A nifty bubble graph.

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A couple weeks ago there was a guy here saying that yeah, he hollers at women on the street, and a few people said that's harassment and sexist, don't do that. But just to give an idea of why it's a problem, and why it's not a great idea to be accustomed to slinging sexist/harassing talk, here's a study of what happens to women and gay men who do that risky thing, going out for a nice walk.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/20 ... color.html

That's a lot of harassment.

If you read past the bubble graph, you'll see that they've looked at other groups of people who come in for harassment, including poor men and people of color. The thing that really got me, though, is the question of who does the harassing. And it's almost always men.

If you hang around with other guys who talk this way, and you do it too or let it pass, then these things are in your head as legitimate things to say and reasonable things to think. That it's fine and normal to talk and thing about women as a collection of body parts and things you can acquire if you push the right levers. Is it really surprising, then, that some (apparently rather large) percentage of men will actually open their mouths and let these things out at strangers on the street?

And no, street harassment is not a "shrug it off" thing. It affects people's quality of life, it affects how safe they feel and what they think of themselves. And it sure as hell is not a compliment. 20 years ago I moved from a place where LOTS of men felt it was just fine to catcall to a place that's a lot more staid. I could walk past a construction site: nothing. No long stares, no wolf whistles, no "LEGS! OH, BABY!" or "NICE TITS!" or even "SUCK ME!" It was weird. And then...it was great. Apprehension level: way down. Knowing that I could just walk on by like anyone, and that I didn't even have to think about visual gropes: great.

What's in the conversations matters. It travels in people's heads right along with them. It's not just a matter of a guy with a gun: it's pervasive in life, up and down the line.

I must live in a decent area. Even though I live in a city with multiple Universities, it was only last year that I first witnessed two girls being hollered at. I was quite offended and I wasn't even the target. I can say I've been harassed many times growing up but other than be called ugly and gross, it was NEVER by women.

I agree with the vast majority of what you're referencing, verbal judgements passed across public audiences en route to unsuspecting girls is of course a tremendous problem. What I don't see exemplified here however is any linear relationship between aggressors and their gender. Perhaps no concrete numbers at all. Although the feminine tendency in these situations leans towards cryptic or underhanded comments, I see it as no less damaging; 1. Harassment is a constant form of interplay between all school students 2. In positions of power or influence, some women use entire media empires to exact targeted humiliation upon their victims du jour. If we ignore the pervasive nature of harassment, we're avoiding any sort of direct resolution to this sexist angst. You can wear $10,000 worth of Italian suit and teach in 25 Ivy Leagues, though it won't do anything about humanity's inherent misogyny.

Edit: This graph directly avoids collinear organization, in large part because it was forcibly centered on REPORTED public incidents. The collinear relations between the real numbers on public harassment, whatever they may be, do not and cannot really favor anyone - nobody wins!

(I'm not sure what that was, cberg -- a lot of points in there, but it reads like a defensive flurry of "notjustmen/nothing to do". Correct me if I'm wrong.)

When we're talking about street harassment? Open aggression? The numbers are very plain. Almost always men, according to the survey. Women are seldom the ones shouting at people. The survey doesn't count things like horn-honking, so I bet the actual numbers are even lower.

If a man walks by across the street and one woman says something mean to another about him, quietly, then that's rotten, but the guy hasn't heard her, and he's not suddenly on alert, afraid of being physically attacked, or feeling like meat. And given the relative power of men and women, it's unlikely he's going to get to work and find that his mostly-women bosses are thinking the same crappy, sexist slurs in his direction, saying those things behind closed doors and reinforcing each others' prejudices, so that he won't even know about the next several opportunities that come up. Won't hear about one until he's useful for something where you wouldn't want to send one of your guys, and then there'll be a targeted invitation, plus some high-fives when he goes for it.

School harassment actually goes way down when you have observant teachers and excellent guidance programs in place. I used to think like you do about that, cberg, but I've been very much surprised by what I see in my daughter's school and amongst her friends. Meanness comes in for ostracization. The channels to the guidance staff and principals are open, and the kids are taught how to handle bullying and other social whompings. They also get surprisingly effective help from the staff when the situation's just too much for them. Yeah, there are still mean kids. But the sense of how socially acceptable it is to be mean...that's different from what I knew. There's a lot of work and money being spent on that change, too. There are kinds of harassment that were routine when I was a kid...you bring mention to my kid's classmates and they're just blank, confused. Or they're offended -- "That's mean!"

You're right, all harassment and bullying sucks, but if your reaction to having "men harassing anything not-sufficiently-masculine, endemic problem" pointed out was "but omg some women do it too/can't be fixed" -- well, this should tell you something. Nobody has said that women are all angels. The "but women!" dodge is just another way to avoid dealing with the problem, now that "sexual harassment isn't that big a problem, doesn't happen to that many women, it's a freak event, in fact her own fault, hardlyanymen" is finally off the table. The thing is, you can run around with "It wasn't me!" all day, but an endemic social problem is your responsibility to help fix, too.



I am blinking at all the things wrong with the phrase "humanity's inherent misogyny." That's a small masterpiece, that one.

growing up I was harassed by girls/women who took umbrage at my unattractiveness. so I know that harassment is totally karmically bad. why can't people just get along?

I have a hard time telling what people are yelling about when they're in a moving car. A couple of times, it sounded like screaming, no dialogue, just screaming. I still feel pretty safe biking though.

Ugh. What'd you do at the time? Because this kind of stuff, too...just ugh.

not much I coulda done because their boyfriends were all too eager to grind me into pulp. they were all bullies. and their parents were no different. the apple never falls far from the tree.

The user you are referring to obviously has an IQ really below normal, couldn't you tell by his writing? I know there are street offenders in life, but most of us here are not that low, nor we would make good friends with such guys (those are usually bullies).

Okay, now the hair splitting has gone too far. Does anyone really want any men on their planet who are incapable of such a discussion? I know my tone bites, but what I've tried to say is that this discussion is quite demeaning towards pretty much all but the tiny minority of guys who NEVER INTERACT WITH WOMEN. I can't understand all this reasoning on account of my chromasomal makeup so I'll just say this: misogyny is inherited when folks like OP voluntarily forget how they were taught to share a planet, hopefully in elementary school.

^ I am confused, was she referring to you? I had another user in mind, someone who was proudly saying he whistle at girls in street.

It just happened again today, I can't tell what people are saying when the car is moving at 30mph. I'd hear it a lot better if they got out of their car and said it closer where I can hear them.

Nope, wasn't thinking of cberg, and once again I can't figure out what he means. I'll try again though.

cberg, I'm sorry, I'm rereading this and I still have no idea what you're talking about. Why is this discussion demeaning to men? (Also, I don't know whether you noticed, but men are among the victims of street harassment mentioned in the survey.)

I don't think IQ's what makes the difference, though -- I mean as you point out, these guys are bullies, and for sure there are bright bullies around.

jesus, that's awful. It's making me think, too, about the Southern Poverty Law Center, who're pretty great. You hear these stories of local bullies from everywhere, but now and then an organization like SPLC will get involved on their victims' behalf, and start applying the pressure of the law. In the last few years their newsletters have had a fair number of stories about victims of high-school bullying and discrimination, often gay and transgender kids, in cases where the principals are as dumb and bigoted as the kids and parents. And boy do they hate the SPLC by the time it's over, because what they find out is that discrimination and harassment are very, very expensive pastimes. It's all news to them. And then when the story hits the news and the district or the town just looks terrible, and they're hearing it from people all over the country...yeah, they don't like it so well. Sometimes there's some real change.

Wonder if SPLC's done any work on behalf of people with autism.