To think that wolf whistling wasn't such a bad thing?

Alert staff in a bar? Have you been in a city bar on a Friday night? It would be pretty difficult to get anyone's attention - then shout across the noisy bar explaining what has happened - then what do you expect them to do?

It is actually is acceptable and will remain so so long as people continue to enable and minimise sexual harrasment.

Honestly I think the people who were flattered at being whistled at because they think it was down to their superior attractiveness are completely deluded.
I’m bang average and got whistled at loads.

When I was a young woman, there were nude girlie calendars in garages

Also, do you remember that pubs sold peanut packets from large pieces of card that were displayed behind the bar. Each time a packet was sold it revealed more of the picture of a topless woman on the card.
When I first started drinking in pubs, some did not allow women at the bar and would not sell them pints.

Utterly pervasive second-class treatment.

Is it better today, though? We are nominally equal in pubs, the girlie pics are absent, but in many pubs women can't leave drinks unattended for fear of spiking. They may also be literally spiked with a needle. Rape convictions are devastatingly low, men are hooked on extreme porn and expect women to play it out IRL.

On balance, it seems scarier now. A few years ago I felt relatively optimistic, but these days so many advances just seem to reflect the fact that men are better at hiding how much hatred and contempt they have for women.

@NovemberMorn

I wonder what your views are on the horrendous violence that happens to women in this modern world. It seems to me that both online and off, women are disrespected, abused, and generally seen as 'less', than they ever were 20 or 30 years ago. Wolf whistling was very mild in comparison.

I'm lost as to what point you're making here?

Because women are subject to abhorrent violence nowadays, we shouldn't see wolf whistling as something inherently wrong and indicative of mens feelings of entitlement (whether consciously or subconsciously) to women's bodies?

You don't think that this is all interconnected?

That wolf whistling in the past is on no way relevant to the treatment of women and girls today?

According to you in you earlier posts I should have handled it myself. Isn't that what you have been saying?

Yes but I don't know if there is sexual attraction as the main motivation or if it's about power. Making someone feel uncomfortable. Like rape is about power in most cases - not uncontrollable lust

@aliceinawonderland

It was just a bit of flirtatious fun and they were usually on a roof in broad daylight so never threatening! Totally different from actual sexual harassment.

Hopefully even you agree that wolf whistling at girls under 18 is wrong. So let's take another example.

A group of men in their 30s / 40s / 50s on a rooftop, whistling at an 18/19 year old girl minding her own business walking past alone.

You honestly consider that to be 'flirtatious fun'?

It's sexual harassment plain and simple.

If it happens only ones, it's just annoying, but men typically do this shit when they are in groups and then it becomes quite intimidating. Especially if you tell them you don't appreciate it.

For the record, I haven't been on the receiving end of this behavior since becoming an adult. I did, however, have to deal with it plenty of times as of age ten. How is it okay to harass a child?

Any female aged between the onset of puberty and about 25. Being attractive is nothing to do with it. Clothing perhaps is - school uniform or t shirts and shorts would be enough though didn't need to be anything more

Ok, love. You don't know as you haven't met me but hey, you think what you like. I'll think what I like.

It's yet another way in which men get the impression that they can comment on women's appearances unchallenged.

If every man on every building site said they thought it was pathetic, it would be stamped out overnight.

Banning it strengthens the resolve of the 'you can't say anything' brigade.

Is the point beyond you that I shouldn't have had to find strategies to navigate bad male behavior and sexual harrasment on the street. All I should have to do in the street is go about my day, unaccosted and uncommented on. Well said!

It seems to me that both online and off, women are disrespected, abused, and generally seen as 'less', than they ever were 20 or 30 years ago.
Wolf whistling was very mild in comparison.

It wasn't just wolf whistling 20 or 30 years ago, was it? That was just one aspect of a complete dismissal of women in all spheres. When I was a young woman, there were nude girlie calendars in garages, men refusing to take information from a women and asking to speak to her manager, who they assumed was male, with good reason, because women had a hard time getting into senior positions.. Women afraid to report rape because they knew that if they were dressed attractively, if they were walking home at night rather than taking a taxi, they'd be judged as having brought it on themselves. Remember the Yorkshire Ripper?

I did "look after myself" and boy did some of the cowards shit themselves when I did. I didn't get the vapours 🙄 either. I got the fucking rage.

Is the point beyond you that I shouldn't have had to find strategies to navigate bad male behavior and sexual harrasment on the street. All I should have to do in the street is go about my day, unaccosted and uncommented on.

Is your advice to those women to 'handle themselves' as well?

This thread, it's goady, light-the-blue-touchpaper stuff and so very often covered. Why did you post it given that you've now switched to horrendous violence to women? Odd.

@NovemberMorn

Just for the record, I slapped a guy who touched me in a bar, he swiftly put his hand up my skirt on the inside of my leg to my groin. He retaliated and it did not end well for me.

It is ridiculous to think that a woman slapping a guy for assaulting her through inappropriate touching is the right thing to do. I think you've watched too many 1950's movies where once she slaps him, he feels his cheek and backs down.

Back in the real world it is a risky strategy.

No. It was more normal I guess in her time and her profession, but it shouldn't have been then and certainly not now. Women shouldn't have to 'slap them away' or put up with feeling embarrassed.
It's interesting my DD is at uni and she said in a group at lunch one of the boys was talking about women's rights to abortion. A couple of the girls were putting their opinions out but he was discounting them and not really listening - so while he thought he was being pro women he was actually demonstrating the opposite. Unfortunately it still seems to be the case that men can voice their opinions (including wolf whistling or touching) and if women object they are either being unreasonable or ignored and should be flattered!

I actually think young women are MORE able to handle themselves now because they are more likely to be unaccepting of male predatory behaviour and report it.

That is how to handle the situation well and also protects other women in the future from repeat offenders.

Bollocks. It has never been about "flirtatious fun". Try saying something back and then see what happens. Soon stops being "flirtatious fun" when you make it clear that you don't like it.

I'd advise any women who is the victim of sexual assault - because that's we're talking about - to report it to the police.

You see, a slap across the face may stop one man in one moment. Although frankly in my experience most men, whilst embarrassed, would ultimately just laugh it off or possibly turn nasty. The only way women will ever be able to stop being treated as pieces of meat and male property is to stop it at its roots. Obviously educating boys is one vital way to achieve this but the best way is to make it completely unacceptable so that employers in all sectors dismiss anyone sexually harrassing women and friends/acquaintances make them social pariahs.

It was acceptable at one time for circus animals to be whipped, humiliated and made to perform. People used to go and watch it with their children - and this wasn't that long ago. Now we are enlightened and horrified by such things but only because of action through petition and legislation and a multitude of people calling it out as very, very wrong. Not because one brave soul slapped the lion tamer around the face.