A word to men, if I may: Do you often greet strange men, and smile at them? Pretend women are men, if that helps. I don’t care if from now on it’s only “children first” when the ship is sinking.
What’s wrong with a smile and a “hello”? You see, many of us once smiled back and the creep took it as evidence of interest. It may have even ended in the guy getting verbally abusive, stalkerish, or worse. We don’t know you. Maybe you are a great guy, but we have no way of knowing, because that other guy also didn’t look like an asshole.
Mercifully I don’t remember anything of the seriousness some women here have described, but the cat-calling, the demands for smiles, the aggressive demands for attention, the reaching hands were a normal thing for me. Many times I feared it would escalate, and feared for my safety. And it started from before puberty, so that was a rough wake up call.
Thank goodness I am a middle-aged woman and not as attractive anymore. Now I just have to worry about my daughter, so it’s actually worse.