I saw this article the morning after I was catcalled on a run (and I am 61 years old), and it reminded me of how many times in my own life I have had this kind of thing happen.
Have you dealt with a lot of this?
I too saw this article.
A few weeks ago I was with my running group and we had clustered on a corner to discuss modifying our route. A car passed us and shouted remarks about our posteriors that we think were intended to be flattering. At 6 am. I will clue you in that none of us look like an Athleta or Lululemon model that early in the morning. We joked about it, laughed about it with our husbands. We weren’t afraid because we were many and they were few (I think?). Now I’m thinking - well, they could have had a gun or other weapons. What would we have done? Many times we’ve been out running and in singles or pairs, stretched out across the distance. Or out in the country, surrounded by cornfields and farmland.
Our local paper had an article after Mollie Tibbetts was murdered about the dangers of running alone. I am familiar with Brooklyn, IA as it is not far from where I went to college. I wouldn’t have given a second thought to running by myself there.
My D is far more assertive than I am when it comes to harassment. I think I am one of those women that just wants to laugh things off, make light of a situation. Women who push back? Nothing like the harasser escalating his “friendly attention”. Keep ignoring him or refusing his advances? Well, now you’re a b****. I wish I could be more assertive.
I would just want to add that I would like it to read “A Human’s Right to be Left Alone” - cause probably there are harassed men too - though most likely, mostly women.
I was riding my bike once on our neighborhood trail when I got a flat and had to walk the bike back. This dude came beside me and mildly harassed IMO by not taking the clue that besides the typical cordial hello to someone on the trail I did not want to talk to him and he did not get the message to leave me alone. I finally told him he should continue his ride and that my H was meeting me “just around the bend” (not true) - he finally did leave but it was more annoying than the flat tire.
I think we have to accept there are not well meaning people out there and be aware of our surroundings and carry safety measures - whether that is a phone, mace, a long stick if you’re walking (I’ve seen this more and more lately) or whatever. If I see someone coming who I feel a little uncomfortable with when I’m running/walking I usually just start talking like I’m on my phone with someone through my headphones - I feel like if they know I’m actually talking to someone who knows my location and all they are more likely to leave me alone.
I saw this yesterday about a French woman who told a harasser to cut it out, and got punched in the face for doing so. There was not a comments section provided at this link, but I imagine on other sites there would be plenty of “You should have kept your mouth shut,” or “what did you expect, prancing around in a red dress?”
https://www.npr.org/2018/08/28/642621654/in-france-man-arrested-after-video-of-harassment-goes-viral
I’m no George Clooney by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s happened to me running in the neighborhood. However, I felt complimented, extremely rare as it may be. You would think in this day and age (2018 and the MeToo Movement), that this type of treatment of women would have been all but eliminated. Unfortunately, it’s just not a perfect society.
^^ That’s so awful! I was encouraged to see a few go after the guy (kudos to the guy who grabbed the chair) but why did no one really offer support to the woman??
I believe she said they did, but that she didn’t post that part of the video.
In my experience, it’s gotten worse since Me Too, not better.
Maybe your catcalling has been positive but I don’t find it a compliment when a truck drives up slowly next to me and says something very graphic and vulgar about what he wants to do to me. That happened a few weeks ago.
I’m not sure what triggers such aggression these days but it occurs not only for women on the street but for many people. I don’t know how many times I’ve been driving (or a passenger) and at the slightest incidence which used to be a “sorry 'bout that” moment turns into something seemingly more sinister. “Just keep low and don’t make eye contact” seems to be the main advice. It’s scary actually that people seem so unforgiving on the road.
I don’t know what the final solution is but train your children well.
I think it is a distraction from the topic of this thread to bring up road rage. Harassing someone who is minding their own business in public isn’t like getting annoyed at other people’s driving.
Thankfully nothing recently, but back when I was young I couldn’t sit down on a park bench without some annoying guy trying to pick me up. A year or two ago a large group of us were at a party. Every single women had had similar experiences and not one single guy. They had no idea how ubiquitous this behavior is.
I do walk alone a fair amount. Residential neighborhood, but sometimes after dark.
I think there is a difference, that may get lost, in the actions described in the article and getting hit on at a park bench. Nothing in the article was “right” in terms of male behavior but are we to a point that striking up a conversation in a park with a woman is stepping over a line, if the goal was to see if the woman might be interested in a date? Where do we draw the line and how is one to know when it is OK to approach a person they find attractive and when it is not OK?
A couple of months ago there was a big thing around the University of Iowa. A woman sent a tweet out that asked if anyone had been hit on by a certain individual. It went viral and as a result the male is no longer enrolled at school. The guy was looking for and sending messages, via social media, to women he found that attended the school with the hopes of getting dates. On the surface this is what I would expect a first year student, who didn’t know anyone on campus, to do in the social media age; it really seems like that is how Tinder is designed. In this case the guy contacted literally hundreds (if not more) of women and it was creepy and in some cases he did go too far but where is the line for a student to know how many is too many? Is it 5, 10, 25, 100? I don’t know and I don’t know that anyone knew until he had gone too far. I think he probably had good intentions, maybe had some success, and then kept going. Because he went too far he is a pariah and has disappeared from social media and most likely will have limited opportunities to continue his education.
^^ I see a lot of red flags there.
Contacting hundreds of people through social media? Red flag.
Going up to a stranger on a bench and asking for a date? Red flag.
Approaching someone (on a park bench) because they are attractive? Red flag.
Good intentions by asking women out via social media? Red flag.
IMO that is ALL not ok to do.
Tinder is a mutual thing. You have both signed up looking for an opportunity. Someone approaching someone else in public or on social media because that one person decides they are interested - is not a mutual situation.
I think we have all had these experiences, and they can start young. I remember being persistently approached when I was a student at the laundromat. Who ever wants to be approached at the laundromat?
I was thinking about Chandra Levy’s case recently. She was killed while walking or jogging alone in Rock Creek Park. It’s sad that it is still unsafe for women, and sometimes for men too, to walk, jog, or bike alone. Bring a friend or bring a dog.
In younger days, I was catcalled and ridiculed many times, and threatened more than once. What did I expect? I was, after all, walking on a street … to my job, the bus stop, a grocery store. I was apparently supposed to be invisible while doing it unless I wanted to attract male attention. I never quite figured out how to do that until I aged out of attracting said attention.
I never felt “flattered.” If I saw a group of construction workers, or guys hanging out on a corner, I’d walk several blocks out of my way to avoid them. And I was not exactly eye candy, either … just a woman walking alone who really shouldn’t have had to give a minute’s thought, let alone a flying you-know-what, about random guys and how they assessed my appearance.
I was afraid to stand up for myself at the time. I always wondered why these men weren’t ashamed to behave that way in front of each other. Here’s a great scene from an obscure 1980s movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-4J5xaC0Ig Encounters with strangers are more dangerous today, but I still wouldn’t bet against Anne Bancroft.
Wait, what? You think men are entitled to spam women? They’re entitled to pester women who have shown no interest in them, either by trying to start conversations when the women have shown no interest in conversing, or by sending women messages out of the blue? Why do you think men are entitled to women’s attention?
If you are a man, are, let’s say, job seekers entitled to pester you out of the blue, on the chance that you might offer them jobs? Do you welcome spam phone calls where roofers are trying to sell you new roofs? Edited to add: what if you knew that spam phoners and job seekers were known to kill people who refused their advances-- would that make you more welcoming?
Applause, @“Cardinal Fang” .
My D2 got an email about a month ago from a guy who struck up a conversation with her in the produce section. She was polite, but did not give him her name. He tracked her down on the college website based on one piece of info she had given him, then Googled for more info, then sent her a kind of creepy “let’s hang out” email. He figured out her name and hometown, which she had not provided. She responded telling him it wasn’t cool to stalk people you meet in the grocery store. If she had wanted him to have her name or contact info, she’d have given it to him. And asked him not to contact her again. So far he hasn’t.
So no… I don’t think striking up a conversation with a stranger because you want to ask them out is cool. Maybe at a party or bar, where people are clearly there to socialize. But otherwise, leave women alone in public
My D appeared on a television program which is in wide distribution. I got a lot of really creepy Facebook messages from men who wanted to meet her. The scary part was they knew her off-campus address which was somehow available online. Yes, I worried. A lot.
When I was starting my first job in NYC, I was approached three different times by men who asked if I was interested in becoming a figure model. Once on the street, once in Bloomingdales, and once in the Metropolitan Museum’s gift shop. Iirc the last guy offered to put me on romance novel covers. All this contributed to my decision to leave NYC and transfer to Chicago.