I don’t know about “moral obligation” but I think it’s quite plausible that some men would feel like they don’t want to look like an ass in front of someone deserving respect–another man–but feel no such issues about disregarding the feelings of women.
Yes. Thank you.
I don’t think men whistling at women on the street are putting that much thought into it. They see a woman who would never pay attention to them and punish her, that is all there is to it. Fear of getting their ass kicked is the most likely reason for not doing it to the ones being escorted by men, though i have seen that happen also and the intention was always clearly to start a fight.
thanks teach. duly noted
I’ve seen that, too. My former boyfriend was huge and rarely smiled, and he was “tested” quite a few times by guys who whistled or made comments at me, often when we were at concerts or shows where alcohol was served. It’s almost always a dick move, and in the rare case a strange man means it as a compliment, well, even that guy won’t do it to an escorted woman unless he’s looking for trouble.
[quote=“shiftless, post:296, topic:657935”]
An asshole friend of mine would yell out the window at random attractive women. It was embarrassing to even be in the car with him. This was in my younger days, before I had a car, or any idea what woman like or don’t like. Even then it seemed wrong but a surprising number of women responded by coming over and talking to him so it was pointless to tell him it was rude or that it didn’t work.
Great point…I had a buddy who went after the law of averages figuring 1 out of 100 would be looking for equal opportunity objectification. He was turned down often but every now and then…
That’s… yeah, pretty much exactly how it feels.
Oh yeah, a guy getting all up in a woman’s shit in front of her guy is a direct act of confrontation. Takes cajones grandes and/or willingness to get decked.
Yeah, it’s an obvious attempt to show “superiority” over the inferior male the woman has chosen by beating his ass. Straight out of an ape documentary pretty much.
I’m not sure about this. I mean, I’ve got self esteem coming out of my ears, but it still annoys me. I mean, if I got hooted at maybe. . . a handful of times a year, I might see it as a funny, maybe flattering rare occurrence. When it happens as frequently as it does though-- everywhere I go, no matter what I’m wearing, when I’m trying to just blend–well, that’s when it gets annoying. When the guys who regularly hoot at me start calling me names, threatening me, or following me. . . well, that’s when it gets scary.
Plus, like you mention, part of it is conditioning. I remember when it started happening when I woke up at 12 with boobs and hips. It was the absolute worst back then- everywhere I went. I would tell the grown men harassing me on the street, “I am 13 years old!” and do you know what they’d almost always respond? “That’s ok!” More than a few times, little me had grown ass men older than my father actually tell me something like, “That’s ok, baby! You need a REAL man to make you a woman.”
At 13, that shit made me cry. Bad. I’d sit at home shaking, thinking I had done something to deserve this harassment. That it must just be part of the female existence. Maybe I shouldn’t wear shorts. Or tank tops. Maybe I shouldn’t walk down the street alone. But at 27? This shit just pisses me off.
Needless to say, that certainly has colored my perceptions of street harassers. Sorry, I’ll never accept that the onus is on women to not wear sundresses or hot pants or whatever else. The onus is on society to teach these men that their behavior is unacceptable. Will it remove the problem entirely? Of course not, but I’d argue we probably have a lot fewer people shouting “nigger” on public streets nowadays than we did back in 1960. So, inability to remove the problem entirely isn’t a justification for victim blaming.
Hmm. Reading this thread brought back a memory from college. I used to live in a big house with five guys (one of which was my current husband.) One of the guys was kind of a handful. He was an all around good guy, but he was capable of some truly dickish things. There was a lot of misogyny in that house. I’d say his was more on the mild side, like constantly looking for photos of hot women and talking incessantly about ‘‘hot chicks,’’ - real almost like junior high kind of stuff.
Anyway, one night he throws this big party with literally a hundred people, gets drunk off his ass and decides to go for a beer run. We didn’t let him drive and naturally the few sober people remaining had to drive him to get alcohol (this is why I hate being around drunk people - I always end up taking care of their irresponsible asses.)
So this car has a sunroof, it’s around maybe 11pm and there are a gaggle of young women walking down the street, all dressed up for the club or whatever.
He decides he likes one of the women. He stands up and screams out the sunroof, ''I WANNA RAPE YOU!"
I pretty much wanted to kill him. His trashy friends thought it was hilarious, but the next morning he felt genuinely bad about it. And I pretty much read him the riot act.
The thing is, it’s not something he would ordinarily do. He wasn’t a bad person. He was just this mildly misogynistic guy who was drunk and thought it would be funny. I know that because I know him - he was a virgin by choice who did little more than make out with a bunch of different girls - never talked about them in a lewd way, just ‘‘hot chicks.’’ I really I can’t think of a more apt description than junior high. I doubt he was thinking about the entire social context of the situation.
I’m saying this, of course, not to excuse it, but because I actually knew this guy so well it gives me some insight into where this kind of stuff comes from. And I don’t think it’s the case that there are just legions and legions of assholes in the world waiting to pounce on women at every second.
I don’t think that any of us are equating a whistle or catcall with a threat of rape. I’m not seeing any broad brushes here; just a discussion about the motivation behind whistles/catcalls and how it makes us feel. The opinions have been pretty diverse from both sides, so it’s not like women are ganging up against men here. Some men have insisted their intention is to flatter and think the behavior should be appreciated and some women have admitted to finding the behavior inconsequential and even occasionally flattering. Neither of those answers works for me, so I’m answering with my own POV, not speaking for any other.
I don’t like being put on the spot by any rude behavior, and I don’t like to have to give serious thought to which way I’d escape if the behavior continues to escalate. I don’t like being called a bitch for ignoring rude behavior, and occasionally I feel a little scared if the guy follows me a few steps because I have no idea how far he’s willing to take the confrontation. That’s annoying and inconvenient and it kind of hurts my feelings. I wonder how the same guy would feel if his daughter/mom/sister is put on the spot, I’m very aware it almost never happens when I’m safely in the company of a guy. I’m most aware that his intention is to force me to react in some favorable way that I’m seriously not feeling. It’s a nuisance which has lessened by degrees as I’ve gotten older, but that doesn’t make me relax my feelings about it as my year old daughter playing at my feet will likely endure the same undeserved nonsense herself far too soon.
For me this discussion serves to state out loud “hey, cut it out, that shit makes me nervous” not “all you men are relentless horndogs” because they aren’t. Most don’t act out like this. Some men who do are just clueless about how such behavior might be received as negative. But some of those who do are responding to some weird primitive social pressure to show off and exert some small display of power over the weaker sex, and that’s kind of startling, and I think we should have escaped this caveman posturing by now.
I agree with that message. A lot of people in the thread have implicated that this is an act of bullying, consciously trying to degrade women, or exert some kind of dominance. I do not necessarily think that’s true (as always, context is everything.) Sometimes it’s just dumbasses being dumbasses. There also have been implications that this behavior is exhibited by more than a small minority of men. I think it’s possible for a woman to experience harassment all the time without there being a lot of men who act that way, in the same way that many women are sexually assaulted by only a small minority of men with a large number of victims. It could just be confirmation bias - we don’t notice the men who aren’t harassing us.
But yes, I would hope that any man reading this thread would walk away from it with a fuller understanding of the issues at play here, and learn to behave in a more respectful manner.