Did women used to enjoy being catcalled?

I’m not going to vote because I don’t agree with either option but yes, I think I found it a compliment, although embarrassing too. We were socialised to be flattered and I liked the fact that I was considered attractive - or at least that’s how I interpreted it at the time. Glad it’s not acceptable now though.

Neither my mum or my Grandma ever enjoyed it.
And my Grandma was incredibly sex positive and liberal to a degree that would be uncommon even today.

Mum was born in 1956 and Grandma was in her mid 30's when mum was born (sorry I don't know her birth year).

What I find interesting these days is that I can tell the difference between a man who has clearly mistaken me for someone much younger and one who can see I'm older.

The latter group tend to say something along the lines of you're looking very beautiful today. The former will get pushy and act like I'm going to drop my shopping and shag them.

Typo!! Compliment!

I never enjoyed it or found it less than insulting/ threatening except on two occasions.
The first more positive experience was when I was a young student visiting Glasgow and passed by a group of workmen. One of the older gentlemen smiled at me and said ‘ hen, you’re a pretty lass, have a great day. Looks like my daughter’. Pleasant non threatening interaction. No nasty responses from his team.
Second unsolicited comment was from two old tramps sitting on a park bench as I passed by with my five year old. Commented that we were a pretty mum and wee girl to see on a summer’s day. Likewise, absolutely fine.
Very different to the antagonistic often seemingly hate filled sexual comments that occasionally came my way from random lowlifes.
Some women, who I think must be mired in internal misogyny, do seem to get a kick out of crass sexual comments as an ego boost. I have never understood why it’s a compliment that some random creep wants to shag you. So far as I can tell these type of men would sleep with anyone ! It’s not a complement.

I'm 69 and it did used to embarrass me - but I found if I looked embarrassed and scuttled past it made them worse, and I was too scared to take offence and tell them off (can just imagine the reponse that would have got), so I just used to style it out and wave at them. So I probably contributed to the problem I know.

Edit - I ought to have added that the situation would change whether I was embarrassed or scared. Guys on a building site during the day = embarrassed, group of guys on a corner or at night = scared and embarrassed.

Have to say though, my mum and I both got whistled at once (she was extremely attractive) and she definitely took it as a compliment and told my Dad about it when we got home.

@cortex10 at least now if that happened on the majority of my sites they would be red carded (kicked off site). There are strict rules and the developers pride themselves on being polite neighbours as they know that the first houses sold on a building site fund the next lot.

As I read it back to myself I realised I should have used a personal pronoun rather than insinuating others had the same experience. Poor habit on my part.

I’m late 50s. I hated it, and I resented it.

It started when I got breasts at 14. I was a child, for god’s sake.

There is no part of my self worth that’s ever been bolstered by anonymous knuckle dragging blokes commenting on my attractiveness or otherwise. I didn’t like the wolf whistles or the catcalls because no thank you, I don’t want blokes expressing their opinion on my fuckability.

Back then if you objected you were a frigid bitch, a misery guts, “would miss it later”, can’t take a joke, didn’t understand “it’s a compliment”.

We were told it should put a spring in our step, make us feel flattered, feel admired, feel approved of.

The misogyny of earlier times - the bar was so ridiculously low that a gang of men commenting loudly about the sexual appeal of a school child was supposed to make her happy, or even grateful.

Fuck that. I’m am so glad my daughter’s generation don’t have that as a constant background to their lives.

To all the older men out there who did it - I see you, I judge you, and I hope you get piles.

I’m 56, and my reaction to catcalling in my youth depended very much on the setting.
If it was a sunny day, I was dressed up, out with friends, happy, laughing - then some whistles from builders was fun, like an acknowledgement that we all looked good.
But if I was on my own, feeling a bit fed up, or just busy, preoccupied - then it was annoying, and I would takes steps (eg cross the road) to avoid it.
I have to say I never found it threatening though. Just rather tiresome.
Also, I would take a thousand whistles over remarks like “cheer up darling, it might never happen”. That pissed me off.

I was brought up in an era where carry on films were seen on tv as the norm and it was always ' sexy young female v the older, not so attractive more matronly type of woman who was seen as a ' battle axe'.
I'd like to think times have moved on a lot , but I don't think they have really for lots of men.

I agree. For me, looking back, one of the worst things about it was how we were taught to value it. I desperately wanted to be pretty when I was younger. In my early 20s (bearing in mind I was married, so someone thought something of me) at my place of work the men had a score sheet, ranking the women out of 10. Of course, I was in the 2-3 range with the women over 50. I shouldn't have been bothered about my place in the rankings. I should have been bothered about the existence of the rankings at all from mostly much older men who weren't oil paintings. I cringe about it now.

What I really hated was the surprise from, curiously, women more often, that my husband was nice-looking. I well remember being in an amateur dramatics group, my husband coming to see the show and the female cast commenting on his looks with a 'really, that's your husband?' vibe. I wasn't imagining it either, because the female director, a lovely lady in her seventies, snapped, 'why shouldn't she have a good-looking husband'. Mind you, the same director wouldn't even let me read for the meaty lead role I wanted, shoving me into the 'comedy maid' part, which was pretty much where plain actresses ended up and why my ambitions to do it for a career were shelved as I had enough wherewithal to know I wasn't good enough to overcome being plain. It was (and still is) much harder to make it in the industry if you don't have the looks.

A few years ago, I was reminded of this in the local pub. A male acquaintance remarked that my husband had good bone structure, and said to me, 'you punched above your weight, there'. That was the one and only time I threw my drink over someone, whilst saying my husband wasn't a shallow arsehole.

I hated the whole 'looks' thing. It stunk from every angle, from harassing the pretty women to belittling the plain ones. It still does. And whilst I understand women who say they enjoy cat calls, etc, it's just another perpetuation of the idea that it's OK to place so much value on appearance for women in particular. It isn't. It never was.

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

Spot the bloke.

They didn’t answer back, either because they were stunned or because I was only about 6 at the time …

I remember getting catcalled lots as a teen (late 90’s/early 00’s). Mum used to be so proud. She would say it was because I was so good looking etc. It wasn’t until I pointed out to her that you could look like a troll, they’d still catcall you, that she realised I had a point. But she and a lot of her generation were all about pleasing men and being attractive for men. I’m glad we have moved on.

I hated it.

No woman in my family
ever did. I remember multiple discussions around this. I also remember my very pretty,
young Dmum telling some
blokes at a garage who catcalled as we walked by EXACTLY what she thought of them and their manners. I still remember the looked of astonishment as she went though them for a short cut asking them who the hell they were to shout out like that at her, and why they thought it was okay to call a woman they don’t know love or darling or tell her to calm down.

I was watching an old episode of an SAS type programme once and one of the men was talking to a new recruit about his partner and apparently the first thing he thought about her was ' she's nice , I wouldn't mind putting it in her '( don't wish to offend, but this is what he said)
It's how many men think about women and probably a lot worse too :(

I wasn't arguing about whether or not some women like catcalling. If they like it, that's fine and not my problem. You clearly haven't read my post properly. I was responding to the poster who said that things have got worse over the decades and that lewd remarks are more likely from men these days. I said that was "nonsense" and cited examples of the comments that were deemed perfectly acceptable in the 1960's and 1970's. Some of which transcend lewd and are in fact utterly vile and obscene. It was also considered perfectly OK for men to speak to 12 and 13 year olds like this. I know, I was there - so it's hardly a difference of opinion is it.

I was harassed constantly as a teen in the 90s and catcalled everywhere. It terrified me, but I do think I was socialised to expect and accept it to an extent. To complain about it to friends and family would have landed as conceit, in some ways. There was a subtle undertone that I should be grateful, that being catcalled was far better than being the alternative (not being attractive to men, rather than not being catcalled).

Reading through these I have to say the cat calling I got was never as crude or disgusting as what appears to be said now. Good grief!

There's nothing flattering about being leered at by a the sort of men you wouldn't touch with a shit encrusted barge pole.

I'm in my 60's and I liked getting a wolf whistle. Wish I still did. Not so keen on the cat calling but I didn't find it a problem, and I either answered them or ignored them.

I'm early 40s and was walking my DD to primary school only a couple of years ago and a scaffolder said, "morning love, nice!" The nice was said in a slow way whilst looking at my chest area as I noticed my top was showing a slight cleavage! When I was catcalled in the past it made me feel uncomfortable but I think groping, being smacked on the backside especially in a work context, had that in an office role once when I was very young, are worse but I wouldn't say any of these changed my behaviour so I wouldn't walk a different route or anything. What I hate is that my daughter who is a young teen but is not womanly in anyway yet more Bambi legs and very skinny is being looked at, hot beeped but some lad of about 19 when I visited my Mum in a rural market town- I told him at the lights he was disgusting before he drove off from the lights. In the summer DD and I stayed out quite late in central London as she is a keen photographer and we were taking photos near parliament square, before we got the train home we visited a mini Waitrose and DD went off to get her sweets whilst I found a drink on a different aisle, when I came around the corner a man who was probably early 30s was trying to talk to her and was encouraging her to buy the sweets or he would for her as you only live once, when I appeared and made myself known between them he was taken aback and scuttled off, now he may have been only making conversation but I am a very cynical person when it comes to stuff like this and I just thought he was a creep!