I’ll tell you this; you can’t see into a person’s mind, even if they say what’s on it. But you can play the odds right, and the odds are REALLY heavy that she is annoyed by it. Go ahead and hit on 16 when the dealer’s showing a 6. You might win. It’s not the right bet. Betting a woman isn’t at least irritated by the constant sexual advances is not the right bet.
The harassment women put up with is beyond what most men are even vaguely conscious of. I’m not setting myself up as a SJW here, I’m nothing of the sort and ascribe little malice to men of the sort described i nthe OP; they are usually clueless, not malicious. But women are sexually harassed constantly. It’s usually low level stuff, not lawsuit-meriting, but it happens all the time.
This constant attention thing (often by assholes) has always been a thing that made me glad to be a man.
It must be so goddamn irritating!!
Yet, when I ask women about it, usually they say they’re not bothered by it. Some are indeed irritated by it, quite a number seem to actually like the attention.
Grrr, what kind of place do you work in? Depending on the culture of your workplace, this may be more normal behavior for the men you work with than other places.
I can assure you that it happens everyplace. Offices, construction sites, airports - you name it. As has been said above, most men have no idea how often, which leads to frustration when their innocent (in their minds) “hello” is rebuffed or ignored.
Here’s a suggestion you might find of value; Say ‘hi’ or ‘hello’ to a woman with the same tonal quality and inflection that you would use when saying it to a guy. Pretty sure you won’t offend.
I find that tactfully criticizing these individuals out for their actions improves this over time. This type of behavior is only acceptable because the target of the attention is not in a position to call them out but you are so do it.
Social pressure IS the solution for this issue. Us men need to call out that this behavior is highly inappropriate, and it makes these women uncomfortable.
Yeah, poor defenseless females. Someone should protect them.
If and when the woman is indeed made to feel uncomfortable, there are those that just do not take a hint, or more.
Then again, is it really up to “us men” to be the judge of this. I think it is up to the woman as well to make it clear when the attention is unwanted, and most women are already quite adept at this.
Again, the fact that you can’t imagine that she would want to talk with that sleeze and must be deeply uncomfortable, need not be the case.
How often were you yourself actually uncomfortable by the attention paid to you by women.
It’s not up to “us men” to be “the judge” of this, and women should stand up for themselves. But it is still up to “us men” to put other men in check, because the sort of men who “do not take a hint” are also the sort of men who don’t respect women enough to listen to what women have to say about their ain’t-shit behavior.
One problem for women rebuffing these advances is that the guys who don’t read her obvious body language will often react poorly to being rebuffed. If he was considerate and observant in the first place, he would have clued into the fact she wasn’t interested and politely moved on. So either he’s not picking up on the non-verbal clues or else he’s pressing on regardless of her desire to be left alone. It should never have to get to the point of her explicitly telling him to leave her alone. The type of guy who gets to that point is likely the type of guy who will react in an immature way.
Now, I need to break ranks here a little bit: I feel like people who are observant often take their powers of observation for granted. While it is true that a man who is considerate and observant will clue in on a woman’s non-verbal communication, contrary to popular opinion, those two things do not always go hand-in-hand. Sometimes men, even considerate ones, lack the capability to discern subtle cues, and may even have limited ability to learn such, which is why it still matters for women to occasionally be direct.
With that being said, I otherwise agree with the sentiment, and a lot of men have serious problems respecting womens’ boundaries.
It is not that women are defenseless it is that lots of men commit an attribution error with women whom do speak up, because most men whom are so dense as to do this also place women in an “out-group”
Other posters have covered the other reasons but someone whom is so dense to not notice discomfort is also highly likely to just dismiss a rebuff as coming from an uppity women. When a rebuke comes from your “in-group” is cannot be hand-waved away as easily. And my chances for advancement and involvement in the business is not nearly as at risk as it is for a woman whom complains. So yes, us men need to step up to the plate, as it is biased in our favor.
I should completely ignore the straw-man argument about how they must “like it” but I will say that either I must be more attractive or more personable than you because I have have been* “actually uncomfortable by the attention paid to you by women”* several times in life, including a direct supervisor whom use to sneak up behind me and lay her breasts on my shoulders.
But does that matter one bit…fuck no!!! Are you actually claiming that there are not very very real costs for denying advances at work for women?
Yep. But I’d phrase it a little more strongly. They’re being shamed for being boorish, annoying, inconsiderate, disruptive assholes in what is presumably supposed to be a professional business environment. I know this level of immaturity is very common, but it still never ceases to amaze me and never ceases to be offensive. They’re acting like six-year-olds who’ve suddenly acquired raging hormones.
In a work place it does not matter if we’re talking about unwanted attention, invitation, or suggestion as it has real-world consequences like job evaluation. Work is not a bar, it is not a public place so just quit being a creep.
You don’t need to talk about pubic hair on your Coke to cause these problems and there is no reason we should kowtow to this unprofessional behavior.