The Rage

[h1d1ng1npla1ns1ght]

How do you cope? How do you talk yourself down from the angry brink when you’ve taken all the misogyny and sexism your entire life and it gets to be too much? I just got catcalled today while walking with my infant, and two older kids. I am embarrassed explaining it to them. I brought it up to a male friend recently, the constant catcalling I mean, and he just straight up thought I was making it up. Does anyone have any suggestions for things that will make me less angry? Or ways to funnel the anger into something productive?
I know being catcalled isn’t the worst thing that happens, I know it’s a tiny thing in itself, but it’s indicative, isn’t it? Of a larger problem with believing women, believing women about their abuse and experiences, and considering women beneath men.

My mother was discussing a Ferrante book (title escapes me, one about the woman whose husband cheats on her and the fallout) with a gay male friend, and he’d told her “it was such an angry book, I just don’t understand where all that rage against men could come from?”
my mum chose peace and didn’t say anything.

I don't know tbh.

I had my bum pinched at my own door once, by a local man who's known for doing it - he did it live on the BBC to a presenter in 2007 who came to report on the area once.

So minor. I certainly doubt he remembers it. But I do. I don't stand at my own door the same way any more.

I didn't report him, nobody ever does. But he's made the lives of countless women a bit worse, for his own amusement and a mildly sexual thrill.

Yes it makes me angry. It makes me certain that misogyny still exists, and it makes me see it when others don't. I vote and donate accordingly. I use the power I have.

It's not a tiny thing. Cat-calling is a way of making women feel unsafe. It tells you that even out with your children, you are potentially a victim of sexual attack. Tell your children how you feel about it, because they experienced it too and they need to know it isn't acceptable. Women shouldn't have to 'suck it up' when abuse happens. It's public humiliation and personal intimidation.

As for your friend - I've had men tell me I'd be perfectly safe walking alone in a wooded area - are you fucking joking, mate? It only takes one man to act on his fantasy and that's a woman's life ruined. Men are wilfully blind on these matters and by being so they support an environment in which their fellows can abuse women.

Less angry - start an online journal and record how you feel, and link news items and articles about this kind of event. Read 'Everyday Sexism'. Be quietly active for women's rights (or loudly, if that's your way). You are right. You are not making a fuss about nothing. Cat-calls are not compliments.

Everyone should report him, he is a sexual predator who may do worse.

Does anyone have any suggestions for things that will make me less angry? Or ways to funnel the anger into something productive

@h1d1ng1npla1ns1ght well, some of us were rather angry over Christmas so we wrote poems.

They now exist as a book here https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C739HTDK

And if you feel the urge, what will be volume 2 exists here https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4816472-a-mumsnet-thread-about-a-book-about-a-mumsnet-thread-under-the-duvet-of-darkness-written-by-the-women-of-mumsnet-thread-2?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

Conversely I also wonder what life must be like for a man with none of this shit. Ever. Highly unlikely to have ever experienced a sexual assault. To not have had obscenities yelled at you while in your school uniform. To likely have never been groped in a crowded public place.

The mind boggles at how alien it is.

I have honestly only ever e countered "cat calling" in the UK. I dont live there and I have lived all over the world never experienced it anywhere else

I've experienced cat-calling in NYC, Paris, in the Med in Venice.
It's not a small thing; tell men to fuck off with their abusive shit.

That's lovely for you. Congratulations.

Most female humans have experienced some form of sexual harassment, and most of us probably many times and in many places, starting in childhood, and often worse than mere "cat calling".

I was goosed at a party by the host once. I turned round and told him that if he did it again I'd knee him in the balls.

That helped hugely.

I don’t live in the UK, I live in Australia and it’s bad here. I’ve lived internationally as well and it’s been bad everywhere. Some places are worse than others.

My teenage daughter has experienced it in German and the Netherlands. Regularly. And every time while I am standing or walking next to her! Honestly the rage I feel when it happens, I would tear them apart if they didn’t always do their catcalling from a safe f**ing distance.

Backstreets · 10/07/2023 06:25
My mother was discussing a Ferrante book (title escapes me, one about the woman whose husband cheats on her and the fallout) with a gay male friend, and he’d told her “it was such an angry book, I just don’t understand where all that rage against men could come from?”
my mum chose peace and didn’t say anything.

I know that brilliant, brilliant book and feel rage just thinking of that gay male friend’s answer. There can be a certain kind of very unpleasant passive aggressive misogyny on the part of some gay men imo.

Maddy70 · Today 10:00

I have honestly only ever e countered "cat calling" in the UK. I dont live there and I have lived all over the world never experienced it anywhere else

That is your experience. It is not other girls’ and women’s though.

Maddy70
''I have honestly only ever e countered "cat calling" in the UK. I dont live there and I have lived all over the world never experienced it anywhere else''

Thats weird because there have been multiple surveys and campaigns about street harassment, including cat calling, and they find its almost universal.

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/street-harassment-study-men/