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

I'm 56 and I got this crap from my parents for years, wolf whistling and bottom pinching apparently being 'flattering' and I should learn to take a compliment, yadda yadda (and presumably I was supposed to respond with a Barbara Windsor-style, 'Ooh, saw-cy!' before walking off with my butt wiggling. 🙄)

I definitely think it's a generational thing!

This. ^ So, @LondonFox, apparently lots of women aged between 18-58 started simpering and giggling, and 'adjusting their hair;' saying they've 'still got it' - when you made the noise of a cat 'in a busy place?! (Because they thought it was a man 'cat-calling!')

WTAF?!!! 😂

How embarrassing for you @LondonFox 😬 I suggest you look up what cat-calling actually is! As I said earlier, it is NOT someone emulating the sound of a bloody cat!

I am 52 and hated it. I remember once buying myself a nice ice cream and not being able to eat it as builders were making disgusting noises whenever I put it to my mouth. My mother , on the other had would always say that it was harmless etc but I do think there was an element of minimising her own trauma in the way she said this.

How the fuck is 'meowing' verbal flirting?! 😂

When you're in a hole, STOP DIGGING. Know when to stop @LondonFox

You're embarrassing yourself! 😬 You got it spectacularly wrong with your weird anecdote. Just own it. 😎

.

I hate to hear things decribed as generational. I could be more or less the same age as your parents and I didn't like it or feel flattered by it. My parents brought me up not to feel I should permit it and my father, who laid gas and water mains in London, did not allow his team to do it.

@godmum56

I think that this poster @bringincrazyback is saying it's more likely to be say, people born before 1955, who have the attitude that it's OK/ normal/ acceptable for men to be gropy and pervy, (and women should suck it up and even be flattered,) than it is to be people born late 1950s and after that. That doesn't mean ALL people born pre 1955 think like this. My mother certainly did not and neither did my grandmothers!

It's just people aged 70+ are more likely to have this mindset. It's not a sweeping generalisation, or 'ageist.' It's pretty much true. More people over 70 will have this mindset than younger people. But not ALL of them will.

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I am 59, I likef it. I felt flattered! Usually i ignored it, sometimes id give a wave. I think perceptions have changed now.

Nope, not the first time it happened when I was 9, or now at 46. Although since hitting 40 I'm practically invisible which is bloody great!

I am over 55, by a few years.

If I was in a group, somewhere fairly busy like the town centre and felt safe it could be fun. We'd roll our eyes and carry on.

If I was on my own, I hated it. It felt scary.

Oh please.
It's not like I did not whistle after women or fake voiced "hot" just to prove my point.

Some women will make a funny face, some will be flatered and look around who said it.

Just stop with your idiotic idea that all women on the earth think men are pestering sex pervs.
Flirting is normal part of human life ffs.

Why were you harassing flirting with strangers? We're you trying to pull or just make someone's day?

I am 42 and I cheekily voted on behalf of my DM who is not on MN. She always loved it and still does, and cannot understand the fact that it makes my blood boil.

This. ^ @LondonFox's posts are fast becoming the most batshit on the thread! 😬

Especially given the fact that she thought meowing at people is 'catcalling' and (allegedly) all the women in her vicinity smiled and simpered and fluffed their hair like simpletons, (when she meowed near them!) because they thought they were being hit on!

LMFAO! 😂

Seriously @LondonFox Just own your mistake!!! You got it wrong what a catcall is! Seriously stop it! 😆 And stop embellishing this bonkers anecdote of yours!!!!!! It's batshit! 😂

.

I was just curious how people will react.
Same way OP was when she started this thread.

And obviously, as a woman,I cannot fake voice the whole "hi gorgeous, lucky is the man you are meeting now".
So I ended up with whistles and mewos as I foumd barking idiotic and hostile.

We thought it was great. Didn't enjoy getting my arse felt, in every bloody pub though. It made no difference that you were with a man either. Now that I'm older and wiser (55) I love my invisibility, and couldn't care less what random men think of me.

We were conditioned! So yes, it was a good thing. It's bollocks of course and we are all victims of the patriarchy. I'm 57

NC for this because it’s very outing. I’m not in your age range requested op, but not far off and I’ve always hated it. Added to that, I work in construction and have done for decades. Many years ago when I was around 25 I was walking past one of our sites to meet a client. There began a chorus of “get your tits out for the lads”. I put down my brief case, climbed the scaffold in my trouser suit and stiletto boots and sacked the lot of them. Their faces were a bloody picture. They never worked for us again and it never did my career or self esteem any harm at all.
Thankfully the industry has changed a lot since then!

I remember as a small child my mum used to get beeped at and whistled at and I think she liked it

Nowadays everybody is offended by everything

Yes you correct.

If women like it then it's because we have been conditioned to believe we need to appeal to the male gaze and that we need male attention to validate us

No. It wasn't flattering, funny, or necessary. In all my years, I have never done this to a man, and it has never crossed my mind to do so.

I’m 65 and can remember being flattered if I got wolf whistled at when a teen/early 20’s but I think we were all more innocent and less worldly wise back then even the men. As I matured and a became more aware of feminism I started to change my mind about it. It’s far more sinister these days as it comes from men who’s brains are porn addled.

Have you been catcalled yourself? How did you feel?

@LondonFox so in a public place you, a woman, stood their meowing and whistling, and other women reacted by patting their hair and being flattered?

Thanks for your contribution to the thread, made me laugh. Did you also flap your arms like a chicken and make a long brrrrrrrrrrrrrr noise? You know, as any old random noises and actions will make women giggle and fan their faces.

I'm surprised the voting is so close. Who the hell enjoys being harassed by cretins?

Fair comment. I just meant that relatively speaking there seemed to be so much more of that mindset about in my parents' generation than there is in mine.