Why ARE some men so horrible to women?

[jezestbelle]

I recently posted about an awful weekend in Paris essentially spoiled by street harassment or other womens sad stories about it. I have to admit it has kind of coloured my view of men as Ive returned to London and to work. I am not naive or stupid, I know that most people do not engage in this kind of behaviour, but Im just really trying to fathom why, what it is they who do it get out of it. I mean if occsaionally a woman cracked and said ok then I will go to bed with you as a result of catcalling or whatever well I still wouldnt agree with it but you could see a certain logic..but I refuse to believe that has ever happened.
Another thing Ive noticed is women I think are almost self hating and almost gravitate to men who treat them badly, again kind of unfathomable... Also am kind of fearful of the male sex drive right now more for my lovely DD than me. If it really is as powerful as they say can it actually be controlled? I know I may sound paranoid but this is where my head is at. I should add that I do know some really lovely kind and genuine guys who would never dream of harassing a woman, I am even wondering about them is it just that they have supreme self control or something?

I am just going by what my DD has said. I am sure nowhere is perfect. I was just hoping to foment a debate about how this kind of harassment can be eradicated

voyage if you want to explore it that's fine. If you tell me you've noticed a link between then men you've seen harassing women, or a study you've found then I'll accept that. But stating that it is likely to do with religion, education or IQ when that contradicts my lived experience means that I need some sort of evidence (even anecdotal) before I accept your supposition.

Lweji- it's a cultural example. What do you think it means?

I'm also not sure it is a class thing. Obviously a lot of builders/workers on the street could be predominantly classed as 'working class', (which doesn't mean they don't have a brain obviously) but they are probably in the best position literally to do cat calling and heckling. They see hundreds of women go past every day all day and don't have the office environment to think twice about whether they are going to be called up on it. Most men work in the same office regularly and therefore aren't about to act in this way because they have to face the same women regularly.

I also don't think religion has much of a bearing. As pp said Ireland is predominantly Catholic and they don't appear to have as much of an issue. It's not to say they respect women more, abortion case in point, but that they would be ashamed to brazenly shout out (maybe in case 'almighty' is watching?). This also goes for non-religious men; some have more personal restraint and public awareness than others. It doesn't always mean they are empathetic to women, however.

lol @ drmorbius

Yes of course I can't mention the reports about street harassment from around the world, from loads of organisations, and reported on the mainstream news, and all the rest of it, I have to personally go to every single individual country and experience it for myself

I like the idea that some people will go to any lengths, when this comes up, when women and girls say "I get all this shit from men and I hate it", to do anything other than say "OMG that's awful what can be done about it, how can men contribute to stopping this" there's this desperate scramble to do anything BUT address the actual issue

I also like the idea that in a certain country men would never say anything inappropriate, unless of course the woman was dressed wrong... brilliant. What country is this, drmobius?

Ah amelia that won't wash either. It's just your personal experience so you can't conclude anything from it. If 100 women came on here and said the same thing, well that's 100 personal experiences so not very conclusive either. Plus women are notoriously flaky, so really it's not surprising that no-one will listen even when 1000s of women from all over the world are shouting the same thing!

Links for people who are interested - around "eve teasing" in india, everydaysexism, how women were treated in Tahrir, & etc and so on. Snd of course, our own experiences! There are some really depressing threads on MN, one was called minor sexual assaults or similar.

jezest I'm pleased to hear this is not so prevalent in Ireland, I also wouldn't describe it as a matriarchal society though TBH.

Street harassment isn't about sex, it's about power. Men don't do it because they think it will get them sex. Because as others have pointed out, it doesn't work.

They do it to put women in their place. To let us know that we are only allowed out in public with their permission , and as long as we defer to them, acknowledge them , dress the way they want , have the correct body shape and size and have the correct facial expression . Because we only exist for their utility and pleasure , as objects for them to look at and comment on .

Hence the anger if we don't respond correctly to cat calls, and the verbal abuse for not meeting their standards of feminine beauty .

VoD - this search for various reasonings is getting slightly absurd - " I don't know why that get's so many people's hacks up".

I'm thinking that there is a sort of disconnect between what you post here, and what female posters post. i.e. it's universal and ingrained as a habit and miserable to experience and we don't need an 'argument' about which males do what and in what degree.
Yes you do appear v intelligent - but just imho, as a fellow male, just not accepting certain things about being a male and what that carries.

AmeliaNeedsHelp - the analogy you use of dog poo is very good.

You are right. Leaving dog poo is socially unacceptable. So is racism and so is misogyny/sexism. We all know it is wrong.

However, in my leafy, genteel area of town dog poo pickers are only assiduous during the day time only when they think they will be seen. They then dump the little back bags under my hedge or in the gutter outside my house. At night they don't even bother picking it up. The street is covered in dog poo right outside a school.

This is exactly like sexism and misogyny. Men know it is wrong but when they think they are anonymous online or in public harassing an unknown woman on her own they do it because they think they can get away with it.

There was an article in the Guardian last week where the author wondered if her own upbringing maybe wasn't a contributory factor to these attitudes persisting - i.e. she'd been brought up to be so polite that going "will you just FUCK OFF!" was beyond her!

Yep, it's just like it.

OP - "I was just hoping to foment a debate about how this kind of harassment can be eradicated"

I think item 1 is it needs to be seen as harassment and treated as such. At the moment there are quite a few men who see it as "bantz" etc. If it was seen as sexual harassment in the same way that making a racist remark to someone in the street is seen as racist harassment, we'd be getting somewhere.

As it is, if you've ever been on the Tube or whatever and seen the latter kick off, they do kick off. If a man is overheard making a sexual remark to a woman most people just ignore it. No one would film it and send it to the police to find the perpetrator, because they'd argue they meant no harm or were paying a compliment.

Item 2 - for me - is to end all the gender based "humour" that does the rounds. A lot of the time it's treating men like they have shit for brains too. I feel there's a link between the "humour" and the "bantz". I have a friend at the Edinburgh Festival at the moment, she's been really disappointed at how much of the comedy stuff is just based on gender stereotype.

I'm a white woman. If I Read a thread where black people were complaining about their experience of racism , I would STFU and listen .

If I did decide to say anything, it WOULDNT be

" black and white people suffer from racism equally "

" white people cant control their hormones, they have to be racist "

It's more likely to be

" that's awful . how can I be part of the solution to this problem? "

jdee that's interesting. The other day I had 2 hours without dd to pop into town. As I walked to the crossing about 5 builders whistled and shouted out some things at me all down the road. I then had to wait for a couple of minutes for the lights to change. I was joined at the button by a man in a suit who clearly was staring at them and me in disbelief. I distinctly felt like I was hiding behind the pole with the button on it and also a bit ashamed that the man next to me also seemed to be wondering why I wasn't 'doing something' about it. Then as I crossed the road I got angry about the whole thing as I could feel myself blushing. But honestly, I feel if I had shouted back I would be lowering myself to their level, giving them attention they don't deserve and also giving them fuel to do it again. It's a bit like responding to a stranger's toddler, only they are carrying hammers and 5ft 10+!

Can I add item 0 please? Sexist attacks and language need to be included in all hate crime and hate speech legislation. Sexism won't be deemed as serious as racism while the disparity exists in law.

And police need to be trained to take things seriously. "I'm bored, let's rape this girl" is not 'just a thing people say'. It's threatening when it's said and laughed at by a group of men when you're walking alone in the dark. It's not okay, at very least it's antisocial behaviour and should be recorded as such.

I work in the Middle East and where i work men would never make comments to a woman, unless she was not appropriately dressed for the environment.

This must be a wind up.

Jeffrey

It was linked to the Everyday Sexism blog on the Guardian (worth a read) and was about harassment faced by the women when jogging, I think.

Jeffrey

What a horrible situation to be in, and what a bunch of dicks.

As a man, I can't imagine that kind of harassment, but I can totally understand reasons you wouldn't 'do something', including not wanting to lower yourself to acknowledge them.

Just read the article, thanks jdee
I do feel as if I should do something. Thankfully when I am out with dd I don't get them as much. It almost means that you forget it goes on though, so I'm not hardened to it any more!

My only hope is that they were working on the County Club that some of the people inside may have taken offence - hardly the kind of language you want shouted loudly from outside the window if in a meeting with some VIP's!

Lweji- it's a cultural example. What do you think it means?

What do you mean by "appropriately dressed for the environment."
Why should any man feel that they are allowed to make any comments to women regardless of what they are wearing?

DrM's comment was so many degrees of wrong it's hard to know where to start.

Outlawing wolf whistles and introducing women only carriages on trains plus properly prosecuting workplace harassers would be a start imho. Lets not forget this is a men's problem albeit it impacts most on women. Got the impression btw on recent trip that Ireland is a relatively harassment free environment for women certainly it was not in evidence at all when I was there

Ireland isn't a matriarchal society jezestbelle, far from it.

It's great that your dd had a positive experience there though.

Jeffrey I agree there is little point in doing anything, I mean the chances of the stopping or saying oh sorry didn't mean to upset you are pretty bloody slim aren't they!

So the man next to you - that is the sort of thing that people have been saying - he's not involved, he's in a much better position to say or do something. Even if it's just looking at them disapprovingly. But you say he was looking at you as if wondering why you didn't do something. But if he's not prepared to do anything, what on earth does he expect you to do? Bystanders / observers are often in a much better position to act with this sort of stuff as it's not expected and they aren't involved IYSWIM.

Anyway a bit of a tangent there!

I have intervened when men are being arseholes, when I have felt it was more or less safe and when I thought the target was looking like they didn't know wtf to do. It is hard to do. But I do wish more people would do it, then gradually it would become less acceptable to do it in the first place. Silence, especially from other men, is taken as tacit approval. Well I suppose the other thing is that the worse ones, and the ones who are not in groups, usually target women and girls when there aren't too many people around who look like they might challenge them.

It's all a bit of a bugger really isn't it.

Maybe as women we should think about making internal commitments to step in with this stuff, when we think it's safe etc? I once walked up to a total stranger on a train platform and said brightly "Oh hello" how's it going! let's have a chat over here" and sort of managed to remove a schoolgirl from a couple of men who were pestering her. i mean she looked like she just didn't know wtf to do and we've all been there haven't we.