Street Harrassment.!!!

Harrasment is in the eye of the victim. Sexual harrasment is usually defined as Unwanted deeds, actions, gestures, symbols or behaviours of a sexual nature that make the target feel uncomfortable.

Not a claim that's been made. The point I made, which James supported is that law is defined in morality, not the other way around - contrary to your claim.

Actually, that's precisely how it works - harrasment is , in the first instance, in the eye of the victim, in the second instance, in the eye of bystanders.

Potentially, for example, if the court decides that the complaint was frivolous or vexatious and part of a pattern of behaviour. But then the question of whether or not that decision is reasonable remains open.

Harris versus Forklift Systems 1993.

It seems dlear to me that the one who is confused is you.

Why is it so hard for people to stop and consider the effects of their actions on others and the cumulative effects of otherwise 'seemingly innocent' behaviours.

But hey #notallmen #boyswillbeboys #amiright?

 

Something similar happened here as well

The law stated, contrary to Motordaddy's assertions, what was allowable as marriage, and then made exceptions to that allowance. Something along the lines of:

For the purposes of this act marriage is between a man and a woman except where the following apply:

The exceptions were things relating mostly to incest and first cousins and the like, as I recall.

The point being that while the law didn't specifcally prevent same-sex couples from getting married, it also didn't specifically allow it and implicitly excluded it. And so, again, contrary to Motordaddy's assertions, the law was amended to specifically and explicitly include same sex couples.

 

Motor Daddy,

Last chance to demonstrate that you aren't trolling.

Tell me why you don't harass women on the street. I asked before and you avoided the question. Now answer it.

 

Ah Tali89. Welcome back.

Firstly, the main thing you are missing about street harassment, is context. It isn't just a guy talking to a woman and your whiiiiiiiiiiiiiining about feminists. It is about how these men only talk to women who are not in the company of other men. How they deliberately target women over and over again, knowing they do not stand a chance, but just to let these women know that they are looking at them and viewing them as a sexual object. And you notice they do not do this to other men. But just other women who are unaccompanied by a male. Regardless of the age. And they do it deliberately to make these women feel like they are being watched as they go about their daily lives. I mean I get it, you refuse to see this context because you are so anti-feminists that you ooze it like a putrid smell, or perhaps you are just that.. well.. dim. But this is what women go through on a daily basis in many areas of the world. There was an article written about the context of 'it's just a guy talking to a woman'. And how and why 'hello is not always just a hello'.

These conversations helped me realize that many smart, earnest men -- and women -- lack the framework for situating street harassment in a larger social landscape and appreciating the implications of comments that seem benign, but only to those unfamiliar with the culture and rhythms of life in a city. Because in this case, context matters. Context is everything.
Welcome to New York City, home

to 8 million people, all of whom seem to be walking somewhere or taking public transit at exactly the same time you are. Generally speaking, people don't drive here. Driving is either an absolute necessity ("I have to get from Brooklyn to the Bronx in 40 minutes!") or a luxury ("I pay $900 a month for private parking I can drive out to the Hamptons every weekend.").

This is a pedestrian city. Every sidewalk has dozens if not hundreds of people marching up and down it, because they have to. In the suburbs, you choose to be on a public sidewalk for leisure; we here have to be for life. To get to work, to get to school, to get to the subway, to get to the grocery store, to get home... If you are walking on the street in the city, you are busy.

Our bodies are our vehicles in the city, and as such we respect the commutes and routes of other New Yorkers, because we all have shit to do. If we said hello to everyone we passed, we'd be hoarse by noon. You can't be "friendly" to all 75 people on all 10 blocks between your apartment and the subway. You don't talk to a stranger on the street unless you're a) a lost tourist, b) a crazy person, or c) trying to sell someone crappy comedy tickets. New Yorkers don't talk to strangers on the street, just like suburbanites don't talk to other people in cars.

So then imagine, for a moment, driving down the street in your car on your way to work. There's traffic. You're late. You're drinking coffee. You're listening to the radio. And all of a sudden, a stranger in another car passing you or parked on the side of the street yells through your window, "Have a nice evening!"

That'd be weird, right? That's not a typical way someone expresses friendliness in the suburbs, so it must mean something else. There are dozens of other cars around, but the drive-by greeter didn't say anything to the car in front of you or the car behind you... Just you.

Now imagine that happens multiple times a day.

Now imagine the only drivers who call out to you are male.

Now imagine this only happens to you if you're a woman.

Now imagine this only happens to a woman without a male passenger in her car.

Now imagine that in addition to these "courtesy comments," the only other men who shout from their car to yours say things like "Hey, sexy." and "Oooh, show me a smile to go with those pretty titties."

You might start to think, and rightly so, that the men who are singling out your car, even to say "God bless you!" and not "Nice ass!" are not simply being courteous, because that's not what's courteous in New York -- it's atypical and conspicuous.

The men who call out to you know you're not out driving around for no reason -- you have somewhere to be and sometimes they do too, and you're not going to stop and chat. So they're not genuinely "interested" in you. They're not trying to "approach" you and strike up conversation. And they're not simply being "friendly," because they don't say it to all the other cars that are passing, and they don't say it when you're in the car with your boyfriend. Because they respect your commute when it's also another man's commute.

"Have a nice evening" is not the beginning of a conversation. It is not neighbors saying hi while they're both out walking their dogs. It is not someone buying you a drink. It's not someone striking up a conversation in a café. It is not someone tapping your shoulder at an airport and saying, "You look lost."

"Have a nice evening" on the streets of New York is not an interaction -- it's a one-sided message from a man to a woman. And the message, loud and clear to the woman on the receiving end is: "I'm sexualizing you."​

I dare all the men who are defending street harassment as a male privilege in this thread to consider this. Imagine you are walking with your wife or your girlfriend and all these men start leering into her face and telling her about how nice her tits are, saying "Hello" to her in a way that lets them know they want to have sex with her, or keep telling her 'have a nice day' and they do this to just her and not you - so that you know why they are focusing on just her, telling her to smile for them, commenting about how nice her arse is, telling her to come and and give them a head job and all the rest that women endure on the street.. Would you tell her 'it's okay honey, they are just being friendly'..? Somehow I doubt it.

And secondly, feminists do not see all men as being rapists. That is a response to prevention advocates who demand that it is up to women to prevent themselves from being raped and thus, the only way to do that is to view all men as being potential rapists as it means women have to be on the alert and expect to be raped to be able to prevent it and stop it 24/7. You cannot create an atmosphere and demand that women be alert and afraid of rape 24/7 and then whine that women view all men as potential rapists.

And frankly, in the context of street harassment, if a fuckwad decides to harass me in the street, as far as I am concerned, he is a potential rapist. You know, these are the very men that rape prevention advocates demand women avoid and work to protect themselves from.

Now, as I have asked you multiple times now and you have repeatedly dodged the question by slithering away and hiding each time I have asked you to explain your statement, can you please answer it? You accused the woman in the video of doing something to attract attention, that she 'designed this experiment to attract that type of attention while walking down the street'.

Can you please explain what she was doing to attract that type of attention and where it is on the video? What was she doing to attract this type of attention from strangers on the street?

 

You still miss the context?

Why are these men targeting only women on the street? And why do they only target women who are walking alone?

It is all about context and what the right wing supporters of men's rights to abuse and harass women keep overlooking in this thread:

If you think this is an example of women getting their knickers in a twist over men being "friendly", then you have failed to recognise the distinct difference between a friendly greeting and being harassed (a point missed by reactive video "Saying hi to a woman = harassed? Yes according to feminists". Look it up if you need, I'd rather not give them traffic by posting the link).

It's all about tone and delivery. A plain "hello, how are you?" can be friendly if delivered one way, and entirely threatening if delivered in a different tone of voice or in more volatile situation. Otherwise innocent words can be, and often are, made to sound passive-aggressive when called out to an unsuspecting (usually) woman.

You might argue that women shouldn't feel threatened when being addressed by a stranger if they're in a busy street, but as we know from the bystander effect, plenty can happen in plain sight without anyone stepping in to help.

And often these attempts at "conversation" could hardly be described as being delivered in anything approaching a friendly way. The men in this video might think they have been positively charming by declaring their appreciation of a female stranger's body for all to hear, but at best they've reduced the woman's worth to the "sexiness" of her physical appearance, and at worst they've made her feel unsafe.

When women hear these sorts of comments, they aren't likely to want to stop and chat. Yet this often adds fuel to the fire and turns Romeo's "admiration" into "offence". After all, he's just given her a compliment - why can't she at least acknowledge it? Follow-up comments like "lighten up", "smile honey" and "what, too good for me? Not going to talk?" are aggressive attempts to make the woman feel more uncomfortable, and are sometimes even designed to lead passers-by into agreeing with the sentiment that she's a stuck-up bitch.

But if the woman were to respond, who's to say it wouldn't just invite further unwanted attention? In some cases, it's the most effective way to deal with a harasser: show them you're not intimidated into silence. But due to the strange phenomena of victim-blaming, if a woman engages in conversation with the man and then things continue to turn sour, there will always be a niggling suggestion that 'well, she invited the interaction - possible even 'led him on' - so who's really to blame?'​

You are the one who said that she drew attention to herself in the experiment and that the experiment of walking down the street was designed to draw that attention to herself. So what attention was she drawing to herself? Where does she draw this attention to herself in the video? What is she doing to draw that attention to herself. How is she behaving in the manner of an attention seeker? Is walking down the street seeking attention? Point out exactly what she is doing or how she is behaving to draw attention to herself.

I mean I get it, you think that women should not be threatened by strange males who leer at them, say "damn girl" as they walk past, make a point of looking at their bodies and asking them why the girl does not want to talk to them when she ignores them, who keep saying hi to her.. Do you follow women on the street? Get real close to them and make sure they know you are there, watching them and walk that way for over 5 minutes right in their personal space? Do you tell women to smile at you when they are walking down the street? If not, why not? After all, you are saying that this is perfectly acceptable behaviour. Would you be fine if a grown man did it to your teenage daughter, every day, as she walked to and from school?

Most importantly, what supporters of sexual harassment, such as yourself, have completely missed in this whole thing... The man who was walking in front of her, with the camera hidden in his backpack.. Not once did any of the men who approached her, said hi to her, told her to smile and all the rest of it, say anything to the man walking in front of her.

Why do you think that is?

Why was she the only one targeted with all of the comments? Why not the guy who was walking in front of her the whole time?

It's all about context. And I get why you refuse to see it, or perhaps you are incapable of seeing it. Misogynists often protest at the thought of what they view as their privilege and right of harassing women being curtailed, because they are incapable of understanding how and why women may not want their attention.

 

They are targeting them with clearly unwanted and unasked for attention. I mean, is that so hard to understand?

When said attention is only ever aimed at one sex, from another sex and which is so pointed and so full of sexual innuendo in its delivery and meaning, and when said attention is unwanted, unasked for and not reciprocated, it classifies as sexual harassment. Especially after the woman makes it clear it is decidedly unwelcome and not wanted and the guy follows her, keeps talking to her and asks her why she won't talk to him.

Context, which you clearly wish to ignore.

You haven't cottoned on yet? What you care for or want means nothing to me. I was providing you with the context in which women view these unwanted and unasked for advances.

You wish to harp on about how men's rights are being infringed upon because men are being criticised for harassing women on the street.

Oh noes, evil feminists are out to get you and infringe on your rights to abuse and insult women in the street. Poor you. Boo hoo. Would you like a cookie? I do not actually care what news source you read or want to read. You have yet to support any of the arguments you have made in this thread. Which, by any definition, makes you a mouthpiece for the misogynists you so avidly support.

And to be honest, you are scraping the bottom of that desperate barrel you are burrowing into if you are going to try to argue that my being against street harassment makes me hate men.

Nice try and you are still dodging the requests that you point out how this woman was trying to attract this unwanted attention by her actions.

And your inherent and ridiculous dishonesty once again comes to the fore when you are deliberately unable and refusing to view and accept what women experience when they walk down the street. Perhaps you are stupid enough to assume that the rest of us are simply dumb and think that these men are just walking down the same street as a woman when they decide to invade her personal space, stalk her for over 5 minutes because she won't give them the attention they and you obviously seem to believe they should be getting from her.

And yes, the streets are a public place, which means that women should by their legal rights be able to walk on them without fuckwads harassing them. It is actually that simple. Or are you going to argue that women should not enjoy that right?

So I'll ask you again. Support your argument where you declared that the woman in the video was deliberately setting out to draw attention to herself while she conducted this experiment. What was she doing to draw this attention to herself?

Stop lying, stop trying to slither out of your own argument and answer for it. I want you to show exactly where in the video evidence that she was deliberately drawing attention to herself as you declared she was doing.

 

Motor Daddy has been banned from replying in this thread for 7 days due to dishonest trolling.