Maybe the difference in operating systems? I’m using Apple iOS. Or which theme each of us is using?
Thanks for ‘splaining that little inexplicable quirk to me. {reply=re-ply}
High Sierra. Straight Dope Light.
– I never saw the word “reply” that way before. I hope I’ll be able to unsee it in the future.
But it’s actually kind of fun to see it that way briefly.
Moderator Note
I’m not going to pick through all of the posts to move those on this particular topic, but I agree that this is better suited to another thread. The best thing to do is start a new thread and link back to this one.
For this thread, let’s get back to the original topic, please.
Never. Ever. It’s totally rude. And I’m saddened to see how often it still happens.
This link is genius. It’s a little more mansplaining than catcall but makes its points very clearly.
Nor have I. I’m 58. And I was raised to actually be polite. Imagine.
And no, polite does not equal making remarks about the physical presentation of total strangers.
My daughter would love that.
My mother drove up beside a teenage male cyclist and called out the window to him: “Hi Honey! Want a ride?”
It was the talk of the school the next day.
It turned out that she thought the cyclist was me so she offered a ride home.
My point is that context is very important when considering approaching what could be a boundary. Unfortunately, there are a great many people who refuse to respect other people’s boundaries and instead convince themselves that there are no such boundaries and there should be no such boundaries. Welcome to one of the cornerstones of misogyny: assumed power and control.
I have never “catcalled” anybody in my life!
Once when my daughter was 13yr old we were walking in public and passed a couple of young men in their late teens. After we passed, one of them let out a low ‘wolf-whistle.’ They weren’t leering, at least not to the point I noticed. We all kept walking and I could tell my daughter was deep in thought. A minute later, she turned to me and asked, “Dad, do you know why they whistled?”
My wife is a very attractive woman and my daughter got her looks so no mystery there. But I wanted to see what she would say so I asked her back, “Why?” She smiled and said, “Because they think I’m pretty enough.”
I’m not arguing for more catcalls and I’ve never catcalled anyone. But like a compliment I don’t think it’s impossible for it to be done in a non-creepy way.
You missed the perfect opportunity to point out, “yes, it’s been dressed up as a ‘compliment’ for decades, so women will feel an obligation to interact. But he’s really communicating that he feels entitled to female attention —-on his command!” Don’t fall for it, you’re smarter than that!
This.
I think the conclusion I’d come to from that story was that the 13 year old was really worried about being “pretty enough”, and I’d have wanted to figure out where she was getting the idea that she might not be, and that it was really important that she had to look “pretty enough” for strangers on the street.
Makes me glad I had a dad who thought being able to throw overhand was more important than being pretty.
In my drunken youth, we always honked and whistled at “pretty girls”. That’s well over 40 years ago. Times change and people grow up too. Today, don’t even comment on someone’s appearance unless you know them very well that they won’t take offence.
I think I would tell her something like, “Of course you are pretty enough! But you will always be pretty enough, whether some rando is whistling at you on the street or not.”
That said, she’s 13. It isn’t unusual for a 13-year-old to not realize she’s pretty and thus be blown away when a rando tells her that. I remember the first time someone (who wasn’t either of my parents) paid me a compliment on my looks (in a non-catcalling way). I was 13, dressed up for a school banquet in ensemble that I had picked out myself (rather than having a fugly Nellie Olsen outfit forced on me). It was kind of a magical moment for me. But it loses its novelty after the two millionth time. 
Wait, I missed that she’s 13yrs old.
Shame on Dad for failing to point out that sexualizing a child is beyond creepy, a big red flag, borders on criminal, and is NEVER appropriate!
And most certainly NOT a compliment. Yikes!
(Can’t decide which is more disturbing Dad being ok with this behaviour being directed at a 13yr old, or being okay with her thinking it’s a compliment! Double servings of ick!)
It makes sense when you realize how people see the women in their lives as property. He sees it as a compliment to him.
My father was a little Jewish professor with glasses, but he still had a “Mess with my daughter and die aura.”
I suppose to an extent my father saw me as property when I was a little kid, but we definitely had a paradigm shift right around my bat mitzvah, and he did encourage lots of independence in me.
He convinced my mother to let me get a 10-speed bike, and ride it around town whenever I wanted-- and wherever, as long as I stayed in city limits. I was 11. It was also his idea that I be allowed to use the public transportation in Moscow by myself to go to and from school, and occasionally to a friend’s house, or to bring a friend home with me. I was 10. I could also wander our neighborhood on my own, along with the other neighborhood kids in Moscow, just as I’d done in Manhattan.
There’s some gray area between “hurt my daughter and die,” and “she is my property.”