Right-on, brother. I completely agree with you. I don’t know anyone that is/was a cat-caller, but I knew a few players. Here you and I are looking at life through similar glasses but they are different than the ones the street caller wears. He may actually think that 1 girl out of 100 might respond to his (silly) mating call, and it’s probably an acceptable risk to the catcaller. A valid question is from where does he get this perspective (or whatever perspective he has)? I trend toward invoicing those family and friends that he hangs with for their influence. Without question, he doesn’t hang with the same people as one might find you & me hanging. So his experience on the street would certainly be different, but I suppose it could be comparable to you and me hopeful in the bar.
A valid question that I almost referenced in my last reply. I just had a moment of time to share with all the mindless wit that I’m able to bless the board with occasionally. Though I agree that i probably shouldn’t have spent the time on it, it was much less time than the +10hours production/marketing/etc. spent by the lady in the op. With me it’s fun. I know i’m not going to change her world, nor am i going to change your world. But I find value that someone might read it and it make them question my sanity and then, hopefully, their own.
I guess I’m not terribly surprised by the reactions/behavior. She’s wearing makeup, tight jeans and a tight crew neck t-shirt. She is a physically fit, attractive and yes, busty/shapely young woman. Fundamentally the men are directly acknowledging that choice of dress and makeup/hair style. Some are doing so politely, some crudely and some offensively. But in the end, they are all reacting to a visual sexual stimuli she is deliberately providing.
I’m not sure that this wouldn’t happen to some degree in pretty much any blue collar area of any major city worldwide. I’m also not sure why anyone is surprised and offended by it. And I mean sincerely surprised/offended, not simply pretending in order to justify/verbalize feelings of superiority.
You can demand men not react to the visual sexual stimuli that women provide when they wear tight/revealing clothes and makeup. However I do not (respectfully) think you will be all that successful in overcoming a couple hundred thousand years of biology. At best you might get them to have the self-discipline not to comment while you are in hearing range. But that is more unlikely because men in the income/social bracket seen here have been trained to believe that aggressively pursuing the female is the most successful path to sex with her. The bold get laid. The quiet don’t. Wear tight clothes and makeup around men who believe that, and you are going to get comments. I’m not saying she’s wrong for her choices of clothing/makeup/hair. I’m saying there are known consequences to those choices. So if you set yourself up to likely incur catcalls… /shrug
I expect to get yelled at etc for voicing the above opinion (even though it’s pretty much dead in agreement with Camille Paglia), so I might as well add the following: To put it in perspective, young girls and women are being kidnapped, sold as slaves and subject to absolutely horrific treatment in a bunch of places on this planet. That’s a true outrage and will take hard work and possibly armed intervention to stop. If we’re ever serious about actually doing so. This? This is a group of people looking for something to be outraged about because they know how easy they have it and they feel guilty about that. And they’d like your money/donation so they can continue to feel outraged about this until the next thing comes along to be fashionably upset about.
Or to put it another way, why aren’t the advocates behind this pushing for an actual legal remedy, like a ticket/fine system for catcalling, as opposed to pushing the idea of public confrontation? Fines might actually start to minimize the problem or at least give a method of redress. Public confrontation is basically guaranteed to continue the problem or even escalate it. Because if you think some Brooklyn/Bronx/Queens type male is going to back down to a shouty activist then your brain has fallen right the hell out of your head.
IMO. YMMV. Offer not valid in Canada or the Principality of Monaco. Use as Directed. Flame undies on. Blast shields down.
Regards,
-Bouncer-
Oh, you’re right. I really should be off doing other things. No, you’re right. But there’s a couple of reasons. It’s taking me about 20 minutes to drink the white russians and smoke the kretek tonight. I’ve got a few minutes between charges. Also this issue has a delicate balance between banality and sex that I’m sucked-in.
Also, with all the “I’m special” attitude that is frequently flashed before us, I think it is important that we tone things down a notch. The subject of the OP decided to stir things up and i thought it foolish (though insightful and appreciated). I don’t think her ideology is going to change the perspective of the catcaller that inhabits the same paths that she does. In fact, I’m sure that the catcallers are unaware of it completely , so what the hell does she think she’s accomplishing? The catcallers aren’t reading her blog.
What are you talking about?
Does she even have a blog?
She’s an actress hired for a job by an activist group.
ETA: the use of the phrase “activist group” isn’t supposed to be an insult.
Lol again. The one flashing the “I’m special” attitude is you. You think that when other people are discussing this topic, that they should have other shit to worry about it, but it’s perfectly okay for you to discuss the same topic. Your complete lack of self awareness is quite impressive.
as mentioned, I have time to discuss it on a message board. But i sure don’t have time, resources or the motivation to mobilize such an effort as the lady in the OP. I’m just spouting steam; I really don’t have a torch to carry. I don’t want to call the kettle black, because even though women harrass me at the same rate she’s getting dogged, i don’t want to make an issue of it. In fact, my “specialness” is in letting it roll of my (personal) back. Though, admittedly, my struggle might be not letting it roll of my metaphorical back.
I assumed she had a blog for people to praise as well as disagree with her. But i think my point still stands that the people she so despises will never be subject to, nor educated of, her desires (which could arguably be an accepted social norm). They won’t see the movie or read the story. I really do wish her (cause) the best though, because I can imagine that experience is unpleasant for her.
Really?
Channing, is that you?:dubious:
Please tell me how you get regularly harassed by women.
I ask because I know a calendar model who doesn’t get harassed remotely as much as that woman did.
Please be specific.
BTW, what is the “spouting team”?
It’s about reducing how socially acceptable the behavior is. Maybe it won’t work on the perpetrators, but it could convince their peers to call out the behavior.
Guys, you’ll just have to trust us when we say it’s obnoxious and uncomfortable. It is, don’t try to convince us it’s not.
Picture walking down a street full of gay dudes who are physically enormous- taller, heavier and more muscular on average than you’ll ever dream of being. Picture a few of your friends have been raped by gay dudes, and you’ve been subject to an attempt or two. Now and then there is a “jump out of the bushes” assault in your neighborhood, and you know for that you couldn’t physically fight one off.
Now picture them saying a range of stuff, ranging from “Hi” to “I want to pound your tight ass” every time you walk by, day in and day out. Do you feel flattered? Complimented?
“I want to pound your tight ass” is going too far and to be perfectly fair, even with all the selective locations and editing not a single fella uttered anything close to that to the street walker troll (Shoshana Roberts.)
Back on topic: I would be flattered by a simple “Hi” from the gay dudes and I would enjoy compliments.
This is simply another edition of why ** Feminist Are The Most Annoying Force in modern life. **
Ibn, shunpiker said “spouting steam”, not “spouting team”. You know, popping off, expressing his (emotionally charged) opinion.
I also feel this is such an obvious RO/SJW sticky glue trap that I also decline to involve myself. Other than, you know, sucks to be sexually attractive in certain locations.
What does “RO” refer to?
Someone brought that question up on another board, and apparently the answer is yes, it does work. Not most of the time, but apparently it’s the same principle as spam; if you keep trying often enough, even though most people find it irritating eventually you’ll find someone who responds positively to it.
No; generally they were attempts to try to strike up a conversation with a strange woman, probably in hopes of getting a date. In a society where it is expected that men do so, in a city that’s practically proud of being up-front, loud or even outright rude.
I really doubt that many in any of those men cared in the slightest about “dominance”. I expect most of the men in question would respond to such a claim with outright bafflement, it’s outright Martian in its alienness.
It’s a culture where men are expected to initiate conversation with a woman they find attractive if they want any kind of relationship with a woman. A man who waits for a woman to show interest first will almost certainly live his life alone.
An attractive woman being bombarded with male interest is simply the inevitable result of a society where men have the necessity of taking the initiative if they want her to even consider them. It’s not a matter of men being less polite; women won’t generally go up to men on the street and try to get a date, but they also won’t do so at any other time either. They’ll wait for a man to come to them.
They apparent mostly went to black neighborhoods. Probably in hopes of getting a “scarier” result for their film. They picked black neighborhoods in NYC so they could get a film with more Scary Black Men “harassing” her, instead one full of less “scary” white men or of men ignoring her.
“Recreational Outrage”.
I asked my wife and she said the worst form of this is directed at female employees that deal with the public. Said she used to cringe when certain men came because she knew they would start their crap that she could not rebuff and remain employed, unlike random guys on the street. She had regulars who would flirt every damn time they came to collect mail. and reference past failed attempts. She felt kind of trapped, can’t say fuck off and has to deal with them.
As a dude I’ve had a VERY few experiences being hit on by a chick in public, once I said well I think my wife would object. She said well convert to islam, then you can have multiple wives. I had no witty response.
I don’t agree with that. If ZPG Zealot thinks she’s being harassed because someone offers to shake her hand, that doesn’t mean she’s being harassed, it means she’s an idiot.
Whenever somebody harassed Roberts, it was because of what they actually did, not because some random passerby happened to be so emotionally fragile that any form of interaction is seen as an attack.
During the evening? All of them. Why, I even had a conversation with the last passerby I met.
So, she was asking for it?
Also, dude walking beside her for five minutes needs a good throat punch.
Actually, the creator of the film, Rob Bliss, seems to be in damage control now that some progressives have pulled their heads out of their asses and realized that the video seems to be promoting the idea that most street harassment of women is done by poorly dressed minority men during mid-day wearing clothes that suggest they’re not on their lunch break.
Here’s Rob Bliss’ defense on Reddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/2kkyq6/10_hours_of_walking_in_nyc_as_a_woman/clmfg1j
I’ll add once again, I find the idea that somehow all the instances of white guys making noxious comments had to get edited out due to noise or someone passed in front of the camera to be utter bullshit and if anyone believes that then respectfully, I think they’re being hugely naive.
It’s pretty obvious that one of two things happened. The first is they mainly went through neighborhoods where most of the street harassers were going to be low income minorities or the second is that several of the men were actors who’d been put up to do this.
Before anyone poo-poos the latter possibility, keep in mind that the people who did the video were not grad students doing a scientific study, but a marketing firm hired by an activist group who have motive to want to make as eye-catching a video as possible.
Also, people will notice in the slate article the head of the marketing firm has in at least one previous project been accused of racial insensitivity before.
Thanks
Well yeah, if she’s walked through a suburb full of middle-age white guys mowing their lawns, they’d yell “hey baby! Remodel your kitchen? Solid granite countertops!”