Did women used to enjoy being catcalled?

[Gofastboatsmojito]

Hi,

Filtering a recent discussion with my stepmum I just wanted to survey the 55+ year olds of mumsnet to check whether I'm way off.

She is absolutely insistent that in her youth women (most? all?) enjoyed being whistled or shouted appreciatively at when waking past a building site.

She thinks women's perception of this has changed in the last 20 years. All her friends enjoyed it in the 70s and 80s apparently.

For context she has been the subject of male violence including sexual violence and does not equate the two.

I find it hard to believe everyone enjoyed it and assume that women felt a lot less able to say they didn't like it due to fear of being called frigid, uptight etc.

I'm sure the answer might lie somewhere between the two extremes but just wondering what an AIBU poll might say.

V grateful if women of age 55+ only vote

YABU = in my youth the majority of women I knew considered a wolf whistle as a cheeky but welcome compliment

YANBU = I didn't enjoy this even in the 70s

@PocketSand

Do any of you remember the 'nice legs, shame about the face' - I seem to remember it was a 'song'. Builders loved the 'compliment' followed by put down.

Urgh I remember that. Late 70s/early 80s? Was that an actual song by a recording artist? Or just playground “bantz”? I remember some of the boys at my primary school used to sing it. I sang it casually at home and my mum gave me proper bollocking. As she should have done.

That song was an late 70s number by ' the monks'. Not a nice song

Used to be common for people to say 'little girls should be seen and not heard'.
Girls started collecting a bottom draw for when they got married very early on.
My dad said he wouldn't leave daughters money in his will as we would get married (never did).

We were supposed to be grateful for male attention. Every generation of woman has their own set of problems. The mass consumption of porn is awful now.

My mum told me stories of her time working as a 17 year old secretary in a male dominated environment. She said this was a daily occurrence when her and the other secretaries were just walking through the workplace and she would often get her arse slapped on the way past!

Imagine a man doing that to a 17 year old now:

Yes my mum and women in her generation (born in 50s) seem flattered, don't mind the idea of age gaps, say men are "just like that" if you mention cheating or being pervy. "Men will be men"
Different times, thank fuck it's changing albeit slowly

You think cat-calling is meowing? Hilarious. Shows how fictional your little anecdote is.

Yuck

Used to be common for people to say 'little girls should be seen and not heard'.

My dad, to his credit, changed this to “little girls should be obscene and not absurd.”

I try to live by this.

I used to enjoy it in my 20s after years of poor self image. But only if it was good natured in tone, such as a whistle or cheer, hello beautiful that type of thing. Sexual remarks or aggressive not so much

I probably shouldn't reply as you asked for only women 55+ to reply and I'm younger. I used to find it flattering when I was in my 20s (doesn't happen to me anymore, now I'm older and look a bit more 'mumsy'). My friends were fine with it too. Maybe my friends and I have 'wrong' attitudes, I don't know.

If it makes any difference to how you see my reply to you, maybe I should mention that we did similar to good-looking men. "Hello handsome" and similar. So we didn't feel there was any sexism because both sexes did it, at least with people I knew.

One woman said, "It starts with the 'Hello darling' and wolf whistles and it goes right through to rape. It's exactly the name kind of sexism." Perhaps that's true.

I was sexually assaulted when younger, and one of my friends has been raped. Again maybe her and me have 'wrong' attitudes and it definitely seems to be an unpopular or controversial view today? But we both feel that equating non harassing brief wolf whistling or a "hello darling" with sexual assault and rape is offensive. And actually sometimes harmful, as it seems to have caused some people, including sometimes support services, to take sexual assault victims in need of support less seriously and/or provide less help.

I should add though there's a difference between a brief imo harmless wolf whistle/hello darling/hello handsome as someone's walking past, versus an intimidating and harassing persistent won't take no for an answer.

Just don't do it at all and then it leaves no margin for error. Women will give an inch and men will take a mile.

I'm 61 and had unwanted attention from men from about the age of 13....hated it so much

@Snackingandacupoftea - no, the author didn't equate cat calling and wolf whistling with rape. She was saying that it's part of a continuum. By allowing and condoning it, in emboldens men to push further.

@Disturbia81 there's a difference between a brief passing harmless flirty comment or whistle - from women (like my friends and I used to do to men) or from men, versus harassment.

Equating the first with the second is imo harmful to victims of genuine sexual harassment and assault.

FFS, believe it or not there are indeed clubs and bars outside town centres and cities. Yes really. Guess what? I also ventured outside my area too weirdly.

My experience is mine and you were neither there with me or your mother for that matter. The OP asked for people’s experiences, I gave mine and it’s not your place to question it because your mums experience was different.

@BeatrizBoniface I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. As someone who's experienced sexual assault, I find it offensive to equate a brief passing flirty wolf whistle or "hello darling" with sexual harassment or assault. I don't believe it's related either. Like I said, my friends and I used to do the same to men (with no complaints from the men as, like when men did it to us, it was a brief passing whistle or throwaway flirty comment).

No. I just said, she's not equating it.
I'm not either.
I never would.
It's about an acceptable culture.

Exactly! No tolerance gives a clear my message

I left school at 18 and went to work in an office in London. I was harassed on the train and at work - sexual comments and touching, followed by men in the street. Building sites were the worst - dozens of men would turn and shout obscenities at you, van drivers would slow down to call out (this was mid 1980s onwards).

Once, two men walked behind me loudly making comments and one of them said “you’re going to get raped in a minute if you keep ignoring us”. This was in broad daylight and I was a teenager.

I hated every minute of it and it’s very nice when you walk past a building site and everyone just gets on with their work.

Thank you! Also, I hope it's clear that no-one is equating it.

It's all connected. Women being seen as sexual objects and it being okay to view them like prey opens the door to anything goes. There are a lot of men in this world who are messed up, unintelligent, predators.. the clear message that none of it is acceptable is what's needed and thankfully it's slowly going that way.

Totally agree. We were supposed to be flattered but I found it very uncomfortable, embarrassing and intimidating. I would cross over the road rather than walk by a building site well into my 20s (up to mid 80s)

These days, it doesn't seem to be that innocent, vans slowing down and shouting "get your tits out" to 14 year old's or shouting fat comments to women running

To be clear, that's very different to what I'm defending and what I experienced when younger. Wolf whistles or "hello darling" type of brief passing thing - when an adult. Adult men shouting "get your tits out" to a child or making nasty fat comments to women is definitely not ok or harmless.

I did once as a young teen experience a flasher. I was with my friend at a bus stop. We unfortunately gave him what he wanted - attention. Although maybe not what he wanted. We started laughing and saying "it's that small?". He covered up and wandered off quickly. As an adult I realise we probably should've called the police but we were young teens and didn't think about it afterwards.

That sort of perversion/harassment is imo completely different to adults (men or women) wolf whistling or saying "hello darling/gorgeous/handsome" briefly in passing to other adults.

It's proveably a continuum. Sex offenders don't jump straight to rape. This has ben well documented for decades.

It starts with a feeling of entitlement, it progresses through comments, 'accidental' groping through to indecent exposure and sexual assault and worse.

A culture that allows men to regard women as objects not people, to publicly comment and judge, to see women as lesser or as having value in direct relation to their perceived attractiveness to men is a culture that turns a blind eye to misogyny, sexism, abuse and ultimately assault.

As the majority of women who were in the workplace during the 70s, 80s and 90s were sexually assaulted, I think we know what we're talking about.

It wasn't thought of as sexual assault then. It was part of life in the workplace if you were powerless and we were expected to put up with it.

"Smile, avoid this bloke on the stairwell, never get in a lift alone with that bloke, never accept a lift home from work, make sure the filing roomn door can't close, watch out for that one, he gets handsey..." the older women tried to warn us or look out for us where they could.

Not just patting our asses but sliding a hand up a skirt or down a blouse, groping our backsides or 'accidentally' brushing against our breasts, tipping things over to peer down our tops... making sure any young woman who kicked up a stink was let go or 'difficult to work with' and had prospects curtailed and promotions passed over.

I've been sexually assaulted in the workplace in bars and restaurants (drunk punters aren't the only ones) but also working in a supermarket, civil service, office jobs in heavy industry and in PR jobs in media. In volunteer roles in hospital and the third sector.

There's a lot in society that's worse for women and girls now, but I do thank the gods that this worksplace shit is largely a thing of the past.

Looking back to late seventies and into the eighties it was just what happened but I was never comfortable with it.

when I was about eighteen I had a boss who drank a lot, all the managers had a whiskey in the afternoon (or earlier) where I worked.

I had one very uncomfortable proposition by our top boss, he must have been about 55 then. Gross. I make my feeble excuse and legged it. He’s probably dead now but if I were to come across him now I’d be calling out his vulgar behaviour.