To think that even if you're sleazy enough to think wolf-whistling is a compliment...

[BedHanger]

There are some groups of women you'd spare from the honour of your attention?

Like, maybe, a sleep-deprived new mother with a month-old baby strapped to her chest?

Yeuch. Why do some men think this is ok?

I wouldn't be happy if my husband did it. I'd feel that it reflected on me, that I'd married somebody who thought this was a nice way to treat women.

I realise it's not a 'crime' but to many women, it is disrespectful and unwelcome and that view shouldn't be disregarded.

I get wolf whistled at, beeped at and had hello gorgeous shouted at me from builders. Doesn't phase me, especially when I'm having a shit day it slightly cheers me up

What I don't like are the weirdos who shout out of the window 'get your tits out'. You know full well that if I did they wouldn't know what to do

Yes Fanjo l agree about the last bit and as for cheering you up on a shit day , sometimes the builders do it for same reason, l imagine , a bit of banter, a bit of light relief before they go back knee deep in a drain or whatever.
For those who think it is degrading to women or whatever there is another side to this coin. So many women especially treat builders as though they are sub human, walk past them with their nose in the air or whatever, even when they are working on or right outside their property, possibly because they have a preconceived idea about them all being dirty buggers,leering pervs or whatever and l better not encourage them. Or maybe they do think they are just socially better than them.
I once worked in a large hospital and builders were on site in a staff corridor for a long time and you had to squeeze past with your lunch brews etc to get in and out of the staff canteen. The number of female middle managers/medical secretaries, (interestingly enough not the domestic staff or HCAs or nurses ) l saw practically stepping over them with a real 'don't speak to me' po face was unbelievable. Women who would acknowledge everyone else in the corridor would suddenly become all catsbum mouth and prim around these 'low lifes'. Not even a thank you in some cases when they moved to one side.
I asked a young colleague one day after witnessing her totally blanking them in this way and reason she gave was she didn't want them to think she fancied them. What for saying 'Morning' or whatever ??

I always spoke to them and asked if they were ok for brews etc and l built up a nice rapport with them over the weeks they were there and l'm sure it brightened up their day aswell as it did mine.
They are human beings too and majority of them like my DH and his mates are successful established tradesmen with lovely homes etc. and more importantly decent loyal family men.
No they don't all live on rough council estates , spend all their wages in the pub and who can only dream of getting close to some passing 'Uptown Girl'.

Scrap the 'lovely homes' and replace with 'potentially lovely homes with lots of unfinished jobs' on second thoughts [long suffering builders wife]
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Suda I was brought up around builders, my dads one and all his mates so I see humans and I don't mind a bit of banter either. Doing no harm.

There is a very attractive builder working on a house round the corner from me so I tend to walk past often! He is yet to shout or wolf whistle. When he does I shall pounce

It's nothing to do with feeling 'superior'. How odd! Rude people who don't acknowledge good manners are just that - rude. The profession matters not.

For me it has everything to do with walking down the road, minding my own business, and not expecting to be leered at or whistled at by random strangers. For context, I see police officers, traffic wardens, surveyors and other professional people standing at the roadside going about their business - in silence. What is different?

Are (some) builders such special snowflakes that they can't get through their day without demanding attention from women, most of whom do not want the attention themselves? Sorry, but builders who do this are sleazy.

maybe women give groups or builders a wide berth and don't engage as they spent many years being wolf whistled at or leered at by groups of them.

SP so your dad would be fine about his mates wolf whistling at you then?!

Right, now it's my own fault builders yell at me because I don't acknowledge them enough, as I go about my day not acknowledging every other person I ever meet

"So many women especially treat builders as though they are sub human, walk past them with their nose in the air or whatever, even when they are working on or right outside their property, possibly because they have a preconceived idea about them all being dirty buggers,leering pervs or whatever and l better not encourage them. Or maybe they do think they are just socially better than them."

I have never seen the building trade as anything other than a decent profession. I do however judge individuals on their behaviour. So if a doctor outside a hospital wolf whistled me and shouted 'oi oi sexy' I would look down on him as a person as much as I would a builder who did the same but would not judge the whole profession.

On the other hand, if one woman's only experience of builders was that they continually harrassed her she might be forgiven for thinking they are all like that, no?

DitaVonCheese the builders in my example didn't yell at anyone or wolf whistle at anyone whether they acknowledged them or not.

They also were working inside the same premises in close quarters every day to these women to the degree they even moved out of their way regularly, so not some random person you need to walk past in the street.

Dueling yes true and you personally have a very healthy 'take as you find' attitude to people.
But l don't think it is ever right or intelligent to tarnish everybody with the same brush and these days as wolf whistling etc does seem to be much less prolific l doubt there are many women out there who have only ever met leery harassing type builders.

Spsfanjo* ooh keep me updated,good luck as long as it's not my DH,cos he's not a whistler

LyingWitch l beg to differ having observed this behaviour for weeks at work. It was a large hospital so not a case of people only speaking to colleagues they know, these women definitely didn't ignore anyone else,anaesthetists to photocopier repair man (also contractors) all got acknowledged, it was only the builders that got the nose in the air.

The girl l asked about it, actually stood in the kitchen with me making her lunch and walked out with me as they stepped aside and completely blanked them,no thank you, eye contact, nothing. She definitely wasn't like that in general with males or females which is why l asked her about it.

Also how is enjoying a little banter or a little light relief from the daily grind, the same as being such a precious snowflake you cant get through the day without demanding attention.

Begonia I agree that very possibly is the reason in some cases and the bad name and generalisation has stuck. In other cases l do still think it is a case of looking down on them as lower down the pecking order (and not just because theyre in a ditch).

When I was 17 I was walking past some scaffolding and a bloke at the very top shouted down 'hello fatty!'. Absolutely crushed me. Had very low self-esteem anyway and yes, was (and am still) overweight. But why would someone do that? What's the mentality?

Sudaname... the girl you refer to might have generally felt awkward around builders perhaps? I don't know. I would have said 'thank you', that's the polite thing to do.

Enjoying banter is quite alright... the only sticking point being that the potential bantering partner might not welcome it. That makes it not ok, doesn't it? I've smiled at builders and other random people in the street because I generally do smile a lot, some smile back and others take it as an invitation to chat, which it wasn't. Those tend to be builders; perhaps because they're 'static' rather than walking off somewhere.

Some builders do attention-seek. I don't know why they do this. It's annoying to me - not to other women, I accept that. Why do they feel the need to engage with women? How come they don't whistle at men? Why can't they just get on with what they're doing and leave others to do the same?

It's the unshakeable 'entitlement' that some seem to have towards getting a response from women that makes them a little bit pathetic, I think.

wolf whistling is different than banter though isn't it? Banter is two sided, both people can take something from a banter-y interaction.

Wolf whistling is one sided, with the aim of intimidating.

sudaname - I am pretty sure the thread OP is talking about men who do this kind of thing, not just builders.
Any man who finds it acceptable to holler at women is a bit of a dick IMO and I don't think that's an unusual or unreasonable opinion to have. Builders were only mentioned a few times before you posted.

Can l just clarify that l absolutely do not agree with any sort of jeering,whistling calling out whatever if its purpose is to insult or hurt someones feelings. Some of the examples above are horrible examples of bullying.

I really still don't get though that wolf whistling (of the usual variety) is aggressive or done with the aim of intimidating.

I do think it is a little dated these days and is dying out and belonged more in the fifties/sixties/seventies when it was normal practice to shout out 'Hello gorgeous' or wolf whistle at a pretty girl/woman and so men who still do it, l think of as a bit old school/behind the times whatever. But l don't think they are being aggressive or trying to intimidate me or the recipient - l wouldn't take it that far personally.

Lyingwitch yes l think she did but because as she explained she thought they would think her speaking to them would be misconstrued as coming onto them - hence the total blank.

Yes l agree banter should be a two way thing with both parties comfortable or cease immediately.

I think many women in the 50s/60s/70s still found it a right pain in the arse to be shouted at in the street even if it was nice stuff.
In fact many people didn't/don't think having 'hello gorgeous' yelled at them in the street is a very nice thing to have to put up with.

What do you think about men who shout stuff out at teenage girls in the street? Like a 13 year old walking home from school? is that just a bit of friendly fun?

I think Duelling has made a very good point. I think my judgement is probably very much clouded by the fact that I was leer at, whistle at - and even physically groped - whilst I was a schoolgirl (in uniform). It wasn't harmless, I was scared and now, when I see threads like this, my perception is skewed by the age group that I'm thinking of (young girl) whereas other posters might be thinking of adult women.

Sudaname... I wasn't specifically referring to builders either, apologies if it seemed that way. I think it must have something to do with the fact that builders stay 'on site' and so the 'prey' (sorry for inflammatory word!) comes to them. I don't believe that they mean harm by whistling but that still doesn't remove the fact that some women just don't like it for whatever reason. Because the whistlers have no idea whether this attention is welcome, they run the risk of offending when they do it to the wrong person.

It's ok Lyingwitch* l didn't take it as a personal attack on builders in particular and l'm only married to one of them and friends with a few - so certainly not blindly sticking up for them all - was just giving my perspective from an 'insider' of that community if you will.

Let's face it, it would be hard to have a debate about rights or wrongs of wolf-whistling without builders coming into it really .

So when they did - that's when l posted in reply Dualling.

U is cool, may have been posted already?

Well, I might come across as a bit stand-offish because I would usually avoid all eye contact with a big group of men, esp. those that are openly looking at me, because giving eye contact can be read as an invitiation to engage, and to engage specifically in gendered exchanges predicated on sexual availability/ interest/ status. It's fuck all to do with their class or occupation, and everything to do with being openly stared at, living in a culture where trying to appear attractive is used as a justification for sexual harrassment, assault, and rape; and living in a culture where women are held accountable for the way that men behave towards them.

It's especially annoying then, when women harrassed in this way are either blamed for it or accused of being a PITA for not accepting it with good cheer. I find this all very irritating, because I just think it should be my right to appear in public space (on the way to the shops, for example) without that being seen as an invitation to appraise my attractiveness, with on the spot, publicly delivered feedback. Which all just adds a further degree of coldness and stand-offishness to the way I handle it, I bet, because I am silently fuming and my MO in such situations is icy.

But as I've said upthread, it's not really about the target anyway, but about the whistler making a public statement about their sexual status. So again in response to the OP, it seems especially odious that she be picked out for use as a prop for the masculine identity claims of the whistler in her example.