Missed the edit limit, but for data point: I live in Shoreditch (east London); I get whistles/“Niiiiiiiiice”/“Hey beautiful!” comments 3-4 times a week, “I’d like to suck on those”/“Nice tits”/“Want to fuck?” probably once every 7-10 days, and someone “brushing” against me, following me very closely or otherwise physically invading my space and touching me about once a month. I mostly ignore it like the rest of the urban white noise, and tell the more explicit harassers to fuck off, but it is irritating.
Few times a year? For catcalling and bothering of any kind? I’d say the super-hyper-creepy shit happens very rarely, but light-to-moderate pestering is fairly regular. I’m in downtown Minneapolis and spend 90% of my time here. I thought Midwesterners were supposed to be nice! But no, it was maybe 9:30pm (maybe I shouldn’t have been bold enough to walk outside at night alone) and some dude was riding his bike, turned left, then rode up on the sidewalk alongside me and said “Nice.” Nice? Oh, I’m so glad you approve of the way I’ve groomed myself! Because I don’t respond to that type of shit, I ignored him, but he kept on. “Hey, I’m talking to you.” Does this twat think I’m not responding because I’m hard of hearing? I can assure you, I am not, and even deaf women don’t like being followed. Buy yeah, I’m a bitch for asking this douche if he were for real.
You know, let’s just say he walked up to me and said, “Hello miss,” and I still ignored him. Let’s pretend the guy is being perfectly nice, but I hate strangers so much that I refuse to talk to him. Why does he start following me again? If I ever politely asked someone for directions to the freeway and was ignored, I’d do no more than think to myself, Yeesh, how rude. I would never imagine to follow the person, or call him a bitch.
FTR, pestering, harassing, and harassing the shit out of all happened to me (and I noticed it happening to other women) WAY more when I lived in LA than it does here. LA is frickin’ ridiculous. Ever wonder why every woman in that town is equipped with absurdly large, face-obscuring sunshades and an iPod? We’re trying to hide.
Bang…right there. You’ve lost your control, even when you had it by the balls, so to speak.
From: Tactics for Confronting Street Harassers:
Strategies for Combating Street Harassment from same site. This is the kind of change I speak of if you willingly pursue for yourself.
This came from a thesis by Holly Kearl; and her main website.
This is your notice of suit. 
I’ll also note that there is plenty of intersection between racism and street harassment (further supporting the idea that these guys aren’t paying genuine compliments, they’re aiming to degrade).
Here’s a nice little story that includes the quote
It’s hard to pinpoint why some women get targeted more than others, and it makes more sense to look at the harassers (since it’s not like they’re targeting a single woman apiece). Who are they angry at? Who do they feel they are more or less powerful than? Are they immigrants to a white community angry at white men but too afraid to target them with their anger? Divorced men who can’t handle women their own age and have to target teens? Are they white guys who’ve lost their jobs and have it out for women and ethnic minorities? Men of any ethnicity who are confined to menial labor and angry at businesswomen? Men who can’t get a date? Men who can’t get a date with certain kinds of women?
Whatever the case, the least people can do is agree that street harassment is shameful. Someone (male) up thread mentioned being pressured into it and I understand that, which makes it even more important to consider it pathetic and convey this message to male friends and relatives.
This is a very telling statement.
I bet you are the only person here who thinks you’re “a bitch for asking this douche if he were for real.”
This, in addition to your other posts in this thread (read the whole thing), leads me to believe the problem really does begin with you. I’m not blaming the victim, I’m blaming you. You’re playing the victim. Different thing.
And no, I don’t think you’re a “bitch”.
Yeticus, I appreciate you taking the time to look it up, and I do think that it is important to get street harassers to realize that their behavior is not acceptable.
However, the tactics described there don’t work. To them, there is no appreciable difference between “Stop doing that” and “Back the fuck off, asshole!” They are both taken a confrontational challenge. Also, really, any engagement is taken as a positive sign because hey, he got your attention, right?
Speaking from experience, ignoring it and getting away from him (or snapping a quick “Back off!” over your shoulder while you get away from him) is the best way to deal with it on the spot.
edit Holy shit, Jimmy Joe Meager, whoa there. There is no question that MeanOldLady was harassed. That didn’t begin with her. How she chooses to deal with that abuse is in no way the cause of it.
And I’m pretty sure she meant that the guy hassling her thought she was a bitch, or even called her one.
Thanks, Yeticus. I’ve tried some of those strategies with “closer harrassment,” say, with someone who’s within easy speaking distance and there are other people around (without awful results, but I was on the move), but I haven’t tried it with anyone farther away, usually because I’m trying to get out of there. Worth trying, though, I’m not sure it would work with someone who wasn’t in a potentially embarrassing situation.
Of course, it’s largely academic since I moved to the suburbs, but I’ll keep it in mind in the future.
/edit: context!
That was me. To be clear, I felt pressured into joining in, but I never did actually join in. I suppose I could have said “You guys need to stop, you’re acting like creeps.” But when the main guy doing it controls your pay for the next week, that makes it difficult. And back in those days, I never really spoke up to people about stuff I didn’t like.
Yeticus, good find! I hope some people find it useful.
Sorry, maybe that came out harsher than intended.
I never questioned she was harassed. I never questioned how she chose to deal with it (frankly, I agreed with her response and support her decision to do so).
What I questioned was her self-assessment that she was a “bitch” for reacting as she did. She seems to have the “perpetual victim” thing going on, and this is part of it.
That’s what I’m talking about, tdn! I honestly think that social pressure from wiser men is what’s going to make the biggest difference to the kind of guy that does it. I’m glad you feel more confident about speaking up to them now. 
JJM, I still read that as saying, “But yeah, [now this guy thinks that] I’m a bitch for asking this douche if he were for real [and I know this because he is following me down the street and telling me he thinks so].” I think she’s talking about the misogyny these guys often display, not saying that she actually thinks of herself as a bitch.
Ya know, in my experiences, some of this works, and some of this does not. I’ve listed some of the worst occurrences of harassment in this thread because a lot of us have hijacked this thread to vent about it. It is not uncommon for me to be left alone in while public, and when bothered, it is not uncommon for me to say something like, “Stop bothering me” as opposed to “Fuck you.” Sometimes they stop, sometimes they don’t. If we’re talking about getting each particular male to stop what he is doing, it depends. Sometimes simply ignoring is enough. Sometimes asking him to stop is enough. Sometimes flipping the bird is enough. Sometimes, each of these things will only lead to escalation. But this kind of crap shouldn’t even happen to begin with. We should not be subject to this kind of bologna simply because we’re women.
I do like that website though. This is key:
Uhm, I’m not even sure how to respond to this. I’m glad to see you don’t think I’m a bitch, I don’t either (I was being sarcastic with the “I’m a bitch” remark), but apparently that guy does because he said so. Or maybe he was just trying to hurt my feelings, I don’t know. My feelings don’t get hurt by random idiots, anyway, so if that was his objective, FAIL. But this is not about me. Remove me from this altogether. If no man ever whistled or screamed anything from a car window at me again, well, that would be nice really, but if they still continued this type of behavior toward every other woman, I’d still find myself bothered. I find it to be reprehensible behavior, and I find it to be sexist. If I’m playing a victim because I want this shit to stop for all women without them having to behave or dress differently (which won’t stop it), then uhh, yeah, I’m out of words.
I posted a poll thread over in IMHO.
The reports of this being such a prevalant thing is disturbing.
Thanks for that.
We don’t get enough disturbing threads around here! 
[quote=“MeanOldLady, post:505, topic:507120”]
Pipe down, and read the thread before commenting. Nobody’s a killer fox, nobody’s thin-skinned. I don’t like being sexually harassed, and people finding it to be okay. Fuck me running.
Strength in men
Beauty in women
Men lie to women to get sex
Women lie to men to get babies
Women own sex
Their power lies between their thighs
Ask yourself these questions:
- Why do women wear lipstick and make-up?
- Why do women wear high heels, the worst thing you can do to your spine, knees and ankles?
If a statement about sex is true, it can’t be sexist…why? because it’s the truth.
I’m probably already way behind on the thread, sorry. Actual work kept coming up in the middle of replying to it (imagine that).
IIRC, the only people who expressed admiration for the women were doing so hyperbolically.
He may be viewing me as an object, but he is treating me as a person.
Yeah, and I’m sure some women enjoy it when they get paid more for wearing skirts to work. Doesn’t make it right.
Exactly. There are two basic reactions to whistling/cat-calling/etc.: either the woman will be flattered or she will be offended. The man has decided that the “offended” women either don’t exist or don’t matter: his desire to publicly observe what he finds to be attractive overrides her desire to be treated like a person.
Well then why the hell are you even bringing it up? We’ve already established that the problem is strangers. Not friends or family. Everyone knows (at least, I thought everyone knew) that etiquette changes drastically for in-groups versus out-groups.
So women who ignore or are flattered by public attention to their physical attractiveness from strangers are confident, while women who are offended by it are shy and have self-confidence issues. Uh… huh.
I am six feet tall. I used to have a mohawk. I walk with confidence. I’m often mistaken for a man on message boards. I’ve often been accused of being a lesbian because I’m not a mousy girl. You know when I was flattered by being catcalled? When I was twelve and still had self-image issues.
I can get what I want in a professional setting because there is accountability. If a stranger at my job, whether a coworker or a client, comes up and tells me he wants to fuck me, I can go to HR and report him, and get him fired, or at least in a shitload of trouble. Guy on the street? No accountability. None. Which, as I keep saying, is exactly the problem. Ignoring it encourages it, and violence is an overreaction.
No, the whistling is a problem, too, just not as big a problem as the following.
Exactly.
Yes, they do, when they have a legitimate reason to be offended. There’s a great quote from Miss Manners herself that I wish I could put my finger on right now. The jist of it is this: if you are doing something to try to be polite, and people are offended by it, you’re not really being polite if you continue doing it even after you know it offends, because you’re considering your feeling good about doing XYZ to be more important than their actual reaction to it.
Uh, no, it’s called sexism. People shouldn’t **have **to put up with harassment.
But if you’re confident already, why would some random dick on the street expressing that he thinks your hot give you a boost?
Rain is not a conscious actor. Heat is not a conscious actor. The equivalent of entering WWII in this situation would presumably be to punch the fuck out of the guy. Your analogy blows.
Aren’t you the one who **ignores **whistling and catcalls?
I’m not sure what you’re saying here. Are you trying to suggest that the harasser and harasee both need to change? Because if so, that’s seriously fucked up.
Does anybody read the entire thread anymore, or do we all just come in late, read two posts, and assume we know what’s going on?
If you’d been paying the least bit of attention, you’d realize the **MOL **is referring to her experience of **being called **a bitch when she confronts the men who harass her, not that she views herself as one for doing so.
What a bunch of generalized bullshit. MEN ARE FROM MARS WOMEN ARE FROM VENUS AMIRITE
Because I’m not basing my entire out look on what that one guy says. It’s just a confirmation of what I already know.
I don’t know, ask them. Okay, I’m lying. I do wear lip gloss, but because it stops my lips from being chapped. Doesn’t hurt that it’s shiny. As for the rest of your post, I’m going to ignore it because it’s fucking stupid.
Shot From Guns, everything you said in that long, multi-quoted post was 100% awesome.
A+
whpshhhh
The changes I speak of are:
The harasser needs to change the behavior from hostile/aggressive to neutral, and the harassee needs to change from anger (or passivity) to neutral-assertive. Not fucked up at all, but more normalized behavior. The assertive person usually will not appear to be an easy target for harassers. Some will attempt once, but will usually stop harassing the person repeated times. The more times the harassee practices her assertiveness, the more confident she becomes in standing up to harassers. Her actions will eventually give rise to changes in the harasser’s behavior; instead of a downspiral of behaviors and reactions that are aggressive, the chance for an upspiral of assertiveness and respect would take place.
SO…who wants change? The women want the change.
But how can they change the men who harass? Those men won’t/can’t/don’t know how to change unless they seek a more positive response from the women.
So, women must ASSERT their need for respect. The site I gave earlier shows examples of women asserting themselves to improve the situation they face.
THAT is the change I am speaking of…laws are fine, but they don’t eliminate every wrong. Sexual harassment laws aren’t the cure all unless women assert their need for equal treatment; then there will be a day that she can walk down the street without fear or trepidation.