This is why I have immense sympathy for my sis. We had similar upbringings and had similar role models, and yet she has still internalized that her worth is tied up into her looks.
A long time ago, I once asked her if she’d rather be beautiful or smart and she was all: “I don’t know how I would live without being beautiful!!!” I thought she was going to choose intelligence, because it seems so obvious to me that this is the better asset. But the conversation that I had with her helped me to see her POV. She has always been smart, but in her eyes it isn’t her intelligence that has driven her success. It’s her looks combined with her personality. Whereas I credit my success to my intelligence, not my looks.
But now that I’m like twenty years older, I’m starting to realize that my sis was sharing some wisdom with me that I was not able to grok at the time. Yes, I’m smart. But even when I was covered in mud with ants literally crawling out of my afro, I still managed to catch men’s eyes. Being in a male-dominated profession, it would be insane for me to say that my looks have had nothing to do with my success. My intelligence is still working for me. But being a somewhat nice-looking woman has also helped me, and it would be stupid for me to not acknowledge that.
The only difference between my sis and me is that she’s not embarrassed by her vanity like I am. If I woke up looking like the elephant man, I wouldn’t want to live either. But I know that saying so out loud is not enlightened behavior. She doesn’t care about sounding like an enlightened person as much as I do.
In my case, I’m a woman who started transitioning a few years ago and one thing that surprised me was just how pervasive it is. My cisgender women friends have all told me of their experiences beforehand, but experiencing it for yourself is eye-opening.
All of the sudden, men feel they can make lewd comments or act like they have automatic permission to put their hands on me. I was living with a bunch of men who were much older than me (mostly seniors) and I foolishly thought they would act the same around me after my transition, but they were all over me afterward and I started to feel unsafe living there. In just a couple years, I have had more experiences than I can count of this kind of crap.
I’m not sure if this is a related phenomenon or not, but a time in her life when a woman really becomes public property is when she’s pregnant. Literally anyone, friend, stranger, vague acquaintance, assumes the right to touch her belly, like it’s no longer part of her anymore. And people who would generally not make comments on a person’s appearance, particularly a stranger’s, feel free to comment on how big she is, speculate about when she must be due, ask if she’s having twins, comment on how high or low she is carrying, and state that this means a girl or a boy, and just generally take over her body. People don’t do that to my dog they way they did it to my belly when I was pregnant. Practically made me wish pregnant women still went into confinement.
I’d love to know what’s happening in people’s heads, and if there’s any similar thread to the one that makes men think it’s OK to catcall.
My youngest is non-binary - female at birth. And still pulls off winged eyeliner and high heels with aplomb - the most recent picture I have from college is what I’ve come to think of as “makeup as mask.” But for the most part presents androgynously…and I know the harassment and expectations around being a woman are a huge part of the reason. i.e. “politically trans” It is true that catcalls happen more often when you are in heels and makeup than when you are dressed like a lesbian on a camping trip (their words) or a fourteen year old boy reliving the heydey of grunge rock (what I think they look like). Although dressing like a lesbian on a camping trip is not protection from unwanted commentary.
How does a lesbian dress for camping? THat sounds so clueless but let me guess, chaco sandals, ex officio shorts and a vintage Led Zep t shirt, zip up hoodie, watch/fitbit and an outfitters cap. OH wait that’d be me a cisgender straight woman. I dunno what’s your point, that catcalling men avoid lesbian women?
As far as I can tell (and she’s queer, so I’m using the terms someone who is queer uses to self describe their style, not trying to insult queer people), its mens jeans, hiking boots and a flannel shirt over a t-shirt that usually has some sort of rainbow graphic on it.
Pretty enough to admire or to feel the urge to compliment. It’s like the urge to take a picture of a beautiful sunset and share it with your friends. I’m with Dark_Sponge on this.
What if they thought she was ugly? What if her father thought she was ugly?
A child who is pleased that strangers find her “pretty enough” is a child who is worried about being ugly; or, at best, one who thinks that other children who are not conventionally attractive should be worried about being ugly. That needs to be addressed, not reinforced.
No, but a human being can be beautiful like a sunset can be beautiful.
That would be “pretty enough to be complemented on it”. In my opinion, to appreciate complements does not imply worrying about not being complemented. If I am reading you right, we can disagree on that point. It might still be the case that a child is worried about not being complemented by complete strangers, and if true I agree that should be addressed.
This is most certainly true. However what you do with that beauty is very different, because a human being is not the sun. To gaze at a beautiful sunset is societally acceptable. To gaze at an attractive person encountered randomly in public (as opposed to, say, a model walking a runway) is not societally acceptable. It is rude. Do not do this.
Absolutely not.
This isn’t some high school locker room with newly pubescent boys. This is life and we’re supposed to be adults.
You are correct, however I did not mean to imply that it is socially acceptable to gaze at attractive people encountered randomly in public. If you go back and look at the thread of replies, I was offering my opinion on why strangers whistling at a child is not necessarily sexual objectification. I would not go so far as to say it is appropriate to wolf-whistle at children randomly encountered in the street. I have previously posted to the effect of, it may once have been appropriate a hundred years ago, but it definitely is not appropriate today. I have also previously posted to the effect of, I recognize that actually telling strangers that I think they are beautiful comes across as awkward and creepy, so I don’t do it.
I’m twenty-four, so maybe the urge to complement strangers fades with age.
It has never been “appropriate” to wolf-whistle. Unless objectification and belittling and threatening is “appropriate”. Maybe the term you want is “barely tolerated”.
Do you really think that’s what wolf whistles and catcalls are about?
Plus which, a sunset doesn’t care how or if you react to it; nor does it worry about what you might do next; nor can it even be distracted from going about its business by anything you say or do about it. A sunset is not impinged on in any way by your behavior. Humans are impinged upon by human behavior, and you have no right to do so in this particular fashion.
Psst – ‘complimented’. ‘Complemented’ is also a word, but it’s not the same word.
And it’s the ‘they think’ and the ‘enough’ that does it. Somebody unworried about not being ‘pretty enough’ in the eyes of others doesn’t phrase it that way. If she’d said ‘because I’m pretty’, a discussion of the downsides of catcalling would still be in order, but a discussion about what’s meant by ‘enough’ and why the catcallers’ opinion on the subject shouldn’t be considered one that matters would be less important.
More than once when I was young, I was old I was “pretty for Jewish girl.”
The couple of times my parents overheard, they told me it was meaningless. They didn’t tell me I was as pretty as anyone, nor discuss anti-Semitism. They basically just let me know that the content didn’t matter, and someone else’s opinion on what I looked like could safely be ignored.
I’m amazed at how right they got things, sometimes.
For some reason, all of the info I could find online comes from UK sources, but it mirrors what I have come to understand as the history of the wolf-whistle. "A whistle with a rising and falling pitch, directed towards someone to express sexual attraction or admiration." (OED, emphesis mine here and after)
"When I was younger, wolf-whistles were a fact of life — for me as for all women of my generation. We expected this sort of behaviour from cocky young men, and we played up to it.
To us, a wolf-whistle was as harmless as the banter of market traders who flirted as they tried to persuade you to buy their wares — it was a compliment and you didn’t take it seriously." ~Jeannette Kupfermann for the Daily Mail, 2018
"I have never wolf-whistled at a woman. Why would you? I accept this was once seen as acceptable and complimentary, however times change." ~Nick Conrad for Norwich Evening News, 2018
"But it should also go down in history for one other thing: what Bogart does next. He does indeed put his lips together and blow – a wolf-whistle, in fact – two notes that in the 70 years since have gone from being the height of fashion to, arguably, the world’s most offensive sound." ~Alex Marshall for the BBC, 2018
"In the 60s, when I was a girl, in films like Billy Liar and Georgy Girl, if actresses like Julie Christie and Lynn Redgrave swung confidently past a building site, a cacophony of wolf whistles was de rigeur. [...] By the time we got to the 70s, the Women’s Movement had blurred the lines of what was acceptable [...]" ~Jan Etherington for the Daily Express, 2015
I think it can be, though obviously I would not claim that all or even most wolf-whistles (let alone most catcalls) are anything but sexual in nature. But if we’re talking about whistling at a little girl, I would err on assuming the caller has an outdated sense of social norms as opposed to assuming the caller is literally a pedophile.
I approve of your observations on the differences between a human being and a sunset. I also do not claim the right (or overriding desire) to act upon any urges to take or share pictures of random women on the street because I think they are beautiful.
None of those strike me as “appropriate”, but tolerated out of having little say in the matter. And 2 of your 3 quotes are referring to what men thought of wolf whistles, in the movies they made. Do you think it was ever appropriate to catcall an elegantly dressed, upper-class woman?
Men have a substantial say in what society-at-large considers tolerable or acceptable, and I would argue that men had a disproportionate say, especially as we look farther back. Therefore, I am neither surprised nor put off by the fact that half of my quotes (2/4) were from men; I purposely designed the post to that effect.
I think the upper-class never condoned catcalls. In what I understand to be the archaic sense of formal society, a true gentleman would be horrified if he failed to properly articulate his compliment towards a lady.