you have to exhibit the right behaviors. Otherwise, you just have to accept what you have chosen to evoke.