Guys, we have to do better than this.
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When a friend forwarded this video to me I knew what to expect from the title. A barrage of lecherous catcalls would be obvious. But this video has a deeper point that is illustrated by the disturbing 5-minute long walk-n-stalk, the illogical public shaming for not acknowledging the catcallers, and the creepy number of times “God” is invoked to get attention.
Here is a woman dressed by all means conservatively, actively ignoring any contact, and simply walking around in broad daylight… in no way at all is there room for the common apologist’s refrain “she’s asking for it.”
This video is jarring because of the constant one-way verbal assault and for its daylight portrayal of our entitlement culture—at one point a man refers to the woman by saying, “I just saw $1000.”
Guys, if you’re catcalling, you’re a problem. If your friends are catcalling and you’re not saying “cut it out, man”—you’re missing an opportunity to be the solution.
I love how like, I can’t walk down the street near women because I they look at me like a monster, I actively cross the road to avoid women, I avoid talking to women almost all together.
and I’m too scared to give a name and real email to this statement because I’m afraid of the harassment I will receive being called a misogynist rape apologist.
I’m sorry, I can’t get any further out of your world than I am now.
I’ve been around long enough to know that when a strange guy says hello to me on the street in a big city, he’s not just “being friendly.” It’s totally different when a neighbor says hello or when a couple of hikers say hello to anothet group out on the trail.
Guys say “hello” to women on the street to get her attention because they think she’s cute. Do they say hello to every single person who walks by – highly doubtful.
10 hours of walking in an area (I’m assuming a targeted area where the man/woman team knew they would get most response) garnered 100 instances of comments. If you pass 1 person per second (at the pace she set) in 10 hours you would pass 36,000 people, 18,000 of which would be men. 100 instances of harassment divided by 18,000 is .556% of all men crossing her path. Keep in mind this is likely THE WORST area the man/woman team could come up with (and still maintain safety). I refuse to feel any sense of “male guilt” for the actions… Read more »
I remember an angry harry article in which he talks about him and a group of friends walking along the same route for several minutes that two attractive young women were walking. Angry harry’s group was behind the women. In the 3-5 minutes the girls had had maybe 10 interactions (though seemingly more kindly then this vid) in which men were either asking for directions, giving directions to good restaurants, or asking for a light (without initiation by the women). Angry harry’s point was that these women could easily say they were annoyed (or at worst mildly harrassed), but during… Read more »
A google search for “guys don’t look at me” yields over half a million results. Google suggestions for related results include, “guys look at me but don’t talk,” “why don’t guys approach me,” and “guys look at me but never approach me.” There are literally tens of thousands of variations on this question on Yahoo Answers alone.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This is sick! Now as a man I have not much personal experience with street harassment — I do not engage in it, and I don’t experience it a lot (men are pretty much invisible, as everybody knows). But some weeks ago I asked my girlfriend about her experiences in my city, and she said nothing happened to her at all so far. My two previous girlfriends each had one experience of being harassed, which they told me about because it was so exceptional (one was a random guy who followed her for an hour, which sounded seriously dangerous; the… Read more »
Yes, in my Country men are not like that at all as well. Sure, bad men exist and we DO experience street harassment from them from time to time. But nothing like American men keep doing to women. I experienced it myself while at my trip to USA. Scary and humiliating as always, but much more aggressive. And hey, you guys are not invisible to women… we just know how to look while you’re not seeing us looking (both cause of shame and discretion but also respect; that is bad when you sense someone staring and we don’t want to… Read more »
I think street harassment can happen anywhere….it was interesting that when I was on vacation in Hawaii surrounded by my family members or in Italy surrounded by my husband, son, and our big tour group, I was never harassed….
Predators seem to thrive on picking on young girls alone who seem vulnerable to them….
I don’t think it was harassment if she walk the street s and no guys talk to her then she would be like there’s no good guys out of smh
Thanks for letting us know how you think. You are just another one of the millions of men who believe the mistreatment women face is not harassment, and that is important that you guys are honest and loud about it.
ha ha ha what the heck if i give a compliment or say hey babe thats my free right it ain’t harassment till I lay a finger on you. . . This bird is crazy
And who gets to define at what point someone may feel harassed? Only you? Not the person you are bringing into interaction with you? Sure, you are free to say whatever you want to whoever you want. But it is not your “right” to do so. And if the other person feels that your words are harassing, then they are infact harassing. Because you are not the only person involved in the interaction. Words have the ability to be just as harassing as anything else and you do not have to lay a finger on a person for you to… Read more »
Use your free right wisely. It is harassment when you keep doing something that clearly is making someone else uncomfortable.
But yes, male entitlement speaking loud and dismissing women’s experiences and opinions here once again… and I sense no “good men” coming to say you are wrong, AS ALWAYS.
Well, that’s because your argument is wrong and shows you don’t understand the nature of rights.
Street thugs and punks is all I saw, as far as I’m concerned it has to do with the inability of males to be taught by their fathers or lack thereof on how to treat a women and take away that sense of entitlement! Fathers or lack thereof is the root of the issue!!!
Males have always done that, with fathers or not. Entitlement, indeed. Even more when it comes from a gender that used to sell and buy, own women as their property. You would be surprised how many of these “thugs” have traditional families where their dads would beat the crap out of them for doing that… but they still do that because they know they mostly will never be caught and society is telling men all the time their value is little and so is the respect you should show them. That males play a big role in changing this reality… Read more »
Males have always done that, with fathers or not. Entitlement, indeed. Even more when it comes from a gender that used to sell and buy, own women as their property. You would be surprised how many of these “thugs” have traditional families where their dads would beat the crap out of them for doing that… but they still do that because they know they mostly will never be caught and society is telling men all the time their value is little and so is the respect you should show them. That males play a big role in changing this reality… Read more »
Wow, 10 hours of walking and you got almost 2 minutes of harassment (some of the “catcalls” were men saying horrible things like “hello”). Granted, one guy walked silently beside her for a few minutes, so we have a grand total of about 5 minutes of “harassment” in 10 hours of walking around one of the largest cities in the world. We men are terrible.
Saying “hello” is not in itself harassment (depending on tone/context) but believe me, it is annoying to be constantly accosted by strange guys on the street. I have zero desire to talk to strange people when I am just going about my dad.
I mean going about my day, ha ha
Since when has ‘good morning’ been catcalling??
Have I missed something?
Saying hello in itself is not catcalling but it can still be annoying. Say I’m walking to work, I was past you and you say “hello.” It means (a) I have to take my attention away from what I’m doing and notice you, (b) I have to consider your motivations in saying hello (what was your tone? are you ogling me? do you look threatening? are you hitting on me? are you trying to start a conversation? are you invading my space? etc.) (c) I have to decide to respond or not, (d) I have to think about what you… Read more »
So you prefer to live in a culture where strangers are cold to one another. Well guess what I don’t.
Response below, didn’t post in the right place.
Men KEEP saying hello… some say hello while in groups and laughing at you, and that is threatening. Terrible is euphemism. And they want you to reply to their approach. Many will scream at you for not replying. If you reply, many believe you should keep talking; if you don’t want to talk, they offend or threaten you some more. And yes, many men follow you silently like that.
Thanks for not even trying to acknowledge anything women have to say about their experience, though. Show us your true colors some more, please.
Many of you men are indeed terrible, disgusting and uncivilized neanderthals. The guys appearing in this video are some of them, just like you, Mr. Kent the harassment apologist. Come back one day and tell us it’s not terrible when you see your own daughter experiencing this everyday while walking alone on the streets at night. She didn’t even include the whistles, winks, probably men catcalling from cars. If you think that is “harassment” in quotations and that is all fine if women have to stand men (groups of men, physically stronger than you) ordering them to smile everyday, men… Read more »
What a lovely attitude towards men you have.
Yeah – stop harrassing US with your man-hatred!
http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/2014/06/cardsagainstharassment/
Many of those commenting on this facebook post are clearly confused about why this is a problem, so I’m hoping any of you who think women are being “whiny” about this issue browse this link for no less than five minutes: http://whenwomenrefuse.tumblr.com/ If we women could safely say, “Fuck off,” which is as welcome a response to the cat caller as his cat calls are to the women, then you’re right; this would not be a big issue. But we can’t. Refusing men is dangerous. No, not all men are dangerous, but assertively refusing every many who harasses you on… Read more »
A big, heartfelt, “sorry” to all the ladies on behalf of malekind.
Thank you.
If you have never done it you don’t have to say sorry.
In fact, thse guys already speak for themselves and a big part of malekind, no other men could ever speak for them. Look at the comments and see how many other men see nothing wrong with that.
You could help not condoning it and actually speaking up against it somehow. These men will only hear and maybe finally understand what they do is wrong if other men talk about it.
I think allowing for ‘politely introducing yourself and, you know, talking to her like she’s a real person’ is simply opening a door for these predators. Every guy should already understand this. If they pretend not to they’re lying. When I watch these guys in action I immediately think rapist. Women are not over reacting here. That’s why these guys get angry when challenged. It’s all a power play. As impractical as it might be I feel like women should start pointing and screaming ‘rapist’ whenever they have this happen. These guys should be squashed like bugs, and I don’t… Read more »
I think catcalling is crude and wrong, and I’ve never done it except in clear jest. But I have to say, I don’t think your assessment of motivation is quite so simple. I think there are a lot of guys who, because of the culture, feel like second class citizens from certain standpoints, one of which is sexually. Women seem to have all the power when it comes to sexual interaction, and men are forced to compete for their attention, and many of them (no, many of us) come to resent it. We have felt put in the position of… Read more »