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?

Sounds like my mum. She claims
shes never been sexually harassed but men have groped her and whistled at her when she was younger and she thought this was a compliment, she wishes they would now.

No one said men can’t pay compliments, what they said was they shouldn’t be street harassing.

Some women take it how it is meant as sexist and misogynistic. So that’s why it’s mostly outdated now.

Thank god!

She was conditioned that way, sadly!

You completely missed my point.
I have not said that women who are distressed by wolf whistles should not say so, that is their experience, they are entitled to state it and say how uncomfortable it made them feel.
I already acknowledged that fact hundreds of posts back.
No one is haranguing them to not feel that way.

The women who have said it was, to them inconsequential, part of life, and they did not find it threatening, are being browbeaten into changing their minds, and none will, because that was how they felt at that time.

The snide comments that they must have been desperate for the attention, they set the bar low for themselves, etc....are just mean girl tactics and a form of bullying.

That's my opinion, and no amount of you repeating yourself will change it.

I loved wolf whistling (once as a student had a whole building site cheering me and chanting as I passed through the whole length of the street - I felt fantastic!) but hated leg touching/unwanted groping!

And you should hate it too. It only happened to me once, a hand on the knee, and he regretted it.
I don't equate wolf whistling with groping.

Oh dear @DurbevillesGirl2 wait for the pile on. How dare you enjoy builders cheering you they will say! How you must have such low self esteem! Like you, I say it was a harmless, fleeting thing that gave a bit of a lift to the day but so many pp's on here see them as closet sex offenders or paedophiles. It's also okay for them to say they hated it but not okay for us to say, like JL that we quite enjoyed it.

Takes all kinds to make a world….. but the vast majority have spoken here!

I remember the first time I was whistled at, it was a builder and I was 14 and in school uniform.

Lets keep whistling for dogs.

I've known one or two women who reported positive feelings about being catcalled, but most I know hated it, including me.

It makes me wonder if the ones that liked it were actually experiencing more friendly rather than sexual content. Like, the difference between "Looking good today!" and "Nice legs. Would look better open." (Yes, that was said to me in street harassment once.)

Going back to the harassment of children, you have to wonder what kind of grown men would harass tween girls in school uniform, who are quite clearly children. So disgusting. And it happened a lot. To me, anyway.

Yes 'here'. No doubt elsewhere the comments would be different.

Did you read the stats that @meh2025 posted?

But it’s here you asked the question and now you’ve not got the response you want, you’re saying it’s because of the audience.

I have no investment in the way women have responded, I have found it interesting.
You said... the vast majority have spoken here! I am saying no doubt elsewhere it would be different.
I make that observation on the women I know/have known, who were around when wolf whistling was a lot more common than it is today.

You don’t seem like you’ve found it interesting, you seem quite wound up by the response.

Agree with you, just can't be arsed saying it all again, ok i will say it one last time, wolf whistle happened, cud easily have been by some of your brothers, fathers, uncles, shock horror, imagine that!!! majority of wolf whistles were harmless, they weren't predators or perverts, just young lads having the laugh on a building site, they whistled and more than likely forgot about it 2 mins later, it happened a lot in the 80s and 90s, majority of women found it probably at best a bit annoying, of course a few woukd have felt embarrassed but life was different then, for bettet or worse, it doesn’t happen now, because like everything, times have changed but for the love of God get over it. Its ridiculous we had this discussion a while ago with friends and you wouldn't believe that some of us laughed at it, but then we're mature women in our 50s who have gone through so much and lived through so much that a few wolf whistles didn't scar us for life and majority on here weren't scarred either...I'm finished with this now😘

The snide comments that they must have been desperate for the attention, they set the bar low for themselves, etc....are just mean girl tactics and a form of bullying.

Voluntarily going onto a chat forum, chatting, and not liking the responses = bullying.

Whistling at women going about their business in the street, not asking for your input = great.

Got it.

I feel exactly the same, for many women it just didn't warrant a second thought.
Life seemed a lot safer too. I know I was comfortable walking alone through town at night 20 or 30 years ago, I certainly would not nowadays.

I went to hell and back with catcalling. My life was made a complete misery. I experienced it from mid-teens onwards. Eventually, in the mid 1980s, I had a nervous breakdown, because I could not cope with trying to get from A to B without random blokes yelling obscenities at me, invading my space and harassing me - a complete stranger. I still bear the scars and feelings of panic, and I am 61 years old now.

I find that very extreme.

No she's not right. It's about control not appreciation. It's being reminded that you are an object on display.
Most women just want to go about their day to day business without being objectified.
I'm not talking about when you are all dressed up and in the club and a man is genuinely trying to come onto you or compliment you when youve very obviously dressed up.. but even then I don't think they should touch you if they don't know you.
But being wolf whistled at on the street when you are just minding your own business is beyond grim. It's just a power move. It's dehumanising. It's basically men saying 'I don't think of this thing as a complex human i think of it as visual entertainment for me'
I'm glad it's less common now days. It always set my teeth on edge.
And the appealing thing is I was getting whistled at from the age of 11.
And therein lies the issue. These men don't know or care who they are whistling at or how it effects them.
I like it that it's more taboo now.

OP I've pretty much just read your comments, rather than the full thread, but where have you got the idea that wolf whistling or cat calling is a problem of the past? It's sadly not in my experience.
I don't know if I pity women who like that objectification from men, or if I'm embarrassed for them. Perhaps I'm mostly a bit angry that their acceptance and enjoyment of such shit behaviour from men makes life crappier for the rest of us.

This puts it very well. Do you just tolerate it and feel lesser and embarassed and maybe scared, or do you stand up for yourself and risk escalating it to something far worse.

It makes me incredibly sad that little girls and women all over the world are, right now, being harassed by adult men in the street when all they want to do is go out in the world, exist, and get on with their lives without someone trying to sexualise them and make them feel like shit.

If you haven't seen this horrible video, it's worth a watch.

The comments from the creepy red flag men and their handmaidens reflect some of the manpandery going on here too.

And yeah, it very much happens now, sadly. But it's great that at least they now know it is shameful to harass women and children in the street, even if that doesn't stop all of them, at least most of us have now stopped pretending that strange men making weird noises at women and children is somehow normal.

And just a reminder, no matter how many times some women inexplicably pretend that every woman loved it in the old days, or didn't mind, the reality is that the majority of women and girls have always hated it and wanted it stopped.

And if we're going anecdotal I am talking about the 80s, the 60s and the 40s based on what I, my mother and my grandmother said on the subject.

You might have enjoyed strange men making weird noises at you in the street. Many did not, and no matter how much you would like it to be so, history disagrees with you.

And since there is no negative of any kind to street harassment stopping, and women who crave male attention can get it another way, the fact that it has died down a bit is a big win.

Here's hoping it stops altogether since women and children everywhere will be relieved to be allowed to go about their days without being harassed, and those of you who enjoy strange men making weird noises at you can seek it out in other ways.