If a man smiles and says “hello” I will respond the same. Then I listen to my instinct. If he starts an innocent conversation in public, I’ll talk. If he gets creepy, I get the hell away from him. I’m not above screaming “Leave me alone” in public.
Ann Rule believes many women who were not taken in by serial rapist and murderer Ted Bundy survived because they obeyed their instincts. If he seems creepy, do not encourage him.
When I was standing on a crowded bus, a guy grabbed my ass. I immediately said very loudly “Please get your hand off my ass.” The driver stopped the bus and had the guy get off.
If we smile some men (NOT ALL MEN!!!) will take that half-assed smile as a mating signal, things sometimes escalate when you try to extricate yourself from the situation.
If, because you want to avoid the above, you seldom smile back at strangers, you get things like this:
We can’t win, can we? And on top of that, the good guys often don’t believe us, because goddammit, “I would never act like that!”, so they can’t believe anyone would. Ask women, and believe when they tell you. Pretty young women get it more, clearly, but it started for me when I was a skinny, short (I am fully-grown at 5’1"), awkward, shy pre-teen. The exact opposite of sexually attractive in normal people’s books. Read above, this is not uncommon. I’ve had men follow me calling me names because I didn’t smile back, or because I did. Does it happen everyday? No, it’s thankfully rare, but it happens many times in a woman’s life.
We’re not humble-bragging, this doesn’t make us feel sexy, or wanted. It makes us feel accosted, afraid, humiliated.
Just a minor clarification, the disbelief isn’t just from “I would never act like that.” I have also never witnessed that. I have never heard any man talk about that experience. The concept is so foreign that it’s like expecting someone to pull their earlobe when crossing the street.
This is not because I’m a “nice guy”, just because this phenomenon exists totally outside my experience and imagination. That, in itself, is strange and disturbing. From social media exposure, after hearing this story repeated hundreds of times, I can’t deny that it’s real (and it’s a shame it took hundreds of repetitions). It feels like realizing there are lizard people living among us. Again, this isn’t skepticism, just ongoing shock.
This is not really surprising though. Like I posted earlier, the rate of people who do this / people who don’t, must be in the tens of thousands to one. So it will be quite foreign to most males. To add to that I expect the perps normally avoid doing this in settings where the target is not with a male friend, so you generally wont see it happen either.
What gets me is the above demonstration that if you don’t acquiesce to ‘owing someone a smile,’ then a grown ass adult thinks they are justified in returning your non-compliance :dubious: with rudeness. What the hell? You’ve done absolutely nothing but go about your way and mind your own business, yet a complete stranger has passed judgment on you and decided to punish you for not behaving as they deem necessary, all without you knowing. Charming, eh?
I just really appreciate that this example has totally served to bring all these stories to life. Who knew we’d get someone in this very thread serving as the example everyone was talking about?
Yeah, I don’t expect random people on the street to smile at me. I do expect that when I deal with a person(s) that I will treat them with courtesy and that will hopefully be reciprocated.
[QUOTE=Ascenray]
No, no stranger owes you a smile. Period. The idea that a strange woman refusing to return your smile or greeting when you have no business with her is a “rude, prickly bitch” is exceedingly presumptuous and an exercise of male privilege.
[/QUOTE]
Courtesy can mean many things in context.In can mean a smile (if culturally appropriate). It can mean ignoring. It can mean looking away.
If you are going to be outwardly hostile and obnoxious because of apprehensions, then don’t be surprised if people push back against it. Like Obama gave the example, a few years ago, women clutching their purses and holding their breath in an elevator when she was in the elevator with him. No one is asking that anyone smiles at all (male or female). But imminently tensing up and presuming one is some sort of criminal?
[QUOTE=Annie Xmas]
If a man smiles and says “hello” I will respond the same. Then I listen to my instinct. If he starts an innocent conversation in public, I’ll talk. If he gets creepy, I get the hell away from him. I’m not above screaming “Leave me alone” in public.
[/QUOTE]
Exactly. Be polite, be respectful and you will be treated the same. If he or she is actually creepy, then by all means do all that is necessary to extricate oneself.
I have seen some vicious cat calling when a woman is with a male or even several males. Although sometimes, one feels that a local tough just wants to show off and start a fight.
AK84, I have no idea what you’re talking about now. The whole “men demanding smiles from women” thing has nothing to do with courtesy or rudeness or people who are actually engaged in a mutual social or business transaction. It’s about men demanding that the women in their vicinity be smiling.
If you’re making general points about people being rude, then that has nothing to do with what women are complaining about.
That’s pretty much what I do. Life is messy and complicated, though. Creeps aren’t necessarily idiots and they can start out all innocent. Then before you know it, you’ve spent all this effort extricating yourself, AGAIN.
I like to have a quick coffee in the sun on the pavement outside my house. It gets me some vit D and obviously, some contact with the neighbours. Most people say a polite “Morning!” and I respond in kind. It’s nice.
A few days ago I had three creeps in a row! This almost never happens in my quiet one-way street, so I was pretty annoyed. They all started with: “Can I ask you something” - of course I said: “Absolutely!” They might need directions, or the time. I’d be glad to help.
But no, it was all an elaborate ruse to keep pushing, keep going “can I come inside with you?” on to “come out with me” then “fine, give me your number then”, of course the old “but I’m OK with you being married”, ending in fuckingbitchcuntwhore when I stick to “NO”. One guy asked me for money in the end (WTF?!) The other insisted on writing his number in my notebook. I let him, because it is safer and easier to let someone write their number in your notebook than it is to tell them to fuck off.
So plenty of friendliness, plenty of courtesy, plenty of interaction from me. I’m not scared. I realise that if I sit outside my house with coffee I invite people to talk - that’s fine. But sometimes, on an unlucky day, it’s so much hassle just trying to do normal life with men being intrusive jerks. It’s a whole lot of time, effort and diplomacy that I need to spend on asswipes and dipshits.
If all the nice men suffer greatly for the loss of my smile as a result of said asswipes and dipshits, I can only say: cry me a fucking river. :rolleyes:
Oh come on. This whole discussion and the women you’ve been responding (rudely) to have all been talking about being bugged by random strangers, not people they’re “dealing with” in the course of their day. Are you really having that hard of a time following along?
And from my saying that I don’t usually smile back at “STRANGE” men you came to the conclusion that I
and that I shouldn’t
And that I was acting
and
And
. when I didn’t even mention my level of attractiveness – or lack thereof – except in a self-deprecating manner, pointing that as a middle-aged woman I am mostly left alone now.
Right? Copy.
Here’s your post, in case you want to re-read what you wrote.
Well obviously you won’t follow since you have been too busy trying to shoehorn trite phrases like “male privilege” into your posts replying to me as opposed to you know, actually arguing your points.
For the record, I have been very clear. If you are aggressive, pushy and rude to a person only because of their perceived threat to you, then you should expect push back.Thats true, whether or you are a man, a woman, a child.
No one has a right to make you feel uncomfortable, and if they are, you do whatever it takes to protect yourself, but I find it very strange that you (and others) find the very existance and presence of people to be a threat.
Not a single commenter here has advocated being “aggressive, pushy or rude” to a man because they’re afraid of him. The only person who has brought that up is you, in response to women talking about not smiling at random guys on the street.
Is it heavy moving those goal posts all over the place?
I have had strange men tell me to smile my whole life. I guess I have resting bitch face. I don’t regard it as a courtesy.
You have no idea why I’m not smiling. Perhaps I am worried about my dad, or today is the anniversary of my mom’s death, or the doctor called to follow up on something. Maybe my boss chewed me out or I got into a fight with my boyfriend. Some random guy telling me to smile doesn’t improve my day, and it’s not courteous.
Yes, thats what I wrote. And it was in response to your post specifically
And I stated tin response to that specific
In other words you said that you treat every guy as an abuser or stalker, and I replied that if you did that, you should not be surprised that people are rude back to you, because no one likes (or deserves) being treated like a criminal when they have not done anything. And I pointed out that two can play at the “gender broad brush” game.
Do you actually wish to have a discussion on the thread topic? Or as I suspect, you only wish to make a statement and get applauded and are miffed that not everyone is lining up to agree with you.
In case it’s not perfectly clear to you yet, the vast majority of us in this thread do not agree with your point of view and actually are not even talking about the same things you are talking about. I think maybe if you read what we are writing you might have a better idea where we are coming from but apparently you do not intend to do that. So, may I suggest that you go someplace else and stop starting fights in this thread? Please. Just go.
Mighty_Girl did. There is a big difference between saying “I don’t smile at random strangers” and I treat every guy like he is a potential rapist which is what she says she does. That is certainly being rude and boorish.
Indeed, I even asked her what she meant by “demand for smiles”, her words, not mine.