# Women Dopers: how often are you harassed/catcalled/groped in public? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 26, 2009, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-dopers-how-often-are-you-harassed-catcalled-groped-in-public/507810 "2009-08-26T20:07:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2009, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-dopers-how-often-are-you-harassed-catcalled-groped-in-public/507810/101 "2009-08-28T19:53:39Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > OTOH does the wholesale ignorance of Dopers’ partners of this harassment show how (relatively) few harassers there are? I’m not sure if you are asking how relatively few harassers are Dopers, or how relatively few harassers there are in total. ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2009, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-dopers-how-often-are-you-harassed-catcalled-groped-in-public/507810/102 "2009-08-28T21:23:13Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > ..does the wholesale ignorance of Dopers’ partners of this harassment show how (relatively) few harassers there are? The statistics give hope for mankind. I’ve been harassed less then ten times in my life; I pass hundreds, thousands of men every day in the streets, so I must have had millions of encounters where men behaved fine. There are just a few bad apples. ---
**Author:** ![Mississippienne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2009, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-dopers-how-often-are-you-harassed-catcalled-groped-in-public/507810/103 "2009-08-28T22:47:06Z")
I used to live a couple of blocks from the beach in Gulfport, MS. When I’d stroll down to go swimming or relax on the beach (clad in shorts, a t-shirt, and sandals; we’re not talking about me strutting around in a bikini) I’d regularly have guys pull up in their cars and try to pick me up as though I were a hooker. Scariest was a block over from my house while I was walking the dog. A car was parked in the middle of the street, the driver side door open, the engine on. The windows were tinted so I couldn’t see inside. As I walked past, the driver put the car into reverse so as to follow me. I freaked and took off through someone’s lawn and dove through some bushes to get back to my house. In Hartford, CT a guy kept following me trying to get me to go out with him. I was panicking when I saw my teammate Chris come out of a store. I ran up to him and grabbed his arm as though we were lovers, and looked behind to see that my ‘admirer’ had disappeared. Maryland, though, is THE worst state for catcalling I’ve ever been to. Guaranteed when me (alone or with friends) walked somewhere, we’d get lewd comments. Once a guy drove past me and my teammate Sasha and yelled, “OW! WHITE WOMEN!” ---
**Author:** ![Rack-a-Bones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rack-a-Bones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rack-a-Bones)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2009, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-dopers-how-often-are-you-harassed-catcalled-groped-in-public/507810/104 "2009-08-28T23:15:43Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > … > OTOH does the wholesale ignorance of Dopers’ partners of this harassment show how (relatively) few harassers there are? I think it just shows that men are more or less ignorant of an aspect of what it is to be a woman. Imagine that! ---
**Author:** ![alexandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e68b1a/32.png) [@alexandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alexandra)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2009, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-dopers-how-often-are-you-harassed-catcalled-groped-in-public/507810/105 "2009-08-30T12:12:41Z")
I don’t get it that often. Wolf-whistles and such like - yeah, once every few weeks. Lewd stuff/harassment/groping: maybe a dozen times in my life. I can remember the specific incidents and am usually shocked. Mostly white English-speaking blue-collar/construction guys do it. ---
**Author:** ![Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4da419/32.png) [@Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gala_Matrix_Fire)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2009, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-dopers-how-often-are-you-harassed-catcalled-groped-in-public/507810/106 "2009-08-30T12:20:53Z")
When I was younger and more vulnerable-looking, I couldn’t walk more than a quarter mile without at least someone slowing down his car to give me a good once-over. This was in Los Angeles. For at least ten years of my life. Men started accosting me when I was about ten or eleven, when I already had pretty big boobs. It’s very alarming when you’re prepubescent and grown men are inviting you to go for rides in their cars. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2009, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-dopers-how-often-are-you-harassed-catcalled-groped-in-public/507810/107 "2009-08-30T14:03:16Z")
> [@Rack-a-Bones](#): > > I think it just shows that men are more or less ignorant of an aspect of what it is to be a woman. Imagine that! I beg to differ: if such behaviour were widespread behaviour among males, then surely male dopers would directly know of it? ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2009, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-dopers-how-often-are-you-harassed-catcalled-groped-in-public/507810/108 "2009-08-30T14:12:42Z")
I hope this threads response are an education to the men who read it. Women don’t discus this with their men because the world largely expects them to ‘just handle it’, and men tend to be defensive because they have probably participated or been present for such actions. Not to mention, the men getting all worked up and angry, with no available outlet. Women both need and want to feel powerful in these circumstances and whining to a man isn’t going to get them there. Women don’t mention this because they are unsure what sort of response they will receive from the men they share with. Could be; “Suck it up, they’re just words”, “Want me to go beat them up for you?”, “Quit over reacting, it’s not harassment!” ---
**Author:** ![StaudtCJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@StaudtCJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StaudtCJ)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2009, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-dopers-how-often-are-you-harassed-catcalled-groped-in-public/507810/109 "2009-08-30T15:07:45Z")
Telling a male that has an emotional attachment often leads to additional caveman behavior. Most men, upon finding that their sister/wife/girlfriend/mom/daughter/friend has been catcalled to the point that the woman is uncomfortable, feel a need to go out and “avenge” “their” female IF they believe you. Having my brother get up in arms when it happens to me, but not care when it happens to random Jane down the street doesn’t make me feel better. It is the BEHAVIOR that needs to stop, not you that needs to “protect” little ol’ me from the big bad catcallers. I am not criticizing the loving males in my life, here. I think there may be hard-wiring somewhere in the male brain that instigates the “I’m-a gonna beat 'im up” reflex. The difficulty is that apparently this beat 'em up feeling stops at emotionally connected. There have been many times I’ve been walking with a male friend/family member, and not been harassed because I was with a male, but WITNESSED someone ELSE being harassed, and the person I was with just didn’t see it\*. It’s like it’s not there, or not obvious, or just something that flies under the radar unless there is an emotional attachment. Males really need to be aware of this behavior, and say something about it, even when the females (or other group) in question are not related to them or emotionally attached to them. \*For the record, I _do_ speak up in these cases, which is why I know that the male I was walking with literally didn’t see/notice/comprehend/internalize the behavior on the part of the catcalling males. The male friends and family are often upset about missing it, too, so I can’t really get unhappy, but _sigh_ how do you make people NOTICE that the sky is blue? ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2009, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-dopers-how-often-are-you-harassed-catcalled-groped-in-public/507810/110 "2009-08-30T15:31:44Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > I beg to differ: if such behaviour were widespread behaviour among males, then surely male dopers would directly know of it? Well, I wouldn’t have assumed so, but maybe you’re right – maybe male Dopers know all about this and are just lying about it. Or are you trying to suggest that all of the women here who’ve reported being catcalled are lying? ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2009, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-dopers-how-often-are-you-harassed-catcalled-groped-in-public/507810/111 "2009-08-30T16:35:09Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > Women don’t mention this because they are unsure what sort of response they will receive from the men they share with. Could be; “Suck it up, they’re just words”, “Want me to go beat them up for you?”, “Quit over reacting, it’s not harassment!” Also, there is the perception problem…groping on the dancefloor might be WELCOME - it just wasn’t welcome under THESE circumstances. So when you mention this to the guy in your life he thinks “well, I’ve groped women on the dancefloor.” Coming onto a woman in the grocery store might be welcome - he thinks “gee, I met my last girlfriend in the grocery store, is she judging ME.” ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2009, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-dopers-how-often-are-you-harassed-catcalled-groped-in-public/507810/112 "2009-08-30T17:36:51Z")
> [@Maastricht](#): > > The statistics give hope for mankind. I’ve been harassed less then ten times in my life; I pass hundreds, thousands of men every day in the streets, so I must have had millions of encounters where men behaved fine. > There are just a few bad apples. Yeah; most of the times I’ve had… sexual attention, shall we say, from some unknown guy it was perfectly fine. Heck, there was even a period when one of the streets I had to cross on my way home from college at night had become Hooker’s Row and, while I did get quite a few come ons from guys in cars, the immense majority answered my “not selling” with perfectly sincere-sounding “oh sorry! apologies!” I must have been through airport-style security at least a hundred times; I get a pat-down about one third of the time. Only once has it been inappropiate. It’ still one to many, mind you. ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-dopers-how-often-are-you-harassed-catcalled-groped-in-public/507810/113 "2009-08-31T22:29:06Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > I beg to differ: if such behaviour were widespread behaviour among males, then surely male dopers would directly know of it? Much more likely is that a large percentage of women have had this happen to them, across all kinds of social, economic, age, education, racial, etc lines. But there are both less men doing this, and they come from a much smaller subset, which doesn’t overlap with the SDMB population as much. ---
**Author:** ![nofloyd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nofloyd/32/2870_2.png) [@nofloyd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nofloyd)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-dopers-how-often-are-you-harassed-catcalled-groped-in-public/507810/114 "2009-09-01T13:12:48Z")
There are threads here on everything under the sun, and people always pop up who have been there, done that, just yesterday in fact. For goodness sake, someone tasted their own feces recently to answer a question. I say there simply must be guys here who have done some of these things. Fess up. Let us know what the thought process is on the other side. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-dopers-how-often-are-you-harassed-catcalled-groped-in-public/507810/115 "2009-09-01T21:44:39Z")
I think some of them have replied in this thread or others. Please keep in mind that the types of guys who whistle or say things like “Pretty face/eyes/body” or “Cute thing”, or anything that is not a lewd comment, are not the same guys who make lewds comments/heckle/stalk strange women. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-dopers-how-often-are-you-harassed-catcalled-groped-in-public/507810.md?page=5)