It’s not quite accurate to refer to Ms. Roberts as a “street walker.” She’s a professional actress, and I don’t find any references to her ever having accepted money for sex. If she actually were dressed like a streetwalker, it would be more understandable that strangers continually tried to talk to her.
I think the word the OP was looking for was “pedestrian.”
Was he grabbing your belt buckle, pulling you close to him, and whispering in your ear that he liked your belt? If so, yeah, you may have been harassed.
Well, what do the Freepers say first, you scuz? Not to be all durpy or anything, but there are a few times when I wish assholes like you could be sued for defamation (or whatever it is that I’m actually aiming for). Calling her something she is not is low for even disgusting bile like you, so I hope with upping your game, you get busted in some way over your stroke material. Pig.
Harrasment is rarely about an isolated event. Asking a coworker on a date is not harrassment. Asking them on a date twice a day for a year, even if politely, is harrassment. One man, making a comment on a woman’s appearance, is not harrassment. Fifty men in one day? That would be harrassment.
Street walker is technically accurate but highly deceptive, since the idiomatic use of the term refers to a prostitute.
But I don’t agree that “What counts is how the person walking down the street feels about it.” What counts is whether society is prepared to recognize the conduct as harassment.
That doesn’t follow. One man, repeatedly asking out a woman, certainly can be said to be harassing her – he’s on notice from her first refusal, after all.
But in this situation, the various players are not acting in concert with one another. It’s absurd to contend that a man who smiles pleasantly at a pedestrian and says, “Good morning,” is harassing her because others will (or have) also spoken to her.
When I’m walking down the street and I see someone I say hello, excuse me, whatever, something to acknowledge the person’s existence, if any sort of contact is made, be it physical (accidentally bumping into them or the like) or eye contact. I certainly don’t condone the catcalls, and I do understand how intimidating and undesirable that can be, and the guys that followed her were simply beyond the pale, but a simple greeting with nothing else? Calling that an attempt at intimidation is unwarranted. Unless I missed something I counted at least two of those.
Bullshit. What counts is cultural norms. When someone is offended at the actions of another, the rest of us are the judges of who is right and who is wrong, not either of the two.
Just when I think I can muster a bit of sympathy, someone has to spew this crap and blow the whole thing to hell. Yeah, you heard it right, folks; “Have a nice day” is a power play. SMH.
I do wonder, though, what the tally would be if they used a flat-chested, chubby 40 year old instead of a busty, young actress.
Perhaps a walk down the street is like walking on a beach: the surf may crash into you, but you know you won’t really be harmed. Or maybe America is different? A real possibility of assault, or the American component of racial friction. Or maybe old women squelch their bad memories.
The OP calls the woman “rude” and a “troll” because she has the temerity to not do what the men around her want her to do. She has the temerity to walk where she chooses, speak or not speak to whom she chooses, and look where she chooses. She has the temerity to not pay attention to men who want her attention.
It sucks that women get approached like that all the time. But this woman overstated her case and, in doing so, hurt her case. To be honest I expected even more rudeness. But that guy who just walks alongside her for 5 minutes needs to be punched in the face by Brock Lesner.