Woman Harrassed Simply By Walking in New York

[billisonboard]

Nov 5, 2014 9:26:44 GMT -5 laterbloomer said:

... many men tried to coerce interaction. How is it hard to see this as harassing?

I saw many men trying to initiate interaction and a few trying to coerce it.

[Deleted]

Nov 5, 2014 9:33:05 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Nov 5, 2014 9:26:44 GMT -5 laterbloomer said:

... many men tried to coerce interaction. How is it hard to see this as harassing?

I saw many men trying to initiate interaction and a few trying to coerce it.

No, there is a difference. Only one or two of those men appeared friendly. The rest were part of gangs bombarding her with comments, making lewd comments about her body or the few that were more overtly aggressive. I get greeted in public, and often return the greeting. I'm not a prude about saying hi. I would not have said anything to these people.

[Opti]

First stats I've seen...

The Washington Post noted that another group, Stop Street Harassment, found that two-thirds of women out of 2,000 polled nationally had experienced street harassment. Of those, nearly a quarter had been physically touched by their harasser, and one in five were followed.

While it appears most women don't enjoy being catcalled, some women take it as a compliment.

www.newsmax.com/TheWire/woman-harassed-nyc-catcalls/2014/10/29/id/603752/

So its possible if you aren't that empathetic or aware, less than 25% of women

might see this a problem that is serious. The other 75% might believe they are

safer than they really are. IDK. But explains the huge divide in thought I think.

If you have always had minor incidents you could always handle it you might not realize

you may have been luckily statistically.

[Shooby]

Well I never thought this would stimulate 25 pages worth of opinion! Lol

[billisonboard]

Nov 5, 2014 9:39:15 GMT -5 laterbloomer said:

Nov 5, 2014 9:33:05 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

I saw many men trying to initiate interaction and a few trying to coerce it.

No, there is a difference. Only one or two of those men appeared friendly. The rest were part of gangs bombarding her with comments, making lewd comments about her body or the few that were more overtly aggressive. I get greeted in public, and often return the greeting. I'm not a prude about saying hi. I would not have said anything to these people.

I said nothing about "friendly". Many used rude, crude, and socially unacceptable ways to initiate contact. Or more accurately, polite society unacceptable ways. That does not make them coercion.

[Deleted]

Many used rude, crude, and socially unacceptable ways to initiate contact.

[Deleted]

Sometimes I hate pb

Anyway, in the former post I said

billisonboard when you are trying to get someone to do something they don't want to do you are coercing them. And what is there about "rude, crude and socially unacceptable ways" that falls short of being defined as harassment?

[ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ]

Nov 5, 2014 8:09:58 GMT -5 Shooby said:

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.

You're getting very good at misinterpreting what I write, or twisting my words.

I didn't say anywhere it was HER fault. I didn't say shouldn't be walking in that neighborhood. Yes, she was "out of her territory". That was obvious. That's not the problem with the "test" either.

She walked around that same burg for TEN hours - she's bound to stick out like a sore thumb after a while.

I also said the two who were dogging her were way out of line.

As I said yesterday, if they'd made an actual UNEDITED 5 minute video with her walking up one or two streets in that same burg, do you believe every man she passed would have been cat calling or tailing after her?

I don't. They took the bits & pieces of the TEN hours of filming they thought would get the most outraged reaction, and spliced it together into a little 2 minute video.

2 minutes out of 600 and you think this is an accurate example of the *epidemic* problem of harassment. The video made it appear like it's epidemic because of the editing.

And saying hello or god bless is NOT harassment either as Angel! has also said.

[Angel!]

Nov 5, 2014 8:11:09 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

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.

No, I see absolutely no problem with someone saying Hi to her. I don't care who they choose to say hi to or why. I don't see Hi as harassment or attempting to coerce her to do anything.  I see it as a simple friendly greeting.

I don't think smiling or responding to a simple Hi puts you in danger. I think if a crazy person wants to follow you or stab you, they don't need a response to opt to do that. A non-response would be just as good of a reason to do those things to someone looking to do something stupid.

[billisonboard]

Nov 5, 2014 9:58:26 GMT -5 laterbloomer said:

Sometimes I hate pb

Anyway, in the former post I said

billisonboard when you are trying to get someone to do something they don't want to do you are coercing them. And what is there about "rude, crude and socially unacceptable ways" that falls short of being defined as harassment?

The person waving the sign on the street corner advertising a sell is trying to get me to do something. Since I don't need the product, stopping is something I don't want to do. That is not coercion, it is advertising. It isn't coercion until the person informs me they are going to use the sign to dent my car if I don't pull in for an oil change. Informing someone you are ready and willing to satisfy a sexual need they may have is also a sells pitch. It isn't coercion unless there is a followup of threat or force.

[Angel!]

Nov 5, 2014 9:26:44 GMT -5 laterbloomer said:

"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?

5 times every hour if you count people saying 'hi' or 'have a nice evening'.  If they just stuck with counting inappropriate behavior, that would be something, but you can't count every time someone interacts with you as harassment in a city with as many people wandering around as NYC.  And how many of those 'incidents' were with street vendors who talk to everyone?  How many times would a guy walking the same route get spoken to?

I just can't take their numbers seriously when half their harassment in the video was someone saying 'hi'.

[Angel!]

Nov 5, 2014 9:49:00 GMT -5 Opti said:

The other 75% might believe they are safer than they really are. IDK.

I would guess the opposite. People suck at judging risk & tend to see high risk where the risk is extremely low & don't see risk where it exists. 

No one denies that harassment incidents happen. No one denies that there aren't crazy people that will stab you for looking at them the wrong way.  In day to day life, your risk of getting stabbed because you said 'hi' back to someone that said 'hi' to you is pretty near zero.  Especially when you are out walking where there are other people around. 

And as an aside - was she definitely following a guy?  I haven't seen anything that said this & it looked like she was using some sort of scarf or veil to hide the camera.  I would love to see the guy's getup if he was hiding the camera with a scarf....maybe no one said hi because he was dressed really weird.

[Deleted]

Anywhoooo, I've expressed my views and we are just going back and forth. I'm gone from this thread. Nice chatting

[ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ]

Angel!, the camera was in a backpack the man in front of her was wearing.

And I also mentioned yesterday, that she was always walking directly behind that man as the camera was recording.

So yes, she was following closely behind HIM.

[Angel!]

Awesome article about the video & 'research methodology'

medium.com/message/that-catcalling-video-and-why-research-methods-is-such-an-exciting-topic-really-32223ac9c9e8

They did an analysis of where the shots were taken.

The filmmakers claim to have shot this video while walking the streets of Manhattan for 10 hours, but over half of the shots in the video are actually taken from just one street, namely 125th St. in Harlem. It makes one wonder whether the filmmakers intentionally chose to concentrate their filming on a couple of neighborhoods, or if, out of many locations, these are the only places where harassment occurred.

Of the 25 shots, 15 were in harlem & 5 were in times square. So 80% of the video happened in 2 distinct places.

So it appears SL was right, this isn't really representative of what happens just walking anywhere in NYC. This is representative of issues that happen in very select spots in NYC.

[zibazinski]

Oh, well, I guess that makes you right and all of us wrong. How special. Have a nice day. Btw, I guess you should never walk in Harlem. Funny, that's been touted as an up and coming area. Guess not. Really? She walked the same street for 10 hours? I call BS on that. The fact that more people see it for what it is as opposed to those trying to excuse it in one fashio or another doesn't get away from the fact that there's a real problem but burying head in sand and pretending these creeps are just being friendly makes it okay to some people.

[Angel!]

Nov 5, 2014 12:16:02 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

Oh, well, I guess that makes you right and all of us wrong. How special. Have a nice day.

Interesting way to deal with someone who disagrees with you.

Btw, I guess you should never walk in Harlem. Funny, that's been touted as an up and coming area. Guess not.

It is an up and coming area. There are tons of projects going on along 125th to improve the area. Areas don't turn over instantly.

Really? She walked the same street for 10 hours? I call BS on that.

Not what I said. She probably walked on that street for less than an hour. It is only like a mile and a half long. But, interesting that 60% of her harassment occurred in less than one hour on a single street in a specific neighborhood. Shows it isn't so much a NYC problem as a very locational problem. Maybe we should reframe the problem as it actually exists & try to solve it that way?

The fact that more people see it for what it is as opposed to those trying to excuse it in one fashio or another doesn't get away from the fact that there's a real problem but burying head in sand and pretending these creeps are just being friendly makes it okay to some people.

I never said there isn't a problem. This video is a poor example of that problem. Where you and I will never agree is whether it is acceptable to greet someone on the street, I think it is totally ok & not harassment or coercion. You can view it differently, but that is where I think it makes woman look like whiners. How can we possibly put "have a nice evening" from a passing pedestrian in the same category with some guy following her for 20 minutes? One is a serious issue & the guy is a creep, another is a guy simply saying hi. Don't treat them as the same issue or call them both harassment.

What I find most interesting is that they hired a viral video maker to produce this video. This video was never meant to be a representative sample or any real research. It is meant to go viral & it did go viral.

[ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ]

Took the words right out of my mouth, Angel!.

I was composing a post with most of the same quoted text that you used - and a very similar response to each one - before my internet connection decided to have a hiccup.



.

[Virgil Showlion]

Nov 5, 2014 9:12:16 GMT -5 @tiki said:

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

"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.

I also don't know if she'll transform into a purple cow if she told them such a thing. Either way, there are no explicit or implicit threats of harm anywhere in the video.

Nov 5, 2014 9:26:44 GMT -5 laterbloomer said:

"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?

The movie disclaimer claims "100+ instances" of catcalls, etc., but there are only 19 instances documented in the montage, and I certainly wouldn't put it past the documentarian to count every comment by every individual in a group as an "instance".

"Harassment" requires the intent to harass. If a man pursues a woman, is dismissed by her, and starts yelling at her in spite or attempts to block her progress, that constitutes harassment. His intent is to hinder her, intimidate her, terrorize her, or physically harm her. If he whistles at her, compliments her appearance, or follows her along in the hopes of soliciting her into a relationship, such actions do not constitute harassment.

Finally: while the argument "If she dismissed him, he'd start clubbing her to death with a baseball bat." would indeed convince many of us that the actress was being harassed, the video presents no evidence whatsoever that any of the men uttered threats or even became angry when the actress refused to acknowledge them. Given the documentarian's intent, what we're seeing in the video is undoubtedly the worst of the worst of what happened, which still doesn't include angry or belligerent men.

Call the behaviour what it is: catcalls and unsolicited advances.

[Deleted]

If he whistles at her, compliments her appearance, or follows her along in the hopes of soliciting her into a relationship, such actions do not constitute harassment.

That is the crux of the disagreement. The way those actions were done in this video they were harassing and intimidating and the attempt is to educate people to that. There are ways and times to approach a woman alone. While she is walking along intent on getting where she is going is not one of them. 

Now I'm really gone. Really and truly.

[Green Eyed Lady]

Granted, this thread is 26 pages long, and I may have forgotten some posts, but I don't recall anyone saying there isn't a problem.  Until people can stop just getting mad because others don't agree with them and actually read instead of being hysterical, nothing can be accomplished.  There is a problem.  Nobody disputes that.  The disagreements has been about actually defining the problem and going about solving it. 

Obviously, some here have been more directly affected than others.  Perhaps that because of where we live, our tolerance level or a number of other reasons.  Everybody has the right to feel like they feel, but people do not have the right to put words into the mouths of other posters and accuse them of something they didn't say.  Want to have an honest discussion and come up with some ideas for solutions?  Read what's written instead of reading what you want to read to make some point.

[billisonboard]

Nov 5, 2014 12:54:37 GMT -5 Virgil Showlion said:

... Either way, there are no explicit or implicit threats of harm anywhere in the video.
.

I think the guy walking silently at her shoulder was implicit threat. I think the "ugly" guy was pathetic harassment. Other than that, I think there was a lot of rude, obnoxious behavior.

[Deleted]

Nov 5, 2014 12:54:37 GMT -5 Virgil Showlion said:

Nov 5, 2014 9:12:16 GMT -5 @tiki said:

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.

I also don't know if she'll transform into a purple cow if she told them such a thing. Either way, there are no explicit or implicit threats of harm anywhere in the video.

Ya because so many times it happened that "commenters" turned to a people cow.

If you thought it didn't happen that women for beat and taped and murdered probably you better get a different news media.

[Virgil Showlion]

Nov 5, 2014 13:02:41 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Nov 5, 2014 12:54:37 GMT -5 Virgil Showlion said:

... Either way, there are no explicit or implicit threats of harm anywhere in the video.
.

I think the guy walking silently at her shoulder was implicit threat. I think the "ugly" guy was pathetic harassment. Other than that, I think there was a lot of rude, obnoxious behavior.

I have no idea what was going through walking guy's mind, but my bet would be on sexually perverted thoughts rather than animus towards her.

I'll agree with you on "pathetic harassment" for the "ugly" guy. He was pushing it.

[Green Eyed Lady]

See?  I'm not so sure of that.  I think it was a ploy to get a response in the form of sympathy.  Saying to someone, "Why?  Cause I'm ugly?" is hoping to get a response.  Sort of a lame pick up line.  A lot of women are very sympathetic and tend to want to assure people they aren't (fill in the blank) because it's in our nature to be nurturing.  Sort of like when your child says something like, "I'm just stupid."  We rush to assure them they are not.  I know that's not a good analogy because it's your child vs a stranger, but it's the best I could do on short notice!  It's probably worked for him before at some point.  I'm not sure the "I'm ugly" guy had some horrible intent.  Not sure that he didn't either!

The "follower" guy?   Whole different story.  That dude gave me the creeps. 

[siralynn]

OK. So let's take the word harassment out of it.

A good portion of the women in the world don't appreciate even "friendly" greetings on the sidewalk, because as mentioned before, it's difficult to distinguish a truly "friendly" greeting from a pseudo-greeting that's going to turn into additional nonsense if you acknowledge it. It also stops feeling "friendly" if it's the 20th comment of the day.

It doesn't matter if you don't think it's harassment. Just think twice the next time you're about to make a comment to a strange woman on the street, especially if you're in a place (big cities) where it's not common to engage strangers. Maybe you're contributing to the world being a "less friendly" place, but there's a good chance that you're saving that woman a small amount of annoyance.

And, for the love of god, please don't start bothering someone on public transit who 1) has headphones on and/or 2) is reading a book.

[Virgil Showlion]

Nov 5, 2014 12:59:23 GMT -5 laterbloomer said:

If he whistles at her, compliments her appearance, or follows her along in the hopes of soliciting her into a relationship, such actions do not constitute harassment.

That is the crux of the disagreement. The way those actions were done in this video they were harassing and intimidating and the attempt is to educate people to that. There are ways and times to approach a woman alone. While she is walking along intent on getting where she is going is not one of them. 

Now I'm really gone. Really and truly.

My closing argument will then be that "harassment", as you've defined it, is neither illegal or uncommon in a free society, and it will never be so. Hence consider us all now "educated" but nevertheless unable and unwilling to mitigate the problem.

ETA: Also, my open question in Reply #722 still stands.

[siralynn]

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.

I don't think women need to get anything out of the discussion, because most of us are already aware of getting frequently jawed at by strangers.

I hope men, instead of spending a bunch of time arguing the semantics of the word "harassment" would instead listen to the message that, I don't care what you call it, most women DO NOT appreciate random comments on the street, even if they're "friendly". So I would hope that the men would examine their behavior and give an honest assessment of whether they truly say "good morning" to all sorts of people, or if they only say it to women who are alone. In general, if in doubt, shut up and leave the strangers alone.

[Virgil Showlion]

Nov 5, 2014 13:32:08 GMT -5 siralynn 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.

I don't think women need to get anything out of the discussion, because most of us are already aware of getting frequently jawed at by strangers.

I hope men, instead of spending a bunch of time arguing the semantics of the word "harassment" would instead listen to the message that, I don't care what you call it, most women DO NOT appreciate random comments on the street, even if they're "friendly". So I would hope that the men would examine their behavior and give an honest assessment of whether they truly say "good morning" to all sorts of people, or if they only say it to women who are alone. In general, if in doubt, shut up and leave the strangers alone.

If it's any consolation, I don't think anybody reading this catcalls at women or solicits them on the street.

I used to, but my wife kept hitting me with her purse.

[billisonboard]

Nov 5, 2014 13:21:12 GMT -5 siralynn said:

OK. So let's take the word harassment out of it.

...

That is what I have been calling for the whole time.