Degrees of Misogyny

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It seems to me that, while someone else said it, we have earlier in this thread some manner of dispute about whether or not a woman has the right to leave her home without being sexually harassed. In the context of your question to Bowser ....

Hope Racine↱ via Huffington Post, in April:

I don’t know when reading a book in public became a signal that we’re desperate for attention and conversation. But nine times out of 10, it’s the exact opposite. As creepy as it is to hit on someone much younger than you, interrupting someone — of any gender — while they are out reading is rude, selfish, and abhorrent behavior.

By doing this, you are operating under two false assumptions: that the person isn’t doing anything important, and that your desire to talk is more important than their desire to read.

If someone is out reading in public, it means that they specifically carved this chunk of time out of their day to dedicate to a book. It could likely be the only part of their day where they are able to sit quietly and do something that is entirely for them. Even if someone is reading on the Metro home from work, it is a decision — they could stare out the window if they wanted to. But they didn’t.

The worst part is that almost every time I’ve been approached in public while reading, the person uses my book as a conversation starter. They’ve clearly noticed that I am preoccupied, and have chosen to ignore it. They’ve made the conscious decision that their desire for conversation and entertainment is more important.

I’m sorry, but your failure to bring anything to entertain yourself is not my fault. Interrupting someone who is reading — especially a stranger — is clearly prioritizing yourself. It’s as rude as interrupting someone who’s on the phone, or engrossed in a conversation. I won’t waste my breath here wondering why I’ve only ever been interrupted by older, white men who don’t take hints (and only when I’m alone). But I will leave you with one parting piece of advice: If her eyes are down and her book is up, shut your goddamn mouth and leave her alone.​

Or Prachi Gupta↱, for Cosmopolitan in June:

"God, is that girl reading at the bar? Who the fuck reads at a bar!"

I was drinking a beer and reading at the back of a dive bar when some Dudebro went off, as if I had just thrown a wrench in the space-time continuum and irrevocably altered the natural order of the universe. After a few more seconds of his ranting, I asked him why my quiet reading bothered him so much. "You're just reading so some guy will hit on you. Admit it!" Then Dudebro demanded to know what book I was reading (a Jonathan Franzen novel, which was just too perfect) and went in for the backhanded compliment: "You probably don't need a book to get guys to talk to you anyway."

The idea that women read at bars or anywhere to beguile men with their feminine charms or manipulate them into conversation is insulting and dehumanizing. Reading is not performative. I'm not taking my one-woman show, A Vagina Reading a Book!, on the road. Nor am I flipping pages to give you boners. When a man is seen reading a book, he is seen as doing just that — reading a book. No ulterior motive. People do not assume he's reading to court attention or show off his intellect, as they do with women. Just as our short skirts or high heels and curvy bodies are too often seen as "asking" for unwanted advances by men, so too is the simple act of reading.​

And I'm going to be very, very selfish for a moment.

Imagine we're stuck on an airplane. The bell sounds and the announcement tells us to prepare for landing. Like many passengers, as she stuffs her book away―the book she's been reading the whole time―she also gives a little shrug and sigh, as if to silently remind the world, "Okay, so we're landing. Can we please be about it so I can get off this fucking plane?"

You know. She's a traveler.

Story is what I do; it's one of my ways of connecting with people.

And it just seems that I ought to be able to ask her if it's a good book without tripping Goddess knows how many alarms.

And here I need to mansplain to my brothers:

I'm not pissed off at her that I can't.

Doesn't mean I'm not pissed off about it, though.

It seems self-evident to me that if I am willing to assert a concept like human rights, I owe her this basic respect as a human being.​

(This is also an underlying insecurity that contributes to masculine homophobia; if you're a dude who looks at chatting about the book someone is reading as an inroad to flirtation, suit, or sexual romance, it helps to know you're not accidentally flirting with another man.)​

But it also seems self-evident to me that one need not reach to abstraction in order to oblige respect unto our sisters. Rather, this is pretty straightforward and practical: Gentlemen: On such occasions that you might be seen reading in public, how often is that act intended as a signal that you want a man to try to get your permission to stick his erect penis inside your body? I would further remind that there comes a point at which the affirmative means you're likely not going to be hitting on women. Bisexual is one thing, but it's not going to work at Starbuck's, it's not going to work at the pub, generally speaking; and the places where it might work (A) you won't be hitting on women, and (B) it might still not work because in the gay male community, "too desperate" is sometimes interpreted as "lethally dangerous".

That is to say, among the men who most need to consider these questions, it seems rare are the days you'll grant another man who might be thinking of how good your lips will look with his sex jammed between them the same manner of intrusion and disruption of your reading time so many would otherwise oblige of women.​

Yeah, I know, I know: Excuse me, madam, but I need to interrupt my own intrusion on your discourse to have an important chat with the boys.

Can I just plead that the irony sometimes seems like it should be somehow effective toward other ends?

I don't know; I keep telling my brothers that our sisters are, indeed, telling us what the problem is. I don't really have any good ideas at the moment regarding what to do about the fact that so many of us just won't fucking listen.

I sometimes make grim jokes like Lysistrata, which, in addition to being a doomed prospect, really is unfair; it only works if we presume lesbianism can satisfy every woman, and we already know that isn't true. And it's really, really obliging, anyway. The impossibility is what makes the proposition of a Lysistrata revolution remotely useful rhetoric today: If we really need things to go that far in order to address the problem, what the hell is wrong with us?

And there is another, even more grim: Should women really have to strap on their Second Amendment and stand their ground against basic harassment? What's going to happen the first time she shoots a guy for dropping a skeezy line while she's reading at an outdoor table during happy hour? Because you and I know that under Infinite Prevention Advocacy, she not only has the right, but to some degree a particular duty to put a sick dog down before he harms anyone else in the community. That is, not only does she have the right to Stand Her Ground, she also has a reason that is larger than (ahem!) simply the immediate threat presenting itself.

And again: Why should it ever go so far? What the hell is wrong with us if that's what needs to happen?

Because I'm entirely uncertain what the latest iterations of, Everything is fine, ladies, as long as you just remember that you exist for our benefit, are expected to accomplish. Not just at Sciforums, but in a generational context.

I don't know, maybe it's the idea that if I keep laying it out over and over again, I'll eventually figure out what I'm missing, because it seems there ought to be some communicative device that can penetrate the noise and actually establish contact.

But I have no idea what that is.
____________________

Notes:

Gupta, Prachi. "Men: Women Aren't Reading to Get Your Attention". Cosmopolitan. 6 June 2016. Cosmopolitan.com. 24 July 2016. http://bit.ly/2ao6Ivi

Racine, Hope. "Reading in Public Is Not an Invitation for Conversation". The Huffingotn Post. 15 April 2016. HuffingtonPost.com. 24 April 2016. http://bit.ly/2a6Sa42

 

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Ah, some statements of a spiritually superior man:

And the essay with plety of quotes here: https://prabhupadawomen.wordpress.com/


And so on and ever on ...
It's bizarrely interesting how this man was able to formulate his claims so ... eloquently, how one man was able to collect so much misogyny.

 

Humans are a competitive species and they do a number of things to those they compete with, depending on the competitor's goals and circumstances.
Misogyny is a tool in such competition, used both by men and women alike. Other such tools are racism, ageism, classism, etc. etc.

Should people not compete?
If catcalling gets to you, if it throws you off your game, it means it is an effective strategy for winning the competition against you (the competition can be about anything from getting the job that is currently yours to getting your attention).

 

That is up to him whom he views as his competitors and what it is that he is competing for.
Not rarely, people compete for self-respect, believing that the only way they can have it is if they put others down.

You're competing right now.

I'm sure you've already made up your mind about that.

You are sarcasm impaired, aren't ya ...

:shrug:

 

Well, then it could be something else he wants, some resource that he believes she has and he lacks. That resource can be material or psychological.

Looks like you're in this for respect, supremacy, with everyone.
You keep talking about how many men are not being respectful enough toward women, so it appears this is what you're after.

LOL. I read your posts, I know your MO.

Fer shure. Always blame others. Works like a charm!

 

Bottomline, competition between humans exists, on many levels, in many modes. It's not clear whether it is possible to get past that or to compete in a manner that actually is respectful for all involved.

 

Looks like your moderator powers aren't a sufficient tool for that.

 

There you go.

 

Mod Hat ― An obvious point

Something about freedom, something about a summer's eve.

It occurs to mind that perhaps I ought to borrow the moment for sake of an opportunity to sketch a basic policy clarification:

→ Some are well enough aware, and for the rest I might as well make the point, that it seems rather quite disdainful to those expected to repeat themselves over and over again because someone watches others lose an argument and decides to give it another go on the basis that maybe one more reiteration of what doesn't work―or, really, make any practical sense―might somehow be convincing. In a way, it's like they line up in order to take turns wasting people's time, because at least then it's all wasted and little actual progress occurs. That, however, would suggest they understand what they are doing, and, really, such presumptions in the face of any real evidence―disbelief, or, rather, the belief that one cannot possibly be that stupid constitutes exactly no manner of appropriate proof of anything―are unsafe.​

↳ Thus: If you wish to advocate dangerous and stupid outcomes, then it is expected that you have some reasonable clue what you're on about.​

I shouldn't have to remind people.

No, really, this one is pretty straightforward.

That a person might reasonably and responsibly advocate dangerous and irresponsible outcomes is a proposition so fraught with risk of failure as to generally preclude the attempt. Think of it this way: If it sounds remotely like anything anyone has heard before, then it probably doesn't work.

In my over four decades living in this society, constant repetition of advocacy for harmful behavior has utterly failed to remove the harm from the behavior. Something about the definition of insanity goes here.

The advice is sound: Simply shutting up reflects wisdom; repeating the ritual mistakes of the past just makes you a dumbassed cultist.

 

Why should if they see a woman who takes their fancy?

Honestly? I do. Yes, men will speak their minds. Again, being told you are beautiful is not a terrible thing.

Because he was taken by her beauty, of course.

I agree with you here. Most men wouldn't approach a women who is with a man. True. You are absolutely correct.

Giving someone a compliment is wrong?

Yes, I would, simply because of his poor judgement and lack of taste. His gaydar would be totally out of alignment if he chose to hit on me.

Do you ask for permission before giving someone a compliment? I mean, is that how screwed up we've become?

Again, I'm trying to understand how a compliment brings a person down. I can understand how vulgar comments are disturbing, but being told you are beautiful should be a high point in your day.

I don't see a compliment equaling harassment.

If I were young and single, if I saw a woman who knocked my socks off, yeah, I would let her know.

So, do you take offense anytime someone gives you a compliment, or is it just strange men on the street that scare you?

I wouldn't ask her to perform for me.

If I was in the position where I saw a beautiful woman, someone who attracted my attention, and I were a young single man, if I really wanted to get to know her, I might try opening a dialogue with a compliment, risking rejection on the gamble that she might respond in kind.

Guys are usually the ones who do the chasing. It's unfortunate that many women are in a constant state of fear, which I attribute to past negative experiences. I do understand, you fear men.

The workplace is a controlled environment. If you believe it's a normal condition for people to spend 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, locked in the confines of a building, doing menial tasks, then your world is different than mine.

My days as a young man are long gone, so I have no need to approach beautiful women, but I still appreciate them.

Telling someone they are beautiful is not disrespect, it's a compliment. If a man can get past a woman's general paranoia, he might stand a chance of getting to know her. Certainly catcalling will never break the ice. I agree on that premise.

I think what you're asking for is respect for a woman's fear of men. I'm sorry for that. Again, if you never try, you will never know. Not all women think alike, Bells.

 

Of course, some people never get compliments.
There are women who never get any compliments from men, or at least not compliments of a romantic or sexual nature. So the problem Bells is talking about is far from being universal for all women.

Except that it is only an "intrusion" as long as it is by a man that the particular woman doesn't like, right?

 

Beauty was never my curse, though I had been told I was cute.

 

This and That

What ... gives ... him ... the ... right?

• • •​

You say that like it means something.

 

Because it's abusive to afflict strangers with one's every passing thought, and demand others attend to them, uninvited. They have their own thoughts, and are minding their own business - do likewise.