<p>Yeah, I know, DrGoogle, nothing but trouble.</p>
<p>But I think this thread shows we can all agree on one thing. Men are pigs. All men. Men of color, white men, young men, old men, masculine men, girly men. Every last one of them. :D</p>
<p>Late to the party. I am another woman who is glad to be getting older and so more invisible to the men who catcall. I was blond and buxom and it started when I was twelve, too. I dressed to look nice but before long knew what not to wear if I didn’t want too much attention. Or thought I knew: I got yelled at in one of those old eighties power suits (shapeless save for the shoulders or so I thought) and when running in sweats. There was really nothing I could wear that would make me safe----well, maybe a burka. What was I supposed to do? Die my hair and wear a bed sheet with eye holes?</p>
<p>I appreciate that people are seeing this behavior for what it is and working to stop it. </p>
<p>From cradle to grave, busdriver. </p>
<p>Thank God there’s an incrementally higher number of butchers born to either carve out the salable parts or throw the whole carcass out on the trash.</p>
<p>Well cat, I personally like to stew the carcass all day in the crockpot, to get every last bit out of the bones</p>
<p>As a younger women, this constantly happened. It was fun to think of ways to put the harassers off. </p>
<p>My sister and I were being more aggressively persued one evening and finally told the guys, ok let’s go do our thing. But we felt, in honest disclosure, to let them know we each had a veneareal disease. They ran fast. </p>
<p>A female friend and I would walk the streets of NYC in such a manner that indicated we were lovers and not just friends. That greatly reduced the harassments.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, we should not have to be so creative to just walk down the street.</p>
<p>I started receiving cat calls at the age of 14. I was rather well endowed and got unwanted attention for it. That being said, I also learned to deal with it and not paint myself as a victim because of it. I never discussed it with my mother, I never felt the need to. I recall a particular instance when I was walking down the street, alone with an ice cream cone. I was 16…a car slowed down and a guy hung out the passenger window and suggestively said " can I have a lick " I answered, " sure have the whole thing " and I flung it onto the windshield of the car.
Catcalling and being the recipient of it is a minor annoyance…the same way driving around a crowded parking lot and having a jerk taking the space you thought was due you is…suck it up buttercup and let it roll of your back</p>
<p>Man, you are one tough lady, lje62. If I was a guy, I wouldn’t want to mess with you!</p>
<p>Did I say ‘butcher’, bd?</p>
<p>Silly of me… I meant ‘vivisectionist’</p>
<p>This blog just prompted a discussion between my H and I. I told him ( he actually already knew) that I had been very close to being raped two times, had men exposing themselves to me as a minor at least three times and had been cat called and harassed so many times I could not count. I asked him for his similar experiences and he had no answer, which means zero!</p>
<p>It is just a very different world, most of the time, for men and women.</p>
<p>Okay, I admit, I had to google vivisectionist. Sounds like an SAT word.</p>
<p>But I’m glad to learn that it is “unlike a chirurgeon”.</p>
<p>busdriver, I am not really tough at all , but this was just something I had to learn to deal with at a young age. I actually thin I was a potential target for rape when I was a teen , at the hands of an aggressive high school jock. I was cornered by a guy that I had dated and another guy ( who later played for the NFL ) came to my rescue…shortly after, I became a target for harassment from the guy and his minions. It took me a long time to put two and two together to see what might have happened if my friend hadn’t stepped in. The guy later had charged brought against him for various degrees stemming from a violent reaction to his girlfriend being out with a group of guys/ girls from her university…I thanked my blessings I wasn’t a victim</p>
<p>I like trouble. Trouble is my middle name. But seriously, I like to have what it is that you are drinking. It’s too boring eating Halloween candies here.</p>
<p>^^Menage a Trois Midnight. Delectable and inexpensive, my favorite combination.</p>
<p>But no, I’m not being obnoxious because I’m drinking, I just have a huge amount of studying looming over my head, and I’m trying to delay the misery. Dreaming about those overwater bungalows you showed me.</p>
<p>lje62, regardless of your friend stepping in, you don’t seem like the type to be a helpless victim. I realize that anyone can be victimized, but you sound like the type to step up and fight. Maybe that’s part of the problem with women being harassed. While I realize that sometimes it would be dangerous to confront it, in many situations (particularly the workplace), I think women would be more empowered and less harassed if they weren’t as intimidated by it, and actually did fight back a little more. No, not blaming the victim. Just wanting them to gain back their power.</p>
<p>What’s the chance that the encounter will escalate dangerously if the woman fights back? One in ten? One in twenty? Look at how it escalates even when the woman doesn’t respond: “Smile,” he says. She does nothing. “Oh, you think you’re too good for me, b***h.” Street harassers have already shown they aren’t willing to behave in a civil manner, so why would we believe they’d always react well if challenged?</p>
<p>The woman in the video was harassed ten times an hour. If she fought back every time, then once every hour or two or whatever, she’d get in a dangerous situation. That does not seem like a good plan to me.</p>
<p>Like usual, cf, you miss the point and find something to disagree with.</p>
<p>I did not say the woman in the video should fight back. And I said that it could be dangerous to confront it. But I said that, “in many situations (particularly the workplace),” that women should fight back. Did you consider the streets that the woman in the video was walking, her workplace? Maybe so, I have no idea.</p>
<p>Bus, I laughed at that name. Too clever.</p>
<p>Okay, DrGoogle, I admit I didn’t used to serve that when people came over for dinner. Didn’t want them to think we were suggesting anything! But I’ve decided, it’s so good, I really don’t care.</p>
<p>Busdriver, who is talking about workplace harassment? Lje, whom you were complimenting, said that she gets/got harassed on the street, and also she got harassed and assaulted in social situations. Should women fight back when assaulted by drunk football players, as she was assaulted by a drunk football player? That sometimes doesn’t end well. Sometimes it ends with the woman knocked out in an elevator.</p>
<p>Actually, yeah, I think a woman should fight back when assaulted by drunk football players. If they are drunk enough, she might stand a chance at getting away. Better knocked out than raped. Maybe not the best idea if someone has a weapon, but I think very often that just laying there, petrified, is not the best option. In my opinion, you obviously disagree.</p>
<p>And as far as workplace harassment, I brought it up, when I said that would be the time to fight back. It’s just a few posts ago, you can reread it.</p>
<p>I have no idea why you are always so argumentative with everything I say. This isn’t actually controversial, it’s just people have different opinions about things.</p>