Women Walking and Harassment

Parent Cafe
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<p>It doesn’t even matter if you are not young/pretty, men trying to establish dominance aren’t looking at your face.
They don’t care how old you are or even if you put an effort into your appearance that day, only that you register as " female".</p>

<p>I do notice more of it downtown & industrial areas. In my neighborhood I usually walk with my husband/dog, and my dog doesn’t like people, especially men. When I had to pick up my daughter from the bolt bus late at night, I felt much safer with my dog. I even had men crossing the street to get away from us when I took him out for a walk!
;)</p>

<p>My experience has been as a white woman, I get more men of color actually following me and trying to make an impression. Red hair is apparently a magnet because it comes readymade with nicknames.
But it is odd they edited the video, they should have left everything in.</p>

<p>In some ways I get more comments than when I was younger, not as many from people on the street, but going into an auto parts store or picking up an order from a restaurant, I have gotten remarks that make me uncomfortable enough that I won’t go back.</p>

<p>But I don’t take all comments as insulting.
For example a group of elderly men in an inner city coffee shop struck up a conversation with me as I was waiting for my order. They were polite and complimentary, and chatting killed a few minutes.</p>

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<p>@Flossy‌ </p>

<p>What about the women who do dress with loose/conservative clothing? Some shapes are very pronounced and no matter how much we try to cover our lady parts, men can still see them & make lewd comments. As a woman who has had these experiences, you deal with it as it comes. But to say that her manner of dress was the reason, so untrue. Would walking around in a hijab make her invisible? </p>

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<p>There are ways to strike up a conversation or say something nice to someone. Even if it were a man I didn’t know, if someone passed me on the street and said “those are great shoes” or “you have beautiful hair” or something like that it would bother me less. But I’ve been a 32DD since I was 12 and most masculine attention has been directed that way.</p>

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<p>Agree that going out in public without my spouse should not be viewed as putting myself in a bad situation. </p>

<p>And if you truly think that it’s unsafe for a woman to do that, how can you at least not think that indicates a problem? </p>

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<p>A couple of things are interesting. One is the measures posters here take to avoid harassment. Rhandco only walks with a man by her side. Flossy has put on disguises. HImom avoids routes she would otherwise take. We can see, then, that many women find street harassment unpleasant enough that they work hard to avoid it, and we can see how street harassment circumscribes women’s lives.</p>

<p>Another is that a woman doesn’t get harassed if she is walking with a man. A woman alone will be harassed. A group of women will be harassed. But a woman with a man won’t be. Evidently there is a concept of ownership here, which is also borne out by the idea that harassers think they are entitled to have women smile at them, and get angry if a woman refuses to smile.</p>

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<p>@NewHavenCTmom Her manner of dress is not the reason but it’s a factor. So, are the neighborhoods she chose to walk in. A cop actually suggested to me that I wear a baseball cap while driving home late at night to hide my blond hair because it was making me a target. That was in the car! I thin it’s a problem and I also think it can happen whatever you look like but I also know from plenty of experience that you can make it happen alot less.</p>

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<p>Those of us like @NewHavenCTmom who experience harassment no matter what should care what @Flossy just posted. The set-up was unfair, it was one video apparently. Should it have been fair, whatever she was wearing, that should be unrelated to how she was treated?</p>

<p>@NewHavenCTmom, I work in the city. I deal with strangers and locals every day, and students. The most I have ever dealt with is guys staring or store staff being annoyingly helpful, and you really can’t judge that as harassment. I rarely have a life outside my spouse, it’s a kind of sickness (28 years). I have risked my life for him, and he has risked his life for me. </p>

<p>The way things are is, the world is a dangerous place. You place your bets and you takes your chances. If you don’t like the guys that you pass by on your way to work, consider moving. If you don’t like taking public transportation, save up and afford a car and gas money.</p>

<p>I dress down all the time. That is how I dress. I find it disgusting for people to dress like a puta in the movies, and see it as some kind of inalienable right with a shield against others acting or saying something in response to it (short of actual sexual harassment). But other women find it attractive and necessary to put on a face, to put on a costume every day. I don’t know what their problem is. Then again, I don’t know why people dress up at all, unless they are in a movie or a play. Is it really necessary to your ego to wear makeup (which is full of chemicals, even the “natural kind” that you are putting on your skin and is absorbed) and attractive clothing every day, to make yourself feel better? I feel better without all of that, and my skin thanks me for it.</p>

<p>Sexual harassment is a terrible thing. I don’t think this video helps explain that to anyone, and I do think it is damaging. Spitting on someone is a crime. It is sad when one of our kids is the victim of a crime, but the question is whether to report or not, especially if as dstark mentioned, the person was not clearly identified.</p>

<p>Harassment is an annoyance. People are not very nice usually. People talk without a filter on their mouth. But that is not illegal, unless it rises to the level of a crime. </p>

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<p>Am I the only person who thinks that this woman actually was wearing fairly conservative street clothes for her age and for this time of year?</p>

<p>There was no cleavage. No naked shoulders. No gaping armholes with a view of her breasts. No naked legs.</p>

<p>The most you can say is that the clothes were tight. Are people really claiming that a woman is a target for crap because the shape of her breasts and butt is visible? That if you want to be comfortable in your workplace, or not change your clothes to go out for a newspaper, you have to cover yourself with a raincoat?</p>

<p>Believe me, I see the wisdom in not walking around the city in a miniskirt or a halter-top. This is not that. </p>

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<p>

Wow.</p>

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<p>Agree that this woman was dressed more conservatively than most college students and many others. It was upsetting to me to see how much unwanted attention she attracted.</p>

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<p>I agree she was dressed conservatively and nothing about her demanded attention except her gender and the fact that she was alone.</p>

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<p>@rhandco. Who says I don’t have a car? But if I choose to take the bus to meet dd on campus so I don’t have to worry about getting a ticket and apply a little blush, then that’s on me…you are going off on so many tangents and it’s difficult to keep up with you. I just hope that your daughters never have any issues(harassment, rape) Because you will find any little minutia to blame them. Maybe it will be their sweet smelling body wash that brings unwanted attention? </p>

<p>One word for you and your line of thinking…WOW!!! </p>

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<p>So, dressing ugly is a costume, and dressing up and putting on makeup is a costume. Do I have that right?</p>

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</p>

<p>Those are normal, conservative, casual clothes. No heels, no cleavage. If I walk down the street in Mountain View CA, a suburban street, in the evening, I’ll probably see fifteen young women dressed at that level in one block. She’s getting harassed because she went outside while having breasts and a butt, not because she is dressed in an outre way. Jeans and a long sleeved shirt-- what is she supposed to be wearing? A burqa?</p>

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<p>You can’t know attention is unwanted until you at least try. Strangers have been approached in all sorts of places from bars to the grocery store to Starbucks. Not everyone wants to meet others on Match.com. I did not find more than one guy the least bit threatening. Stalker guy was a little scary. </p>

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<p>Yes @WasatchWriter‌ </p>

<p>She is just fine. Like I said, some people will look for anything to blame the victim. I have seen some women who go to church down the street from me dressed far sexier than the video subject. There was absolutely nothing wrong with her state of dress. Because she was curvy, with hips and breasts, butt-that’s the issue. Women with curves and are well endowed will always be vilified by other women. No matter how dressed down they are. </p>

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<p>

For what it’s worth, when my son was walking with his girlfriend, a low-life said, “You got a hot Asian girlfriend!” My son isn’t very threatening-looking, though.</p>

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<p>So - you think there IS an inalienable right for a guy not to ask you out on the street if you look fine to him?</p>

<p>I am trying to clearly (and it is difficult, but the ones who posted the video make it easier) delineate between ACTUAL sexual harassment, which DID happen to this girl a few times, but NOT almost 100 times, during the video, and guys trying to chat up a pretty girl.</p>

<p>Everybody has their rights. The question is, what violates your rights? But because you have rights, does that mean that a random guy on the street loses his right to free speech, to say to you “Hey baby, do you wanna go out?” Does that <em>really</em> rise to the level of sexual harassment? Is that what we are talking about?</p>

<p>It’s the old I’m-a-libertarian-if-it-means-my-rights-are-protected-but-not-if-your-rights-trump-mine problem. Everyone wants rights for everyone until those rights infringe on yours, then they want others’ rights trampled.</p>

<p>Like the Ebola-exposed nurse, her right to move about freely has to trump other people’s rights to be happy and healthy and safe. Her bike ride is more important than the health of people in her town.</p>

<p>(And NHCTM - do you disagree that you are more likely to be subject to harassment on a bus? You made that choice. I have gone on subways in big cities in the middle of the night, a woman alone, and I have dressed and acted like if you dare to bother me, you will die. That is my choice. If you choose something, you live with your choice. If men (usually) are sexually harassing you, report it. It WILL not stop until the worst of it becomes serious in the eyes of victims and cops, like the spitting case mentioned. Do you think ANY of the few guys who did verbally harass her were reported to the cops, with the proof? Any of them?</p>

<p>I don’t see how walking on a city street alone is any different than riding a bus, if you are not from the neighborhood.)</p>

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<p>

Exactly!</p>

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<p>Well, she did seem to be kind of strutting down the street past an unusual amount of men with seemingly nothing better to do. I don’t think her clothes were particularly attention grabbing, though.</p>