This should be posted over and over again.
And this.
And has no one told that red-haired girl that she’s a harlot yet? The nerve of her showing bare neckline and that long, fiery head of hair in public.
What if we get you a cape and a baseball bat and make you an anti-asshole superhero?
Didn’t we already have a super hero like that? Except it was a woman and she would go from bar to bar cock blocking men because she didn’t want them to “prey” on “vulnerable” women.
I googled–Terrifica!
::shudder::
To answer the informal poll, back when I lived in Philadelphia, it was probably a couple times a week, and I’m not particularly attractive (but I do have large breasts). I also went out of my way to avoid places that I knew would be a problem (namely construction sites or anywhere men were standing around with nothing particular to do).
Since I moved to the suburbs? Nothing! I love it out here!
The problem is, what are we supposed to do? Call the cops because someone yelled at you? Most guys I know admit that there would be a physical confrontation if someone approached them that way, but I don’t have that option. I’m not sure exactly how women are going to “take the power back” in this situation, when there’s no legal or physical recourse.
**Jamaika a jamaikaiaké **is right, too, that most of the men I know had no idea the extent to which their female friends and partners are harassed until it specifically comes up in conversation.
cries openly for the plight of the white male
If we replace “cat callers” with “rapists,” is this still an acceptable statement?
(And yes, I consider that a completely reasonable analogy. They’re both forms of bullying against women, just on opposite ends of the spectrum of severity.)
Oh, for God’s sake. You know how some “man-hating bitches” think men are just too goddamn dumb to pour piss out a boot? The kind of horseshit spewed in this thread is exactly why those women think that. I mean, honestly–comparing catcalls and harassment to saying hello or asking for the time and assuming that a women who’d like to beat the hell out of someone for the former would set your crotch on fire for the latter? That’s just…so goddamn dumb that I wonder if the people saying it could manage to pour piss out of a boot, honestly.
I like men generally, but goddamn y’all make it hard sometimes.
Jamaika a jamaikaiaké, thank you for giving enough of a shit to make the effort to figure this out and to bring it to other people’s attention. If this weren’t something that was considered totally insignificant and swept under the rug until violence erupts, it wouldn’t happen so much.
What the “no big deal” crowd doesn’t seem to get is it’s not the whistles or the comments or the crotch-grabbing themselves that are scary. What’s scary is that you’re dealing with someone who obviously is ignorant or dismissive of certain social norms, and you don’t know how deep that goes. When you’re dealing with, say, two guys around fifty who either don’t know or care that it’s not appropriate to ask a teenage girl if she wants to get married for about 15 ::crane neck and stare at ass:: no, 20, minutes–well, who knows what else they don’t know or care is inappropriate? If they think that’s okay, do they also think it’s okay to grab your boobs or butt? Try to do something even worse? You have no way of knowing.
For the men who don’t think this sort of thing happens much to the women you know, it’s been my experience that women are particularly likely to be the target of catcalls when they’re walking alone or with other women. If you’ve never witnessed this kind of behavior directed at women you know, it’s because it’s less likely to happen to women with a male companion present.
If you don’t notice it happening to women you don’t know, it’s probably because you aren’t paying attention. I don’t mean that as a personal criticism, I also don’t pay that much attention to what strangers I pass on the street are doing unless it affects me in some way.
If you consider that a reasonable analogy, then you’re an idiot. Equating cat calling with rape is ridiculous hyperbole.
I’m not talking about rapists. I’m talking about the guys who can’t get a date with a woman that they don’t have to pay for by the hour and who consider “That’s a nice outfit, but it would look nicer crumpled up on my floor in the morning!” to be the height of hilarity. Most of these guys are harmless. It’s not acceptable behavior, but it’s not illegal (that’s not an excuse, but a statement of fact). There’s nothing you can do except take a different route to work or punch the guy out like Malthus’ wife did.
She says that she equates them because they’re both a form of bullying against women. Why do you consider it a ridiculous hyperbole?
So much depends on the attitude behind it. When it starts sounding friendly and immediately turns vicious if it doesn’t get the answer it wants (or had mocking overtones to start with) then it is clearly not in the same league as genuinely finding somebody interesting or attractive and trying to do something about it. In a lot of cases, the men concerned would be only too flattered if women did it to them and then again there are a few women who can react to even a friendly smile or apology for stepping on their foot as if it was a demand for a blow job. Women can get away with more easily than men for just that reason, it’s seen as something daringly defiant and men are not likely to be frightened. Of course the more women react badly from an early age, the more encouragement to do it.
It’s cultural as well that where women grow up confident and strong in themselves and there is nothing puritanical underlying it, then women might actually feel a bit proud if drivers swerve and honk and call ‘Beautiful’ as long as that is all they do. I remember a rather puritanical English feminist reporter giving up about what she called ‘sexual harassment’ when a French secretary told her that if the boss did not bring her flowers and flirt with her, she would consider herself insulted. In other words, she saw it as a kind of tribute owed from men with any power trip on her side.
Cat-calling is not about casual admission of attraction though. Men who aren’t sexually immature or repressed in our culture don’t do it: it is done purely to make the other feel uncomfortable by males who find something ‘dirty’ about anything they find the slightest sexual overtones in, and assume it must discommodate anybody else too. Usually it does. These are just the same kind of morons who yelled something at me from a car a week ago when I happened to be wearing a tight violet T-shirt. Oh dear, only gays wear colours and are slim and ‘we’ have to prove how ungay we are. Sad little tossers! At the same time I felt amused and a little proud to think that looking to my 60th birthday, juveniles could still think me enough in their age bracket to warrant that sort of jibe!
It’s a different matter though when you’re all alone and there’s no knowing how not wanting to be seen to back down might take all of them into territory that singly they would never think of. If one man alone is going to attack you, chances are that he won’t give that sort of a warning. It can have the opposite effect too, of inhibiting anybody who does want to make genuine contact in less doubtful surroundings but is afraid of being misunderstood. The end result is to put the OK off and to inhibit people from just being friendly to each other and only the pillocks carry on trying to make themselves heard.
Devil’s advocate: There’s a difference between thinking catcalling is “no big deal” and thinking it’s not an act worthy of physical retaliation.
Would you advocate children beat up peers that only bully them verbally, never physically? (Legit question - trying to establish baseline.)
For the ladies in the thread who are sick of being catcalled - do any of you listen to some kind of music player when you go out? I take mine everywhere and it has dramatically cut down the number of comments I get in the street (or I can’t hear them anymore, at least). It’s bliss! However, I do get on very rare occasions men who will go so far as to tap me on the shoulder so I’ll stop the music and allow them to deliver magical use of language such as “you should be proud aw them tits, hen.” But it’s very rare.
Funny you should mention this. In high school I caught shit from the usual suspects for a time, being a quiet and relatively socially awkward guy. When I reacted by expressing my displeasure in some way, it would get worse, almost without exception. When I learned to laugh and roll with the punches is when the unwanted behavior pretty much stopped. It’s not that the assholes were any less deserving of my scorn, but rather that my scorn wasn’t doing me any damn good.
Of course, the situation here isn’t entirely analogous, and I agree that the catcalling is kind of a big deal. Taking steps to discourage the acceptance of this type of behavior is quite laudable. In the meantime, however, it’s probably best to do what you can to limit the frequency of these types of encounters and, especially, to make them less noxious when they do occur. That this is only possible to a limited extent is truly regrettable, but, still, practical benefits are more important than uncompromised righteousness.
The problem with your scenario, VarlosZ, is that it doesn’t often work. If you laugh, or “participate”, or whatever, then they think it’s OK, and it escalates to people TOUCHING you, or assuming you’ll sleep with them. And once you make it clear that sex is not on the cards, you’re a bitch, or a lesbian, and they start physically threatening you. If you ignore it completely, you have less chance of that happening, but then sometimes they start yelling louder or touching you because you haven’t given them your attention. Because, to them, they’re ENTITLED to your time and attention, if you’re an apparently unattached female.
In order for me to avoid this type of encounter, I’d have to hole up in my home with the doors locked, and NOT ANSWER IT, because the stupid pizza guy, and the FED-EX guy, even, like to make those comments. I’d never work, never go shopping for groceries, couldn’t have anything delivered. I could only survive that way if I had a very generous male to take care of me, walk me places, buy things for me, stand up for and defend me, etc. which is what these people expect.
Lone women are targets, women in groups of women are targets, women with men, they direct the “compliment” towards the male, like the female is useless and has NO SAY in what’s going on. “Nice Girlfriend” or “wow, you’re a lucky fellow” and such are NOT compliments, gentlemen. It sounds like a compliment to most guys, I think, but it’s demeaning to women. You’re “lucky” because you managed to “capture” or “snag” or “acquire” a woman of “that quality” (which means nice “parts”).
I don’t belong to a male. “Complimenting” me to my husband like I’d tell someone “wow, that’s a nice-looking dog” or “I like your garden. It has very nice tomatoes.” is not cool. We’re trying to move away from the women-as-property stuff, I thought. They expect that if I were shudder THEIR WOMAN shudder (what a horrible phrasing. It’s like saying if I were THEIR SLAVE or THEIR DOG…) then I’d be not-fair-game, as well. It’s reinforcement of the female-as-property or person-as-object meme. Because they’d “take care of me”, they say so. I’m a collection of parts for them to play with, tend to, and access whenever they like, unless I “belong” to someone else.
It’s really not safe to walk down a busy street with your music so loud that you can’t hear people talking, or cars honking, or dogs barking. That’s an accident waiting to happen.
And if somebody I don’t know ever had the nerve to touch me out on a public street, even a tap on the shoulder, they’d receive a swift kick in the nuts. You do not put your hands on a stranger.
“Hey baby, how about some fries with that shake?” ≠ Forcing one’s penis into an unwilling recipient.
sign I knew this was coming. Analogy, Lord Ashtar, is not equivalence.
But since you find that analogy too strong for you delicate sensibilities, try this. Sometimes, people try to rob stores. They attempt to rob stands set up by the roadside, they attempt to rob little corner stores with minimal security, they attempt to shoplift at friggin’ Macy’s. Now, you may be condescending enough to believe that the shop owners aren’t taking what steps they can afford to prevent or minimize theft, but beyond things like vigilant clerks, security cameras, locked show cases, etc., what are they supposed to do? The very fact of the store’s existence attracts people who want a five-fingered discount. Is this somehow the proprietor’s fault?
You are trying to piggyback off moral outrage against rape. Thus it is fair to consider whether this emotional cross-pollination is justified, which it is obviously not.
You shouldn’t be. I hear this kind of crap from the teenagers at work. Example:
Teenager: “Oh, if someone said that to me, I’d [do something violent], then I’d [do something nastier and more violent] and I’d [perform a spectacular feat of impossible complexity, normally involving a temporary suspension of the effects of gravity]. Then I’d pee on him.”
Other Teenager: “Haw, haw.”
I like to tell them that actual results may vary, and that they may, in fact, only end up peeing themselves. Pure fantasy, but it gives folks a little thrill. Real violence, nasty and brutal, sucks.