Since I moved to the Seattle suburbs, almost never, but I think that’s because I’m rarely out walking in public without a child.
When I lived in the Boston area - maybe 2-3 times a week when I was an undergrad and grad student (as mentioned above, never ever when I was with a man, no matter how wimpy looking, and never with a child, either). When I was commuting on the commuter rail, I never got catcalls on the street in my little suburban hometown, and only got comments in downtown Boston maybe once or twice a month. I don’t think anyone was ever inappropriate on the train, but there was a super creepy guy who used to hang out at the (suburban) station and talk to me every day. He passed me his phone number one time, and tried to get me to come to his house when it was snowing and the trains were delayed. He appeared to have some kind of mental impairment. Oh, and there was a guy at the bagel shop who used to eyeball me while he was making my bagel - he was also kind of creepy.
I would say it’s up to the responder to say whether it was threatening or not. If you felt threatened then it counts.
Well I am not talking about stuff you would consider harassment. “Hey Baby do those legs go all the way up?”, is harassment but that doesn’t mean that you feel threatened by the person speaking.
I may have already elaborated on this in the catcalling thread. When I was younger I viewed most of this unwanted attention as harassment, because I was extremely shy when I was younger and had body issues as a result of having developed early, so any unwanted attention from men seemed threatening to me. Now I realize that men who catcall will do it to anything with breasts and a pulse, so it doesn’t scare me so much as it annoys me. I do notice that I only get honked at or offered rides when I am alone at the bus stop. When there is another woman there with me, neither of us gets any unwanted attention.
Oddly enough, there have been 3 events (2 of which barely count as incidents) over the past week:
Friday evening I had gotten off my usual bus and was waiting for the other bus to go to the stop nearest my house when a black man walked by and, apropos of nothing, said “How are you today?” I just smiled and said “Fine, thanks.” He kept walking.
Monday afternoon I was walking from work to the bus stop when a carload of young people drove past me and one of them shouted something unintelligible out the window. I assumed it was directed at me since I was the only pedestrian in sight. It may or may not have been “Hey, you’re fat!” It sounded like that though.
Yesterday at lunch I was eating my usual chicken taco salad (the cafeteria where I eat has had Taco Tuesdays for as long as I can remember having eaten there.) A white guy I hadn’t seen there before walked by my table and exclaimed, “That looks like a tasty chicken salad!” before quickly heading outside with his lunch. I gave him my best “indulging the random idiot” smile. Was he trying to flirt? I can’t tell.
I will make an exception for one incident. My ex-wife was once at a fancy food show and went out with a group of people to dinner. On the way back to the hotel rooms, a salesperson was with her in the elevator alone (quite drunk), cornered her and tried to kiss her. It was a bad idea just for her alone because she is quite aggressive but especially from her father who is old-school Italian and looks like someone out of the Godfather or the Sopranos. One phone call later he was fired from his job and sent home on the next plane.
As a male, I can’t comprehend any of this type of thing. I am really female friendly and only wanted daughters and will not put up with anything of this sort. I once slammed a man against a wall for trying to do dirty dancing in a Boston night-club with one of my female friends and he later came up and apologized to both me and her. Most males don’t do that stuff or even think about it that way.
When I was living in Chicago, I’d get comments from random guys on the street on an almost daily basis, but nothing that made me feel uncomfortable. In my two years there I’ve only been scared once (some guy persisted in following me in his car even after I’d said no) and felt insulted once (racist remark involved).
When I was in my teens and early 20s, and when I was out alone or with my girlfriends, I would experience mild harrassment (like comments shouted from passing cars) probably weekly. The more frightening stuff happened maybe once a year – things like being followed by a unfamiliar man in a car with him asking–>demanding that I let him give me a ride, being followed home from school (through a field and a wooded area) by two men talking loudly about my body and what they would like to do to it, etc.
Now that I’m older (and 30 pounds heavier, FWIW), I don’t often experience street harrassment. I also wear my iPod whenever I leave the house and sort of keep to my own bubble when I’m walking in public, so it could just be that I don’t notice it. I get comments from homeless and/or mentally ill people maybe a couple of times a month, but those are easy to ignore.
I can’t help but think of this Ruth Orkin photo of an American girl walking down a Roman street (detail showing the girl’s expression better). When I first saw that photo, the male friends I was with thought it was funny – I think it’s anything but funny. The look of misery on that girl’s face makes me angry on her behalf – what’s wrong with those people that they don’t care how upset they’re making her?
It used to happen more often when I was younger, but now:
mild friendly ‘good mornings’: 2-3 times a week (don’t really bother me unless it escalates to following/creepiness/anger)
Lewd: once a week (aggressive or lecherous 'god bless you’s, ‘nice ass’ ‘damn baby’)
Scary: once a year (being followed, being yelled at, aggressive staring combined with knowing glances at his friend sitting across the way)
Most of my lewd or scary incidents happen on the NYC subway or it’s platforms. I know someone is going to say ‘woo, woo he looked at you’ or ‘how do you know he was following you?’. But you just know. If I’m getting into one subway car, and a man who has been trying to get eye contact sidles up on the platform still trying to get eye contact, gets on the train and then off as I do before the trains doors close, that’s potentially scary and will cause me to be more aware. If this other guy is staring at me, is he making non-verbal cues to his friend ‘this is the mark?’. If walking out of a train station, someone’s constantly zigging when I’m zagging trying to avoid him, while walking ahead of me and checking me out of the corner of his eye like it’s funny, that’s scary too. It’s worrisome and I’m glad I don’t have to have it in the forefront of my brain everyday, but it is still there in my brain as I go through the day.
Dutch woman (now 42) in the Netherlands here. I’ll answer the question from when I was in my early twenties.
Mild friendly 'good mornings’: Quite often, but I liked those and saw (and see) them as friendliness.
Lewd calls: happened maybe four times in my entire life. No big deal, I rather enjoyed having a witty reply. I will not count the one time a young man approached me on my bike and asked me politely how much I charged. I have to admit, I was in my Madonna phase of dressing, and I could see how he could have mistaken me for a hooker, so I just told him “thanks but no thanks” and we both went our separate and slightly embarrased way.
Insults: (non traffic related) about three times in my life. Once some Arab guys throwing a dead rat at me; the other time, a young boy calling me a fat cow (but that was much later, when I was 35).
Groped: twice in my life. Once by a group of drunken students, (I threw beer in their face) and once by a boy in a public pool when i was about nine (it hurt, and I felt hurt and ashamed)
Scary: once, a white guy following me around in Blockbuster and looking at me with such psychotic eyes I actually decided to call a cab to take me the one block back to my home, rather then walking home from Blockbuster and having this guy follow me. I still think that was a wise decision.
Harassment: guys exposing themselves to me and rubbing themselves, clearly aimed at me: two times in my life.
So, all in all not too bad. It certainly doesn’t make me feel unsafe to go out in the streets.
Outside of the US and of Barcelona, I’ve never had any that were lewd, scary or impolite.
That means that in Spain, Italy, Greece, Costa Rica, Mexico and the UK they’ve been compliments.
Now that I’m 41 I may get one once a month, both in the UK and in Spain.
I’ve been groped three times: by a female security officer at the DC airport, and twice by guys in the subway (Barcelona and NYC).
Like others have mentioned, this isn’t typically a topic of conversation for me or most women. I don’t settle up to the bar next to a male friend and say, “You know what happened to me last week? Some guy followed me for about a block when I rebuffed his advances.”
The threats are rare. I’ve felt vaguely threatened maybe twice, and those were times when men were particularly aggressive about following me and screaming at me. Both times, I’d told them to go away, and they wouldn’t until I screamed really loudly and made a scene. The one time when I was actually afraid was because the guy explicitly threatened me. He said he’d have his dog ATTACK ME if I didn’t give him my number. :eek:
I would not consider these harrassment at all. I don’t think most women would, either, especially coming from someone they know.
I’ve had random guys tell me I’m pretty, and I don’t consider that harrassment either. Harrassment, to me, involves some sort of intimidation aspect, too. A “hey beautiful!” said in passing isn’t harrassment because I’m not afraid this guy is going to get angry if I don’t stop and talk to him, or try to follow me.
Sexual comments, about what they’d like to do to me, or following me after I’ve already shown my dis-interest is harrassment.
So does any compliment from a stranger count as a catcall?
Seriously, I’m feeling like a creep right now.
Yesterday as I was walking into my local grocery store, I happened to make eye contact with a very attractive lady. She instinctively smiles real big at me. This is the exchange we had after that:
Me: “Awesome”
Her: “What?”
Me: “Oh no, it’s nothing. That’s just gotta be the prettiest smile I’ve seen all day.”
Her: “Thank you!”
In my defence, I didn’t mean to verbalize “Awesome” in the first place. It just sort of came out.
I did however feel like a giant douche bag after it was all over. In hindsight I probably should’ve just told her “it’s nothing” and walked on by. It’s just that she caught me off guard and my mouth has a proclivity for talking with out the brain actually thinking things through first.
In Southern Europe it’s mostly about showing off to the other guys, you’re much more likely to get a catcall or compliment from a guy who’s with other guys than from one who’s alone, and if you get one from a guy who’s alone it’s more likely to be gross.
Some of the incidents listed in this thread wouldn’t even ping my radar, by the way. Someone saying “that looks like a tasty salad”? I’d just answer “yes it is” and keep on eating. I expect he’d keep on walking. There is something sexual about salads now? Man, I’m even more cloistered than I thought!
Okay, that’s weird. I pushed the quote button, and my reply box is empty. I went back and did it again, same thing.We’ll have to get crafty then.
No. And neither do His and Hellos in most cases. It is possible that I guy can get too close to you and leer while saying hello, which has happened, and is creepy. But yeah, a casual “Hi” while passing on the street is fine. I (we?) are talking about whistling, hooting, Hey Babying, compliments on inappropriate body parts and the like.
I just conferred with the wifey, and she confirmed what people said in response to Shagnasty’s comment- that if she’s with me (or some other guy, when she was younger) it doesn’t happen, but if she’s alone it does.
Never happened to me once in my entire life while with a male. Nevah. The guy doesn’t matter either. Doesn’t happen when I’m with my husband, who is young, tall and can clearly kick your ass, or if I’m with my dad, who is short, grey-haired, and older than dirt.
If you’re with a guy, you MAY get an occasional hoot from the safety of a passing car, but as a rule, you’re not going to get guys hollering things at you as you pass, since that would be interpreted as a direct challenge to your male companion.
Then y’all have to fight with clubs to see who gets to drag us back to the cave by the hair.
Not surprising at all. Kinda funny (by which I mean not funny) that a guy wouldn’t do it while another guy is around because it’s a sign of disrespect. If it’s just a dame though, who cares?
Actually, we just changed the rules on that. It’s rock, paper, scissors now, and we’ve all been issued with Radio Flyers to drag you back to our [del]apartments[/del] caves in.
I don’t think disrespect has anything to do with it; I can’t speak for habitual catcallers, but I doubt they have any more respect for male strangers than they do for female strangers. However, the odds are much better that a male stranger will deck them.
I gave him my best “indulging the random idiot” smile. Was he trying to flirt? I can’t tell.
