Random men speaking to you

And I mean expecting all men to adjust their behaviour to some ideal norm that would in fact be impossible to define.

I understand your point Lurcio, but I was talking about people and wasn't suggesting only women should adjust their behaviour. Learning to deal with all the weird people out there is a life skill for both sexes. I also think that if women start laying down rules as to how we want men to behave, we are possibly falling into the same trap of expecting men to adjust their behaviour.

"Kim - how has you behaviour changed in this respect, before and after becoming a woman (apologies if that is wrongly phrased)?"

Lol at namechangeguy! How many different ways are there to walk down a street?!!

It irks me when men feel obliged to pay you a looks-based compliment and then expect you to be pleased. The other day I was having a lovely conversation with a very nice man when he felt the need to bang on about how pretty I was. I'm not at all pretty which is probably why he felt the need to tell me I was.

Of course you have to act all flattered cos if you don't you seem ungrateful and he was obviously trying to be nice in the way he knew how - but why ruin a nice conversation with unnecessary, embarrassing and slightly sleazy remarks? I can't imagine telling a random guy mid conversation that he was oh so handsome. It would just seem odd.

Kim - how has you behaviour changed in this respect, before and after becoming a woman (apologies if that is wrongly phrased)?

Love your post, Lurcio. YY to straight men needing to be told they don't need to be any more scared in a gay bar than a woman in a straight bar! This used to be a frequent source of astonishment to the chaps in my workplace.

And everything else you wrote

Farside - putting the onus on women to adjust their behaviour (be gracious, smile a lot, put up with being belittled) to accommodate a subset of men seen as socially inadequate is wrong because I think it's a mistake to see them as socially inadequate - some may be, but most are behaving this way because they think it's fun to insult women, and don't think women are people worthy of equal consideration (I'm not thinking of someone saying "nice day, love", which I do tend to interpret as a harmless encounter, but rather of some random stranger saying "nice tits, love" - this is not social ineptitude, nor is it a genuine attempt to engage an attractive stranger in a conversation which might lead somewhere - it's a deliberate attempt to discomfort and belittle the person on the receiving end).

Gender neutral does not mean gender blind either, Larry.

Gendered endearments, for example: If I call one of my male friends darling, he's likely to call me mate. The arty ones call everybody darling, mind you.

The rest of your statement appears to mean the same as what I wrote!

Who said a man "needs" to treat a man the same way? Although, for those rather slow of comprehension, I'd recommend doing that for a week. If you don't get punched and your male acquaintances haven't backed away carefully, you're probably on the right track

Also, Garlic, treating people differently doesn't necessary equate to treating them less favourably.

Most people know how to behave. With those people who lack social skills, perhaps we need to learn how to deal with them gracefully rather than insist that the whole world abides by a set of joyless rules.

In fact, Larrygrylls has put it perfectly.

Larry, you've never lived in Leeds [thinks back fondly to seeing 15 stone male bus driver addressing 15 stone male brickie as "love"].

Somerset - your earlier post about being physically weaker reminded me of a very interesting conversation I had about 20 years ago with a good male friend. A mutual friend came out and my friend (from a conservative, Catholic background in southern Germany) found himself rather taken aback by this. We had a long conversation - was this homophobia, or could he find a more reasonable response to the situation if we talked it through? Eventually we came round to the idea that what was really freaking him out was the fact that (despite any evidence that mutual friend was interested in him, and in fact evidence to the contrary - friend had come out because he'd started a relationship and wanted to be open about it) here was someone who could potentially be sexually interested in him and be physically overpowered by him. I pointed out that this is a situation women have had to grow up dealing with, and have had to try to develop twat/decent man- radar (which of course is not 100%, but most of us have it to some extent). It led me to speculate that perhaps this is why straight women in general seem to be less likely to be homophobic towards lesbians than straight men are towards gay men (I stress this is a statistical thing - you get homophobic women, and most men are not homophobic - but for instance, the level of acceptance of gay men and gay women in football is markedly different - there are no out male premiership players, whereas I've played in women's Sunday league teams where the majority of team members were gay).

Bit of a digression, but I guess I'm trying to illustrate the point that something that's part of the background noise of everyday life for women (in this case unwanted sexual advances, or attempts to "put you in your place" for simply being female) are events that are unusual, noticeable and comment worthy for men. (Disclosure - I'm white, and quite prepared to accept that people from ethnic minority backgrounds may well have to negotiate similar racist background noise in their everyday lives which my circumstances make me unaware of).

Also, I think almost all of us are very good at distinguishing between a respectful sexual advance from someone prepared to take a knock-back and an entitled one from a twat who won't take no for an answer. I also think it's disingenuous to think that all twattish behaviour stems from people who simply aren't good at reading social signals. A lot of it is perpetrated by a mercifully small minority of people who know exactly what they're doing - stubborn's example above of the conversation which progressed from "nice day.. yes ...[avoid eye contact hope he'll take the hint].. what's the matter don't you want to talk to me ... frigid bitch" is actually a man who is being deliberated aggressive and deliberately overstep boundaries. (Incidentally, he may be a misogynist who only does this to women, or he may be a misogynist and also be a sociopath to both sexes and do the equivalent to men - "are you looking at me... no [frantically avoid eye contact] ... what, you think you're hard, do you ... do you want to have a go.")

I think both men and women on this thread have been confused by certain aspects of the OP. I don't think the questions or disagreements have solely been from men. Therefore, I don't think the discourse on here has been sexist, or victim blaming, or asserting male privilege. If we didn't care about making mistakes ourselves, I doubt we (i.e. the men here) would have been bothered over 22 pages.

And if the guy in the OP had said it to me, and I had thought nothing of it, that doesn't mean it wouldn't have upset Enimead. So the idea that 'only do to women what you would do to men' still wouldn't have prevented Enimead getting upset.

Garlic,

Gender equality does not mean gender blind.

If men treat women the same as women treat men, that is equality. It does not follow that a man needs to treat another man the same way, nor a woman another woman.

Not entirely clear how a young man, playing around with mates, who has slipped and recovered, needs to disarm a situation with an older woman getting out of her car? Was she wielding an ice pick?

This is all very peculiar. A whole slew of women come on to talk about everyday sexism. We discuss how enervating, belittling and sometimes threatening we find this relentless onslaught of mostly minor intrusions. We link to a website documenting such incidents, which contains thousands of stories and has attracted sympathetic news coverage ....

... and still people put a large amount of effort into telling us we have misunderstood, we're being oversensitive and we create the problem ourselves Ever heard of victim-blaming? It looks quite like this. Instead of insisting that what happens, doesn't happen, how about listening to thousands of women?

"The devil's in the detail." Not really. If you don't do it to men, don't do it to women.

Thinking about whether your fellow pedestrian on a dark street might be nervous doesn't have to be a gendered consideration - it shouldn't be, should it? More men than women suffer random attacks in those circumstances. Considerate alertness can be a life-saver for anyone, if the risk exists.

If you wouldn't grab a male's waist or bum while they're up a ladder, don't do it to women.

If you treat men as though they can get through a doorway without your hand on their back, treat women the same way.

If you don't stare at men's bodies, don't stare at women's. (NB: Staring is not 'looking'. You look at women's and men's bodies; staring is rude.)

If you don't assume male customers are ignorant or suckers, don't assume female customers are.

Only hug a woman when you would hug a man. (Partners excepted, that's a sexual relationship.)

Use the same endearments to women that you do to men. (Partners excepted.)

Gender equality. Doesn't hurt.

and Merry Christmas to you.......

I think there is a slight issue with men speaking randomly to other men. And certainly you would not address a man as "love" (personally, I don't know anyone who would address a woman that way either).

On the other hand, if I am out with my young children and see another man in the same situation, I would probably make some friendly remark to him.

Men tend not to say "Hi love" to each other of course! But in situations where they feel they need (consciously or not) to disarm the situation, us men do occasionally say "Hi", "Good morning", "alright lads", etc to strangers in the street.

The more social the man the more he may talk to strangers. "Hi love" is a tad personal for my taste but I have friends who would use that phrase without 2nd thought.

I hope that answers the op?

I think I agree with everything you have just posted.

"A better test might be whether a woman would do the same to a man in the same situation".
I thought that brought us right back to the op.
But actually her question, weeks ago, was do blokes do this to other random blokes.
Am I am not sure that was completely answered?

I think in all everyday interactions the devil is in the detail. Some people are very good at reading social situations and some are not. Those who are can read the subconscious signals someone is sending out and respond to them appropriately will not overstep boundaries. There is also a whole spectrum of offensive actions, many of which have been mentioned on this thread. Some are intimidating and grossly offensive and need dealing with. Others are a little annoying but I feel a normal person would just shrug them off and get on with their lives.

It is not a good test of sexism whether an individual would do the same actions in a same sex situation. Acknowledging and acting differently to someone of the opposite sex is normal. A better test might be whether a woman would do the same to a man in the same situation.

Also, the idea of whether something is offensive can be decided simply on whether someone has been offended is also not right. Some people are egregiously over sensitive and can be offended by what most would consider as merely friendly.

There has to be a happy medium where men can address women (even strangers) in a friendly way without the woman taking offence. Equally, some men need to learn to respect boundaries and clearly many still don't. I do think that a lot of those builders, manual labourers etc are trying to assert a privilege which even they don't really believe they still have, hence the hopeful nature of their approach and the aggression when it is rebuffed by a far more intelligent woman.

I'd agree...

Walking towards some one on a dark night doesn't cause as much anxiety from what I see.....(or its shorter duration).....but from what I see it seems to have less effect!?

From a man on man scenario it is the same....turn around and face up to the threat. They'll avert their eyes and walk off.

There are biological factors at work....I had an overpowering protective instinct with my pregnant ex wife that I had to come to control (I talked about this with many friends and they had similar feelings).

Some men want to protect....its instinct.

xposted with your last, Heroine. I disagree. Who on earth thinks that people being killed is acceptable?!

You all make good points. Peter, when I was a tourist guide it was certainly true that men got injured more frequently - and more badly - by muggers. The consulate issued loads of warnings not to "have a go back" but most visiting men seemed to lack the confidence (or common sense!) to just hand over a bit of cash.

The club owner preferred female bouncers for the exact reason you stated.

This ties in with your post, too, Heroine. I think women are counter-productively scared by OTT warnings. Many, also, don't know that the best thing to do if you think you're being followed is turn round and face the person behind you.

When men have asked me what to do when walking behind a woman on an otherwise empty street, I've advised crossing the road. It is sad that it should be so but the main thing is to minimise anxiety. Obv, if you know her, the thing to do is call her name!

I don't think so, I think its because men are seen as disposable, unemotional - inhuman even and that violence against them is disregarded as something men are expected to endure - I think that's sad, that fathers being killed on nights out is seen as acceptable, where a women having her bum felt inappropriately is seen as more shocking.

It, sadly, is an expression of how women are seen as the protected, vulnerable victim part of humanity. Something I just won't subscribe to.