Did women used to enjoy being catcalled?

Yes you correct.

If women like it then it's because we have been conditioned to believe we need to appeal to the male gaze and that we need male attention to validate us

I remember as a small child my mum used to get beeped at and whistled at and I think she liked it

Nowadays everybody is offended by everything

NC for this because it’s very outing. I’m not in your age range requested op, but not far off and I’ve always hated it. Added to that, I work in construction and have done for decades. Many years ago when I was around 25 I was walking past one of our sites to meet a client. There began a chorus of “get your tits out for the lads”. I put down my brief case, climbed the scaffold in my trouser suit and stiletto boots and sacked the lot of them. Their faces were a bloody picture. They never worked for us again and it never did my career or self esteem any harm at all.
Thankfully the industry has changed a lot since then!

We were conditioned! So yes, it was a good thing. It's bollocks of course and we are all victims of the patriarchy. I'm 57

We thought it was great. Didn't enjoy getting my arse felt, in every bloody pub though. It made no difference that you were with a man either. Now that I'm older and wiser (55) I love my invisibility, and couldn't care less what random men think of me.

I was just curious how people will react.
Same way OP was when she started this thread.

And obviously, as a woman,I cannot fake voice the whole "hi gorgeous, lucky is the man you are meeting now".
So I ended up with whistles and mewos as I foumd barking idiotic and hostile.

This. ^ @LondonFox's posts are fast becoming the most batshit on the thread! 😬

Especially given the fact that she thought meowing at people is 'catcalling' and (allegedly) all the women in her vicinity smiled and simpered and fluffed their hair like simpletons, (when she meowed near them!) because they thought they were being hit on!

LMFAO! 😂

Seriously @LondonFox Just own your mistake!!! You got it wrong what a catcall is! Seriously stop it! 😆 And stop embellishing this bonkers anecdote of yours!!!!!! It's batshit! 😂

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I am 42 and I cheekily voted on behalf of my DM who is not on MN. She always loved it and still does, and cannot understand the fact that it makes my blood boil.

Why were you harassing flirting with strangers? We're you trying to pull or just make someone's day?

Oh please.
It's not like I did not whistle after women or fake voiced "hot" just to prove my point.

Some women will make a funny face, some will be flatered and look around who said it.

Just stop with your idiotic idea that all women on the earth think men are pestering sex pervs.
Flirting is normal part of human life ffs.

I am over 55, by a few years.

If I was in a group, somewhere fairly busy like the town centre and felt safe it could be fun. We'd roll our eyes and carry on.

If I was on my own, I hated it. It felt scary.

Nope, not the first time it happened when I was 9, or now at 46. Although since hitting 40 I'm practically invisible which is bloody great!

I am 59, I likef it. I felt flattered! Usually i ignored it, sometimes id give a wave. I think perceptions have changed now.

@godmum56

I think that this poster @bringincrazyback is saying it's more likely to be say, people born before 1955, who have the attitude that it's OK/ normal/ acceptable for men to be gropy and pervy, (and women should suck it up and even be flattered,) than it is to be people born late 1950s and after that. That doesn't mean ALL people born pre 1955 think like this. My mother certainly did not and neither did my grandmothers!

It's just people aged 70+ are more likely to have this mindset. It's not a sweeping generalisation, or 'ageist.' It's pretty much true. More people over 70 will have this mindset than younger people. But not ALL of them will.

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I hate to hear things decribed as generational. I could be more or less the same age as your parents and I didn't like it or feel flattered by it. My parents brought me up not to feel I should permit it and my father, who laid gas and water mains in London, did not allow his team to do it.

How the fuck is 'meowing' verbal flirting?! 😂

When you're in a hole, STOP DIGGING. Know when to stop @LondonFox

You're embarrassing yourself! 😬 You got it spectacularly wrong with your weird anecdote. Just own it. 😎

.

I am 52 and hated it. I remember once buying myself a nice ice cream and not being able to eat it as builders were making disgusting noises whenever I put it to my mouth. My mother , on the other had would always say that it was harmless etc but I do think there was an element of minimising her own trauma in the way she said this.

This. ^ So, @LondonFox, apparently lots of women aged between 18-58 started simpering and giggling, and 'adjusting their hair;' saying they've 'still got it' - when you made the noise of a cat 'in a busy place?! (Because they thought it was a man 'cat-calling!')

WTAF?!!! 😂

How embarrassing for you @LondonFox 😬 I suggest you look up what cat-calling actually is! As I said earlier, it is NOT someone emulating the sound of a bloody cat!

I'm 56 and I got this crap from my parents for years, wolf whistling and bottom pinching apparently being 'flattering' and I should learn to take a compliment, yadda yadda (and presumably I was supposed to respond with a Barbara Windsor-style, 'Ooh, saw-cy!' before walking off with my butt wiggling. 🙄)

I definitely think it's a generational thing!

This. Also 61.

As a very young teenager (13-15) I was sexually harrassed ( as I realised later) by a young man who was about 18-20. There was a group of teen boys with a few older ones who used to hang around the streets in the area I lived. This particular one used to shout sexual stuff at me every time saw me. It was along the lines of what he was going to do to me when I turned 16, how gorgeous and sexy I was but I was jail bait etc. It was terrifying & so intimidating.
I remember one time he saw me in a local shopping centre & started his usual taunts. The place was so busy & I felt the disapproving looks and judgement of all the old ladies out shopping! Made me feel I was the problem not him ! This was mid 80s.
He was the most serious offender but it happened all the time even in school. Certainly didn’t make me feel pretty or flattered. It was disgusting! I did get the impression from adults that girls should just laugh it off and feel flattered that they were attractive !

The connection is that all those things are unwanted attention. Varying degrees, yes, but the key word in the quoted Wikipedia statement is unwanted.

I definitely didn't like it!

It wasn't a compliment, it was just stupid men trying to intimidate young women (and girls).

I’m 38. Back when I was maybe 23, I went to a whole day of classes at law school wearing this extremely cute short skirt and wedge heels. The skirt was short but not inappropriately so, looked extremely flattering, and my legs looked particularly fantastic. It had just warmed up and I’d spent months wearing trousers, so I was especially excited. And despite the fact that it was the cutest thing I’d ever worn to class, no one said, “I like your outfit” or “I like your skirt,” which would have been a normal, non-controversial thing for a female classmate to say to another female classmate. I was a little discouraged.

Then after class, I had to walk to a store to pick up something, and out of nowhere I heard someone whistle at me. I couldn’t see who it was, but it was definitely at me. I grinned. I generally didn’t think I looked incredibly cute and attractive, but I did on that particular day, and I was happy that someone actually noticed.

If the whistler had been right near me or said something gross, I would have been offended, but that didn’t happen.

I am simply telling you how women responded to verbal flirting even if it is just "sounds".

I am not sure what loonatic bundled up whistling, gropping and stalking. Bizarre