# Women (over)react to catcalling **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 20, 2009, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-over-react-to-catcalling/507120 "2009-08-20T20:36:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-over-react-to-catcalling/507120/141 "2009-08-21T17:56:05Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Maybe a poll is in order. I’m not a woman, so I don’t know how common this is. From my observations, I can’t remember the last time I heard a cat call from a group of guys to a woman anywhere in public but, like I said, I’m not a woman. I’ve seen it at places like frat parties, beaches packed with women strutting their stuff, mardi gra parades with women strutting their stuff, wild bar parties…places where I suspect the majority of the women are actually looking for it. And even then its relatively polite stuff like “woohoo” or “yeah babie” or “hot stuff”…not crude and not stalkerish (thats been so rare I can’t even say I’ve seen it…I certainly dont remember it). As for day to day parking lots, sidewalks, parks, shopping centers, businesses, whatevers where adult folks are going about their day to day business I cant recall ever seeing it. I wont say I’ve never seen it, but for me its been a damn rare sight. Of course maybe its just that in the deep south everybody is polite or all the women are butt ugly unlike NEW YORK CITY where everybody is crude and all the women are super models. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-over-react-to-catcalling/507120/142 "2009-08-21T17:57:36Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > If you can find out what vibe that is, you must let me know so that I may try desperately to correct it. I will love you forever. I wish I could give you some good news. I’d have to see it happening right in front of me, which is very unlikely, to see if I could figure it out. Even then I probably couldn’t. You could try some different things out, though. If you always walk around with a scowl on your face, try a smile. If you’re always smiling, try a scowl. If you’re always averting your gaze, try strong eye contact, or vice versa. If you seriously try to avoid these guys, trying saying hello before they get a chance to talk first. Of course, keep your safely a priority. But it may be something so completely counterintuitive that it would never occur to you. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-over-react-to-catcalling/507120/143 "2009-08-21T17:58:52Z")
> [@Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](#): > > Unless you all have a cite to the contrary, I would guess that this kind of street harassment has little correlation to traditional attractiveness. > > **WAG ALERT:** Or that if it does, it actually happens more to “plain Janes.” Whether it’s about power or sex, it is still the case that a certain power dynamic is prerequisite to this kind of behavior. Bullies don’t bully someone they think will beat them up, and I would guess that sexual street harassers probably pick people who aren’t “out of their league.” Of course I can’t cite it as I am going from anecdotal evidence. However, I think people are LESS likely to harass someone who is in their league. Maybe she gets harassed more because they think she is so out of their league that it has embittered them and they are angry about it. If a guy has a shot with a girl he usually approaches her very differently. If they are following her and saying, “What you think you’re too good for us?”, odds are they decided that she was before making the catcalls. How men bully women doesn’t follow the same rules as men bullying other men. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-over-react-to-catcalling/507120/144 "2009-08-21T18:00:26Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Of course maybe its just that in the deep south everybody is polite or all the women are butt ugly unlike NEW YORK CITY where everybody is crude and all the women are super models. There you go with the stereotypes again. Not all New Yorkers are crude! ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-over-react-to-catcalling/507120/145 "2009-08-21T18:00:28Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > Oh dear! I will hate you forever? I will remain indifferent? I’m not sure what to do here… Eh. Send me a card at Christmas. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-over-react-to-catcalling/507120/146 "2009-08-21T18:00:42Z")
> [@satoridt](#): > > OK. You are getting heckled repeatedly. At 8 am. In the grocery store. At the pharmacy. All the time. I am friends with some very attractive women. Doesn’t happen to them. They are friends with some other attractive women. Nope, not like you describe. I am downtown during the day quite often. I have never witnessed anything like this. Either you are an extremely special case, or you are exaggerating a great deal. Really? You asked them and this is what they told you, or you assume because they don’t complain about it? If it’s true, your friends are very lucky. Many of my friends are models and they do complain about it. So do the non-models. So do obese women and recent immigrants and underdeveloped 13-year-olds – or at least those who actually acknowledge that they have a right not to be harassed on the street and that it wasn’t their own fault for existing/having a vagina/forgetting their nun’s habit that day. > [@pulykamell](#): > > Maybe a poll is in order. I’m not a woman, so I don’t know how common this is. From my observations, I can’t remember the last time I heard a cat call from a group of guys to a woman anywhere in public but, like I said, I’m not a woman. I’m not sure how tuned into this some guys are, ignorance is bliss and all that. I was riding my bike with my SO the other week and a guy yelled from his car that he’d love for me to ride _him_. At the next light I joked that the guy had been talking to my partner and the words were meant for him, and he had no idea what I was even talking about. There are also the whisperers. Again, within hearing distance of my partner in the park I got a lovely little ‘Nice tits’ from a man walking past (white, clean-shaven, 40-something, in a business suit) who didn’t even attempt eye contact. If I’d yelled at him I don’t doubt at least a few people would have thought ‘Wow, crazy lady in the park!’ Oddly, I find New York, or at least Manhattan, not so bad on the street harassment scale (but then I am caucasian). Paris is one of the worst. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-over-react-to-catcalling/507120/147 "2009-08-21T18:02:03Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > If they are following her and saying, “What you think you’re too good for us?”, odds are they decided that she was before making the catcalls. Very insightful! I would bet the rent on it. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-over-react-to-catcalling/507120/148 "2009-08-21T18:04:43Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Ok, how about, “Women play a significant role in the subjugation of women.”, is that better? I think that’s fine and we were already agreed about your general point. But what you said the first time was not the same. > [@](#): > > Yeah, it’s two generations. For sweeping culture change of 5000 years of tradition to occur in just two generations is pretty mind-bogglingly swift. The general public wasn’t voting at all 5,000 years ago anywhere. If you want to go from 1848 to something like full equality, I’d say you have to go to… well, let’s make it a nice round number and say 120 years, to 1968. Still very swift, sure, but twice as long. > [@](#): > > Bottom line, when women stand up for their rights and there is a groundswell, they get them. …eventually. > [@](#): > > The fewer there are standing for the subjugation of women to tradition and the more who stand up for equal rights the more likely they are to get those rights. What is it that you so dislike about that position? I don’t have a problem with _that_ position. I disagreed with the way you said it the first time. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-over-react-to-catcalling/507120/149 "2009-08-21T18:05:43Z")
> [@Cat\_Fight](#): > > I was riding my bike with my SO the other week and a guy yelled form his car that he’d love for me to ride _him_. At the next light I joked that the guy had been talking to my partner and the words were meant for him, and he had no idea what I was even talking about. There are also the whisperers. Again, within hearing distance of my partner in the park I got a lovely little ‘Nice tits’ from a man walking past (white, clean-shaven, 40-something, in a business suit) who didn’t even attempt eye contact. Wow. I’ll cop to thinking those things, but I’m able to control my mouth. Just…wow. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-over-react-to-catcalling/507120/150 "2009-08-21T18:07:09Z")
> [@Cat\_Fight](#): > > Really? You asked them and this is what they told you, or you assume because they don’t complain about it? He has daily meetings with throngs of beautiful women, where the women say things like, “You know, I am never harassed by men in public at all.” It’s true. ---
**Author:** ![satoridt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@satoridt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/satoridt)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-over-react-to-catcalling/507120/151 "2009-08-21T18:13:37Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > He has daily meetings with throngs of beautiful women, where the women say things like, “You know, I am never harassed by men in public at all.” It’s true. I wouldn’t say throngs, maybe multitudes, lets not all exaggerate here…😃 ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-over-react-to-catcalling/507120/152 "2009-08-21T18:17:21Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I think that’s fine and we were already agreed about your general point. But what you said the first time was not the same. Ok, well then we agree. I have no attachment to poor word choice on my part. > [@](#): > > The general public wasn’t voting at all 5,000 years ago anywhere. If you want to go from 1848 to something like full equality, I’d say you have to go to… well, let’s make it a nice round number and say 120 years, to 1968. Still very swift, sure, but twice as long. This is a theme I post about a lot actually. A lot of stuff that has changed in modernity I see as just sort of an avalanche. So many things were changing that they just couldn’t change them all at the same time. > [@](#): > > …eventually. I’d say inevitably, but yeah. > [@](#): > > I don’t have a problem with _that_ position. I disagreed with the way you said it the first time. Then we agree, and I take full responsibility for phrasing it in a clunky way. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-over-react-to-catcalling/507120/153 "2009-08-21T18:18:44Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > All I seemed able to do was attract some cats. Pictures, dude; you know the rules around here. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-over-react-to-catcalling/507120/154 "2009-08-21T18:20:27Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Actually I remember walking down the street one weekend night and some guys calling out something to me and I stopped and started talking to them and went with them to some bar where they bought me a couple of drinks. Not the smartest thing in the world, but I suppose there’s always that one in a million. > > I’m not sure if that counts as a catcall, though. There was also another time when some guy stopped me (outside a bar) and I ended up drinking with him and his friend. Sometimes I get the feeling that in actions, I’m the kind of woman that other feminists really despise… Um, yeah, yeah it was really fucking _stupid_. :eek: Not to mention really, REALLY fucked up. Are you trying to get yourself killed? :rolleyes: The only time I have EVER really enjoyed being catcalled at was by some friends from school, when my best friend and I were walking back to her house after school. A bunch of guys we knew from class drove by and whistled and yelled at us. We just waved and yelled back. Other than that, like I said, it’s either middle finger, or insults, or both. Isn’t there a middle ground here, folks? Somewhere between being, “boys will be boys” and “cut their balls off!!!”? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-over-react-to-catcalling/507120/155 "2009-08-21T18:29:13Z")
> [@satoridt](#): > > I wouldn’t say throngs, maybe multitudes, lets not all exaggerate here…😃 For beautiful women, the collective noun is “thong”, not “throng”. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-over-react-to-catcalling/507120/156 "2009-08-21T18:29:28Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Pictures, dude; you know the rules around here. Sorry. [Hot pussies.](http://www.cartoon-secrets.com/Photos/Josie-Pussycats.gif) ---
**Author:** ![stretch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@stretch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stretch)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-over-react-to-catcalling/507120/157 "2009-08-21T18:30:09Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > I’m female, and I’ve never been followed with someone yelling things at me. I mean, I sometimes notice guys checking me out and on occasion saying stuff, but I honestly don’t get it when women talk about how much they hate catcalling and that kind of behavior. It’s always felt relatively innocuous to me. Lucky you. I get this shit regularly. I don’t find it mildly complimentary to be screamed at by some guy: “Hey, Baby!; Suck My Dick!; Does the carpet match the curtains?” None of these are compliments. But I can mostly ignore that shit. It’s the escalation. I don’t consider having someone following me down the street in his car asking me if I want a ride to be innocuous. > [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Hm, well, yes to the tits, not so much with the hips… > > Well, I’ve definitely gotten comments (it happened way more when I was living in Harlem, and that was kind of creepy) but now when it happens, it’s usually just a comment or look, and that’s that. I’ve also had guys try to pick me up sometimes but I live down a long stretch of bars where a lot of people hang out late at night. I wouldn’t classify that as catcalling so much, though. I get the feeling that **MeanOldLady** would respond to, “Hey, where are you going?” or “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” with, “Yes, from HELL” with a swift kick to the balls, whereas I’ll be nice to the guy for as long as it takes to get me a free drink… I’m not MOL, but there’s a tone and escalation that creeps use. I know people are going to hit on me and I’m okay with that. But screaming at me from a car, following me down the street, getting upset and extra creepy when I ignore you or tell you to leave me alone? Those things are not okay. Self-defense when faced with threatening behavior is okay by me. What the woment in the link did was wrong. What some other woman does to a heckling guy may be okay with me, depending on the context. And the fact that some of us get this shit more than others should not be surprising. In my case, in addition to being stupid enough to have been born female, I have the nerve to have long red hair. I must be asking for all this attention–if I didn’t want attention I would obviously cut if all off and dye it mousy brown. And wear a fucking bhurka too, because some men can’t help themselves when they see a woman and apparently I have to accomodate that. :rolleyes: As to the being nice to the guy long enough to get a free drink…addressing that would take a whole thread that I’m not up to starting right now. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-over-react-to-catcalling/507120/158 "2009-08-21T18:30:11Z")
> [@BMax](#): > > I used to work construction and was on several crews with catcaller guys. Every one of them hollered compliments at women and didn’t cross the line into sexual harassment. That was on the job. I don’t know what they did off the job. Most of the women they hollered at would ignore them. Occasionally one would give them the finger, which always drew laughter from the rest of the crew. Some girls would blow kisses or wave flirtatiously. Nobody ever got hurt and I don’t think we scarred anyone’s psyche. But, where did they get off doing this? Because they happen to work outside where people walk by, it’s OK to yell at people during your work day? Of course it’s sexual harassment to make comments at someone based on their gender, and it would be in any other setting. But somehow it’s OK for construction workers (stereotypically the worst offenders). :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-over-react-to-catcalling/507120/159 "2009-08-21T18:30:44Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Isn’t there a middle ground here, folks? Somewhere between being, “boys will be boys” and “cut their balls off!!!”? “Boys will be eunuchs”? 😕 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7993a0/32.png) [@Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamaika_a_jamaikaiake)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-over-react-to-catcalling/507120/160 "2009-08-21T18:31:31Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Of course I can’t cite it as I am going from anecdotal evidence. However, I think people are LESS likely to harass someone who is in their league. Maybe she gets harassed more because they think she is so out of their league that it has embittered them and they are angry about it. If a guy has a shot with a girl he usually approaches her very differently. > > If they are following her and saying, “What you think you’re too good for us?”, odds are they decided that she was before making the catcalls. > > How men bully women doesn’t follow the same rules as men bullying other men. Yes, I know that. I’m sorry for taking my analogy too far. However, I know various women who aren’t traditionally attractive who get catcalled regularly. As **Cat Fight** said, it doesn’t only happen to supermodels. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-over-react-to-catcalling/507120.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-over-react-to-catcalling/507120.md?page=9)