#catcalling

I love when white privileged men try to defend their gross racism and sexism by calling me racist and sexist against them for calling them out.

I’m a black lady. Obviously, I’m not in a position of power to oppress you, so why do you think that me hating you is equal to vice versa? And also, you have no reason to hate me except that you’re prejudiced arses. I have every reason to hate you white men. You creeps never talk to me except when you want to get in my pants, look at my boobs nonstop, and make KFC jokes at work because I’m the only black woman there.

Just last week a man followed me for a block or so begging me to go to his house and “make him cum”. When I told him to go away, he offered to pay me. Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I’m a sex worker.

I feel the whole world is systematically against me because I’m a she/her femme POC. It isn’t fair, and white cis men scum don’t realize that. I have said it before, but I must say it again: the only way that reparations and true equality can happen is if they all die. They’re all prejudiced rapists, no matter how innocent they seem, and must be eradicated.

Following the buzz from the video we (and everyone else on the internet) posted recently of the woman who walks around Manhattan for 10 hours and gets catcalled 108 times, there’s been a lot of “discussion” (read: self-indulgent male whining) about how men are just trying to compliment women when they say things like “Hey beautiful” or “Why don’t you smile?” or “I want to take a shit on your breasts” (see the recent Daily Show skit “Jessica’s Feminized Atmosphere” for that little gem.)

Granted, there is a big difference as to where these comments land on the “deplorable male behavior directed towards women who are complete strangers in public space” spectrum, but they share a common thread: each is an instance of unprovoked street harassment.

This article posted by Kat George a few days in Bustle illustrates how many of the actions and behaviors men take for granted in public space as not only their right and privilege, but a service to women, are in fact instances of street harassment. Here is a breakdown of the big six, along with some points I wanted to add:

1. Telling Someone to Smile- Reasoning: at the heart of this action is the belief that “A woman’s autonomy exists only in so far as she is pleasing to male proclivities” and therefor “…as the ultimate owner of the female body, the man is within his rights to dictate to her how she should be conducting herself within it.” Additionally, dictating to anyone (especially a stranger) what they should or shouldn’t do immediately places you in a position of power to them, whether you intend it that way or not. Who are you to make decisions about what other people should or shouldn’t do with their appearance? Let alone their emotions? Sure, you might be trying to just “cheer her up,” but you might also be inadvertently sending her the message that she SHOULD APPEAR happy even when she is not, that her true emotions do not matter. And saying all that to a complete stranger is pretty rude. So why risk it?

2. Saying “God Bless You” - Reasoning: Okay, so aside from when someone is sneezing maybe, hollering anything at a woman on the street is STILL very much not okay even if you attempt to “soften it” with a little religion. As George points out, “God does not shield you from being a dirty, threatening prick.” Or, to refer to our earlier examples, saying something like “God you are beautiful” or “God wants you to smile” or “God, I want to take a shit on your breasts” not only makes you out to be a misogynist, but a misogynist who is misguided enough to believe that his religion condones or defends his behavior. Personally, I do not remember a single passage in the Bible where Jesus told some lady on the side of the road that she would look prettier if she smiled or that her butt was looking fine in that robe. Just saying.

3. Compliments - Reasoning: Okay, so this is the biggie. When I talk to men (and some women) about catcalling the immediate response is, “Well, what if someone actually IS complimenting you? Isn’t it a nice thing to do?” Well, yes and no. If you know the person, and you’ve established some kind of rapport with them, a compliment can certainly be a nice thing. If you are shouting at a woman who is a complete stranger on the street, that is another thing.

Whether or not you are trying to intimidate a woman, hit on her, or approach her in a way that suggests you deserve sex from her, compliments are often (not always but often) not desired. Normally, like everyone else on the planet, when a woman is walking down the street she is just trying to get from point A to point B. Compliments can seem like an attack, even when they are well-meaning. You have to consider that aside from your well-intentioned compliments this woman will likely be the recipient of all kinds of street harassment in her day to day business. So why add to the volume? I have done interviews with many woman about catcalling and most say they would prefer to hear silence rather than even well-intentioned compliments when they walk down the street.

Another thing to consider: would you compliment another man on the street in the same way? No? Why not and what does this say about the power structures in society which encourage you to do one behavior and not the other? How might you be reinforcing those power structures with your behavior?

As to the “What kind of world are we living in where you can’t give a stranger a compliment without coming off like a feminist-hating sexist dick?” kind of comments I have gotten so used to hearing: I actually agree with these to some extent in the sense that I wish we lived in a better world where men could compliment women in public without it coming off as an attack. But the reality is: we live in a world where one in six women will be raped in her lifetime. Where one in four women will be victims of domestic abuse. These are awful, shameful truths, but ignoring these realities isn’t going to make them go away.

On the other hand, being sensitive to the crappy rape culture we have to deal with is the only way we are going to get back to the kind of society where a man can compliment a female stranger on the street without being misconstrued as a misogynistic ass hat. But please don’t put it on the shoulders of women to change their opinion of men when this is the reality of what we have to deal with. Instead, reach out to your fellow men and encourage them to strive for changes that will produce a society in which we all feel safe, and equally empowered.

And then there’s always this objection: “Well women compliment other women all the time.” Okay, sure but there is a big difference between a man telling a woman she has a nice ass and a woman telling another woman she has a nice ass. For starters, there is a huge difference in power dynamics and the history of abuse of those dynamics. Even as a queer woman, when another woman compliments me on my parts (and it doesn’t happen nearly as often as it does with men) I do not assume it is for the purposes of soliciting sex or sexual attention from me and usually it is not. With a man, that is almost always explicitly or implicitly the case. I don’t think it’s always intentional, but it’s a part of our society that men are trained to approach women first and foremost in this way. When I compliment another woman, I do it because we know each other well and are comfortable and supportive of each others’ bodies- something society discourages between women. Bottom line: you should respect that women will treat other women differently and that that is fair considering the everyday realities of having to deal with rape culture.

Here are the four reasons George gives in Bustle for why compliments are trouble in addition to the aforementioned:

1. Her worth is only valued at her ability to adhere to rigid, culturally imposed beauty standards.
2. She is an object and therefore cannot reasonably be expected to be treated with the respect of a full human.
3. The man “complimenting” her feels entitled to look at her, judge how she looks, force that judgment onto her, forcing her to internalize his view of herself.
4. And if he feels entitled to her in those ways, where does it stop? Where is the line of entitlement drawn? Maybe that’s as far as it goes with this one person. But how does the woman know? How does she know that he doesn’t feel equally entitled to have sex with her or beat her or kill her, as some men do feel entitled to do to women? The point is: She does not know. And that is why it is threatening.

4. Staring - Reasoning: Well duh. It’s rude to stare. Sure you may feel like you’re just trying to make eye contact, but on the other end of things it is a power trip. It gives the woman the impression that she is an object to be stared at. Staring and stalking are closely related behaviors, and staring may make a woman feel victimized.

5. Speaking to Someone Who Clearly Does Not Want to Be Spoken To: Reasoning - That girl in the headphones? That girl reading the book? That girl fiddling with her cell phone? Yeah, she’s probably not doing all that because she’s bored. Maybe she is independently enjoying herself and does not need your assistance. Maybe she is even doing all that so you will leave her the fuck alone. In either case, respect her autonomy and entertain yourself rather than interjecting yourself into her clearly demonstrated private space.

6. Becoming Incredulous When You Are Ignored - Reasoning: You do not deserve a response when you thrust your presence or desire for attention on to another human being. This is true regardless of whether your gender, race, or class privilege may have lead you to believe you are entitled to a response. She reserves the right to acknowledge or ignore you in the same way that you might choose to ignore an annoying child or a car alarm or a tiny yapping dog. If she’s ignoring you, it’s because she does not owe you her attention. And that is true. She doesn’t know you. She owes you jack shit. Throwing a hissy fit because she isn’t giving you what you believe you deserve just makes you look like a double douche. Instead, try checking whatever it was that you said and reconsidering whether or not it would be beneficial to you and your well-being to continue to face this sort of negative interaction in the future; Or if it would be better for you and the rest of society if you were to become suddenly sensitive to the butt-load of bullshit women disproportionately have to endure, regardless of whether or not you are actively contributing to that bullshit, and instead focus your attention on actively dismembering it so we can get back to the good old days where a “Hello” from a stranger was a comfort and not a warning.

feministlisafrank:

elegantmess-southernbelle:

rc-hawkeye:

featherplucking:

rc-hawkeye:

feministlisafrank:

jacobross820:

feministlisafrank:

At 11 o’clock at night, you moved across the train car to sit far too close to two girls about half your age so you could interrupt our conversation to tell us how pretty we are. We said thank you, have a good night, and went back to our conversation.

You interrupted us a second time to say that you didn’t want to bother us, but we needed to hear it, how pretty we are. We said cool, thanks, have a good night, and went back to our conversation.

You interrupted us a third time to say you wouldn’t say anything else, you didn’t want to bother us, you just had to let us know. We said have a good night, and went back to our conversation.

This seemed to perplex you. You came all that way across a train car to bestow upon us this life altering knowledge - the fact we were pretty - and all you got was a polite thank you? You grumbled about gratitude, about how you better not end up on facebook, were we putting you on facebook? Why was my friend looking at her phone? Was she putting you on facebook? All you’d done was tell us we were pretty.

At this point, my friend says, “Sir, we’re trying to have a conversation. Please don’t be disrespectful.”

This was when you got angry. Disrespectful? YOU? For taking the time out of your day to tell us we were pretty? Did we know we were pretty?

“Yes, we knew,” says my friend.

Well, that was the last straw. How dare we know we were pretty! Sure, you were allowed to tell us we were pretty, but we weren’t allowed to think it independently, without your permission! And if we had somehow already known - perhaps some other strange man had informed us earlier in the day - we certainly weren’t allowed to SAY it! Where did we get off, having confidence in ourselves? You wanted us to know we were pretty, sure, but only as a reward for good behavior. We were pretty when you gifted it upon us with your words, and not a moment before! You raged for a minute about how horrible we were for saying we thought we were pretty, how awful we turned out to be.

I took a page out of your book and interrupted you. “Sir, you said you wouldn’t say anything else, and then you kept talking,” I said. “You complimented us, we said thank you, and we don’t owe you anything else. It’s late, you’re a stranger, and I don’t want to talk to you. We’ve tried to disengage multiple times but you keep bothering us.”

At this point, our train pulled into the next stop. My friend suggested we leave, so we got up and went to the door.

Seeing your last chance, you lashed out with the killing blow. “I was wrong!” you shouted at us as we left, “You’re ugly! You’re both REALLY UGLY!”

Fortunately, since our worth as human beings is in no way dependent upon how physically attractive you find us, my friend and I were unharmed and continued on with our night. She walked home; I switched to the next train car and sat down.

So, strange man, I know you’re confused. I don’t know if you’ll think about anything I said to you, but I hope you do learn this: when you give someone something - a gift, a compliment, whatever - with stringent stipulations about how they respond to it, you are not giving anything. You are setting a trap. It is not as nice as you think it is.

But you’ll be happy to know that when I sat down in the next car, a strange man several seats over called, “Hey, pretty girl. Nice guitar. How was your concert?”

“Thanks. Good,” I said, then looked away and put on my headphones, the universal sign for ‘I’d like to be left alone.’

“Wow. Fine. Whatever. Fucking bitch,” he said.

Fucking creepers. May I ask how feminism or anything similar would actually have prevented this from happening? This ya already socially unacceptable.

Men - because to be clear, I called them ‘strange men’ because they were strangers to me, not because there was anything abnormal about them - act this way because they are raised in a culture that lets them believe their time and opinions are more important than the time and opinions of women, and that as a consequence, they are owed women’s attention. They are socialized to believe women should be grateful to them for their attention, and that they are being denied something rightfully theirs when women are not.

Raising someone with feminism, the idea that all sexes/genders are equals and thus no party is beholden to or more important than another, would have prevented this by not allowing men to grow up expecting ‘rights’ that are not actually theirs. You say this is socially unacceptable, but there were 20+ people on that train who actively watched us being harassed and did not say a word. It is socially unacceptable, but this kind of thing happens to me and many other women multiple times a week, with often more traumatic results.

So, yes, I believe more feminism would prevent sexist moments like this. Also, water is wet, the atmosphere is 78% nitrogen, and cheese is addictive.

This was not sexist, this was an awkward man, possibly trying to get a positive reaction versus a neutral or negative one that was displayed, based off of the context you showed. Awful that he interrupted your conversation, and wanted to be engaging socially, whatever his reasons that motivated him. Generalizations of a certain biological sex does not help society as a whole, and the ideal of feminism does not help. The people who “actively watched” you be verbally harassed possibly believed you were perfectly capable in handle yourselves. You’d probably be more upset if there was another man that told the strange man to back off, due to him possibly being “chivalrous”.
I find the whole event to be amusing for the awkwardness of the conversation and would only had stepped in had he’d been physical. I really don’t see how this event was “sexist”, and only say that you’re really reaching.

Well I wouldn’t see any part of this amusing, more times then I can count on my hands I’ve been"complemented" and met with really awful responses when I don’t praise someone endlessly… Yes some guys are awkward which is unfortunately bundled up it these kind of interaction. But the problem is when people are instantly hostile when you don’t drop everything and pretend it’s the first time someone’s every noticed you let alone called you pretty!
Imagine it’s so women saying this to a guy, if she reacted the same way she’d get called out on being a bitch or what have you…
I’m in a shit mood some my writing is terrible but here are two examples;

At the shops waiting for people doing my own thing and someone calls me pretty. I’m preoccupied but I look up and say oh thank you and go back to what I was doing only to have them mutter that they did me a favour and it’d pay to not be so emo. Like sorry I’m on the phone and didn’t drop everything…
Perhaps I could say “I was at fault for not engaging in further conversation”

And more recently on a train had a dude compliment my bow to which I replied the same way “oh thanks” and he wished me a good day as I did to him. That was it. Same response from me but boy it’s nice to not feel like I’m a bad person for not saying how amazing and nice they are for complementing me??

Ugh I doubt any of this makes sense or helps but I really can’t look at the situations I’ve been put into and find them funny…..

Thanks for the response and the perspective, and yes they are two different incidents that happened.
I find that these compliment baiters to be funny, because they just want attention too, but aren’t observant of the environment they’re in.
The situation is uncomfortable, sure, especially when they resort to negative attention seeking behaviors, but for her to contort it to a sexist deposition is something that I’m confused about and don’t agree with at all. These people were probably not taught the art of communication and observation. They don’t need feminism for that. They need to experience a social life.

It’s got nothing to do with sex. There is a pervasive psychological thread where men chase and women are chased. It’s not always in a sexual way. It’s a power thing. These awkward men don’t seem to approach other men. Why? Because those men might chase back. A person could get hurt that way. But, women, our subconscious tells us, do not fight or chase.

Might a social life help? Depends on the crowd. A crowd of people who object to such behavior and socially reward the opposite might nip those shenanigans in the bud. But, those shenanigans might never start if a child of any gender is taught, starting at a young age, that nobody owes you any reaction.

I’m awkward myself. Right now, I’m out of my comfort zone for the next three days and I don’t know what to do. But my first instinct after years of being told to be nice and stay passive and quiet is to hold back and remain silent. Why? Because girls don’t approach. They do not engage. They are engaged. I live in terror that someone will take offense to my trying to stick up for my personal freedom and space and attack me. It happens everyday and in every country. Would a social life help? Maybe. But that assumes I’m socializing with people who won’t push or get aggressive.

And there is where feminism comes in. It doesn’t start as sex, it might not end as sex. It begins with how we’re taught power and behavior. It ends with either what happened above or the opposite.

^ Yep, this.

Also, an interesting intellectual disconnect: a guy can experience this situation and “find the compliment baiters amusing,” whereas most women in this situation have been raised to be careful and behave so they won’t get raped or murdered by a stranger, told all the ways to not make themselves a potential victim, consumed media that is just a repetition of stories of women being hurt for essentially existing. It’s not particularly funny or amusing to me since every time it happens, I have to wonder, is this the man who’s going to snap and end my life?

But, fine, whatever, let’s say for a minute that these are just a couple of awkward guys who don’t know how to interact with women and are handling it badly. Let’s say they’re men who have been brought up consuming that same media, where the man has to be in charge, rugged, emotionally controlled, suave, and the initiator of all potential romantic interactions. Let’s say that they fall short in some way and can’t emulate the ideal male image perpetuated by society, so they can’t figure out how to interact in social situations, so they just begin to experience a deep level of frustration and despair that they can’t express to anyone, since men are supposed to be tough and unemotional. Let’s say this emotional cycle continues until it results in them lashing out at strange women because they can’t figure out how to get their attention, even though it is the one thing they want and feel they deserve.

You know what would prevent men feeling like this? Feminism. Because our society puts just as much pressure on men to fill sometimes unachievable roles as it does women, and a society where we were equally allowed to fill a variety of roles regardless of race/gender/sexuality/etc would not hold that same pressure.

If this had been a woman near our age, this never would have happened because womxn generally don’t do this shit to each other. 

I think the thing that amazes me the most about the people still complaining about this three years after I posted it is that they have this idea that every time a man is within fifteen feet of a woman, that woman starts screaming harassment at them. I don’t assume every man that talks to me is hitting on me, which is why this blog is not bloated with every conversation I have ever had with a man; I assume the ones who are actively hitting on me and also not taking social cues or outright “no”s as an answer are hitting on me, and I call them out when they feel genuinely threatening, like above. It’s truly amazing (in the most sarcastic tone you can read that in) that people can read a written recounting of a situation and be completely confident that they know significantly more than anyone present how the situation went down and should have been handled.

If you compliment someone, you are not owed any response more than “thank you.” You are not EVEN owed a “thank you.”

You are not entitled to anyone’s attention.

Story time!

If you don’t know, I work in a homeless shelter trying to get the homeless population in my city housed. My client yesterday is an old paranoid schizophrenic who spent the majority of the meeting hitting on me while I was trying to do his paperwork. I shut that shit down firmly.

But anyway, I’m minding my own business walking to the shelter today and trying to cross a busy street. While I’m waiting for the light; I hear some heathen catcalling me, and it goes something like this:

“Heyyyyy, yo beautiful! I like the way she walks.”

I’m thinking to myself, “What in all holy hell?” Bear in mind that I’m dressed like a frumpy lumberjack with a flannel and jeans, so I don’t know what part of this outfit is so damn attractive to this dude. While I’m ignoring him, the fellow goes, “Aww, I don’t think she like that.”

In any case, I turn to this fool to rip him a new one and replied, “You said WHAT, now?” And I realize that it’s my same client from yesterday. But ol’ Romeo doesn’t recognize me because I’m wearing my glasses. I take them off and look at him and say, “Now, (name), I know you know better than that.”

And the look on his face was priceless. He places his hand on his heart and leans back and wails, “OH! UH OH, THAT’S MY CASE MANAGER!” And his friend loses it.

And that’s how my week is going.