Woman gets compliments and hates life...

[NUance]

I'll bet fat girls would love to hear remarks like those.

Really though, making eye contact followed by a simple "hi" is enough. If she's interested she'll respond. If not, just move on. (Perhaps to a fat girl likely to be more receptive. lol)

I guess as a married guy with three kids, I shouldn't make eye contact with a woman and say hi. I guess now days that is implying to a woman that you're interested in them.

Well, eye contact and "hi" is about the minimum for social exchange. If she says "hi" back, then you could either: (1) leave it at that (you, being married with three kids), or (2) gracefully engage her in an effort to eventually get in her pants (lone wolf/ or scumbag who's married with three kids).

I just meant above that making eye contact and saying "hi" is sufficient to start things off. And its probably a better into than a catcall followed by "Hey baby, you got the best chesticles I've seen all day!"

 

[zoogs]

These discussions often get turned on their head this way. Yes, "not all men" do this, and men, too, can get harassed. Those are important issues too...

So we're talking about what fraction of men she encountered that said these things to her? At 1,000 men per hour, that's less than two percent of the men she encounters say such things. It's a negligible percentage at best.

Negligible in the discussion of "how many men do this", not "is this a problem for the person on the receiving end or not", of course. Having to respond to such scenarios from passers-by in public is easily orders of magnitude more of an issue for women than men.

This experiment didn't label all men as harassers. It attempts to shed light on an issue that many (not all) women encounter regularly, when they don't want to and don't choose to.

The Daily Show bit did well in highlighting how something innocuous might not actually be OK. One of the women interviewed made the point of, when someone on the street just says, "hey", how is she supposed to respond? Is she forced to smile sweetly and say "hey" in return to every strange man who does this for fear of being labeled or called a cold witch? If she doesn't react with the appropriate warmth, could that result in a more aggressive or persistent response? And if she does do the sweet "hi" back, does that encourage this guy to persist?

Obviously, that's not to suggest "never say hi to people" and so on. But maybe it's important to be aware that it could be received as an unwanted intrusion, and let that inform the actions you do or don't take. Say hi in the right contexts and when it's OK to, don't impose on someone who wants to mind their own business, etc. I'm sure most of us have a good grasp of this and it's not difficult to avoid making others uncomfortable, and this awareness campaign is just preaching to the choir.

By the way, BRB, I think you raise some good points. There are definitely a lot of ways women talk to or interact with men that aren't OK, and light that gets shed on those issues would likewise benefit everyone.

 

[teachercd]

Well...this thread grew legs...Long hot sexy legs!!!!

 

[Street Novelist]

The writer talks about how this kind of behavior transcends all races and classes of people. Watch the video and try to find a non-Black or non-Dominican man in the video. This movement is INHERENTLY racist against men of color, particularly Blacks and Hispanic/mixed Hispanic men.

So now it's the white man's fault? Jesus, you're racist. That video didn't have anything to do with skin color.

 

[Creighton Duke]

The writer talks about how this kind of behavior transcends all races and classes of people. Watch the video and try to find a non-Black or non-Dominican man in the video. This movement is INHERENTLY racist against men of color, particularly Blacks and Hispanic/mixed Hispanic men.

So now it's the white man's fault? Jesus, you're racist. That video didn't have anything to do with skin color.

You're probably not familiar with these kinds of videos. I hate to link Slate, but they have a good write up

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/10/29/catcalling_video_hollaback_s_look_at_street_harassment_in_nyc_edited_out.html

But the video also unintentionally makes another point, that harassers are mostly black and Latino, and hanging out on the streets in midday in clothes that suggest they are not on their lunch break. As Roxane Gay tweeted, “The racial politics of the video are f'd up. Like, she didn’t walk through any white neighborhoods?”

The video is a collaboration between Hollaback!, an anti-street harassment organization, and the marketing agency Rob Bliss Creative. At the end they claim the woman experienced 100 plus incidents of harassment “involving people of all backgrounds.” Since that obviously doesn’t show up in the video, Bliss addressed it in a post. He wrote, “we got a fair amount of white guys, but for whatever reason, a lot of what they said was in passing, or off camera” or was ruined by a siren or other noise. The final product, he writes, “is not a perfect representation of everything that happened.” That may be true but if you find yourself editing out all the catcalling white guys, maybe you should try another take.

Also, I'm not a racist.

 

[knapplc]

I'm interested in knowing if any of the men here have ever had a job where they worked with a fairly large group of women where they were the minority.

Until a few years ago I was the only male in an office with over 20 women. I worked in that environment for about five years. At no time was there anything untoward said, my coworkers were (and are) professionals, and I was never exposed to anything that I did not expect in my line of work.

I run an office pool for Husker Football. The women I work with make guesses/predictions about the Huskers that are every bit as accurate and informed as anyone on HuskerBoard.

Also, I was taught my Husker fandom by my mom, a died-in-the-wool Husker from the day she was born. Dad was an Illinois Fightin' Illini transplant back in the day, but we've converted him and he's since seen the error of his ways. But just about everything from Husker history I know I learned from my mom.

I guess that colors my judgment when it comes to women & football. I could care less if Beth Mowins is announcing our games. She's by FAR the strongest link on that broadcasting crew (Joey Galloway is a mess and an embarrassment), and I would rather listen to ten seasons of Mowins than one game called by Ed Cunningham.

That's all anecdotal, but you asked.

 

[Minnesota_husker]

I'm interested in knowing if any of the men here have ever had a job where they worked with a fairly large group of women where they were the minority.

I worked at a day care in college. I worked at the front desk as basically "security".. super easy job.. got to be on FB at work.. did light billing work.

I was one of 4 guys that worked there out of about 25 full time employees(all women) and then about 50-60 part timers(4 men, rest were women).

It was interesting to say the least.

 

[knapplc]

These discussions often get turned on their head this way. Yes, "not all men" do this, and men, too, can get harassed. Those are important issues too...

So we're talking about what fraction of men she encountered that said these things to her? At 1,000 men per hour, that's less than two percent of the men she encounters say such things. It's a negligible percentage at best.

Negligible in the discussion of "how many men do this", not "is this a problem for the person on the receiving end or not", of course. Having to respond to such scenarios from passers-by in public is easily orders of magnitude more of an issue for women than men.

This experiment didn't label all men as harassers. It attempts to shed light on an issue that many (not all) women encounter regularly, when they don't want to and don't choose to.

I agree with all the stuff in your post that I deleted, so I deleted it to talk about this.

I don't per se disagree with any of this. And you're definitely correct in that the level of harassment women receive from men is "orders of magnitude" greater than what men receive from women - that may even be an understatement.

What I don't agree with (and this is all grey area) is that this thing doesn't label "all men" as harassers. It says "Women" face this kind of harassment, and the 100% incontrovertible insinuation is that Men are the perpetrators.

I can't specifically disagree with that. Nobody commenting or reading here is stupid - we all know the "S" women face out there. I've looked at a woman in a way that's made her uncomfortable, and likely we all have. Sometimes women just don't want to be looked at. Pretty ones especially - they get it ALL THE TIME. It's flattering, but there's a limit to it. Like the 'knapplc is old' joke - it's funny, it's meant to be humorous and nobody who says it is being an a$$, but the damned joke is OLD. It annoys me now. I can extrapolate the feeling women have from the looks - even the well-meaning ones - from that.

But that doesn't mean that "Men" who look at or even talk to "Women" are harassing. And this video... if ALL of that is "harassment," then I would never have married my wife, because I told her before we dated that she was beautiful, and... we kinda started dating after that.

A lot of what we saw on that video wasn't harassment. "I just saw a thousand dollars." I've gotten that crap from street vendors myself, and I ain't pretty.

That guy walking alongside her for five minutes? That was creepy as hell and that guy needs to figure out some basic life issues there.

But two of the first four guys on that video say nothing to her.

I counted seven guys in the camera shot in the second instance - only one of whom 'harassed' her.

There were seven guys in the third shot (Hey what's up girl? How you doin?) and two harassed her.

There were another seven guys in the fourth shot (Damn!) and one harassed her. Also - what's up with seven guys in the shot? Weird!

Two in the next shot (Hey baby!) and one harassed her.

Three in the next shot (Hey, beautiful!) and one harassed her.

Two in the next shot (How you doin' this morning?) and one harassed her.

Three in the next shot (Have a nice evening) and one harassed her.

Two and one in the next shot

Three in the next shot, and the DAMN! harasser is (apparently) off-camera.

Four in the next shot (American Eagle) and one harassed her.

The next shot is the creepy five-minute guy. Nobody is going to deny that this guy is freaky and bad news. Ick.

I could go on. These are very specific instances of very specific kinds of people, people who misunderstand boundaries or have no boundaries. These people harass women - but they are the kind of people who harass "people," too. I lived in San Francisco two years, worked on Market Street. Walking to my office from parking every morning, walking to lunch, walking back to parking every night - I got harassed by these people. It was different harassment (Hey man! Give me a dollar!) but it was harassment.

Sexual harassment is FAR more personal and invasive than the vague "give me a dollar!" harassment I got. I'm some biggish dude that nobody is going to sexually harass, so I can't know what these women go through. But they're not alone. Harassers are harassers and they harass everybody.

My gripe with this piece isn't that this woman wasn't harassed - if she thought she was, she was. My gripe is that it shows nothing we didn't already know, it casts a broad cloth over a very grey-area problem, and it doesn't do one single thing to fix this problem.

And frankly, even though everyone with a sane mind wishes this wasn't a problem, we're thousands of years of evolution from it going away. Maybe tens of thousands, if not millions. Broad-cloth generalities like this don't fix this problem.

And that's a problem.

 

[tschu]

Evolution has nothing to do with it. Great thing is that science has shown that once people are aware of their behaviors, they have the remarkable ability to change. (Trying to find a link to the study that I read a couple months ago) We aren't going to "evolve" to be less racist or sexist or whatever. That's because race and archaic gender roles are entirely societal constructs. (Sex is, of course, not a construct but an inherent trait, but please don't get confused by that.) We just have to learn and accept the problem and make it a point to not act on our internal biases or bigoted thoughts or whatever.

Knapp, we don't get to fist-pump about how many guys didn't harass this woman. It doesn't matter. Far too many did.

 

[knapplc]

Evolution has nothing to do with it. Great thing is that science has shown that once people are aware of their behaviors, they have the remarkable ability to change. (Trying to find a link to the study that I read a couple months ago) We aren't going to "evolve" to be less racist or sexist or whatever. That's because race and archaic gender roles are entirely societal constructs. (Sex is, of course, not a construct but an inherent trait, but please don't get confused by that.) We just have to learn and accept the problem and make it a point to not act on our internal biases or bigoted thoughts or whatever.

Knapp, we don't get to fist-pump about how many guys didn't harass this woman. It doesn't matter. Far too many did.

OK. I got really long-winded in that post a couple above this, and I just did it again and deleted it.

Bottom line is this - this video shows nothing, proves nothing, and solves nothing. Harassers harass, and they're wrong. This video didn't show us anything beyond that.

 

[tschu]

If it gets people talking and makes a couple dudebros actually think with their brains for 5 seconds instead of their dicks, it's successful.

Point is, tschu, a white male of average attractiveness, can go to Manhattan and walk around for 10 hours minding my own business and not get catcalled once. This woman got catcalled 100 times. You might think, so what, but living with my girlfriend has showed me a lot about what life is like for an average female, even in a seemingly safe place like Lincoln. Every now and then she'll say something that just makes me think. Like "You want me to go to THAT grocery store by myself? No way." ...and that's something I've never even considered, because me being a tall male individual can pretty much go wherever the f#*k I want with no thought or concern whatsoever, to the point where if something like that is brought to my attention it's a genuine surprise. So with that as the backdrop, you can see how getting catcalled is both an annoyance and possibly even frightening. The video itself - it's just an example, something to make a point. Sexism exists, both overtly and institutionally, we already know that. We don't need this video to make that fact for us.

See also: Jessica Williams' piece on the Daily Show a few weeks ago.

 

[zoogs]

A lot of great points in there, knapp, especially the note about the old jokes and the typical street hey-man-gimme-a-dollar harassment.

I can see why videos such as this elicit such a defensive response. And it's fair game to take them to task for any harmful messages that come with their effort.

This one, I just didn't get the vibe of either "you, you men do this" or "if you ever did this, you're just like these guys". I felt it was mainly "This is what we go through; do you understand?" I mean, for a lot of people it's probably old hat, but not for everyone. There's a whole myriad of "What life is like for the other half" -- different gender, race, orientation, etc -- that if not for efforts like from people demanding to be heard, simply wouldn't occur to me. Even if I know about it, it's not the same as understanding; it takes a lot to get over the barrier of taking one's own experiences for granted. Which isn't to say I or anyone else has it so great or anything. We all belong to at least a few groups who could have similar things to say.

And I do think there's a lot of "Not A Big Deal" and "She Should Be Flattered" to overcome -- as is evident in some of the response. There's even some "This Other Thing Is Also A Problem" to be overcome, too: those further gaps in awareness should add to, rather than diminish or conflict with the original message. But, yes, absolutely, I wouldn't like to see the demonizing of anybody as an outcome here.

 

[Ratt Mhule]

I got told I have "a great a$$" by a girl when I was in Lincoln for the Miami game. I felt sexually violated...

 

[BigRedBuster]

I'm interested in knowing if any of the men here have ever had a job where they worked with a fairly large group of women where they were the minority.

Until a few years ago I was the only male in an office with over 20 women. I worked in that environment for about five years. At no time was there anything untoward said, my coworkers were (and are) professionals, and I was never exposed to anything that I did not expect in my line of work.

I'm not sure what women and football have to do with sexual harassment so I will focus on this.

I'm interested in knowing what the average age was of the women you worked with. Mine was probably an average of 25-28. Also, it was in health care so all of us were working with "body parts" every day all day long. Women who do that tend to not be shy about anything.

 

[Minnesota_husker]

If it gets people talking and makes a couple dudebros actually think with their brains for 5 seconds instead of their dicks, it's successful.

Point is, tschu, a white male of average attractiveness, can go to Manhattan and walk around for 10 hours minding my own business and not get catcalled once. This woman got catcalled 100 times. You might think, so what, but living with my girlfriend has showed me a lot about what life is like for an average female, even in a seemingly safe place like Lincoln. Every now and then she'll say something that just makes me think. Like "You want me to go to THAT grocery store by myself? No way." ...and that's something I've never even considered, because me being a tall male individual can pretty much go wherever the f#*k I want with no thought or concern whatsoever, to the point where if something like that is brought to my attention it's a genuine surprise. So with that as the backdrop, you can see how getting catcalled is both an annoyance and possibly even frightening. The video itself - it's just an example, something to make a point. Sexism exists, both overtly and institutionally, we already know that. We don't need this video to make that fact for us.

See also: Jessica Williams' piece on the Daily Show a few weeks ago.

Schu- You walk through the exact same neighborhoods she did for 10 hours, and I guarantee you, that you will get harassed in some way.

Those arent great neighborhoods she was strolling through.

I think if she strolled through a normal city, the numbers would go down.

I am not saying that harassment doesnt exist everywhere, because it does.. but we also need to define harassment. Some of that stuff wasnt harassment, it was saying Hi.