Stats don’t match up with the video. I watched the video and counted the ‘hits’ and they didn’t even come close to 108. Something is amiss.
False advertising. That woman was not even remotely attractive. Not with a borrowed.
She’s not stunning, but I don’t think she’s unattractive. And I think in most US cities other than New York, she would be higher up in the attractiveness hierarchy than she is here in New York. It’s also true that in big cities there are many tastes.
A friend of mine did a calculation that assuming 100 catcalls in 10 hours boils down to one every 6 minutes or so, which is approximately 1 every five blocks of walking (uptown/downtown). Assuming you pass about 20 people every block, that suggests that 1% of passersby catcall. Assuming that half of the passersby are women and that some are children, that suggests that somewhere between 1-4% of men are catcalling on the street. Or a little less than 1 in 20.
And yet, the women are dealing with someone new every few minutes. It’s annoying and exhausting. Perhaps someone is just being friendly by saying “Good morning.” But they don’t know. So it’s hard to get men and women to agree on this. The women are exhausted from fielding potentially threatening greetings (often hard to tell which ones are and which ones aren’t) day in and day out, and the 19 out of 20 men who don’t catcall (or maybe it’s 9 out of 10 men) feel like they are being lumped in with the troglodytes that do.
But those of us who walk on the street and hear someone (often mangy, often with a cup) calling out “Excuse me, Sir” can have a sense of what it’s like. Sure, it’s a polite greeting (He called me “Sir!” that’s a term of respect!), but we know that we are about to be asked if we can give the guy some money. Now imagine that it happens every few minutes (not that hard, for some of us). Now imagine that the most of these guys are bigger and stronger than us, and that it’s very uncertain whether anyone would intervene if the guy starts getting angry or even physical for us for ignoring them. That’s closer to what it must feel like to be a woman. And it doesn’t even matter much if I am wearing my nicest suit, or some old shorts and a t-shirt. They come up and demand money from me.
Sure, it gets exhausting managing that all day, and then being told that we’re bad people for feeling exhausted and annoyed about it.
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But as a guy, what are we to do.
After thinking about it a bit, I realize that it is almost never appropriate to call out to a stranger passing by on the street. If you are going to strike up a conversation with a woman, there has to be at least some point of commonality to yours and her experience. Maybe that’s waiting in a long line in bad weather, or a bus that’s not coming, or getting caught in a downpour without an umbrella together. But there still has to be some commonality, and the comment should somehow reflect that. And if she doesn’t respond or want a conversation, then we have to leave it at that, and not insist “hey, I said hello to you! Now give me your number!”
I say hello to people, but the contexts are different. Seeing a woman walking by on the street and saying “Hey you!” is pretty much never appropriate, even if the next thing is “You look gorgeous,” because there’s no way for her to gauge your threat level sensibly, other than the fact that you don’t care about the convention to let people go about their business when they’re walking around on the street. And if you don’t respect that boundary, what other boundaries will you not respect. So yeah, the film changed my perspective a bit.
^ disagree. if bchad walks up to a girl in a suit and says “hello. how about that rain, huh? did you happen to see that article in FAJ last month? might i say you are looking very attractive today. how would you respond if I asked you out to the CFA annual dinner?”, I doubt she would feel threatened. I know what you look like!!!
same goes for myself and most AF guys. i don’t think interactions in public w/o a distinct commonality are bad if you don’t appear to be threatening. the fact that guys like us don’t catcall is part of what makes us non-threatening. that and the lack of doorags, slang and bouncy walking. sorry, cvm, i know you have to have a bouncy walk.
I can’t agree with this more.
What about staring lewdly without saying a word?
What is staring ludely?
Also, stop telling men what they can and can’t do with their bodies as long as it doesn’t restrict your ability to do the same.
We should probably define what a “catcall” is. I routinely shout at random women on the street, but I say things like “I like your sensible pant-suit” and “those shoes really compliment your dress.”
About half the time I throw in a pelvic thrust for good measure.
I think we both know the key question here is, “Can a reasonable person envision Patrick Bateman doing [specific action]?” If the answer is yes, you’re probably okay.
[quote=“zidhai”]
The only deduction one can make from this comment besides the needless defensiveness is the laughably misinformed and myopic world view the poster has.
Moving on.
[quote=“ohai”]
LOL…zidhai, are you isildurr??? Stop being so touchy, everyone has different views of the world and no your’s is not the only right one…and move out of your mom’s house…(if you’re isildurr).
That was…enlightening.
The rest of it made even less sense.
I’d like to point out what a quality post this is and that everyone should strive to emulate zidhai’s contributions. Look at his post carefully and you’ll see it has everything a good reply should contain. He compliments Ramos on his thoughts, includes a bit of humor (great comedic timing by using those ellipses!), and, most importantly, it furthered the discussion on the topic at hand.
Keep up the good work lil buddy!
I should have put down my coffee or moved away from my keyboard before reading that.
I agree that there is an issue about what constitutes a catcall. In this video, it seems to be any attention that is undesired. Which sounds sensible until one thinks of what the ramifications of that definition are. Which are that men either should never talk to women without being propery introduced (a subject of many Jane Austen novels), or that men won’t know whether they’ve catcalled, harassed, or not until the woman being talked to decides.
More importantly, the woman being talked to and a woman watching a woman being talked to may come to different conclusions about whether that was a catcall/harrassment. We don’t really know what the woman walking on the street was thinking in the video. Is it true that every last person who addressed her was annoying to her? We are pretty sure that the woman filming thought so, but the filmer doesn’t actually give the woman walking in the film a voice. In a way, it could very well be a woman objectifiying another woman for her political ends (though I think it’s safe to assume that the woman being filmed had similar feelings, in this case).
But I think the issue is that talking to random women walking down the street who seem to be busy going somewhere and trying to mind their own business is pretty much never appropriate. Chatting up someone in other contexts is more of a grey area, but over time, one learns how to do it in an effective-yet-non-offensive manner.
When a man does make conversation with an unfamiliar woman, I think the issue is really more about having taste and class while doing it. For one, a passerby on the street is rarely around for long enough to make an introductory remark with taste and class at all, so the best policy is that one just shouldn’t do it. But there are plenty of other situations when a tasteful remark might well be appreciated.
A little over a decade ago, I decided that I would never apologise for showing interest in a woman, but that sometimes I might need to apologise for and correct the way I do it. That turned out to be a sensible approach, and over the years, as I’ve learned about taste, I’ve discovered that most women do not mind an indication that you find them attractive - what they mind is tasteless ways of showing it (and some also don’t want it to be too public, though others do). I haven’t needed to apologize in recent years at all, but while I was learning, sometimes I would make honest missteps that were not appreciated.
You know somethin, Utvich? I think that just might be my masterpiece.
I find this interesting. Waiting for a woman to approach you is pretty much the worst strategy ever to get women. The only reason sites like Tinder work is because it allows women to approach men in a non-threatening way.
I also find it interesting that women talk about how men should be better at expressing feelings. It’s really only that they want their man (or the man they want to be with) to express his feelings. They don’t like it when random people (or people they don’t see themselves being with) express their feelings.
They also don’t like it when they don’t agree with the feelings expressed by the guys.
To most women, every male advance is a hostile one unless the guy is really good looking. Then, an exception is made.
I think it’s also that women want men to express different feelings from what the men actually feel. There is this romanticized notion of what women think men are hiding deep inside and only need to let out. In reality, men are not that sophisticated; we just do not have the depth that women think we do - except bchad, who seems in touch with this sort of thing, almost to the point of being creepy. In fact, I think most women would be shocked and appalled by what men actually think.
Agree. To offer a different perspective [broading this to talking to strangers in public in general]… I’ve been in Seoul three years now and I don’t think anyone has ever said anything to me in public ever. Same for my wife, she doesn’t have to deal with that crap here, but in the USA it was a huge annoyance for her, with dozens of weirdos saying things at her while walking on the street. She couldn’t figure out what these fools were trying to accomplish with this pointless behavior? Here in *civilization*, everyone is taught that it is “low class” to address strangers. That means you do not say things to strangers on the street, in elevators, on the subway, etc. You do not do it ever, the end. To do so identifies you as a low class fool, and nobody here would want that. Formal introductions are required for meetings. If for some reason you do NEED to talk to a stranger, you approach them apologetically and sincerely (not fake plastic communication) and get the task over with while minimizing the inconvenience to the stranger. Basic manners. As an example: a couple years ago some guy walked up to me as I was waiting for the walk light. He apologetically babbled some nonsense, no idea what he was saying because I was in a state of shock that anyone would do that. Then he said bowing “so sorry to disturb you, but you DO need to listen, I am police, we are looking for this man, have you seen him?” I’m like nope, and then dude apologizes more for interrupting the citizen. That’s awesome! American cops could learn a few things from this guy. This just seems like common sense to me. Homo sapiens are tribal and do not like being approached by strange members of other tribes, certainly not on the street. They feel threatened and their defence mechanisms go up, espeically women alone. Go to a “meeting of the various tribes” place, like a club.
I oversaw an email conversation between the two girls on my team (they are both relatively new) where they were in disbelief of what we, as in the guys, talked about at work.
What I’d give to get into the rest of their emails between each other…