Yes. Thank you.

And as I’m the first to comment, let me just say women do NOT take this as a compliment. It doesn’t make you feel sexy. It makes you feel like prey.

Well said Ellie. Every woman I know has experienced this.

“Yet grassroots activism is not enough by itself; governments round the world need to start taking action so that women can feel safe and equal wherever they are, including outside their own front doors.”

Sure. I am all for this. At least in theory. But what reasonably can be done? Countries with serious groper problems have resorted to public shaming. I think that might work. But of course if we do that for sexual pests, why not shop lifters?

How many cases of this sort of his-word-against-her-word incident do you think will end up in Court? And at what expense in police time (when, you know, they could be out arresting thieves and murderers – yes that made me laugh too) and legal expenses? I don’t see the police prosecuting all that often myself.

Of course we could scrap the whole trial thing and go straight to punishment with On-The-Spot fines. Why not for shop lifting too?

Well. That didn’t take too many comments before violating someone’s personal space and body got equated disparagingly with theft of property.

Still, I should sometimes remind myself that obvious troll is obvious.

4. Cylux – “Well. That didn’t take too many comments before violating someone’s personal space and body got equated disparagingly with theft of property.”

No it didn’t. Actually.

On this I think that there is an interesting comparison to be made with drink driving. Not in terms of the offence itself and it’s consequences, but in attitudes.

At one time drinking and driving was considered, a bit like street harrassment now, as just one of those things, it happens, in fact it was almost considered a “manly” thing to do and friends may egg their mates on. Now it is considered socially unacceptable. I don’t know of anyone who, if one of their friends had been drinking and was threatening to drive wouldn’t turn round and say “stop being a dick, get a cab or crash on my sofa”.

Street harrasment now needs a similar change of attitude. But importantly that attitude change could most effectively start with those who are already not guilty of it. It needs the men that already, to their credit, don’t do it and don’t think it is acceptable to turn round when one of their friends does it and say “stop being a dick”. That peer pressure will, in my humble opinion, be the most effectove remedy going.

@ 6

That’s an interesting comparison. I suspect that in the long term you’ll effect more change by improving social attitudes than by government action – people tend not to report this sort of thing, and as So Much For Subtlety points out, even if you do it’ll probably be word-against-word.

Street harrasment now needs a similar change of attitude. But importantly that attitude change could most effectively start with those who are already not guilty of it. It needs the men that already, to their credit, don’t do it and don’t think it is acceptable to turn round when one of their friends does it and say “stop being a dick”. That peer pressure will, in my humble opinion, be the most effectove remedy going.

Yes – that is a fantastic suggestion. I imagine that the kind of numpties who engage in harassing behaviour probably see themselves in a Clarkson-esque way as being incredibly cool and subversive (despite actually maintaining long-standing notions of women as objects first and people afterwards), and so only criticism from their intended audience is likely to have any impact.

6. Akela – “At one time drinking and driving was considered, a bit like street harrassment now, as just one of those things, it happens, in fact it was almost considered a “manly” thing to do and friends may egg their mates on.”

I have to say I don’t know anyone who thinks it is a manly thing to do. Never have. In fact it would not occur to most people I know that real men yell at women on the street.

“Street harrasment now needs a similar change of attitude. But importantly that attitude change could most effectively start with those who are already not guilty of it. It needs the men that already, to their credit, don’t do it and don’t think it is acceptable to turn round when one of their friends does it and say “stop being a dick”. That peer pressure will, in my humble opinion, be the most effectove remedy going.”

Yeah but why do you think men are not doing this already? It is likely that this takes place in sub-cultures within the UK where there are no men standing around to tell the young boys doing it not to do it. That may be caused in part by the usual Tory talking points – fatherless boys for instance. With no men in the home to teach them how men have traditionally behaved, why are we surprised they don’t behave like men should? Some of the more aggressive incidents seem to be a little odd for White British boys – stoning the girl going out in a dress for instance. Can I suggest on LC that this may have involved boys from an immigrant background?

The most sensible option might be a series of TV adverts. There was one in New South Wales which involved pretty young girls mocking the size of the manhood of the men who raced their cars in the street. I am told it worked. Perhaps we could have a “Real Men Don’t Leer” campaign?

Still it is complex. I told a girl I was walking past the other day she had a really nice coat. And she did. I can honestly say it was said without sexual intent. But that is in the mind of the woman isn’t it? She didn’t take it the wrong way and was surprisingly pleased (an advantage of being old I guess) but she could have. No doubt I shouldn’t do it again.

@6 is bang on the money here. We need to find out why drinking when driving became socially unacceptable – at a guess, I’d say it was a combination of both government campaigns and peer pressure. I know no-one who thinks drink-driving is OK, but I (sadly) know people who think leering at women is still fine. Now I can pull them up on it when I’m around, and get berated by others for it, but when I’m not around it’s not so simple. I think more people need to stand up and tell their mates that it’s just not on, even if they think it’s all a bit of a laugh or whatever.

@9:

“With no men in the home to teach them how men have traditionally behaved, why are we surprised they don’t behave like men should? Some of the more aggressive incidents seem to be a little odd for White British boys – stoning the girl going out in a dress for instance. Can I suggest on LC that this may have involved boys from an immigrant background?”

Where did the stoning reference come from? I feel strongly about this subject, and I’d like to respond, but I’m concerned I’m missing something.

I live in east London, get random shit from men on a daily basis and I promise you the majority isn’t from “boys from an immigrant background”.

Now I know that
a) I am out of touch with the world; and
b) I am getting old.

I had assumed this was a thing of the past and that we had long since moved on. When will men start to accept women as human beings and not as chattels that can be groped whenever the move takes them.

Thankfully, there are still a few of us around that can respect women and behave appropriately. Besides – my beautiful wife has a lethal roundhous kick

“This naïve suggestion, that deliberate sexual intimidation by a stranger is not only harmless but in fact complimentary, will be depressingly familiar to many women as a common attitude in male friends, partners and family members.”

I’d question your use of ‘deliberate intimidation’ here. As you say, there is a naive belief that this sort of behaviour is not intimidating, but complimentary. Assuming that some of the men who are guilty of this sort of behaviour have that sort of belief, they’re not *deliberately* intimidating anyone. They probably think they’re being flirtatious and charming, or something. (Doesn’t mean their behaviour isn’t genuinely intimidating and unacceptable, of course; but there’s a difference between how you address the issue of men who get a kick out of intimidating women, and men who are simply ignorant enough to think that there couldn’t be anything intimidating about ‘complimenting’ someone.)

“In particular, it can be difficult to explain the terrifying transition that occurs from crude sexual approval to outright hostility when harrassers are challenged; from screams of “fucking bitch” (my own experience) to even death threats, these responses pretty effectively puncture the idea that these men are just trying to be nice.”

I think the opposite, actually. If they’re ‘just trying to be nice’ by paying someone a compliment (in their mind), that neatly explains why they get so angry when they’re rejected.

The one difference between drink-driving and this kind of molestation is that there were no parts of the media for drink-drivers. Lad mags, pornography and casual leering as in page 3 must be considered when discussing this problem, surely?

@ 14

I didn’t know lads’ mags told men to engage in sexual harassment. Any links?

I don’t think this is “still” a reality – because I don’t think it was a reality 60 or more years back. Were women harassed on the street in the 1930s or 1950s ? It’s just part of the general decline in public civility after the 1960s Cultural Revolution. “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law”.

Can anyone give recorded examples of this kind of harassment pre-60s ? AFAIK it’s the kind of thing that travellers reported from Rome, not London.

1930s :

“I once walked with her by the Arno, in Florence, where navvies engaged in road work put down their picks and stared in frank admiration as she passed. Supervia, without even a glance in their direction, sensed their admiration and visibly preened herself.

‘I do,’ she replied, amused at such a very Anglo-Saxon question. ‘I don’t find it unpleasant to think that they are all saying to themselves, “If I was a rich man, that’s what I’d want.” You see, Italy is a woman’s country. In your country, if I walked down Bond Street,’ she went on lightheartedly, ‘not a man would notice me unless I pushed him off the pavement.’“

@15

Perhaps not, but you must admit the nature and content of some media should be considered in a discussion such as this? Is it a factor? If so, then how should the problem be dealt with?

Isn’t this kind of harassment a relatively modern phenomenon – i.e. last 40-odd years, since the 1960s Cultural Revolution ? Since “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law” ?

I’m reasonably sure that this was rare in pre-60s Britain, which was renowned for its civility. Travellers used to complain (or sometimes not) about harassment in places like Italy.

Has anyone got any evidence that this was anything but rare in pre-60s Britain ?

1930s – the opera star Conchita Supervia on the reaction of Italian men as she walks in the street : “In your country, if I walked down Bond Street, not a man would notice me unless I pushed him off the pavement!”.

What she said. Excellent post Ellie!

@ 16 Cherub

“Perhaps not, but you must admit the nature and content of some media should be considered in a discussion such as this? Is it a factor? If so, then how should the problem be dealt with?”

It should, but to be honest I doubt that this sort of behaviour is much encouraged by any media. If it is, it should be addressed, probably by encouraging other media outlets to send the counter-message.

@ 17 Laban

“Has anyone got any evidence that this was anything but rare in pre-60s Britain ?”

That sounds like you’re trying to get people to prove a negative – it doesn’t seem likely that we’ll be able to find a news headline from the 50s titled “Whistling At Women In Street Still Very Rare, Says Study”.

I see no reason to assume that this is a modern problem – in my experience, people are people, and claims that the past is a better place tend to be more driven by rose-tinted nostalgia than fact.

@ Laban

I’m not sure ‘civility’ is really the issue here. British men may very well have been more ‘civil’ prior to the 1960s, but they were also rather more likely to believe (for instance) that marital rape was a logical impossibility and that physical chastisement of one’s wife might sometimes be appropriate. A well-spoken, bowler-hatted gent politely but firmly insisting on his conjugal rights may very well have been more ‘civil’ than the modern-day lad inviting a passer-by to sit on his face, but that doesn’t really tell us anything substantial about attitudes to and the position of women in pre-60s and post-60s Britain.

Chaise – proving a negative in this case shouldn’t be impossible – all sorts of possible sources, from Mass Observation to novels and writing of the period. The existence of writing which remarked upon sexual harassment in Italy, say, as something the writer was unused to, would be a pointer to its relative rarity in the UK.

“in my experience, people are people”

That’s true – human nature doesn’t change that much. But cultures do, sometimes dramatically.

G.O. – don’t attack straw men. I wasn’t trying to argue that pre-60s was a feminist paradise. I was addressing the subject of the post. Street culture is much more aggressive and in your face than 60 years ago. Read Orwell on The English People (1944), Geoffrey Gorer’s Exploring English Character (1955) or LSE prof K.B. Smellie’s The British Way of Life (1955). The UK was a famously civil place then.

One other problem that Ellie Cumbo has is that some women will take the harassment as a compliment. Here’s the whole Conchita Supervia quote – note how shocked the Englishman is, both at the (very mild) “harassment” and the fact that she enjoys it.

“I once walked with her by the Arno, in Florence, where navvies engaged in road work put down their picks and stared in frank admiration as she passed. Supervia, without even a glance in their direction, sensed their admiration and visibly preened herself.

‘You surely don’t enjoy men looking at you like that?’ I asked.

‘I do,’ she replied, amused at such a very Anglo-Saxon question. ‘I don’t find it unpleasant to think that they are all saying to themselves, “If I was a rich man, that’s what I’d want.” You see, Italy is a woman’s country. In your country, if I walked down Bond Street,’ she went on lightheartedly, ‘not a man would notice me unless I pushed him off the pavement.’”

@ 22 Laban

“Chaise – proving a negative in this case shouldn’t be impossible – all sorts of possible sources, from Mass Observation to novels and writing of the period. The existence of writing which remarked upon sexual harassment in Italy, say, as something the writer was unused to, would be a pointer to its relative rarity in the UK.”

True enough. We’re both without evidence, then.

“That’s true – human nature doesn’t change that much. But cultures do, sometimes dramatically.”

Agreed – it’s entirely possible that this has changed in the last 100 years much as attitudes towards women wearing trousers and discussing politics have done the same. But there’s also anecdotal reasons to believe it could have got better, not worse: while pre-60s society is generally presented as being more civil and reserved, you’re also going back to a time when the “woman as conquest” idea wasn’t anywhere near so widely challenged.

Laban – “don’t attack straw men. I wasn’t trying to argue that pre-60s was a feminist paradise. I was addressing the subject of the post.”

Sure; I’m just suggesting that the problem Ellie points to in the post is not primarily a problem of behaviour towards women having become unacceptably vulgar, but a problem of behaviour towards women continuing to reflect certain attitudes. In a more civil age, women may nonetheless have been the victims of ‘everyday acts of casual contempt’ and sexual intimidation; it’s just that such acts would have taken a different form.

(I appreciate that you only ever claimed *this sort of* harrassment was a new thing. I’m not disputing that, just suggesting that we can’t conclude from the fact that a symptom is relatively new that the underlying problem is also relatively new.)

@19 Chaise

Don’t you think this objectifies women and encourages an attitude that might lead to leering and comments in the street? http://www.zootoday.com/

‘Chaise – proving a negative in this case shouldn’t be impossible – all sorts of possible sources, from Mass Observation to novels and writing of the period.’

Novels are no guide to history unless you think homosexuals were pretty much non-existent prior to the 60s, unmarried women always died in childbirth and everyone spoke gramatically correct English all the time.

‘The existence of writing which remarked upon sexual harassment in Italy, say, as something the writer was unused to, would be a pointer to its relative rarity in the UK.’

Those writers may just be tapping into racist stereotypes though.

CG – not so.I presented one piece of evidence, Conchita Supervia saying that she’s ignored by men in late 20s/early 30s London, and an Englishman, accompanist Frank Marshall, incredulous that any woman could possibly enjoy the unsolicited attentions of strangers on the street. 1-0.

“in my experience, people are people”

As I said, culture is all-important. Doubtless human nature hasn’t changed, in that there are now, and have been in the past, some men who want to control women, some who want to insult or humiliate, some who want to express their admiration. But point A is that the culture 60+ years back forbade the open expression on the street of all of these.

(Point B is that if ‘people are people’ and it’s always been like this, aren’t you asking for what in your terms is the impossible – for underlying male attitudes to change ? Or if you accept that attitudes can be changed by culture, doesn’t that mean that it hasn’t necessarily always been like this ?)

G.O. Correct. One of the things that amazed me, in the days when I was a young leftie hippie and talked with lots of different women (you know, when you swap life stories and love lives), was how many had been the victim of some kind of stranger assault in their early teens – from the guy exposing himself in the churchyard to the groper on the bus and worse.

‘Don’t you think this objectifies women and encourages an attitude that might lead to leering and comments in the street? http://www.zootoday.com/‘

Can’t access the site but ‘don’t you think…encourages an attitude…might lead…’ is an argument so qualified it doesn’t inspire confidence in any causal relationship.

“Novels are no guide to history unless you think homosexuals were pretty much non-existent prior to the 60s, unmarried women always died in childbirth and everyone spoke gramatically correct English all the time.”

FFS. Don’t expose your ignorance.

@G.O – 13 “I’d question your use of ‘deliberate intimidation’ here. As you say, there is a naive belief that this sort of behaviour is not intimidating, but complimentary”

My two most recent encounters with street harassers have involved a lone man veering up to me and screaming “you fucking bitch” in my face before running off, and two men stopping me indicating that they wanted directions and then launching into “you cunt, I want to rape you up the arse, I want to fuck your tits”. Most of my female friends have experienced similar. Sorry, but that’s the standard of street harassment. It’s designed to intimidate and threaten. It’s not about cheesy blokes failing to realise their behaviour can be perceived as threatening.

On a side note the excellent Vicky Simister was interviewed about her assault on Woman’s Hour a couple of months back. She was up against Brendan O’Neill who claimed women who objected to street harassment were just anti-working class.

@27 Shatterface

Sorry, just google “zoo magazine” and it should come up.

In case you hadn’t noticed, I was asking a question.

I know you have firm beliefs regarding pornography and free speech. I tend to agree with free speech, but not as an end in itself, but because it will lead to people being able to live better lives. However your unwillingness to even consider whther magazines such as Zoo might be part of the problem we are discussing has prevented you from considering a possible solution.

I would suggest that if you or I habitually read magazines such as Zoo we would still be unlikely to harass a woman in the street. That does not mean that some men might feel empowered to do so by the kind of material in such publications. Doesn’t that then suggest that they may be the very places to start saying that street oglers are tossers? Just as “Don’t drink & drive” beermats took the message to the pubs?

@29 Catkins.

Good grief, those blokes sound ill!

@ Cherub (31)

And both incidents happened in Islington. You couldn’t pick a more touch-feely metrosexual place to be harassed!

@ 25 Cherub

“Don’t you think this objectifies women and encourages an attitude that might lead to leering and comments in the street? http://www.zootoday.com/”

I’m not going to click that link, because I’m at work, but I imagine I can guess the content.

I’ve never really been convinced by the “objectification” idea. To me, it seems to combine a desire to find offence with society’s general hang-ups about sex. Of course, there are men who see women as sex objects, but I’m not sure how much lads’ mags have to do with it. I imagine they see any attractive woman as a sex object, regardless of how she’s dressed.

Zoo and its ilk tend to be used as convenient scapegoats in my opinion, often by people who find sexual desire offensive in itself. The fact that men find scantily clad women attractive should not be worrying per se. If magazines like that overtly push a “who cares what she says, she’s just a bird” kind of attitude, that’s a different issue entirely.

@ Cherub

Just noticed:

“Doesn’t that then suggest that they may be the very places to start saying that street oglers are tossers? Just as “Don’t drink & drive” beermats took the message to the pubs?”

This, I agree with.

@33

“If magazines like that overtly push a “who cares what she says, she’s just a bird” kind of attitude, that’s a different issue entirely.”

It was either Zoo or Nuts (they’re both so alike I can never tell which) that had an agony uncle style column written (purportedly) by Danny Dyer that once said the way to “get back” at an ex-girlfriend was by “cutting her face” so that no-one else would want her.

(Just googled, it was Zoo: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/may/05/danny-dyer-zoo-magazine )

Now you could say that was a one-off, of that it’s indicative of a magazine that treats women as pieces of meat – either way, it’s a sick-making thing to say even if intended as “humour”.

@ 35

OK, that’s fucked. I don’t know if it’s a one-off. Either way, it passes straight through “treating women like meat” and ends up registering as “being a vicious lunatic”.

If there is anything we should be taking magazines like Zoo to task on, I reckon it’s in the text, not the pictures. The idea of people posing in their underwear doesn’t bother me. Stuff like the column you quote above does.

@33. 34

We could argue about causes and effects pointlessly, but I’m glad we can agree on something. However I do think that your position about objectification is not a strongly defensible one, rather it is a convenient one. Of course, without empirical data this is merely a suspicion, I would be interested to find out whther good research had been done in this area.

@ 37 Cherub

Convenient how? I doubt there’s hard evidence on either side. In fact, I reckon solid figures would be hard to come by – how do you quantify and test for someone’s general impressions of someone else?

@37: Let’s look, shall we?

Oh fuck, why doesn’t LibCon have a preview? Let’s try that link again…

Hang on – is there really an argument that lad’s mags (which if you look actually ascribe personality to the photographic subjects – it might not be real, but it is individual, so making literate readers find it difficult to objectify the subject as anything other than a separate person) cause harrassment. Seems unlikely – after all, way before such things were available harrassment happened (it may have not been mentioned in the 1960s, but if you watch the ‘grittier’ British movies of the period (or the Carry On films) you can see it taking place). And the historical record is pretty clear it was far worse back in time.

I would actually suggest that whilst there is clearly an issue, as with many things it is probably less serious than it used to be, but in our more liberal and respecting society, it is more commented on when it happens. Whilst my mum would probably ignore someone making comments on her appearance as something that happened (she used to work near a prison once, which was apparently educational in that respect) my wife would be upset by it. This is not to say there is nothing to do here, but to point out that what you are actually doing is trying to deal with the recedivist tendency, not a cultural norm.

@G.O – 13

“I’d question your use of ‘deliberate intimidation’ here. As you say, there is a naive belief that this sort of behaviour is not intimidating, but complimentary”

My most recent experience with street harrassement was of walking down the street with my sister, when a guy started stomping/stalking towards us, arms spread wide as if to hit/catch us, screaming “show me your cuuuuuunts!!!”

Seriously. We need to let go of the fairy tale that women are just too stupid to know the difference between harrassement and compliment (and while we’re at it let’s let go of the idea that men are such dumb beasts that thy don’t know when a woman is not happy with their advances, either).

@29

That’s pretty shocking, and I wouldn’t deny for a minute that behaviour like *that* is intended to intimidate. But surely it’s not the sort of behaviour about which anyone would make the “naïve suggestion, that [it]… is not only harmless but in fact complimentary”?

I’m just distinguishing between two equally real problems that may have somewhat different solutions: 1 – some men actively enjoy intimidating, humiliating and degrading women, and therefore engage in the sort of behaviour you describe; 2 – some men are naive/ignorant enough to think that a woman is bound to feel flattered (rather than intimidated, uncomfortable etc) by any expressions of sexual interest.

@Watchman

would actually suggest that whilst there is clearly an issue, as with many things it is probably less serious than it used to be, but in our more liberal and respecting society, it is more commented on when it happens. Whilst my mum would probably ignore someone making comments on her appearance as something that happened (she used to work near a prison once, which was apparently educational in that respect) my wife would be upset by it. This is not to say there is nothing to do here, but to point out that what you are actually doing is trying to deal with the recedivist tendency, not a cultural norm.

I’m not sure that I can agree with your analysis, though it does sound plausible. At least in part, the absolute number of incidents of ahrrassement is linked to the number of women in the public sphere – women who don’t walk on the street without a man don’t get harrassed (incidentally, the reason why so many men who are themeslves too decent to engage harrassement find it hard to believe it exists – harrassers hardly ever approach a woman within earshot of a man – getting her alone and isolated is part of the power trip).

In days past, women participated less in the public sphere – they worked less and so travelled less, they didn’t live alone so much so were not likely to be walking back home alone, there were no 24-hour Tescos for them to go to at night and so on. This applied especially to middle class women, seeing as poor women have always worked and have always been subjected to violence and harrassement; but in terms of repartage that was likely to reach us, this is significant, because hte middle class women had more of a voice to complain about the harrassement. Also, I’d argue class structures probably protected some groups of women from harrassement from their “social inferiors” – black women int he US for example do report harrassement by white men going back generations.

These days women are much more visible and present in the public sphere, and this applies to all levels of the socioeconomic cake, so I think while I agree with you that the attitude is a relic of a past time, I don’t think the absolute amount of harrassement is a small stub of a larger dead tree. If anything, the number of women harrassed these days who have both the wherewithal and the political nouse to be outraged is larger, which is why we’re seeing this type of discussion and initiatives like Hollaback.

while we’re at it let’s let go of the idea that men are such dumb beasts that thy don’t know when a woman is not happy with their advances

Yes. Please. This whole “oh, I only meant it as a compliment” bullshit is just another variant on the “can’t you take a joke” bullshit that bullies tend to resort to whenever somebody stands up to them.

G.O. #46: I’ve also recently had a man step aside to tell me “I just wanted to say you’re really beautiful”, and step back again, all the while smiling, keeping a safe distance, not making any attempt to follow me/fall into step with me, nor asking me for any personal information or any type of response. I smiled back and walked on, feeling rather chuffed, and that was that.

I’m gonna say this again: women are not stupid. We can tellt he difference between harrassement and somebody just asking the time perfectly well. When we are talking and writing about harrassement, we are not talking and writing about misunderstandings, but about things that were all too well understood.

@ 45 Dunc

“Yes. Please. This whole “oh, I only meant it as a compliment” bullshit is just another variant on the “can’t you take a joke” bullshit that bullies tend to resort to whenever somebody stands up to them.”

Hmm. What about the whole “she’s only playing hard to get” thing? I suspect some people genuinely believe that one, and for a stupid cliche it can have pretty evil consequences.

To get back on topic for a moment, I think this one really is one to be dealt with through social shaming rather than enforcement. Or social shaming as well as enforcement, anyway.

An important first step is to help men – decent grownup men, who don’t get their jollies screaming obscenities at women on the street, and who are thankfully the majority – understand that this really does exist, that harrassement is somethign that happens, and that it is scary as fuck and not at all ambiguous or brush-offable.

So my plea to any men reading this would be: go ask a woman. Choose one of the women in your life and ask her about the last time a man or group of men called something at her on the street, what they said, and how it made her feel. Then ask her how often it’s happened before. I promise you, you will be shocked and outraged.

Once you become aware of this, of just how unsafe and invaded women feel just using the public pavement, you will never be able to unsee it again. You’ll never tune out a bunch of lads drunkenly yelling something at a bunch of girls on a night out, you will always want to cock an ear, get the situation and make sure the girls are alright. You will never see a speeding car slow up by the curbside where a woman is walking in the same way again. Conversations – ones you may have considered innocent before – in the back of a bus or on teh tube will now draw your attention, just for a moment, just to make sure everything is cool and a woman is not being intimidated.

And at that point you’ll become our army of street harrassement superhero fighters, because let me tell you – it’s enough that you make eye contact with those scumbags, just to let them know you can see what’s going on, and it’ll shut them up. They do it because they think they can get away with it, and they’re the meanest type of bully – so just knowing they’d been found out will be enough to stop them dead in their tracks.

@47:

What about the whole “she’s only playing hard to get” thing? I suspect some people genuinely believe that one, and for a stupid cliche it can have pretty evil consequences.

Well, there we’re getting into what is known as “rape culture”, and (wuss that I am) that’s a whole can of worms that I’m not too keen to open here. I’ll just pause to note that people’s “genuine” beliefs are not formed and maintained in a vacuum.

I may be more sympathetic to these sorts of concerns because, as a long-haired hippy, I occasionally get harassed in the street too… And people frequently don’t believe me, either.

@48

“Once you become aware of this, of just how unsafe and invaded women feel just using the public pavement, you will never be able to unsee it again.”

This is so true.

MarinaS,

Good point about the public sphere there, but speaking as someone whose grandparents all worked (as indeed did those great grandparents I can identify), I would suggest that if you are correct the volume of harrasment has increased, I would suggest the intensity has decreased – more women may be harrased, but the actual number of times it happens is less.

It might also be worth distinguishing between different forms of harrasment. The comment or wolf-whistle so beloved of builders (apparently – the builders I know would never do that, but then again I know them through nice pubs in the main) is different from both the groping and abusive language highlighted above, which is socially unacceptable, and the comments on someone’s character based on their appearance and dress choice (albeit all three are linked closely together). I’d suggest that of these the passive making of comments/whistling (‘the builder model’) is probably in decline because in any workplace it is less likely to be acceptable, and because managers generally do not want that sort of trouble, and also because groups socialising (probably because of the mixing of the public sphere you mention) are more likely to be female. The assumptions on character (generally manifested as hostile comments or assumptions about being sexually available) tends to be linked to holding a particular conception of right and wrong, and what is ‘respectable’ or not. As this is generally less prevalent in Britain, I assume this is declining even if not quickly enough.

But the problem remains the obviously socially unacceptable behaviours, which even if physical contact is being reduced, is perhaps a growth area – the problem with the lowering of the barriers that make judgement about a woman due to received standards of right and wrong is that the same barriers are what stop men (and to be fair, women – apparently walking down a road smiling makes you a ‘fag’ in some people’s minds) doing and saying particularly nasty and stupid things without consequence. I suspect better education would help here – or even effective social pressures on more liberal lines, but how this happens is a difficult question.

@49

Working on my reading list…

@ 49 Dunc

“Well, there we’re getting into what is known as “rape culture”, and (wuss that I am) that’s a whole can of worms that I’m not too keen to open here. I’ll just pause to note that people’s “genuine” beliefs are not formed and maintained in a vacuum.”

Absolutely. The fact that it’s a stock phrase demonstrates in itself that it’s a learned response. I think some progress was made here with the “no means no” campaigns, but I wonder how clear it is for some people that this applies to harassment as well as sex.

@43 GO

Most men don’t harass women in the street, and harassers never abuse women when men are around. So most decent men have no idea of how these abusers behave. My experience – which I suspect is shared with a lot of female posters here – is that street harassment is deliberately designed to humiliate or intimidate. Any response from the woman invariably leads to threats of violence.

Hannah Pool wrote an article about this issue in the Guardian in December. There were nearly 500 comments – half from women recounting their experiences, half from men very similar to yours. Go read it – women recounting their experiences of harassment and men downplaying them. Not being deliberately dismissive, but just failing to grasp a problem is serious and widespread and it’s supposed to be happening in public but they don’t see it.

I think you don’t ‘get’ the issue. MarinaS is right – women know the difference between harassment and compliments, and so do men. The Guardian had an article on street harassment recently and there were

Gahh, ignore my ragged post – can we have an edit function?

Here’s the Guardian article – if you want to be educated on street harassment read the comments.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/23/women-against-sexual-harrassment?commentpage=all#start-of-comments

@ 42

“We need to let go of the fairy tale that women are just too stupid to know the difference between harrassement and compliment”

Not sure how this relates to what I said, but anyway: when we were drilled on harrassment policies at work, we were told that harrassment is basically ‘in the eye of the beholder’ – i.e. there’s no sharp distinction between behaviour that counts as harmless flirting/joking/whatever on the one hand and behaviour that counts as sexual harrassment on the other, because different people have different boundaries. So there’s no question of anyone being ‘stupid’ if they can’t see the difference; they’re entitled to draw their own lines when it comes to what they’re comfortable with and what they’re not.

“(and while we’re at it let’s let go of the idea that men are such dumb beasts that thy don’t know when a woman is not happy with their advances, either).”

I think I’m taking flak just for paraphrasing Ellie’s post here. The claim that people often make “the naive suggestion” that some of this behaviour “is not only harmless but in fact complimentary” was hers, not mine. (Personally I don’t find it that hard to believe that some men are ignorant enough to think women must be secretly flattered by any sexual attention, but hey ho.)

Actually I think you’ve shifted the goalposts somewhat with that “don’t know when a woman is not happy with their advances”. Just because a man’s not *so* stupid he can’t read rejection signals, doesn’t mean he’s not stupid enough to ‘try it on’ in an inappropriate way in the first place.

@ Catkins

“There were nearly 500 comments – half from women recounting their experiences, half from men very similar to yours. Go read it – women recounting their experiences of harassment and men downplaying them. Not being deliberately dismissive, but just failing to grasp a problem is serious and widespread and it’s supposed to be happening in public but they don’t see it.”

You’re right – I didn’t realise how widespread the sort of horrific intimidating behaviour you describe is. And I hope I haven’t said anything to ‘downplay’ the seriousness of such behaviour.

I was just picking up on something Ellie said in the original post, about how many people (not me!) still think some of this behaviour is harmless or complimentary. If she’s right that many people *do* have that belief, then we’d expect some of them to act accordingly – i.e. to try to ‘compliment’ women in inappropriate ways that they mistakenly believe to be ‘harmless’.

…but that is not *at all* to dismiss the cases you describe, in which men set out to intimidate women in the full knowledge that there’s nothing ‘harmless’ or ‘complimentary’ about it.

@ GO

I didn’t think you were downplaying the seriousness – but like most normal men you didn’t realise how common it is. The two men I mentioned in my first post threatened to fuck me in the street at 8am in the morning. I’d bet they did the same to every lone woman going to work who passed them. It’s inconceivable that the shouty guy in the other incident made me the first and last random woman he’d ever threatened. It takes a few men constantly doing this day in day out to impact on a lot of women – making them feel vulnerable, and with the underlying threat of escalating it to a sexual assault.

MarinaS’s suggestion in post 48 is the right one – the decent men only need to indicate their awareness to get the scumbags to back down. Invariably the decent men will then be the recipient of the mumbled “sorry mate, didn’t realise she was with you” apology that follows!

@ MarinaS

“When we are talking and writing about harrassement, we are not talking and writing about misunderstandings, but about things that were all too well understood.”

But in the original post, Ellie *is* writing (partly) about misunderstanding – e.g. the police misinterpreting an incident of sexual harrassment as some men ‘saying nice things’. It’s that sort of misunderstanding I’m talking about, not women ‘misunderstanding’ men’s advances or anything like that.

48. MarinaS – “I’m gonna say this again: women are not stupid. We can tellt he difference between harrassement and somebody just asking the time perfectly well. When we are talking and writing about harrassement, we are not talking and writing about misunderstandings, but about things that were all too well understood.”

No one is claiming women are stupid. But the fact is, it is a continuum. We can all look at the extreme end and agree that is stupid, offensive and wrong. It is the bit in the middle that is the problem. And no, there is no community standard to judge. What might be acceptable to one person may well be harassment to another. You say you are not talking about misunderstandings. Fine. Define harassment then. Can you produce an objective definition? Can you define it in such a way a law could be written that would allow people to try to chat up pretty girls they meet in flower stalls but prevent anyone, no matter how puritanical and po-faced, from being offended?

I even know women who openly state their regret that they do not get whistled at by builders any more. But I am pretty sure they did not like it at the time.

31. Catkins – “My two most recent encounters with street harassers have involved a lone man veering up to me and screaming “you fucking bitch” in my face before running off, and two men stopping me indicating that they wanted directions and then launching into “you cunt, I want to rape you up the arse, I want to fuck your tits”. Most of my female friends have experienced similar. Sorry, but that’s the standard of street harassment. It’s designed to intimidate and threaten. It’s not about cheesy blokes failing to realise their behaviour can be perceived as threatening.”

The mistake, surely, is to think it is designed to do anything. No man could ever personally benefit from whatever intimidation is being alleged here. Think they went home to wives who were more “obedient” as a result?

It is more likely that this is the result of Care in the Community failing. These people must have mental health issues that compel them to express a lot of anger and frustration towards women.

@ 63

“The mistake, surely, is to think it is designed to do anything. No man could ever personally benefit from whatever intimidation is being alleged here”

The benefit, for someone who doesn’t like women, is that he’s successfully intimidated one of them in a public space. He probably gets a warm inner glow.

“It is more likely that this is the result of Care in the Community failing. These people must have mental health issues that compel them to express a lot of anger and frustration towards women.”

Whilst my lone harasser was a bit of a sad sap (hooded anorak no less!), the second incident was with two men acting in tandem. A lot of street harassment comes from men in groups, so it’s probably down to bravado not insanity. It’s letting people off the hook to put anti-social behaviour down to mental health issues. Some people are just aggressive and obnoxious.

Phew, so much for subtlety indeed.

No, nobody is “saying” women are stupid. Nobody has typed the words: “yo women! you’re stupid”. We can agree on that.

However, refusals – such as yours, in both comments above – to believe that women know what they feel, are aware of what’s going on around them, and can accurately report how they feel about it, imply that women are either of below average intelligence (the generous reading) or below average humanity (the one I’m inclining towards in your case.

Let’s say someone gave you a slice of pie. You didn’t ask for it, you’re not particularly in the mood for pie, but someone put the plate in front of you anyway. You tasted the pie, and were all like “OMG! This pie is gross! Ugh! Who cooked this thing? It’s disgusting. It’s the worst pie in the history of pie.”

How would you feel if a bunch of people who are not you, were not there, did not taste the pie in question, and have never had anyone try and force pie on them, piled in to tell you that you misunderstood, actually the pie was probably really good, these things exist on a spectrm of pie yumminess, and frankly you should ont over-react to what was probably not nearly as bad a pie as what you’re making out, plus the pie-pushed may have had some good intentions that you’re not taking into account?

To be more precise, regardless of the actual quality of the pie, how would you feel if someone told you that you felt differently about it than you actually do?.

You know what else occurred to me last night? The other reason why I have no trouble taking women’s descriptions of street harassment and its impacts seriously: I’ve been hearing these stories all my life, from practically every woman I know – my mother, my grandmother, my aunt, my sister-in-law, my cousins, my girlfriends, and every other female friend I’ve ever had whom I was close enough to for them to feel comfortable discussing such matters in my company. All of them.

Is my experience really so unrepresentative? Have I somehow spent my entire life surrounded by unusually forthright (or over-sensitive) women? Were they all exaggerating?

“. No man could ever personally benefit from whatever intimidation is being alleged here. ”

Do you honestly think that all crime is committed for personal benefit? And that if a man doesn’t fnancially benefit from initimidation, it can’t be intimidation.

The prisons are full of criminals who were motivated not by financial means, but because they got sexual gratification, exitement etc from committing their crimes. Intimidation is another – some people get off on it.

Catkin,

The benefit, for someone who doesn’t like women, is that he’s successfully intimidated one of them in a public space. He probably gets a warm inner glow.

That is making an assumption which is beyond even that justified by stating that this is about asserting power relationships (a questionable assumption when someone is doing something that to observers reduces their status far more than their victims anyway). It assumes a widespread desire to drive women out of public space.

I’d rather say it is not a matter of benefits or not (other than the joy of seeing a shocked reaction perhaps) but of dealing with people without emotional empathy, for whatever reason. To assume a problem like this is rooted in hatred tends to miss the fact that the people doing it are likely to be inadequate rather than calculating, immature rather than aspiring to dominance.

@ 68 Watchman

“To assume a problem like this is rooted in hatred tends to miss the fact that the people doing it are likely to be inadequate rather than calculating, immature rather than aspiring to dominance.”

…Or, indeed, to genuinely believe that shouting “get your baps out, love” is an acceptable and potentially effective form of flirtation. I agree. It seems to me that a man harassing a woman like this is probably thinking about sex more than anything else.

Chaise,

Surely “wishing they could have sex” rather than “thinking about sex” – your formulation suggested there was a chance…

It assumes a widespread desire to drive women out of public space.

Um, why do we need to “assume” that there is a desire to drive women out of public space, when we know that some men want to drive women out of public space, because they helpfully tell us?

If indeed we were operating on assumptions, your quibble may have been reasonable. But what you just did there is take the personal testimonies, the lived experience of actual women, and dismissed it is less than makebelieve.

You have in essense more effectively removed women from your personal conception of public space than the street harrassers would like to – even if we exist in your periphery, what we say simply cannot be counted as fact.

@ 71

He said a widespread desire, not just a desire.

Nobody’s interested in your silly and emotional “experiences”, Marina – can’t you see the men are trying to understand this through the application of cold, hard, abstract reasoning from first principles? Taking meaningless trivia like “the lived experience of women” or “the real world” into account would sully the purity of their mighty thought!

It’s kinda like watching Aristotle trying to figure out how to programme a video recorder…

Marina,

If you note, I was suggesting other reasons for the idiotic and unacceptable behaviour witnessed by those testimonies, not denying them (although I have a social scientists reserve about accepting anecdotal over statistical evidence, that does not apply here where we are dealing with outlying behaviours). I think there is a logical flaw in assuming that most of the idiots described are capable of understanding the concept of public spaces.

There are some men who want to drive women out of public spaces, I agree. They are generally beareded religious types (not of any particular religion) – the beard being a symbol they are men (as opposed to the slightly stubbled secular types, whose stubble indicates they don’t have time to shave every morning). They do not so much enforce a patriarchy as a religious structure, but it is much the same thing and they are a common enemy for all of us.

But I am mystified by the fact that I should know men want to drive women out of public spaces by the accounts on this thread – the testimony bits of which describe intimidating behaviour which I assume is not part of a pattern of driving women back into the home but rather of mental disturbance or inability to communicate. The link to your blog you provide doesn’t seem to show this either – it accuses commentators (possibly including me, although I seriously hope not) of trying to drown out the feminist points about the need to address crime against women with noise – which is not the situation I read, where I saw reasonable debate. If you expose ideas to others they will be challenged and considered – but that is not excluding you from the public space; if I am debating with you, it is a sign I accept you as an equal, not that I am trying to put you down – I ignore those who, for example, believe we can judge how criminal someone is by their skin colour).

Your comment was based around a weak empirical link – that these testimonies (which I have not doubted) indicate men trying to force women out of public places. It is one explanation, indeed, but I offered others. You seem to regard my doing that as dismissing the testimonies I was trying to explain.

Which brings me to this:

You have in essense more effectively removed women from your personal conception of public space than the street harrassers would like to – even if we exist in your periphery, what we say simply cannot be counted as fact.

Women therefore for you only exist as their testimonies. They are not capable of existing as functioning humans who can argue and debate – it is only their experiences and your interpretations of those that make them public? Because that seems to be what you are saying – that by dismissing the testimonies (not that I ever did, but still…) I dismissed women from public space. How you come to that conclusion seems alien to me, but I would welcome being enlightened.

It’s kinda like watching Aristotle trying to figure out how to programme a video recorder…

That made my day, that did. I proper LOLed and everything.

@75: Glad to be able to provide some light relief.

Watchman, you keep saying that word, “assuming”. I do not think it means what you think it means.

You repeatedly claim that these are outliying deviant behaviours, but it is not a freak occurence acted out by freaks, but something that happens near as dammit 100% of women. It’s the normal reality of the majority of women, who are not “assuming” that this behaviour makes public spaces unsafe for us – it does make public space unsafe for us.

You call our evidence “anectodal” like the fact that we walk down the street with legs and not Excel spreadsheets somehow makes our experiences on those streets less real. Even in the social sciences there is such a thing as testimony and self-reporting.

I’m kind of bored of talking to you now, to be honest. You want us to frame the problem in terms you set, and give you “evidence” you will judge, despite the fact that this happens to us, not you. It’s a mug’s game, and I’m done playing it.

@ 73

Emotion: good

Logic: good

Content-free snarking: bad

Content-free snarking: bad

Jeez, can’t a guy have a little fun round here? Can’t you take a joke? I’m only having a laugh. Bloody over-sensitive killjoys – maybe you need to get laid more? Etc, etc… *

So, let me get this straight…

Emotion: good
Logic: good
Content-free snarking: bad
Endemic street harassment of women: indifferent and probably not that important, but certainly not indicative of ingrained societal attitudes.

Glad we’ve got our priorities straight then. Just as long as nobody is snarking at you – I mean, we wouldn’t want you to feel put out in any way. You have delicate and important feelings which must be respected! Not like all these stupid cunts you keep talking down to, who clearly just need to appreciate your genius more. Oh, sorry, there I go again…

[*For the sarcasm impaired: this is how it works when you're on the receiving end of exactly what we're talking about in this thread.]

@ 79 Dunc

Oh, I see. You’re backing up your childish snarking with a straw man attack. Good for you.

@ Watchman 68

If a complete stranger comes up to me and calls me a c*nt and says he wants to rape me, then yes I’ll assume there’s an underlying hatred there and an attempt to dominate. Because, y’know he expressed contempt and threatend violence.

The reality of street harassment for women is deliberate aggressive abuse – it’s not clumsy men misreading social cues. We tend to deal with that.

It’s not an either/or case of “inadequate rather than calculating”. The men who do this know exactly what they are doing – which is precisely why they operate when other people aren’t around – and the impact they want to have.

@ Dunc 66

Thank you!

I’m bowing out on this one as well as I really don’t know what else to add.

65. MarinaS – “However, refusals – such as yours, in both comments above – to believe that women know what they feel, are aware of what’s going on around them, and can accurately report how they feel about it, imply that women are either of below average intelligence (the generous reading) or below average humanity (the one I’m inclining towards in your case.”

Sorry but the only person denying how women feel is you. You insist that the entire female gender reacts to street harassment in precisely the way you do. They do not. They react in a variety of ways. Because harassment is a continuum. A point you ignored and seem to want to continue to ignore.

“Let’s say someone gave you a slice of pie.”

Let’s not. Let’s stick to the actual subject. How about you try to define street harassment, as I asked, in a way that does not depend entirely on the victim’s subjective opinion.

“To be more precise, regardless of the actual quality of the pie, how would you feel if someone told you that you felt differently about it than you actually do?.”

I fail to see anyone who is telling you anything about how you feel. What I see is some people trying to explain the reality of the situation – with all its complexity – and your insistence on not listening. Or even trying to understand.

67. Planeshift – “Do you honestly think that all crime is committed for personal benefit? And that if a man doesn’t fnancially benefit from initimidation, it can’t be intimidation.”

I note, with mild interest, your shift from ‘benefit’ to ‘financial benefit’. Was that deliberate or are you just genuinely unable to see the difference?

“The prisons are full of criminals who were motivated not by financial means, but because they got sexual gratification, exitement etc from committing their crimes. Intimidation is another – some people get off on it.”

They sort of sound like benefits to me. But sure, I am sure some people do it because they get off on it. As I actually said. To quote myself:

“It is more likely that this is the result of Care in the Community failing. These people must have mental health issues that compel them to express a lot of anger and frustration towards women.”

When you write

“. No man could ever personally benefit from whatever intimidation is being alleged here.”

it kind of implies you think those doing it are not getting any benefit from it.

#82

Sorry but the only person denying how women feel is you. You insist that the entire female gender reacts to street harassment in precisely the way you do.

What I, and other people with less time on their hands who’ve just given up on this thread out of sheer boredom, are saying, is not that “all women” do this, or that, or another.

What we are saying is: look at this thread. Look at the thread on the Guardian piece linked. Look at Hollaback sites. Read the words of women – not “all” women, easily dismissed as a straw man generalisation, but actual real live specific women – telling you how they react to harrassement.

But you refuse to do that. You and others refuse to actually hear the words of women, because for you the words of women are not legitimate. It is only through some unspecified but indispensible prism of “evidence” (what is more evidential than first person witness accounts?) that the information that women suffer harrassement and hate it can be cleansed, and rendered worthy of your consideration.

You are building cloud castles of theory – about spectra of harrassement, about variances in women’s responses and so on – based on no data other than what you flatteringly think of as common sense (it is nothing but common stereotypes), but when we try and point you to testimonies that invalidate your suppositions, you complain that we have no evidence.

You – and others upthread – are disturbingly deaf to the voices of women. I don’t mean to cheapen the language of psychoanalisys with this, I really mean it: I find your inability to engage with women’s voices deeply disquiting. And I find it even more disquiting that we live in a society in which this kind of selective deafness can be passed off as rational by paying lip service to the trappings of reason.

85. MarinaS – “What I, and other people with less time on their hands who’ve just given up on this thread out of sheer boredom, are saying, is not that “all women” do this, or that, or another.”

No. That is what I am saying. You are saying all women think this is just short of rape. What I am also saying is that it is hard to think of what can be done about it.

“But you refuse to do that.”

Actually no. I read those articles. I am perfectly happy with the notion that some women do not like this. What I have pointed out is that you cannot define harassment in such a way it would be useful and not all women react to all comments in the same way.

Look, I know you need to change the subject we are discussing and I know you really really need to assume people who don’t agree with you are misogynists but this time it is not us, it is you.

“You are building cloud castles of theory – about spectra of harrassement, about variances in women’s responses and so on – based on no data other than what you flatteringly think of as common sense (it is nothing but common stereotypes), but when we try and point you to testimonies that invalidate your suppositions, you complain that we have no evidence.”

I am not sure I have claimed you have no evidence, but pointing out that some women have responded badly to some harassment does not remotely come close to refuting the basic point that it is a continuum.

“You – and others upthread – are disturbingly deaf to the voices of women. I don’t mean to cheapen the language of psychoanalisys with this, I really mean it: I find your inability to engage with women’s voices deeply disquiting. And I find it even more disquiting that we live in a society in which this kind of selective deafness can be passed off as rational by paying lip service to the trappings of reason.”

Again, not us. And trying to present anyone who disagrees with you as mentally ill is not going to help either. The problem remains your refusal to engage.

@86
I said I was bowing out but I think there’s real misrepresentation of MarinaS in that last post.

“You are saying all women think this is just short of rape” – this is not claimed.

“Look, I know you need to change the subject we are discussing and I know you really really need to assume people who don’t agree with you are misogynists but this time it is not us, it is you” – again this is not claimed.

“And trying to present anyone who disagrees with you as mentally ill is not going to help either. The problem remains your refusal to engage” – once again not claimed by MarinaS. In fact all claims relating to mental illness have come from you (eg post 63). I do think you’re attempting to medicalise street harassment, when generally it’s a societal attitudes issue.

I’m sure that MarinaS can fight her own battles, but I think she’d remained admirably on topic in this discussion, but that you are talking at cross purposes. For example you see a continuum when what some of us posters are trying to get across is that street harassment is almost always a deliberate act and not accidentally segued into. It’s a big jump not a continuum. Yes, there were always be situations where clumsy flirting may be wrongly perceived, and some people are over sensitive, but if you want a legal definition, street harassment as most women experience it would be a Section 5 Public Order matter – not something you can really blunder into.