So everyone’s favorite reactionary racist woman-hating fantasy author Vox Day has weighed in on that street harassment video that’s been going around. And his comments will shock you.
At least if you’re easily shocked and have never read any of my previous posts about him.
It’s not exactly a surprise that Vox thinks that street harassment isn’t really harassment, just a bunch of “unsolicited compliments and greetings” from friendly fellows.
But Vox does have one criticism of the non-harassers. They’re not doing it right.
Specifically, they’re being too nice to the women they’re pestering.
The ironic thing is that these men have it all wrong anyhow. They’d be much more likely to get a response from her if they glanced at her and laughed, rolled their eyes, or sniffed dismissively. Street neg, one might say.
So ladies, if you’re walking down the street and some angry weirdo sniffs dismissively in your direction, don’t be surprised if you suddenly feel a strong urge to bear his children. Because sniffing dismissively is a total Alpha move.
Vox’s regular commenters had a few thoughts of their own.
“The more we ignore them, the more they want us. Amusing creatures,” Laguna Feach Fogey sniffed dismissively.
“The day the catcalls finally stop will be far more traumatic for her than the catcalls have been,” Retrenched laughed.
“The poor thing ! but in a couple of decades she will be sexually invisible and all her problems will be solved,” PjBlue added, rolling his eyes dramatically.
Several others suggested that the woman in the sexual harassment video brought it on herself by dressing like a harlot … in a t-shirt and jeans.
“In other words,” cailcorishev wrote,
clothes that show off every curve of her body to greatest effect, so that everyone who sees her can tell from a mile away just how large and perky her goodies are. If her great-grandmother could see her, she’d be scandalized that she’s going outside practically naked.
Today I Learned that wearing clothes that cover up most of your body is the same as going outside practically naked.
Jimmy jambo offered the woman some style tips.
You’re supposed to wear baggy clothes and a hoodie so no one can see your face. I suppose this is what regular women face, but the world has already changed. Men are not required to be polite to women as in chivalry so catcalls are no different than name calling.
Wait, what?
Kim, that pic of Pan is gorgeous!
More I read, the more baffled I am at how little harassment I’ve had. I mean, one drunk who was scary, one strange young man asking to be my Valentine in the middle of town (he’d heard me flip off a chugger) and one dude insisting on a conversation on the train … those three are spread over a few years, and before that, nothing since being molested by one of the boys in my class in, oh, second form I think, which stopped the minute I reported him. I can’t believe that Australia is free of this sort of shit, or that being oblivious to men on the street except as obstacles to get around/smokers to avoid makes any difference, or that not feeling unsafe is any sort of shield.
Nobody told me about multiple sniff/rolls! And they go by so fast!! Almost like they weren’t paying attention to my street-negging them at all!
There was a period of time when everything men said to me on the streets was addressed to my dog. Bigga Dogga. Great Dane. Before she came to live with me and go everywhere with me the catcalls were frequent and there were many places I simply did not go. After she came to live with me I went wherever I wanted at any time of the night. I was informed, that is not a dog it is a horse and/or that is a big effing dog. That was when I learned to walk as though I owned the sidewalk.
@cassandrakitty…the age of the harasser is an issue.
When I was in my 20s and 30s, I did not find women in their 40s and 50s attractive. Now that I’m substantially older…why it’s MAGIC…suddenly those women are amazing! (Seriously, they are.)
Assuming most aggressive harassers are somewhat younger, you’ll have a age-shift of those being harassed to the left. I don’t know if that’s true or not … my anecdata suggests that it is, especially the street harassment. I’ve only seen guys in their 20s do it. And I lived/worked/played in Manhattan for 20 years, so that’s a pretty good sample size. My recollection is that the older guys tolerated and maybe encouraged, but didn’t actively participate..or at least didn’t initiate. So the skew is towards the younger.
But pre-teen? Wow. That’s creepy as all get-out. I never saw that…there probably would have been broken a nose (most likely mine) if I had.
I’ve been street-harassed but not like some of the people here are reporting. I almost never happens to me these days, although earlier this week some dude who looked half my age tried to chat me up because I was wearing a cool hat.
I will say, however, that a guy I don’t know very well, but who is an acquaintance, informed me not long ago that my normal resting-face expression is not merely bitchy, but I-will-rip-you-to-pieces. He wasn’t even creepy about it. Whenever I tried to talk to him he always got that “what did I do???” look, and I finally asked him why, and he told me that.
So I reckon that might have something to do with it.
I’ve had men and women alike talk to me in the street, sometimes with a compliment about my clothes or my kitty walking stick or something, but not the creepy, aggressive, harassing stuff (apart from that disgusting drunk). I’ve certainly not had strangers try to touch me. I don’t think I have resting-I-will-disembowel-you-with-a-blunt-fork face, though my resting face certainly doesn’t invite interaction. (Years of sleeping on trains – no harassment.)
Maybe Melbourne is different, I don’t know. I can’t fathom why I’d be exempt. Maybe it’s Mr K sending out subliminal you-will-die-slowly messages to dudes! 😉
Oh, this guy wasn’t merely trying to make conversation. He was clearly trying to flirt. It didn’t bother me a lot, but only because that doesn’t happen often anymore. Even little things like that can be unbearable if it’s happening all. the. time.
That’s the thing, the constant wearing down. I wasn’t meaning he wasn’t trying to flirt, I was thinking of how the random conversations I get aren’t flirting.
@ Kevin
Nope, when I was being sexually harassed as a kid it was usually by men old enough to be either my father or my grandfather. Sexual harassment by men in my own age range commenced in my late teens, and sexual harassment by younger men started at about 21 or so.
Like, let me tell you all about the time I was lost in Glasgow and trying to find the bus station at age 13 and a dude in his 60s not so much offered as insisted on walking me there, and then shoved me up against the wall and tried to put his hands up my jacket. Or all the creepy 40+ year old dudes who followed a few steps behind whispering about what (horrible) things they’d like to do to me when I was 9 or 10.
Older men tend to harass less by shouting at women (or, let’s be honest, mostly girls) and more by getting way the hell up in our grills and getting handsy, in my experience.
@proxieme
Haha, “dreaded Day Star” totally reminded me of being called a Daywalker by a smartass ex.
@street harassment, other harassment
I used to get hit on a ton by 50+ guys when I was 16/17. And then I apparently never aged past that, because I constantly get carded for cigarettes and told I “look like a baby” when I buy beer. So…I suspect this bullshit is going to continue for awhile, even though I’m still four years away from being “obsolete”.
Come to think of it, I still get hit on a lot by older men. A couple months ago, some older dude muttered something to my bartender friend about me being “gorgeous”. I tried to laugh it off and said “Oh, you’re making me blush” and he replied “Not yet”. *massive shudder*
Ew! Thanks for letting you know in advance that he intended to keep on creeping, I guess.
Blech. All these stories about getting hit on/molested as a kid make me kind of grateful I was an ugly duckling. Even my creepy stepdad only felt me up once. He literally asked me one time why I wasn’t “as hot as Britney Spears” around the time she was 16. What the fuck is wrong with some older white men??
And I’m really sorry to hear about that experience in Glasgow, cassandrakitty. That’s incredibly messed up.
Likewise! I encountered plenty of creeps but at least my dad wasn’t one of them.
Hugs to anyone who wants them.
My daughter actually got creeped on when she was 3, holding my hand, at a Canada Day celebration. The only good thing about getting hassled at Canada Day is the mounties are easy to spot when they wear red serge! They were very nice about it, too.
@cassandra and others re: creepers in pre/early adolescence: Before the 6th grade I didn’t really have an issue – I was an awkward looking kid. By the 4th grade I needed a bra, but beyond that I was just a foot taller than everyone else in my grade (as tall as many of the teachers) and all skinny arms and legs.
The oddest thing I had happen was this one kid asked, “What grade are you supposed to be in?”
“Uh…this grade..?”
“You weren’t held back?”
“[Whatever his name was], I’m in [our gifted and talented program] with you. No, I wasn’t held back.”
“Really? It’s just that you’re so….um…developed…”
“Oh! I’m just big! Sometimes girls develop before boys. Don’t worry! You’ll develop soon, too!”
I think it’s stuck so clearly in my memory because about half an hour later I realized that he’d been staring at my chest as we talked and I’d thought that he’d been talking about how tall I was. I felt bad. He’d looked mortified and walked away when I reassured him that he’d shortly “develop” like me.
But attention from adults?
That didn’t start until I was about 12. I was 5’9″ with a C cup and hips. And the hips were a sudden thing, unlike my chest. I went from being able to lower myself between monkey bars one Autumn to getting stuck at the top of my legs the next Spring.
Then all of a sudden these guys start working there way out of the woodwork. I could deal with the attention from other youngish teens – they were just as awkward (though usually older than me – I was still taller than most of my peers until we all hit the 9th grade; I’d get whispers and remarks in middle school, but nothing overt).
But the adult men – the adult men who’d say stuff to me and then look me up and down as I just walked along like a goddam 12-year-old – they made me feel scared, like I was doing something “wrong” by just being out in public.
Guys: If you see a grown man behaving even somewhat sexually towards someone who looks like a young teen* (even developed, I couldn’t have passed for more than 15 or 16 at that age), please stop them. They might listen to you, because they sure as hell only seem to revel in the discomfort of the girl.
I was a kid regardless of what I looked like and that shit messed me up for a long time.
You can see from the other ladies here that mine is not an isolated case.
___
* I’m going to assume that you know to say something if you see a grown person acting sexually towards a child. And I should extend the first statement to say “grown person” and “any early adolescent”, though I kept my first statement and its qualifiers narrow to reflect my own experiences.
Wait, so skimming through the comments here, they edited out the white men from that video? Why?
The first time I was street harassed, a man pulled up to me in his car and just sat there for much longer than was normal for a simple stop sign. I noticed him just sitting there idling after a minute and glanced at him curiously. I soon was horrified to realize he was staring at me and masturbating. I was 12 years old and dressed for school in fairly conservative little girl clothes, as my parents were strict evangelical Christians.
I didn’t tell anyone because I was afraid of getting in trouble for some reason.
Since then, I’ve also been harassed while wearing ankle length dresses, turtlenecks and baggy jeans, and one notable time while walking in the snow carrying bags of groceries and wearing a parka that covered everything.
But yeah, it’s the fault of slutty women wearing slutty clothes and showing off their curves.
Well, having said I was invisible, I got cat-called, last night. Well, I say “I” got cat-called but given that I was sitting in my car in a traffic jam & he was sitting in a mini-bus going in the opposite direction but also in a traffic jam, the victim-blamers would have to blame my car’s curves rather than my own. /rollseyes
Given this thread and that I think I was last cat-called in a previous millenium, I just laughed at him.
I’ll never forget when I was 17 and playing with some dogs on the street. I said “I love you so much!” to one of them. A guy in his forties gripped me by the arm- hard and nearly lifting me- and said “Love men. Like dogs.”
@Kevin
That’s not my experience at all, and I’ve lived and worked (and aged) in NYC for the past 20-something years. Maybe part of it is that the catcalling that other men witness probably isn’t the whole picture. Groups of young guys yelling at women for each other’s amusement might be done pretty openly, but there’s a whole world of other “attention” going on too, and a lot of it isn’t done when other men are looking.
When I was a teenager, most of the street harassment I got came from much older men (as in men my dad’s age with graying hair, but not necessarily octogenarians). It wasn’t until I looked like a grown woman that guys my own age started bugging me too, and from then on it’s really been the full range, even as I get older myself.
@cassandrakitty
Not that I feel nothing about the being felt up at 12 by the man who raised me thing, but after outing him as an abuser to everyone who knows him, I haven’t been as fucked up about any of the shit he did to us. I kind of feel like Inigo in the scene where he’s saying he’s been in the revenge business for so long that he doesn’t know what to do with his life after he got it, though. If only I could be a Dread Pirate Roberts :-
@emcube
I didn’t catch the blog post, but people have been saying he separated the catcallers into whites and black/latino. Whites were 44% of the catcallers, and black/latino 55%, so he supposedly edited out the white dudes because they were “in the minority”. I can’t begin to wrap my head around that particular level of asshat, so I’ve been avoiding the blog post for my blood pressure’s sake.
I may have to read it if this guy on my partner’s Facebook doesn’t quit trying to tell me that street harassment is subjective and I’m a racist for not wanting to get catcalled. Literally this dude’s entire argument has been about how black men shouldn’t even look at me because I’ll call the cops because I’m a white woman. I have been going at the argument 100% from a gendered perspective, so it’s kind of like trying to tell someone the sky is blue while they point out that clouds exist.
Okay…I am trying to wrap my brain around this and…it hurts. No matter which way I look at it, it looks wonky, wrong and weird – and not the good kind of weird.
@samantha
He clarified when he got less reactionary at me. A law against street harassment could lead to a Jim Crow type situation in which white women get minority men jailed because of a comment on their appearance. I’m still not sure what to think about it. I agree that laws often get misused and most often with a racial slant, and I’m not really for one. I’m just not sure what alternatives exist.