To have reported these builders ?

[beanieb]

At lunch time I walked to the nearest shops to work and passed a site where there are retirement homes being built. As I walked by a couple of builders whistled and shouted 'oy' . I noticed a sign outside the site saying something about 'considerate construction' so rang it immediately! I wasn't rude but I did point out that shouting at people walking by was hardly considerate.

Why do I feel so guilty then!? MEH!

I find it annoying and unnecessary. I don't care if they have all read 'The Female Eunuch', have PHDs and do volunteer at orphanages in their spare time. I have the right to walk down the street without getting comments on my body. Just STFU and build.

I used to hate it when I was younger. It made me so self-conscious. I remember the dread with which I approached any building site, the feelign of tension as I wondered what they were going to shout, what bit of me they were going to comment on, would it be 'cheer up love' or 'nice tits!' or 'big arse!'. It felt like an assault course, was demeaning and insulting and a total intrusion into my privacy. Can you imagine walking into M&S for your supper and the security man looking you up and down as you go in, saying 'hello big tits', then the bloke at hte fish counter saying 'show us your tits' and then the checkout man saying, 'cheer up love'. It just would NEVER be acceptable.
i've had compliments and I've been cat-called, I have no trouble telling one from the other.

what are you infering when you imply that builders whistle at 14 and 15 year olds?

are you not saying that the builders are sexualising children?

look sweetie we can argue pedantry all night

Kick him in the knackers. That usually puts an abrupt end to the showing off.

and then asking if i am in favour of men cat calling and whistling children

but not saying they are paedos?

yer shittin' me right?

No, I'm saying that all of you who are happy to have builders whistling at you, are also choosing to have them whistling at our female children. Because as we all know, it starts at 13 and 14.

If it's acceptable for us, then it's acceptable for our children, because they don't carry their birth certificates around with them. And I can't tell the difference between a 15 yr old and an 18 yr old I'm not acquainted with, can you?

I don't really know what your argument is, Custy.

my argument is that you bring it down to the lcd.

i don't know of a 13 year old being whistled at.

and if i did, i dont see why i cannot condemn that

and

still think that a uilder whistling at a lady walking by is ok

but you wanted to be a pedant. you asked me straight up if i thought that whistling at children was ok ( what kind of a q is that ffs)

When i said you bring it down to lcd, and now builders who whistle are all paedos, you are saying that you didn't call them paedos at all - in fact only i did

so you don't think that men whistling at 12 year olds are paedos?

This is one of those threads where you thank god for old style mumsnet layout.

I read the latest post and realised there was no point in reading the entire massive thread or hesitating a point about the OP.

Pffft to pages and all wot read them.

I didn't say 12 year olds, though I suppose with earlier puberty, some 12 year olds could look like 18 year olds.

I don't think a man who thinks he is engaging in any social/ sexual way with an adult, can be described as a paedo. If he subsequently finds out that the person he'd assumed to be grown up, is in fact a child, and he continues the same type of interaction, then I think you can start throwing wierdo peado accusations at him. (This actually happened to me when I was 16, some bloke chatted me up for about half an hour, asked me to come back to his and when I said I'd have to phone my mum and dad, he asked me how old I was. Was completely horrified to find I was only 16 and apologised profusely for having disturbed me, then practically turned tail and ran!)

But I want to know how you reconcile the fact that you're happy for a builder to whistle at you, but you think he is worthy of condemnation if he whistles at a 13 year old, whom he may assume is 17, 18, 19. It seems pretty harsh to expect a stranger to know that a mature looking child is not of an age where it is considered socially acceptable to harass her.

Oh and you may not know of a 13 yr old who was whistled at, but I was one and I know of a lot others. At what age do you think it's acceptable, and how are builders supposed to discriminate?

I can't stick around to respond to your response tonight, because it's midnight and I have to sleep, but see you tomorrow.

I wouldn't report it, perhaps not even mind it these days.

But I do remember finding it very intimidating as a teenager/young adult, to be whistled at and have my body commented on by a gang of large middle-aged men. It wasn't about paedophilia, clearly, but it was about power- and I was made very uncomfortable by it.

I have an entiltement to walk down a road without blokes shouting and name calling. Why is that so hard for some people to grasp?
I shouldn't be subject to sexual comments.
And I am covered from head to toe. What is it with these blokes?

This was a specific question about a specific incident though wasnt it...not about builders in general.

YES if a builder shouts personal comments about your body or what he would like to do to you he is WELL out of order but that isnt what happened on this occasion.

In this day and age when we are all claiming equality it seems strange to me that you go running to another man i.e. his superior for him to deal with it on your behalf like some victorian maiden...tell him yourself you are not impressed

My putdowns to a man who got out of order were "im guessing you are not a member of MENSA" and "if your brain was as big as your mouth you'd be a genius"

Yes - it was a specific incident. That incident made me feel like a tit and so I took the oportunity given to me by the HUGE billboard and called the line provided.

As far as I am concerned whistling is making comments about my body, about me... comments which were not welcom, comments which made me feel exposed. It made people stare, it made me feel uncomfortable, it made me feel upset.

WilyWombat what do you mean by running to another man? The person who initially picked up the phone was a woman, I was passed onto a man who offered to get the site manager to call me. He didn't mention if the site manager was male or female.

If the builders had been female then I would have called and complained about them.

You seem to think that this is wholly a 'sexual' issue for me. It's not. It's a manners thing. It's not wanting to have unwanted attention drawn to me as I go for a walk. It's complaining about a site which claims to be caring about being considerate and tehn displaying inconsiderate behaviour.

It's not about Rape or paedophilia or stalking. It's about these people (Who yes in this case happened to be men) pissing me off with their really rude behaviour and me having an avenue to respond. I don't want to respond by shouting back.

Would anyone here be proud of their kids if they shouted and whistled at their neighbours as they passed? Would anyone here tell their kids off if they whistled and yelled at people as they left their houses. Would anyone here like for their kids to hang about outside corner shops and whistle at women (or men) as they went past?

I doubt it. So what makes it ok for grown adults to behave like this at work?

I started getting hassle off men when I was about 11, as that was when my tits appeared.

I think many blokes think 'well, if you will insist on having breasts then what do you expect'. I still get that now.

It breaks my heart to think that my 9 year old neice only has a few years left of pure childhood, before she gets shouted at by men three times her age for things she doesn't understand.

It's fucking appalling that a) men do this and b) some seem to think we should see it as a compliment. It isn't. It's harrassment.

Good put putdowns Wilywombat they would be great on an equal footing things like say in a bar when a bloke is getting a bit lairy.

But on the other hand why should Beanie have to arm herself with anything just in case she is yelled at in the street? She shouldnt have to lower herself to their level and mouth back at them. I agree with a previous poster who said it's strange that we (generalisation here) accept builders behaving in this pathetic way but wouldnt if it was office workers/doctors/etc yelling out of windows!

I have taken the unusual step of consulting my dad about this!

No-one will have been sacked. All that will have happened, based on what we know of what BeanieB said in her complaint, is that the workers on that particular site would have been informed that A Complaint From A Member of the Public has appeared, and to pull their socks up. Unless specific individuals were named, no disciplinary action would have been taken.

Back to the current train of thought: we shouldn't have to arm ourselves with putdowns and preventative measures in order to walk down the street. That sounds to me like covertly blaming the victim - of course it's our fault that certain men are twats, if only we knew how to handle them better.

I agree TheSmallClanger. Yes it's useful to have a repetoire of retorts, and it can be very satisfying to deal with it like that in certain cases, but the trouble is it's a small step from there to making people feel like they're pathetic and uncool because not only did they get whistled at, they didn't even manage a snappy put-down.

Yep, once again it's making us responsible for how we deal with men's shitty behaviour towards us on the street. Rather than making them responsible for their shitty behaviour.