So, the answer to my question is “yes,” correct? Simple, really. You think that the woman being harassed may be sending a message that she’d like to be objectified by wearing a sun dress, so that’s why she sometimes will get objectified (another nice way of saying sexually harassed).
As colander so nicely points out, there’s a tremendous flaw in your logic. See, we get harassed in sundresses and church dresses, shorts and pants, black tie and sweat pants. You can have lots of make up on or no makeup. You can have your hair teased up to Jesus or in a messy pony tail covering the fact you haven’t washed it in a week. Doesn’t matter. Cat calls and whistles will happen. In fact, as several have noted in this very thread, that shit actually happens with seemingly more frequency when we aren’t in our hot girl disguises.
The moral of the story here is that it really doesn’t matter what we’re wearing. No matter what it is, there’s a decent subsection of men who think that whatever it is we have on is sending a message of being desirous of harassment. You’re one such person. Own it.
Do you know Heloise? Because I could swear you must be related to her, what with all your helpful hints a-poppin’.
“Stained your yellow drapes with blueberry sauce or lyonnaise? I guess if soda water and vinegar doesn’t help then you’re shit out of luck. Too bad for you! Plus, I can see your nipples right through that shirt. Hussy.”
Naw, I do not see it that way, see if I can do a better job of explaining this.
The vast majority of men could give a rats ass what you wear, neither look your way or comment on your appearance. I am in that group. Now there is a subset of men that whistle cat call and provoke women in sundresses, church dresses, shorts and pants, black tie and sweat pants. You can have lots of make up on or no makeup. You can have your hair teased up to Jesus or in a messy pony tail covering the fact you haven’t washed it in a week. Is it hitting home yet?
I would hope that the experiences shared in this thread would perhaps open your eyes a bit to the fact that the minority you’re speaking about isn’t quite as minuscule as you seem to be dissuasively saying. Remember, for many of us, this has been our every day lives since before puberty, so hand waving our reality as “a small minority” when plenty of examples explaining the contrary have been presented is. . . insensitive at best.
Okay, so you are saying that we should not ever leave the house or else we should just shut up because what do we expect anyway. Of course! God, how did we ever manage before you came along? I honor you, my nonchalant Lord. I hope you soon feel ready to bless us again with your diffident, somewhat cryptic presence.
Oh, but honey, those guys are just a small minority of real men. Inconsequential, really. There’s no sense getting all hy-- well, let’s just say it’s not worth getting worked up about, is all. I mean, really, how often could this possibly happen? Once in your life time? And I mean, you were wearing that sun dress. When you put it on that morning, you were trying to put a message into the world. A message about your vagina. Don’t be coy now.
Right, but this stuff you’ve been saying is all you got from this entire thread. . . which is kind of depressing. People have earnestly shared their all-too-common experiences and your response is to dismissively declare that this is a small minority of men-- and that sometimes women are asking for it in their sundresses. Like I said, it’s - at absolute best- insensitive.
Simple enough. It makes sense to me. It all falls into how you carry yourself. You will dress according to how you feel and what’s appropriate. It doesn’t seem to be entirely relevant to the question at hand, however as Diosa pointed out, perhaps women should just wear their hot girl disguise more often. It probably won’t matter but what can you do?
I like the headsmacking smiley, but sometimes it is just not enough. Would you mind terribly implementing a “shoving my whole upper body into a blender because I just don’t know about anything anymore and what does it all matter anyway because sooner or later we all shall feel the cold embrace of the grave” smiley?
I actually didn’t point out that we should wear our hot girl disguises more often, but I think I know what you’re getting at.
Alternatively to women planning their outfits around their sexual harassment, perhaps we as a whole society could stand up and agree that it’s not ok for scumbags to sexually harass women, even if they are in a sun dress. It’s a lot to ask, *I know. *
It seems like although you initially thought you had something to add to this discussion about whistling, after talking it through with everyone here, you have come to the conclusion that it turns out that you… you don’t, actually. You can’t think of anything to say about whistling. It’s just not your kind of topic, you know? Maybe you’re more of a ham radio or carving tiny, tiny squirrels into the ends of toothpicks kind of guy or something. But the whistling thing? Not your bag.
About 30 years or so ago, I would have considered that on the mild side. I’ve had guys attempt to pull me into cars, for instance.
Well, for a while there flatlined had a worse-than-useless guy who was supposed to be running the shredder in her workplace. And she posted about him. Lots of us encouraged her to feed him into the shredder, feet first. So I think that we need a shredder smilie, and the next time the subject of adding smilies comes up, I’ll certainly campaign for it. But I doubt that it will be implemented.
Yeah, I have a couple stories myself. It’s just that the way they were carrying on in that video…I have never seen anything like *that *relentless, constant harassment. And although I have never been the societal beauty standard, I have had some gorgeous friends. I have never seen such a thing, short of when we went to grimy, gritty clubs that we knew the score already. I have to show them that video and ask them if things were very different when they are were alone, versus when they were walking the street with me. Because that seems downright insane.
I think it differs hugely depending on where you are. One reason she made the documentary was that that particular part of Brussels was really bad, and she does mention some cultural/social things going on that might contribute to the problem. How often do you walk past a whole row of men just sitting outside doing nothing in the middle of the day? Where you live, is there a large part of the population left utterly confused by never being allowed to talk about sex and being told that the women they see, scantily clad in adverts all around them, are whores?
So perhaps not everyone experiences it as badly as that, but they might still recognise some of what they see. It also, I think, shows the relationship between whistling and being yelled at and having someone whisper something disgusting in your ear while you are walking down the street. They are all part and parcel of the same attitude and are experienced in a similar way: degrading and often threatening.
For me it has been an enormous difference depending on where I lived, which is also why I recognised even sven’s comment about different societies, but also that at least you can be sure that it is worse in societies where women have a lower status. Brazil was pretty bad for coming up and talking filth in my ear and grabbing me. There are places around here that bad as well.
So in short, no, I don’t think this would be what the average American woman is putting up with. I think it’s an example of somewhere where it is pretty bad.