Woman Harrassed Simply By Walking in New York

[Deleted]

Nov 4, 2014 23:29:40 GMT -5 Opti said:

Nov 4, 2014 23:21:37 GMT -5 @richardintn said:

See my previous comment on not being required to say it to everyone, yet still be friendly.

If your only goal is to be friendly you would choose old men, young men and old women, etc.

Who says I don't?

Just because someone doesn't say a greeting to every single person they get within earshot of... doesn't mean they don't spread the goodwill around.

[Deleted]

Nov 4, 2014 23:30:05 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

So you only give a friendly greeting to women who aren't walking with a guy, and only if they're attractive, but it's not an annoying attempt to hit on them, it's just good manners... I call BS.

Call BS all you like... doesn't make it BS. Just makes your flawed perception BS.

[Opti]

What puzzles me is all those people defending friendly greetings, is the man who followed

her the longest, had a "friendly" greeting.

How can he really be friendly and creepy at the same time?

At :50 in the video he says "Hello Good Morning,"

following it with "God Bless you have a good day, alright?"

at this point he drops back to her left back(:53), close but not abreast.

The video shows him again at 2 minutes, 4 minutes, and 5 minutes.

What I noticed too is when he first encounters her he appears to be carrying

things in both hands. Left hand might be holding rolled up paper or something else.

Yet when we see him at 2 minutes, 4 minutes, and 5 minutes he is walking with

both hands in his pockets. At 1:03 I can see his head swiveling to look at her.

While the commentary says alongside, for the most part he is not right next to

her, but back a little more in her blind spot.

Now if he is creepy, and I think he is...

#somefriendlygreetingsarenot

And once you get it that some greetings that sound nice might be done by people who

follow you without encouragement, it shouldn't be rocket science that this might

presage a physical encounter minor to bad in the offing.

At 1:03 I noticed a pronounced head swivel as he looks at her(5 min. mark) and

within 4 seconds later, the clip moves on to something else.

it would be nice for the its only friendly greetings camp to acknowledge

#somefriendlygreetingsarenotfriendly

a stalker gave a friendly greeting

[Deleted]

I agree... THAT guy was creepy. BUt just because ONE guy is creepy (and it was his following of her that made him creepy) that doesn't make EVERYONE that says "Hi" or something else innocent... a creep.

[ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ]

So you only give a friendly greeting to women who aren't walking with a guy, and only if they're attractive, but it's not an annoying attempt to hit on them, it's just good manners... I call BS.

Dark, I didn't see in any posts of @richardintn here in the entire 24 pages where he said he only gives greetings to women if they're attractive, or not walking with a guy.

He's said several times he's not selective in his greetings nor does he greet every single person he passes. He said he sometimes says good morning/afternoon to men, women children, or whomever (butcher, baker, candlestick maker) in passing just because it's it's a friendly greeting and polite - and might bring a smile to someone or brighten their day.

That's what I've interpreted from reading his posts. He can correct me if I'm wrong.

[Virgil Showlion]

Nooo.

Too... much... video... analysis.

Flashing... back... to... George Zimmerman... thread.

[Opti]

Nov 4, 2014 19:01:27 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Nov 4, 2014 18:37:00 GMT -5 Opti said:

...
A man who tried to defend his pregnant girlfriend from a group of catcallers ended up in a Philadelphia hospital with a broken jaw.
...

Catcallers or thugs?

Catcallers.

We can't rerun the past to find out whether it would have

escalated beyond catcalling if the boyfriend said nothing, the women said nothing.

All we do know, is the three men making the "comments" chose to surround the

group and one of the men chose to punch him in the jaw so hard it was dislocated

and he fell to the ground. Then the three men ran away.

That's all I know. Thugs would be a judgment call on your part without even seeing

pics of the guys. Without knowing their history.

[Opti]

Nov 4, 2014 23:56:21 GMT -5 @richardintn said:

I agree... THAT guy was creepy. BUt just because ONE guy is creepy (and it was his following of her that made him creepy) that doesn't make EVERYONE that says "Hi" or something else innocent... a creep.

No, but given it does happen,

it means that behind every Hi on the street some women are making a judgmental calls on

their safety ... while you are trying for a friendly interaction ... maybe.

[ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ]

What puzzles me is all those people defending friendly greetings, is the man who followed her the longest, had a "friendly" greeting.

How can he really be friendly and creepy at the same time? At :50 in the video he says "Hello Good Morning,"

following it with "God Bless you have a good day, alright?" at this point he drops back to her left back(:53), close but not abreast. The video shows him again at 2 minutes, 4 minutes, and 5 minutes.

What I noticed too is when he first encounters her he appears to be carrying things in both hands. Left hand might be holding rolled up paper or something else.

Yet when we see him at 2 minutes, 4 minutes, and 5 minutes he is walking with both hands in his pockets. At 1:03 I can see his head swiveling to look at her.

While the commentary says alongside, for the most part he is not right next to her, but back a little more in her blind spot.

Now if he is creepy, and I think he is...

And that was ONE man in a city where the population is in the millions.

[Opti]

Nov 4, 2014 23:58:40 GMT -5 Virgil Showlion said:

Nooo.

Too... much... video... analysis.

Flashing... back... to... George Zimmerman... thread.

Well, you could try to slow down other posters bringing in unrelated shit...

Or you could acknowledge Optimist might have some good points.

This emoticon would be appropriate 

 

[Virgil Showlion]

Nov 5, 2014 0:11:16 GMT -5 ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ said:

What puzzles me is all those people defending friendly greetings, is the man who followed her the longest, had a "friendly" greeting.

How can he really be friendly and creepy at the same time? At :50 in the video he says "Hello Good Morning,"

following it with "God Bless you have a good day, alright?" at this point he drops back to her left back(:53), close but not abreast. The video shows him again at 2 minutes, 4 minutes, and 5 minutes.

What I noticed too is when he first encounters her he appears to be carrying things in both hands. Left hand might be holding rolled up paper or something else.

Yet when we see him at 2 minutes, 4 minutes, and 5 minutes he is walking with both hands in his pockets. At 1:03 I can see his head swiveling to look at her.

While the commentary says alongside, for the most part he is not right next to her, but back a little more in her blind spot.

Now if he is creepy, and I think he is...

And that was ONE man in a city where the population is in the millions.

I have to admit, if you asked me "Do guys in New York follow strange women walking around the city?" before I'd watched this video, my answer would've been "no".

[Virgil Showlion]

Nov 5, 2014 0:15:19 GMT -5 Opti said:

Nov 4, 2014 23:58:40 GMT -5 Virgil Showlion said:

Nooo.

Too... much... video... analysis.

Flashing... back... to... George Zimmerman... thread.

Well, you could try to slow down other posters bringing in unrelated shit...

Or you could acknowledge Optimist might have some good points.

This emoticon would be appropriate 

 

What I want to know is what posters who see these cat calls as harassment plan to do about it?

I see two possible camps here: i) the women who don't mind confrontation and have already taken it upon themselves to give cat callers what's for, and ii) the women who do mind confrontation and, despite a great deal of "hear me roar" talk in this thread, will come up with a hundred spur-of-the-moment rationalizations on why confrontation isn't necessary, is a bad idea, etc. when actually faced with the situation, because that's what they've always done.

Camp i is the definition of "the choir" in the expression "preaching to the choir". They're going to keep up the backlash, the same as they always have.

Camp ii isn't suddenly going to defect to camp i after 30-, 40-, or 50-some odd years of shrugging off cat calls just because they watched some three-minute Internet video. If they did, it would mean they either didn't know or didn't care that the problem existed until now.

So I don't understand what women or men are supposed to get out of this discussion.

The thread is up to 23 pages, hence if "awareness" is the goal: mission accomplished.

[Deleted]

Nov 5, 2014 0:50:14 GMT -5 Virgil Showlion said:

Nov 5, 2014 0:15:19 GMT -5 Opti said:

Well, you could try to slow down other posters bringing in unrelated shit...

Or you could acknowledge Optimist might have some good points.

This emoticon would be appropriate 

 

What I want to know is what posters who see these cat calls as harassment plan to do about it?

I see two possible camps here: i) the women who don't mind confrontation and have already taken it upon themselves to give cat callers what's for, and ii) the women who do mind confrontation and, despite a great deal of "hear me roar" talk in this thread, will come up with a hundred spur-of-the-moment rationalizations on why confrontation isn't necessary, is a bad idea, etc. when actually faced with the situation, because that's what they've always done.

Camp i is the definition of "the choir" in the expression "preaching to the choir". They're going to keep up the backlash, the same as they always have.

Camp ii isn't suddenly going to defect to camp i after 30-, 40-, or 50-some odd years of shrugging off cat calls just because they watched some three-minute Internet video. If they did, it would mean they either didn't know or didn't care that the problem existed until now.

So I don't understand what women or men are supposed to get out of this discussion.

The thread is up to 23 pages, hence if "awareness" is the goal: mission accomplished.

Question is though... awareness of what?

If they were shooting for "awareness of the pervasiveness of male on female harassment"... they have failed miserably.

[ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ]

Virgil, the problem is, that many of the women here are crying outrage at the way the actress was catcalled or trailed-after.

NONE of them suggested (except myself and a few of the males here) that she should have let the TWO out of many men in the video know that their close proximity and persistence was unwanted and unappreciated. But she did nothing to deter them. She didn't stare them down, tell them to back off or buzz off, or give any signals to leave her alone.

The men saying good morning or god bless you isn't harassment. It's a friendly comment or greeting in passing - they kept moving after saying it.

What did SHE do that was proactive to let them know (the 2 following her) that that their presence was unsolicited and unwanted? Nothing.

She's also not your "average woman on the street" and this isn't your "average street". She's a young actress, out of her territory (a white/hispanic woman walking in a predominately black neighborhood where she'll stand out more and walking around for TEN hours, often up the same street)) & they no doubt chose what she would wear and where she would walk to make the video (having previously scouted the location where there would be a large gathering of men just hanging out), and purposely choosing it to make this "shocking" video. They may have also previously observed how these men on this particular street interact with females as they walk by before they chose this particular location.

If they'd taken the same actress, and her wearing the same clothes, and taped in Manhattan, or on Park Avenue or Wall Street, the result would be different. Far different.

The problem is, it's depicting men (as a whole) as animals - yet she did nothing to deter them.

And many of the women right here on this forum are screaming outrage at all men (in general), and how men have to change, & learn to behave and treat women , but not one is saying anything about how the actress did nothing to stop it.

I've been on this earth long enough to know that this is not typical of the behavior of the male population overall, and real men (not like the few dogs in this little 2 min video) know how to treat a lady.

[Angel!]

Nov 4, 2014 22:57:19 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

Nov 4, 2014 22:31:43 GMT -5 Angel! said:

It should be illegal to speak a friendly greeting to strangers?

No, but it's creepy. They either say hello to every single person they walk past, which would probably be seen as a sign of mental illness in any densely populated city, or they only act friendly to members of the opposite sex, in which case their friendly greeting is the same thing as a pick up line which is obnoxious when you're just trying to walk to/from work, to the store, etc.

We don't all live in Mayberry where it might be normal to engage random strangers in conversation. The video isn't shot in Mayberry, and in NYC it is weird to engage random strangers on the street in conversation unless you have some ulterior motive like selling them something or getting into their pants.

I guess I just don't find it odd or creepy that someone wouldn't speak to everyone they pass. It is human nature to pick out who we interact with and when you are passing someone on the street it will be bases on age, clothing, sex, expressions, etc.

Most of the video is very short clips so we don't really know if none of them spoke to the guy either. Probably wouldn't help make their point of they showed that. I mentioned earlier my ex is one that would often speak to people in this fashion and he didn't so it solely to women. And he certainly didn't do it as a pickup, it would literally just being an effort to be friendly.

So I'm not going to judge the truly friendly greetings as anything more than a passing 'how you doing' just because they maybe only said it to her. Even if that ia the case it still doesn't make the phrase harassing.

[Angel!]

Nov 5, 2014 0:15:53 GMT -5 Virgil Showlion said:

Nov 5, 2014 0:11:16 GMT -5 ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ said:

And that was ONE man in a city where the population is in the millions.

I have to admit, if you asked me "Do guys in New York follow strange women walking around the city?" before I'd watched this video, my answer would've been "no".

there are creepy people everywhere. But I don't think we should live our lives assuming every person who glances our way or says something is out to get us. Most people are just decent folks going about their lives.

But then I'm one that will respond in some manner to almost anyone that greets me. I stopped and had a entire conversation with an old dude that made a comment on the way I walk. It wasn't a pickup, me stopping to talk to him didn't suddenly make him decide I needed to be followed or whatever people think will happen when we respond to folks. He didn't ask me out or anything. He literally was just an old guy saying hi to someone that passed. All those guys in the video were just people too. Some were assholes and creepy. But I find it odd to lump the 'have a good evening' guys into the same category or too assume they are out to get us because they dared to speak.

[Angel!]

Nov 5, 2014 1:17:20 GMT -5 @richardintn said:

Nov 5, 2014 0:50:14 GMT -5 Virgil Showlion said:

What I want to know is what posters who see these cat calls as harassment plan to do about it?

I see two possible camps here: i) the women who don't mind confrontation and have already taken it upon themselves to give cat callers what's for, and ii) the women who do mind confrontation and, despite a great deal of "hear me roar" talk in this thread, will come up with a hundred spur-of-the-moment rationalizations on why confrontation isn't necessary, is a bad idea, etc. when actually faced with the situation, because that's what they've always done.

Camp i is the definition of "the choir" in the expression "preaching to the choir". They're going to keep up the backlash, the same as they always have.

Camp ii isn't suddenly going to defect to camp i after 30-, 40-, or 50-some odd years of shrugging off cat calls just because they watched some three-minute Internet video. If they did, it would mean they either didn't know or didn't care that the problem existed until now.

So I don't understand what women or men are supposed to get out of this discussion.

The thread is up to 23 pages, hence if "awareness" is the goal: mission accomplished.

Question is though... awareness of what?

If they were shooting for "awareness of the pervasiveness of male on female harassment"... they have failed miserably.

Awareness that some women feel harassed because a guy said hi to them

The problem is not all women agree. Half those men wouldn't have bothered me in the slightest by what they said. I would not have felt threatened or harassed, I would have said something or smiles and moved on.

[Shooby]

You keep couching this as if this is only about someone saying "Hi" when she was in fact followed closely by some idiot along with other stupid random comments.

[Deleted]

Please somebody tell who said it blame to all men copy and paste a quote is best. Thank you!

[zibazinski]

Well, fortunately most posters see it for what it is, harassment. Wonder if she pepper sprayed them for bothering her, if it would ever stop? But she'd be the one in trouble, not the pig harassers and harassment is exactly what it is all about. Because she is female and because she is alone. Because a few people pretend it's not a problem and if it is, it's JUST her not being friendly or its a set up, blah, blah, blah. Funny thing, if it was a set up and not true, there'd be nothing to tape, would there? Because she would have walked the streets in freedom, the way she should, without worrying about pigs pretending to be friendly bothering her. It isn't friendly, it isn't hello, it's harassment, because they can and do get away with it. It's an absolute shame a woman can't walk the street without being called out to but it's not illegal, just frightening and intimidating. Makes you wonder if the defenders are really that clueless or just never been in the situation where it's happened to them? Men, I understand, sort of, but other men, the ones who do care about their wives, daughters, girlfriends, recognize the problem for what it really is. I hope the women that are clueless never have it happen to them or they're built like amazons so a guy wouldn't dare. Btw, she wasn't walking in a ghetto and even if she was, she has a right to. Too bad those pigs that hassled her aren't suffering any repurcussions. She sure is. But it's blame the victim, right? Not see the problem and work on it. Why are there never any cops? But even if there was, it isn't illegal. Just wrong. 

[Angel!]

Nov 5, 2014 7:49:58 GMT -5 Shooby said:

You keep couching this as if this is only about someone saying "Hi" when she was in fact followed closely by some idiot along with other stupid random comments.

Why were the guys saying 'hi' included in this video about harassment? Why are we categorizing that as harassment? That is my problem with the video.

If anywhere I said that the guys following her were behaving acceptably, then please point it out. You keep accusing me of saying that was acceptable behavior, but you won't find one quote to back your claim up.

[Shooby]

Don'tcha know it's HER fault Zib. For walking in an area she shouldn't be walking in,"out of her territory" according to Lassie.

[zibazinski]

Why are they saying HI to her to begin with? You see no problem with that? Theres a guy right in front of her, do they say HI to him? It isn't about being friendly at all. Friendly is friendly to everyone not just a select someone, as in female alone.

[Shooby]

And, for some men, if she does respond, then they take that as flirting or a cue to pursue even further.

[Virgil Showlion]

Nov 5, 2014 8:12:05 GMT -5 Shooby said:

And, for some men, if she does respond, then they take that as flirting or a cue to pursue even further.

"Go away." or the ever-popular "Screw off." are pretty unambiguous.

I'm not deep inside the SL/Angel/Richard camp in terms of characterizing the attention the actress got as "friendly", but I definitely agree with them that "harassment" is too strong a term to describe what goes on in the video. Crying wolf is the surest way to get people to give up caring about genuine harassment.

"Attractive actress circling busy NYC ghetto is complimented, solicited, pursued, and otherwise engaged by men once every thirty minutes during 10-hour social experiment" is the sum of the footage.

[Deleted]

Nov 5, 2014 8:48:25 GMT -5 Virgil Showlion said:

Nov 5, 2014 8:12:05 GMT -5 Shooby said:

And, for some men, if she does respond, then they take that as flirting or a cue to pursue even further.

"Go away." or the ever-popular "Screw off." are pretty unambiguous.

Such men are so stupid probably they think it is flirting to.

You feel it is OK if she will get beat? You donno they will not beat her if she told them such thing.

[mmhmm]

I learned the hard way many years ago not to respond to "friendly" comments from strangers in the street. The little Okey girl was stupid, to say the least. She learned. I'm not going to get into the video and whether, or not, it served any purpose. I am going to say I would not respond, in any way, to comments made to me on the street by strangers. Lesson well learned and embedded.

[Deleted]

Nov 5, 2014 1:42:25 GMT -5 ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ said:

Virgil, the problem is, that many of the women here are crying outrage at the way the actress was catcalled or trailed-after.

NONE of them suggested (except myself and a few of the males here) that she should have let the TWO out of many men in the video know that their close proximity and persistence was unwanted and unappreciated. But she did nothing to deter them. She didn't stare them down, tell them to back off or buzz off, or give any signals to leave her alone...

What did SHE do that was proactive to let them know (the 2 following her) that that their presence was unsolicited and unwanted? Nothing...

If they'd taken the same actress, and her wearing the same clothes, and taped in Manhattan, or on Park Avenue or Wall Street, the result would be different. Far different.

The problem is, it's depicting men (as a whole) as animals - yet she did nothing to deter them.

And many of the women right here on this forum are screaming outrage at all men (in general), and how men have to change, & learn to behave and treat women , but not one is saying anything about how the actress did nothing to stop it.

I'm a little astonished by this line of thinking, to be honest.

Very few people of either gender escalate situations where they're getting picked on.  

Taking WWBG's previous example of getting heckled for wearing nerdy tee-shirts, I doubt he told the people doing it to piss off and get lost.  It's just not a common response, particularly if the other party is much bigger and acting bold.  Silence or downplaying is reflexive to try and neutralize a situation, unless the person targeted was seeking a fight.  DH got bullied in school, he didn't tell them to shove it.

I have the capacity to be very aggressive, but it's not a default, it's far down the protocol chain.  Verbal aggression has decent odds of making the other person even more belligerent if they think the words are unfair or they think they can win easily.  

General protocol in a bad situation with strangers  is to bail, not initiate further.  Intimidating larger people is possible, but often it takes a sort of uncaring "bring it" aggression, because the smaller looking person has decided it's go time, hell or high water.  Then it comes down to the smaller person having power to back that fierceness up, because it could go in a lot of directions.  Relying on pure bluffs is stupid, IMO.

I say this as large but relatively compact person.  I fought guys because the ones my weight were almost always 6'+ and visually looked a lot taller and stronger (broader shoulders), like we were real mismatches.  We were the same weight, but heavy muscle on legs and hips means that I was usually a lot shorter than the opponent and much less impressive looking since the hips and shoulders match.  Not a big deal in the match itself, but intimidation was considered and coached for.  Intimidation is not something to half-ass.


From my experiences, saying that it's partially the woman in the video's fault that creepy people were following her around, because she didn't properly confront them and aggressively stare them down or tell them to piss off is... wow.  If people can pull that off, good stuff.  But many people can't, particularly without training.  

[Deleted]

"Attractive actress circling busy NYC ghetto is complimented, solicited, pursued, and otherwise engaged by men once every thirty minutes during 10-hour social experiment" is the sum of the footage.

It was more like 5 times every half hour. And I'm not thrilled with classifying the neighbourhoods as ghetto, it was Manhattan after all. But with all that said, does that happen to you? Are you approached by strangers 10 times an hour when you are walking around? This woman was just walking, intent on what she was doing, obviously not looking to engage with people and that many men tried to coerce interaction. How is it hard to see this as harassing?

[Opti]

No response to street harassment is guaranteed to work 100%, and

sometimes being wrong can mean physical injuries or more.

I think like rape victims male and female much of when it goes bad is unreported.

Here's two incidents that went south .

thinkprogress.org/health/2014/10/09/3578215/street-harassment-escalates/

One woman in Detroit was shot and killed after refusing to give a stranger her phone number. Another woman in New York got her throat slashed for refusing to go on a date with a stranger.

 
Those are just two examples of violence perpetrated against women over the past week. And while those cases grabbed news headlines, other acts of aggression on the street may have very well gone unreported. Advocates working to stop street harassment say the two incidents are a clear illustration of why catcalls and come-ons aren’t harmless for the people on the receiving end.

In Detroit, witnesses say that a 27-year-old mother of three named Mary Spears was harassed by a man after leaving the funeral of a family friend. He was asking for her number, which she refused to give to him because she was in a relationship. But the man wouldn’t leave her alone. Once her fiancee tried to intervene, the man opened fire, killing Spears and wounding five other people.

A similar situation recently unfolded in New York City, according to the New York Post. Police say that a man in Queens started pestering a 26-year-old to go on a date with him, but she turned him down. He reportedly became enraged, grabbed her, and slashed her neck with a blade. She was rushed to the hospital in critical condition but is expected to survive.