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On Cat-calling and Feminism
Making the rounds on the Internet is a video of a woman minding her own business on the streets of New York and being catcalled. Everyone else has weighed in, so I thought I’d throw my two cents into the ring. Although I’m sure that everyone will ignore this part, I’d like to say that harassing a woman (or, for that matter, men) is not acceptable under any circumstances. It’s just simply not okay. That being said, let’s dive in.
If you haven’t seen the video, it features a woman walking around New York City wearing jeans and a t-shirt. The video was filmed secretly (she was aware of it, those around her were not) for 10 hours, and she was catcalled 108 times. I think we can all agree that that is pretty gross. So, where does the blame fall for such grossness? I’d argue that quite a lot of this is the legacy of second- and third-wave feminism.
There was a time when men were gentlemen. I’m not saying it was perfect, but I think we can all agree that Victorian men weren’t shouting “Looking good, baby!” at the ladies walking by. Men had a level of respect for women that would have made it unacceptable to society. I would posit that men also respected themselves more thanto behave in such a demeaning way. Oh, how the times have changed.
Then feminism came along. They upset the balance in a good way by earning women equal rights. They upset the balance in a bad way by acting like idiots. When the battle cry of women is consequence-free sex, free birth control, and free abortion, it’s not surprising that men see women as objects for sex. When politicians pander to women based on these issues, telling women to “vote like your lady parts depend on it,” it shows that society has taken these messages to heart. When women actually respond positively to these messages and vote for those candidates, it is clearly indicative of how much respect they have for themselves as sentient beings. Congratulations, feminists, the world sees you as a very specific body part, which is exactly where you started. So, why should we be surprised that this translates to a woman walking down the street?
How about the men involved? Yes, they are gross. Men have been so pushed around by feminists that they have made it practically impossible to be a gentleman without giving offense. Maybe, and this is a radical notion, when a man pays a woman a compliment, she could just say “thank you.” Half of the instances in this video are men saying things like “have a nice day,” which hardly seems inflammatory.
Instead, so many women get their victim on in response to every little thing a man does and this serves to push men into three camps. The first is the men who choose to say nothing. They have been gelded by the feminist movement and are over there, hiding, being all beta male. Then we have the men like those in the video, who have figured that since they are going to be berated anyway, they might as well just remove the filter (plus, the whole lack of respect mentioned above). Finally, there is the increasingly tiny camp of men who will continue to act with chivalry even if the occasional woman bristles at having the door held open for her. While women are largely responsible for allowing themselves to be portrayed in a certain way, men need to stand up and do what is right regardless of ruffled feathers.
Sure, “street harassment” shouldn’t be something with which women have to contend on a daily basis. I think, on that, we may all agree. If you want to put a stop to it though, you will have to accept what’s actually behind it. Women should be able to go for a walk without being harassed, and that comes down to respect, but that respect is not something to which we are inherently entitled. We first must respect ourselves as men and women and show ourselves to be respectable.
Published in General
If the times men said “Have a nice day”, and the one time one man said “God Bless you. Have a good day.”, got counted among the “cat calls”, then the person who did the counting is a malicious liar. What was labeled a cat call?
Indeed. When a kindly old woman says “hello” to me in the elevator, is that a “cat-call”?
If it only qualifies as a “cat-call” if it happens on the street, does that mean I’m allowed to say “hello” to women as long as I’m in an elevator?
If the deciding factor is that the woman on the elevator is elderly, does that mean that men are allowed to say “hello” to women in the elevator as long as they’re old men?
http://m.nationalreview.com/article/391430/why-cat-calling-really-problem-christine-sisto
Also, see this piece at NRO by Christine Sisto.
It disturbs me to see the Right making light of a common women’s problem, because it plays into the Democrats’ war on women theme and makes men who in real life are probably perfect gentlemen look like ugly misogynists. I wish we could avoid falling into the Democrats’ traps like this.
Ansonia, have you ever walked around NYC? I am guessing not, or you would recognize that style of comment as hostile and threatening, as it is in real life.
It’s clear from watching the video that we’re not talking about everyday interpersonal interactions, like being friendly in an elevator. Those calls were clearly evaluation of, and admiration for, the woman’s figure. That’s objectification. And she didn’t invite such scrutiny by dressing provocatively. The unwelcome calls are behavior none of us should condone — a woman should be able to walk down the street without feeling like she’s being sized up like meat in the market.
It seems to me that this is an obvious opportunity for us — as conservatives — to stand up and say, “We’re with you on this one.” Feminism has many areas of overreach, but this isn’t one of them. These men are engaging in boorish behavior, of their own free will. Joining with feminists to stigmatize that behavior only advances civilization.
I don’t think one needs to be upper class to have manners, but I see your point. I doubt that an average woman going about her daily business a century ago in average areas of town would have gotten it quite so much.
Interesting!
Oh, it happens.
Please feel free to share those thoughts any time!
Reposted from the other thread …
600 minutes (10 hours) walking around New York City.
108 uninvited solicitations or communications.
That works out to one uninvited solicitation or communication every 5.55 minutes.
—
My walk to work is about 20 minutes long.
I can receive 2 or 3 uninvited solicitations or communications in that time, from panhandlers, charity workers, religious missionaries, and/or people who just like to talk to strangers.
That works out to one uninvited solicitation or communication every 6.66 to 10 minutes.
Not that big a difference, ackshully, especially when one considers that the population density in my city is MUCH lower than that in New York City.
So what is the answer to this “cat call” problem? Should these men be charged with sexual assault? Do men have to be addressed by a woman first in order to be legally allowed to look and talk to them? Should men be fined or maybe taxed more? I just know there is a big government solution hiding somewhere to resolve this issue.
I think there’s a pretty fundamental difference between uninvited solicitations for your money vs. uninvited solicitations for your body.
The answer could be social rather than governmental. It might start with conservatives acknowledging that such behavior does not belong in polite society, and it’s legitimate for women to be bothered by it.
And yet, how many of the unwanted communications in the video made that solicitation explicitly?
If every comment in their video counts towards their statistic, then I argue that every unwanted comment I receive should count towards my statistic.
Why is it “clear”? What makes it “clear”?
I’m not a big fan of “I don’t know how to define it but I know it when I see it” arguments.
Well, no, because we don’t actually know what the people who produced this video are actually proposing.
I cannot agree with their proposal unless I know the terms of their proposal.
If the proposal is simply that it sucks that there are jerks on the streets of New York City, then fine. I can agree with that, as far as it goes. Plenty of things suck, especially on the streets of New York City.
Let’s not be willfully naive. When a panhandler attempts to engage me, he’s not initially explicit that he’d like some of my money. Human social intelligence is usually sensitive enough to detect the subtext.
And more importantly, there were still quite a few explicit (and unsettling) approaches. How many explicit statements do there need to be for us to acknowledge that it’s wrong?
I am shocked to think that men raised without fathers haven’t learned how to act in public.
Just to be clear, in case you meant me, I am in no way suggesting it’s ok. I’m simply saying we need to look at causes in order to solve it. And I don’t think it’s a legal/governmental issue AT ALL.
This is getting a little pedantic, but OK. For starters, most friendly conversation starts after eye contact has been established, or some body language invites an interaction. Second (probably most revealingly), most people pick up the body language of someone engaged in their business — their attention on what they’re doing or where they’re going, walking purposefully — and decline to interrupt and make a claim on their attention.
Third, in the absence of a nonverbal acknowledgement and/or purposefulness, such conversation can happen when people are somewhat trapped in common circumstances — in an elevator, on line, etc. And in such cases, when attracting a stranger’s attention for a civil interaction, most people don’t refer to physical beauty.
And yet, why does it matter what the person wants from me, as long as they do not coerce me in any way?
Why is a line of uncouth, potentially-frightening men asking for dates and complimenting a woman’s appearance considered worse than line of uncouth, potentially-frightening men asking the same woman for money?
In both cases, it’s a line of uncouth, potentially-frightening men.
I disagree. I go out of my way NOT to invite these interactions, and I sometimes get called rude for doing so.
Again, that’s not my experience.
Very few of the men in the video make any reference to her appearance.
Money can be given and returned, but violations of one’s person cannot be undone. There’s a reason why the law permits use of deadly force in self-defense but not in defense of one’s property.
a) They aren’t violating her person. They are merely communicating to her.
b) Money can also easily be taken by force, and deadly force can certainly be used to defend one’s property in many jurisdictions, against burglars inside one’s home, for example.
A century ago you wouldn’t have the human density of lower class men without a lot of options. Total incidence would scale with both density and rate. I am unsure what anybody thinks is going to happen from this collective freak out of the week.
The video doesn’t make a proposal. It purports to demonstrate the existence of a problem. Proposals can come later. In the meantime, we can acknowledge that a problem has been demonstrated. It seems to me that, as conservatives, we should be proposing our own solutions for the problem rather than downplaying or denying it.
Basically, at the end of the day, I am asking for an acknowledgement (from the producers of the video, mainly) that the only REAL justification for why what happens to her is beyond the pale and what happens to me is tolerable is that she’s a woman.
I am not arguing that that is necessarily an invalid justification.
However, if that is a valid justification, I’m also asking for acknowledgement (from the producers of the video) that they are agreeing that men and woman are not equal, and therefore women need special protections.
I disagree. It demonstrates a behaviour. It does not demonstrate why this behaviour is a problem.
I was responding to your comment #51:
You admitted both circumstances were potentially frightening, and asked why they differ. I explained why one is worse than the other, yet now in response you ignore your own premise that there is potential reason to be frightened.
Yes, that is accurate. It’s fairly obvious to me that the behavior demonstrated is problematic. I think it is obviously problematic to most viewers. And I think that trying to persuade them otherwise (or insisting that they prove it to you) is not in the interest of conservatives.