To think that wolf whistling wasn't such a bad thing?

[NovemberMorn]

Joanna Lumley has just given an interview in which she says..."I never minded wolf whistling, I always thought it was tremendous".

She also said... "I think we were a little bit tougher then. Somebody put their hand on your leg, you didn’t feel affronted and report it. You’d give them a slap.”

Do you think she is right?

😆 Yep, as you know Ms Lumley very much did imply (as you know I said imply not said) that women and children who are horrified and degraded by street harassment are weak when she stated I think we were a little bit tougher then. Somebody put their hand on your leg, you didn’t feel affronted and report it.

That can't be argued.

But you already know that 😅😂😆

Yep women and children who hate and detest street harassment are indeed allowed to have a different opinion to you. Thanks for understanding that.

But if you enjoy strange men making weird noises at you, no problem.

You do you.

The harassment on this thread towards anyone who doesn't agree, is coming from women who are screaming about harassment of a different sort.
Stinks of hypocrisy to me.

Ladies, contain yourselves, you may not be up a scaffold, but you are certainly coming across as trying to intimidate others.🙄

Did you think if you started a thread you could tell other people what to say?

The fact that your original post has met with wide disagreement in clear and fair terms must be annoying, but try to contain yourself, you are coming across as trying to police the words, feelings and experiences of others.

Yes, it's good you have some insight into your behaviour. Well done.

Meanwhile, the women and children who find strange men making weird noises at them harassing, distressing and horrible will just continue to state those facts. And those who enjoy having strange men make weird noises at them will continue to do so.

Anyway, your original question has been very clearly answered. Many many women and children despise street harassment, regardless of what you and Ms Lumley choose to believe.

Maybe we are all getting “tough”, which you advocate.

Also, the hypocrisy of you calling the opposing view yo yours out, yet women shouting hysteria you seem to have missed.

Good to see 73% of voters thing YABU.

In that case, i don't believe pp's saying they have seen 10 year olds behind whistled at. In your world, because you haven't experienced something,, you accuse people of lying about it. I'll do the same.

so again I’ll ask, how do they ID these 18 year old? Passport? Driving license?

Yeah, they don’t! They’ve no idea how old they are.

City of london

all office blocks ( some under construction hence builders) and no schools in vicinity

women in power suits carrying briefcases

get the scene?

oh I see no children around for them to street harass, so they didn’t!

Slow hand clap for them….. aren’t they just great.

But you keep trying to say they did it as a choice.

They street harassed what was available to them ……

You’ve really not proved a point here at all!

@Bbq1

In that case, i don't believe pp's saying they have seen 10 year olds behind whistled at. In your world, because you haven't experienced something,, you accuse people of lying about it. I'll do the same.

I was a child when I was wolf whistled at repeatedly. I therefore know men wolf whistled children. Because I was one of them. That's a fact.

You were wolf whistled by builders. You cannot have known their ages for certain. You don't know that all of them were in their 20s. So it's opinion, not fact.

You say they only wolf whistled women over 18. You don't know what they did when you weren't there. So it's opinion, not fact.

You know what I find interesting? I walked past the same buildings sites aged 11-early teens and was whistled at repeatedly. Not every builder. But, and this is a big but, if it happened repeatedly, that means the whistler wasn't reported, wasn't had-a-word with, wasn't fired, wasn't thumped by the dads who were builders, wasn't taken aside.

The other builders heard it, saw me, knew what was happening. So even if every builder wasn't a pervert, and many clearly were for it to happen in more than one place, most of the builders didn't care enough to do anything about it. Which reflects my general experience. Hundreds of incidents of street harassment (some of it really unpleasant and sometimes physical), I can count on one hand the men who intervened, even to check I was OK. One of those men was a stranger who is still a friend to this day.

And in terms of numbers, somewhere around 1-3% of men find children attractive sexually. So yes, there probably is one on a decent sized building site.

The only time I've ever thought 'fair play' when harassed in the street was in another country, DH (who looks like a harder, taller Mike Tyndall) was with me, and it was a pure compliment, not creepy. I didn't feel unsafe and I over 30. Maybe that's a compliment, said honestly. That was not my experience as a child.

I saw a video on SM that started with a man looking at a woman, to one then commenting on her appearance in what he thinks is a complimentary way, to one saying something threatening to one stalking and so on.
I am probably not explaining it very well but it explains how things escalate if we accept seemingly "minor" things.
I will see if I can find it

This is hilarious. No school children around so they didn't harass them. Logic fail, much?

I remember the first time it happened I was in my school uniform walking home. I was 12 and had just developed breasts. It was a builder working next to my parent's house. It made me feel horrible and it was the day I started to feel self-conscious about my body and how I held myself. I wore big baggy jumpers even in summer. The last time it happened I was 38 and pregnant some bloke opened his window and yelled MILF at me. Same feeling horror and objectification. I love being 46 and ignored by men finally being able to walk past a group of blokes and be invisible. I have two daughters and I don't want it to happen to them.... Please don't apologise excuse and enable vile behaviour.

Agree. Let’s be honest the sort of men who whistle at women on the street are probably the type who would chat up a stray dog if it wiggled its arse in front of them

Its not exactly flattering to be one of many randoms they heckle and cat call

Exactly!

I think it has a lot to do with anno domini. I don't think anyone's In the as mentioned it here but I always gave the two fingers, middle finger these days, sign which felt like a reasonable response. If you consider how inferior they thought we were, they felt entitled to do all sorts thet no man in his right mind would do today.

I sometimes used to do things like this. Often met with immediate change in demeaner to 'frigid bitch', angry face and similar.

It was like a really shit Choose your Own Adventure. Will he become abusive if you are nice? Will he become abusive if you're nasty. Turn to page 20 to find out how bad he will get and how quickly.

This thread has unlocked a memory of being harassed as a child...ugh, awful. My friend and I were about 12 and were walking along our street, and a man with very light-blonde hair kept passing us in his car, yelling things. We were terrified. And a whistle when I was 13 had me shaking...yes, young girls were definitely harassed on the street 35-40 years ago. I think there were more incidents as a child but I don't want to remember.

Anno domini? It happens because we're in the post-Christ era?? Eh?

I also gave two fingers when I felt safe to do so, which was only on my uni campus, at a distance in the day with lots of others around. Often the street harassment happened on a quiet road or when I was very young, so I'd just ignore it as I was too scared to do anything else.

Had quite forgotten about the amount of street harassment age 12-18. Vile.

Yep, the builders on my uni campus really, really didn't like it when I yelled back at them and gave them the finger.

That's such an apt metaphor about a shit Choose Your Own Adventure. That's exactly what it was like.

I think that's the point right there. The women who liked men wolf whistling and yelling to them considered it a compliment because they were convinced they were personally chosen for this reaction based on their beauty, charm and sex appeal. That's why so many are in denial about children and elderly women also being "chosen" for street harassment.

A male acquaintance once turned to me in a packed bar and said, "You have a fantastic pair of breasts." For context, it was my basque/skimpy tops phase. His wife verbally agreed with him. I never felt threatened or embarrassed and dh was there, although out of earshot at the time. I didn't feel threatened by this man before or after that and I just think it was an clumsily put compliment. Men can make comments/pay compliments /whistle without being paedophiles or predators.