Did women used to enjoy being catcalled?

Wait until you're over 65 and are invisible!

Loathed it.

Aged 12 I was standing at a bus stop, I stretched and a voice yelled 'nice tits'.

No.

I was too ‘polite’ to retaliate at all! My DD’s would certainly have had a go at them!
But it was a whole different era. In my first term at uni (late 60s) my first tutorial in a minor subject was with a young male lecturer with a mid-Atlantic accent, who evidently fancied himself rotten.
‘Your essay was fine - I’ve given you a B. Now, how’s your sex life?’ 😱

It never even occurred to me to report him - I just said, in polite enough, but what I hoped were off-putting tones, ‘Fine, thank you.’

That is one of the blessings of getting older (I am late 50s now.) You don't have pervy lecherous entitled men staring at you, letching at you, hitting on you, and groping you, (and insulting you - or even worse - attacking you) if you reject them.

Late 70s/80s/90s Random men shouting lewd comments or just silently staring at you as you walked past them always felt predatory. They were in a group and because you were alone. It made you feel like exposed and very vulnerable. They got off on your fear. What stands out it is that none of those men ever reined in their ‘pack’ or told them to stop. They had mums, most probably had partners and even daughters the same age as us. Didn’t stop them joining in though.
Anyone remember the ‘give us a smile, love’ brigade? The ones fooling themselves that they weren’t hassling you because they were ‘being nice and just trying to cheer you up’? You’d be doing something completely normal and minding your own business. Then some arsehole would be in your face demanding that you smile at them. Even if you ignored them they wouldn’t let up. You’d always get a load of verbal (and very personal) abuse from them as you tried not to dissolve in a puddle of humiliation and get away from them.
And no one ever stepped in to see if you were okay or tried to intervene.
From being a scared/battered kid (DV) at ‘home’ to being victimised on the streets for being female, for a long time nowhere felt safe.

I expected it, & it was harmless.

Edited to make it clear it was the wolf whistles & cat-calling - nothing more.

I am 30 but I did want to add my thoughts as I think they are relevant to the flattering/unflattering conversation.

I think you can be both flattered that you have been noticed for your looks, on both a natural human level and because women are so socialised to find how attractive they are extremely important, and aware and therefore wary, frightened, pissed off etc that men approach you.

there are 2 elements of this for me; one is that some men give you "attention" that is right off the bat delivered in a way that is intimidating, creepy, offputting or misogynistic. The second as that even with men who you find attractive or are being nice, the slightest hint of going along with it, reciprocating (even bloody making eye contact sometimes) can result in something that is way too strong, even intimidating.

Like most women I have experienced varying degrees of this all throughout my life. I have learned that I can engage in a safe way of my partner is there, with things like those cringe comments about lucky you etc, or else otherwise I make myself as unapproachable as possible, including wearing earphones, and I have even developed this weird tic where if I am walking past a guy who looks like he is trying to make eye contact or speak to ke, I do this weird unattractive sniff thing and look away 😂

It is sad and I have been approached by some genuinely really nice men, some that did intimidate me but I'm sure didn't mean to, and plenty of awful ones. I am sure that is the experience of most women .

BeatrizBoniface · Today 08:22

I am 65 and the 70s were a horrible time for this. We were always told it was a compliment. Told to smile, told to laugh it off. The practise was widespread and socially acceptable.

Older women would sometimes say "just smile and he'll leave you alone". I think they were warning against escalation to aggression and assault.

@Davros

I'm 64. This sums it up for me. If I think back I can feel quite traumatised. The insidious day-to-day groping and objectification all the way to rape

Yes to all of this. ^ I had SO much sexual harassment (and more) in my teens, 20s, and 30s (and early 40s!) from entitled, pervy, lecherous men. From cat-calling and hitting on me, to staring, groping, following me home, and worse (not gonna go into this.)

The way some people minimise this shit, and make out it's 'flattering' and that women should be grateful, and happy and smiley, makes me sick to my stomach. I pray they don't have daughters!

my boss at my caring job put his hand on my bottom 25 years ago
i remember i completely ignored it and hope that shamed him!

God that’s awful that your mum saw it as something to be proud of. Sorry but what a poor example to set to a young woman.

56 and always loathed it, from the age of 12 or 13 you were in dread of any man you walked past as he might feel he had the right to comment, could be a whistle, kiss noise, “hello gorgeous”, could be “ugly bitch”, didn’t matter. These days I am invisible and I can’t remember the last time I had to tell anyone to go fuck themself.

You were groped routinely and didn't think anything of it?

That's really sad.

Yep! 'Ladies!' 😖

It's pretty much always a man when someone talks about women and girls and says 'ladies.......'

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER a friend and I went to Italy aged 18. We were very slim teen/young women, with long blonde hair, men would grope us just as we walked down a street. We thought we were streetwise and grown up and just slapped their hands but it was gross.

I did.

My husband used to get catcalled by women too.

I am 66. I don't remember feeling offended, it didn't occur to me. I always thought it harmless. But this was an era where we were groped routinely and so in comparison it certainly was more harmless.
I also remember reaching an age when the woolf whistles stopped (for me) and that was a kind of aging milestone.

I’m very ancient, so maybe I’m allowed to say that as a very slim teen/young woman, with long blonde hair, I had no objection to what we used to call wolf whistles. Personally I never found them intimidating.

Unlike - I have to say - what I experienced while a bit later living in a Mediterranean country - no wolf whistles, but while I was walking, blokes on bicycles trying to put their hands up my skirt or grab my bottom as they cycled very slowly past!

Istr that (as with all things) there were different situations - if you came down after getting ready for a night out and a male in your house (related or not) whistled you, that was actually a compliment - but if builders or someone in a car did it, whilst it was still technically a positive rather than negative comment at face value it was more intrusive/unwelcome.

I think the public form was generally seen as cheeky/not good manners/a bit uncouth more than as an actual form of sexual harassment, though - on the grounds that it was expressing their own opinion/reaction to seeing the woman rather than approaching/touching her (the location of the boundary of what is an attack has changed over time to include verbal comments a lot more readily).

I hadn't read any posts other than OP's first when I posted and I've just read SpiderGwen's post. It's shocking that this happens and it just shows that men (not all) but some, will act on their proclivities to show children that they are nothing but sexual objects for the man's gratification.

I'm sorry that happened to you, SpiderGwen.

I’m only early 30s so can’t comment on what older generations were like before me but I have to admit that I used to enjoy it.

In fact, I enjoyed any attention I got off of men, especially good looking ones.

Me and my female friends used to wolf whistle at men too.
Which I think was pretty common (was watching friends last night where Phoebe and Monica whistle at a man).

But as I got older (and got more respect for myself) I started disliking it.
I think becoming a parent to a daughter (and have look at her) definitely changed my opinion too.

For me, the wolf whistle isn’t offensive in itself but I would just like to go about my day without getting hit on, especially if I’m seen as being rude/a prude for not responding.

I do not like comments such as “nice tits” or “she’d get it” because that is disrespectful and completely unnecessary.

Most definitely not.
are you?

Ugh no. These knuckle-dragging men. I used to have to put up with this walking home in school uniform.

It's fantastic now that there are regulations in place to put a stop to it. Women should be able to walk anywhere at anytime without being observed and assessed by skanky men.

I know that some women enjoy/enjoyed this but given that it's 'a joke' quite often, or like a dog-whistle command for women to pay men attention, I don't see where the flattery comes into it.

Different strokes I guess but I don't want it, never did - and the 'don't want it, wins.

I'm nearly 60 and it put me neither up nor down. You expected it when you walked past a building site, cos blokes were (presumably) bored at work and showing off to their mates.

It didn't say anything about you - they tended to do it to pretty girls and ugly ones. I occasionally gave a wave in return, but it was pretty meaningless.

My late mum was a bit of a prude and would warn me off men in general so I was always a bit scared of most of them. She was abused by her uncle as a child , so was well aware of what many were capable of. She was born in the 1920s, so I don't think things have really moved on for the better really and the stories around more well known child molesters is just sickening and still goes on.
Luckily her abuser died before he could do any more real damage , but she was traumatized by what he did do to her. Some are just evil.
We do live in a messed up world.