well i apologize, i have lost my patience for this thread with all of the people like bricker and ders trihis making excuses i thought you were one of them
It’s fine. My experiences with message boards, though, is that sometimes you just reach a point where posting and reading in a thread just gets so frustrating that it’s not fun anymore, and that’s the time you just need to throw up your hands and move onto something else. Why give yourself the agita, you know?
I wonder how the same people making such defenses would react to people arguing that Bernard didn’t shoot three would be muggers but instead shot three panhandlers because all they did was ask him for five dollars, they didn’t explicitly threaten him.
Of course it’s usually understood by everybody that the “you got five dollars” was meant as an excuse to engage and rob him.
Just for clarity, the first 3/4 of my post address the differences in perception that can go with a polite greeting in passing. If someone’s politely greeting everyone, that’s great. Not harassment or otherwise worrisome in any way at all, even if it’s outside the norm for a particular setting. If someone’s ignoring most people but politely greeting women walking by themselves…that’s a whole lot less great. There is something beyond simple generalized friendliness going on there, something that’s causing these particular people to get singled out. That something deserves to be looked at and talked about rather than hand-waved away.
Look, it’s disconcerting to be singled out, even for known benign reasons. It’s a hell of a lot more disconcerting to be singled out for unknown reasons that may lead to harassment and verbal and/or physical abuse. Even if the interaction turns out to be nothing more, there’s still that moment of “What fresh hell is this leading to” disquiet, that instinct to keep half an eye on the guy as he passes to make sure he’s not going to double back on you. And that’s not harmless.
Yeah, I found those comments (both here and on Youtube) just absolutely bizarre. There’s nothing lascivious about that outfit whatsoever except, what, she’s showing off her forearms? That just looks like a normal, regular everyday outfit to me.
If your question is intended for me, I’m not sure how you’re imputing to me the position that “Women are supposed to be polite to every street comment.”
As I believe I made clear above, my position is that saying “Hi,” is not impolite, and that an unsolicited “Hi” is not entitled to any response, not do I particularly expect one.
That’s a bold assertion, and an example of the fallacy of the excluded middle to boot.
Where do you this “overwhelming” opposition may be documented? Am i simply to trust you that it exists? And my unwillingness to do that makes me a liar or insane?
I thought it was particularly bizarre that one or two people above emphasized that her t-shirt is crew-neck, as though that somehow makes it even more racy?!
I can say a little more about why I find this unbelievable. It’s not exactly a contradiction in terms, but it’s a kind of pragmatic contradiction. By saying hi you are initiating a social interaction. But to initiate a social interaction while at the very same expecting no social response is… well, impossible. If you’re expecting no social response, then whatever you intend to do, you’re not intending to initiate a social interaction.
Bernard Goetz. Approached by four black teenagers on an empty subway, he emptied his (illegal) weapon into them, injuring them all (and paralyzing one). He was acquitted of attempted murder by an NYC jury.
The incident began when one of the youths said “how are you?” and Goetz replied, “fine.” The teenager then asked him for five dollars and Goetz opened fire. \
Then you’re almost certainly not creeping women out, unless you’re staring at their breasts while you greet them. It doesn’t necessarily follow, however, that all of the other men who are simply greeting and passing on are similarly engaging in general friendliness and not creeping women out. Some of the ones who are “just being friendly” are indeed being skeeves of varying levels. That makes automatically defending someone because all they did was say “hi” a problematic position, because some of the people you’re defending are engaging in problematic behavior. That’s where the blowback is coming from.
Well, look. I’ve watched the movie Lawerence of Arabia almost all the way through to the end. It wasn’t in the theatres, but I think we can all agree that this gives me the necessary expertise to speak authoratively on the matter.
I didn’t ask the kids to get in my car. I just offered them candy from my car. What I did was no different than what Food Truck’s do everyday (and I eat at a food truck at least once a month, so I’m qualified to talk about this). I wonder how many of these parents would have gotten upset about a food truck??
I’m also quite familiar with Halloween customs, having watched It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown almost three times. And according to Halloween customs, kids wearing costumes are expecting free candy. Choices have consequences, and honest parents should acknowledge that, rather than trying to make life consequence free (which is what the parents were trying to do to me here).
