There are a lot of things we can do. Denouncing the practice, calling people on it when we see someone (who we have some chance of influencing) do it, and raising our sons to be better than that, these are all viable ways of making an effort to solve the problem.
Smiling at a jerk in the HOPE that he won’t do it (when experience indicates that it won’t help), is a short-sighted, ineffective solution.
/edit: meant to say sighted. Oops.
No, not what I’m saying at all.
I’m not saying that women should stop acting feminine. (God, I would hate that!) I’m saying that if there are coping strategies that might help, then we should at least look at them rather than dismissing them out of hand. Why wouldn’t you at least look at them? Are you afraid of them for some reason?
But you suggest that the real solution is for men to stop acting like jerks. I agree. I’ve done my part. I’ve stopped. In fact, I’ve never even started. So… problem solved?
We have looked at them, and here is the problem:
No one is dismissing your “coping strategies” out of hand, we are dismissing them because they don’t work.
tdn, it doesn’t appear to my untrained eye that any of the women in this thread are much handicapped by unwanted sexual attention. They just don’t like it, and this just happens to be a thread where they have the opportunity to talk about it. I don’t think they really want help with how they cope. Corollary: the more you insist that you aren’t blaming the victim, but continue to probe their reasons for their unwillingness to alter their own behaviors in the face of a societal inequity, the more you look like you really think the problem is on their end.
Why in the holy fuck are you still calling it appeasement?!? Jesus! Do you put up an umbrella to appease the rain? Do you turn on your air conditioning to appease the heat? Did the US enter WWII to appease the Germans?
I’m not sure you fully understand what I mean by coping.
Yes, yes, we get it. Smile more, be confident, be less confident, wear headphones, dress nicer, dress worse. Doesn’t work, doesn’t work, wouldn’t know, doesn’t work, doesn’t work, doesn’t work.
You’ve already admitted in the real world, this kind of behavior will persist. The people acting this way are the ones who need to stop; modifying our behavior does not stop the problem. A more progressive attitude toward women is likely the only thing that will stop it. Maybe it’ll happen some day. I hear blacks are allowed to walk outside in broad sunlight in the American South now, so I’m optimistic. Until then, I guess I’m supposed to not be bothered by it, but I still am.
So what are you doing to make them change?
You keep insisting that you shouldn’t have to change your behavior, they should have to change theirs. I don’t disagree that they should change theirs, but I’m pretty sure that’s going to be predicated on you changing yours. You don’t get people to stop bothering you by meekly hoping it goes away, because you’re too afraid to confront them.
Why don’t we try changing it one guy at a time? It’s the best any one of us can hope to do, after all.
tdn, If it’s anything other than “change your behavior, women, and hope that the asshole men who harass with you will do it slightly less,” then no, I don’t.
I’m pretty sure that blacks brought change about by modifying their behavior. If they’d all been as hopeless and complacent as you are, they’d still be sitting in the back of the bus.
Diana, I completely agree. Personally, I think that talking about it and raising awareness among other men helps, in real life and in threads like these.
When harassment happens, I think the best think to do is get out of the situation as soon as possible, but talking about it later helps. I don’t think these guys would be doing it if they didn’t think it was socially acceptable, and I think they get validation, even passive validation, of that from other men. So, my tactic is to talk about it with the aim of making it socially unacceptable.
Fair enough. Carry on.
Once again, fair enough.
It’s just that I used to be the kind of guy that blamed all of my problems on the rest of the world. Everything was everyone else’s fault and everything was so unfaaaaaaiiir. I’ve finally decided to take complete control and responsibility for my life. Sure, things will happen that are out of my control, but I can control how I face them. And it’s been amazing. This thread is me trying to give a little of that good mojo back.
But I’ll back off.
Who the fuck is afraid of these people? We’re bothered by them, not afraid… except the rare threatening ones. They’re scary. Last night some guy kept harassing the shit out of me, because ignoring him didn’t work. I stopped in my tracks and said, “You have to be shitting me. You’re not seriously going to follow me, are you?” He called me a bitch. :rolleyes:
What modifications to our behavior are we supposed to enact? What can people do to stop this harassment? You think women putting their hair up, or correcting their posture or whatever stops dick guys from bothering them on the street? You can tell a guy, “Fuck off,” and he may or may not. But wait a minute… Why did he find it okay to bother me this way in the first place? What am I supposed to do to stop it from occurring to begin with? Maybe I should buy a tee shirt that reads “Don’t Even Start.”
You’re right, I give up. There’s nothing we can possibly do except to pray for their eventual enlightenment.
Whatever. I’ll continue not having this problem, and yeah, Ill continue assuming it’s because of something I’m doing, because what I do is the only thing I have control over. So really, I guess I DON’T give up.
I see a few of you are stuck on the notion that the “other person” needs to change while you don’t have to, and your anger shows when it (predictably) doesn’t happen.
I don’t feel like I’m doing nothing – Diana, did you miss my post at the bottom of the last page?
And yes, Yeticus, the other person does need to change if the other person is acting abusively.
I’m not sure if the suggestion here by Yeticus is that the women need to change themselves so that they won’t be harassed, or if women need to change themselves so that they won’t feel upset by the harassment. If the former, then this has been addressed. If the latter, then I agree. But hell, sometimes stuff makes me mad, even things I can’t control. Sue me.
They won’t change unless they see AND understand that they need to change on their own volition; what or who is going to help them see that? Are your comments/actions helping or hurting your cause?
I like to think they’re helping, or else I wouldn’t make them. But I don’t think someone harassing me on the street is going to stop and listen to me telling him why he should consider changing his worldview to include the idea that women are people and should be treated as such. In my opinion, and from my experience, confronting harassers is not effective.
I’m still trying to figure that out, but again, in my experience, talking about how pervasive and irritating/tedious it is helps.
Seriously? Where do you live/work again? I’m fully on your side and agree this boorish behavior exists and it sucks, but why does it happen to you 100 times more often than the other women posting on this board? I’m not trying to be a dick, I genuinely want to know. I didn’t go back and read the (egads!) previous 12 pages but IIRC the average for the women posting was from between a few times a month to a few times a year.
I don’t think MeanOldLady’s experience is an exceptional outlier, depending on where she lives. I wouldn’t consider it out of the ordinary if I lived in, say, LA or some parts of NYC.