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

Should clarify that dd gets dates without having to catcall…

she doesn’t scream nice pecs out of the car or stand outside onestop whistling!

I hated it, it wasn't just builders, men who worked in garages I found were worse. I used to be sent to the bank by work, I hated it, walking up the high street, getting unwanted attention and I was nothing special.

I remember feeling incredibly uncomfortable being beeped and wolf whistled walking home in my sports kit when I was underage...just wrong and completely gross - but I do recall my mum saying 'just take it as a compliment' which seemed so odd, even back then.

I think that [some] men and women lived with different approaches to risk and powerlessness in the past.
Sometimes when I think about, say Tudor times I wonder how people got up and lived their lives, with death hanging over them all the time (either because you were poor and vulnerable to disease, malnutrition, accidents, etc) or because you were rich (still vulnerable to disease, also vulnerable to political currents etc) . I think you can look back on even the second half of the 20th century and see it slightly in those terms - that for many people there was just nothing they could do, and a happy go lucky attitude was more prevalent and in some ways pretty rational.

Being cat called is a reminder that the stronger, bigger sex can do what they like with you. But - what are you doing to do? You can accept it and have a bit of fun. Men have to go down mines and might get killed in industrial accidents. Women have to be at the mercy of men. It was a different way of looking at life. You see this now in a lot of older women - they just don't question that men call the shots, the thing is how you work the system to your advantage.

I think some sex positive young women now are taking a similarly never-say-die attitude but they dress it up in trendier language and it's within a different political / moral framework.

I'm a worrier, a feminist and an overthinker so the "what are you doing to do" attitude never came naturally to me. But you know it's like everyone drinking 3 pints at lunchtime and operating heavy machinery afterwards, or men being sent to the front in a world war - dangerous world right

I would have thought it's down to socialisation. Women outside in male space were seen as fair game. Baubles there for titillation, not fully human and asking for it. Women were told that they should be flattered that men took notice of them as that was their function in society, that their worth was tied up in their ability to attract men.

i am 58 and it started at age 11 and i absolutely hated it. hated walking past groups of men, hated men in cars beeping their horns to make you jump. Hated the fact you couldn't go anywhere and just BE - it always seemed to be linked to some man's appraisal of you.
I remember getting a trade union job in the early 90s and the creepy manager saying I was so pretty they should stick me in the window to get clients in. I was like Thanks? i thought i'd been hired for my knowledge and skills....
I've had some nice compliments off strange men and I remember them fondly- but they were COMPLIMENTS. Not some bloke yelling "Fuck off, you ugly slag I wouldnt fancy you anyway.."

This. Honestly if people genuinely enjoyed this I suspect they’d have been brought up in a sexist and pretty backward environment.

I find it odd that some women found it flattering. I don’t mean to put anyone down here, but it didn’t mean you were especially attractive as they did it every woman under the age of about 50 and every young girl.

I never thought “oh yes now pretty I am, I now feel really good about myself” as I walked past. I knew they were doing it to every woman/girl.

Not true it never happens to me now and I’m 35 so yes I would say attraction is part of it of course!

Is it because you're less attractive or because the men are choosing to letch over teenagers and younger women irrespective of attraction?

I'm 57 and hated it. My sister liked it but she had very low self esteem.

Post I’m quoting says every woman under 50

I got it a lot and loathed it. I used to tell them to fuck off but it is such an intrusion into your personal space that it would annoy me for ages. The amount of manhandling, (including sexual assault,) sexist comments, catcalling and so on in the 70s was shocking. It was everywhere and then you got called a frigid bitch or a lesbian if you didn’t respond positively. I loved it when I got a walkman at the end of the 70s and I could put headphones on and block out the worst of it.

If you are “only” 35 then you have grown up in a totally different era than someone in their late 50’s or over. Main contractors now are part of good contractor schemes etc. I imagine now if workers behaved in the way they did in the 1970’s they would be disciplined and probably sacked. Thank God younger women are not experiencing the whistling/catcalling as generally as women my age did.

Good points - the offensive come backs if you didn't smile or giggle were absolutely vile.

As other women have said upthread - going past any building site was like walking the gauntlet of crass sexual remarks.

I'm 68,i had boobs at 10. My body looked like an adult body, my face didn't. I hated the catcalling, I hated having to walk past groups of men, the leering, the comments, the whistling. I lived in a garrison town and many a time, I've had groups of soldiers pass wholly unacceptable comments. I mean how original is ' you don't get many of them to the pound'? And to a child? Men talked to my chest, not to me.
It was disgusting. They were all someone's son, husband, brother, boyfriend. But they treated women like walking boobs.
No, as you can tell, I wasn't flattered.

Again referring to the poster saying under 50. I have experienced catcalling (not building site) but it doesn’t happen now im older and less attractive I’m sure it still happens to younger attractive women

This is it. It's about being female, not attractive
I get it worse now I'm in my 40s, maybe the confidence of getting older? I get things whispered as I walk past, beeps, shouting out of windows, intense staring. I find it intimidating, I want to be noticed as a person like fellow women notice me, not a piece of meat

Really? I'm 42, not hideous looking and don't experience anything like this. Not saying I don't believe you by the way...it's just not something that I experience. When I was younger and prettier and thinner, cat calling and whistling were much more frequent.

I hated being catcalled then and I wouldn't like it now. However, some women have a different viewpoint. IMHE they are the same women who thought that Page 3 girls were harmless and didn't like to think about it too deeply because the thought of a creepy middle-age bloke lusting over them made hem feel queasy.

I'm almost 60. I hated it. My mum hated it too.

However, she also held women somehow responsible for it.

It still happens to me and I'm 56. It's not down to attractiveness at all it's down to a woman going about her business and not taking notice of men. They feel butthurt about that and it's their tiny-mind mission to remind women that they, the MEN, have every right to insert themselves into a woman's day. Any woman's day.

I'm guessing that because you didn't mind this, you smiled/simpered and so played the game. If you had ignored them or told them to fuck off (which they would have rightly deserved), you would have likely received a volley of abuse for daring not to be flattered.

I won't judge you for enjoying this tripe if you don't judge me or other women who don't like it and please don't denigrate our experiences because they aren't yours.

56 year old here. No, it was horrible. YA definitely NBA.

This is what the issue is, isn't it? The women who like this dog-whistling from men, who feel flattered by it, are having the scales falling from their eyes in the realisation that this disgusting knuckle-dragging behaviour isn't reserved for the young and pretty. That must be a real sucker punch for those women.

I dress well, generally am quite a cheerful person and I'm mostly along when I'm out walking. I'm not young (I'm 56) and certainly not beautiful - but I'm a woman. That is the only qualification needed. It's about power, not attractiveness. Sorry to say it, think it's because you're young and pretty if you like.

These morons do not whistle at men, they leave men alone. It is women who are the targets, we always have been and always will be.