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

It seems you feel we are poor feminists for not really being much affected by cat calls or wolf whistle.

It's a shame you feel that way, I haven't got that vibe from people responding at all. I don't think of myself as a poor feminist and I hope you wouldn't think that way of me either if we met.

There's room for more than one way of experiencing our lives, I see your way and agree it's best for it to stop. It adds nothing. It's not necessary.

It's a shame that we keep getting negatively judged for our different experiences.

Reminder - women have historically always hated street harassment. Your grandmothers and great grandmothers hated it too.

But I am sure there were always some women who enjoyed strange men making weird noises at them in the street, who spent a lot of energy trying to minimise how frightening and digusting predatory male behaviour is for so many of us.

There were women who tried to stop the Suffragettes gaining the vote, after all.

But arguably the nasty tactics come from those who can't accept that some of us didn't really give it a moment's thought.
We don't deny that their experiences sound absolutely horrendous. Of course asking a 12 year old to spread their legs is absolutely vile as well as criminal.
However they cannot accept that this didn't happen to us. We are talking about the odd whistle but followed by a "mornin darlin" . This was not harrassment and was just a bit of banter.
What I object to is that some people on this thread are being really quite offensive, implying that we lack self esteem, enjoy having strangers make "weird noises" to us and now, that we would be anti suffrage (wtf)
When I pointed out that I knew that the builders were not whistling children (due to the location) they turned it on its head and said that it was only due to lack of opportunity. That's a vile accusation to make!
They just cannot bear someone having a different experience from them and yes, their sometimes vicious and always snidey comments are a form of bullying/online aggression.

You see that's exactly why oldies feel youngsters are thin skinned. Some daft banter on an internet site is hardly bullying. Bullying is when someone's heart even body is bludgeoned. If we can't agree to differ without being unpleasant, there's no point in wanting to know others' points of view.

I went to hell and back with catcalling. My life was made a complete misery. I experienced it from mid-teens onwards. Eventually, in the mid 1980s, I had a nervous breakdown, because I could not cope with trying to get from A to B without random blokes yelling obscenities at me, invading my space and harassing me - a complete stranger. I still bear the scars and feelings of panic, and I am 61 years old now.

It's absolutely normal for predatory men to target children and teenagers. Everyone knows this, not sure why anyone on this thread is pretending not to know this.

2015 USA study showed 85% of girls experience street harassment before age 17 https://www.ilr.cornell.edu/news/faculty/street-harassment-statistics

Research shows that 35% of girls wearing school uniforms have been sexually harassed in public spaces in the United Kingdom

https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/news/63332-'i-started-walking-the-long-way'many-young-women-first-experience-street-harassment-in-their-school-uniforms

Some UK school girls hated it so much and were so distressed by it they wanted it to be made illegal

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/street-harassment-girls-crime-debate-parliament-house-of-lords-plan-international-uk-a8664381.html

According to this source 97 percent of women have experienced street harassment.

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/news/misogyny-research-pioneers-hail-new-police-action-to-record-harassment-of-women

So, back to the original question.

If you enjoyed street harassment, I think you are extremely weird, since having strange creepy men making noises at you is at best very unsettling to me. I always loathed it, found it embarrassing, disgusting and distressing.

However, you can continue to enjoy having creepy, weird men making noises at you if you wish.

What you cannot do is pretend that all women agree with you that it's a bit of a larf when strange predatory men make noises at women as they try to simply exist and go about their lives.

And you cannot pretend that this was ever the case at any time in history as comon sense as well as documented history proves that women always loathed street harassment.

Sadly, for as long as women have been begging for men to simply leave them alone and stop harrassing them, let them exist and go about their day in safety and peace, there have been people trying to pretend it's normal and stick up for these men.

"In 1887, after covering the issue of harassment for some time, the Pall Mall Gazette ran a column of responses entitled “What the ‘Male Pests’ Have to Say for Themselves.” Some insisted on their freedom to follow and speak to women. As one wrote, unless England were to follow the practice of “locking up women as they do in the East, there is nothing [left] but to leave men perfectly free to gaze at and even follow women as they please.” Others criticized the “respectable” women who wrote in for assuming that no morally upright woman would want to be “spoken to”—with at least one suggesting that they were misunderstanding courtship practices among working-class men and women who hold their “evening parties in the street.”

https://daily.jstor.org/street-harassment-in-victorian-london/

All this information is widely available, but more than that we all know it anyway, even the ones pretending not to.

In conclusion, perhaps "you" enjoy street harassment.

Many, clearly, do not.

The snide comments that they must have been desperate for the attention, they set the bar low for themselves, etc....are just mean girl tactics and a form of bullying.

Voluntarily going onto a chat forum, chatting, and not liking the responses = bullying.

Whistling at women going about their business in the street, not asking for your input = great.

Got it.

By anno domini, I meant to do with how long ago we are talking. I am not saying she is right but I think she is judging by what she knew in the 60s when the only trauma you heard about was when you bumped your head - apart from soldiers, of course.

Anno domini? It happens because we're in the post-Christ era?? Eh?

I also gave two fingers when I felt safe to do so, which was only on my uni campus, at a distance in the day with lots of others around. Often the street harassment happened on a quiet road or when I was very young, so I'd just ignore it as I was too scared to do anything else.

Had quite forgotten about the amount of street harassment age 12-18. Vile.

I went to hell and back with catcalling. My life was made a complete misery. I experienced it from mid-teens onwards. Eventually, in the mid 1980s, I had a nervous breakdown, because I could not cope with trying to get from A to B without random blokes yelling obscenities at me, invading my space and harassing me - a complete stranger. I still bear the scars and feelings of panic, and I am 61 years old now.

So true @meh2025 I remember my mother, born in 1915, talking about how awful the street harassment was when she was young, especially when she was pregnant. Apparently many men felt the need to single out pregnant women for harassment and to make vile lewd comments, as they had obviously had sex. 🙄

It's absolutely normal for predatory men to target children and teenagers. Everyone knows this, not sure why anyone on this thread is pretending not to know this.

2015 USA study showed 85% of girls experience street harassment before age 17 https://www.ilr.cornell.edu/news/faculty/street-harassment-statistics

Research shows that 35% of girls wearing school uniforms have been sexually harassed in public spaces in the United Kingdom

https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/news/63332-'i-started-walking-the-long-way'many-young-women-first-experience-street-harassment-in-their-school-uniforms

Some UK school girls hated it so much and were so distressed by it they wanted it to be made illegal

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/street-harassment-girls-crime-debate-parliament-house-of-lords-plan-international-uk-a8664381.html

According to this source 97 percent of women have experienced street harassment.

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/news/misogyny-research-pioneers-hail-new-police-action-to-record-harassment-of-women

So, back to the original question.

If you enjoyed street harassment, I think you are extremely weird, since having strange creepy men making noises at you is at best very unsettling to me. I always loathed it, found it embarrassing, disgusting and distressing.

However, you can continue to enjoy having creepy, weird men making noises at you if you wish.

What you cannot do is pretend that all women agree with you that it's a bit of a larf when strange predatory men make noises at women as they try to simply exist and go about their lives.

And you cannot pretend that this was ever the case at any time in history as comon sense as well as documented history proves that women always loathed street harassment.

Sadly, for as long as women have been begging for men to simply leave them alone and stop harrassing them, let them exist and go about their day in safety and peace, there have been people trying to pretend it's normal and stick up for these men.

"In 1887, after covering the issue of harassment for some time, the Pall Mall Gazette ran a column of responses entitled “What the ‘Male Pests’ Have to Say for Themselves.” Some insisted on their freedom to follow and speak to women. As one wrote, unless England were to follow the practice of “locking up women as they do in the East, there is nothing [left] but to leave men perfectly free to gaze at and even follow women as they please.” Others criticized the “respectable” women who wrote in for assuming that no morally upright woman would want to be “spoken to”—with at least one suggesting that they were misunderstanding courtship practices among working-class men and women who hold their “evening parties in the street.”

https://daily.jstor.org/street-harassment-in-victorian-london/

All this information is widely available, but more than that we all know it anyway, even the ones pretending not to.

In conclusion, perhaps "you" enjoy street harassment.

Many, clearly, do not.

I sometimes used to do things like this. Often met with immediate change in demeaner to 'frigid bitch', angry face and similar.

It was like a really shit Choose your Own Adventure. Will he become abusive if you are nice? Will he become abusive if you're nasty. Turn to page 20 to find out how bad he will get and how quickly.

I have no investment in the way women have responded, I have found it interesting.
You said... the vast majority have spoken here! I am saying no doubt elsewhere it would be different.
I make that observation on the women I know/have known, who were around when wolf whistling was a lot more common than it is today.

I went to hell and back with catcalling. My life was made a complete misery. I experienced it from mid-teens onwards. Eventually, in the mid 1980s, I had a nervous breakdown, because I could not cope with trying to get from A to B without random blokes yelling obscenities at me, invading my space and harassing me - a complete stranger. I still bear the scars and feelings of panic, and I am 61 years old now.

Agree with you, just can't be arsed saying it all again, ok i will say it one last time, wolf whistle happened, cud easily have been by some of your brothers, fathers, uncles, shock horror, imagine that!!! majority of wolf whistles were harmless, they weren't predators or perverts, just young lads having the laugh on a building site, they whistled and more than likely forgot about it 2 mins later, it happened a lot in the 80s and 90s, majority of women found it probably at best a bit annoying, of course a few woukd have felt embarrassed but life was different then, for bettet or worse, it doesn’t happen now, because like everything, times have changed but for the love of God get over it. Its ridiculous we had this discussion a while ago with friends and you wouldn't believe that some of us laughed at it, but then we're mature women in our 50s who have gone through so much and lived through so much that a few wolf whistles didn't scar us for life and majority on here weren't scarred either...I'm finished with this now😘

You completely missed my point.
I have not said that women who are distressed by wolf whistles should not say so, that is their experience, they are entitled to state it and say how uncomfortable it made them feel.
I already acknowledged that fact hundreds of posts back.
No one is haranguing them to not feel that way.

The women who have said it was, to them inconsequential, part of life, and they did not find it threatening, are being browbeaten into changing their minds, and none will, because that was how they felt at that time.

The snide comments that they must have been desperate for the attention, they set the bar low for themselves, etc....are just mean girl tactics and a form of bullying.

That's my opinion, and no amount of you repeating yourself will change it.

I have no investment in the way women have responded, I have found it interesting.
You said... the vast majority have spoken here! I am saying no doubt elsewhere it would be different.
I make that observation on the women I know/have known, who were around when wolf whistling was a lot more common than it is today.