Woman Harrassed Simply By Walking in New York

[Shooby]

How about if other people just learn to shut up and leave people alone? But apparently it isn't that they are wrong to come up and make stupid comments , it is you don't " handle" it right according to some herr I guess.
But yes, the only person you control is you and your reaction. But that doesn't mean that the idiots are right or should have continual carte blanche to do it. We can have an opinion that we think they should stop as well.

[OldCoyote]

Out of curiosity just how was this being filmed,  How was the camera being carried. 

For all we know there may have be a sign on the backside of the camera saying "Checkout the hot chick".

[OldCoyote]

Gee I feel left out, having never been harassed by anyone other than a panhandler asking for money.

Hmmm, maybe I didn't like that either.

[mmhmm]

Nov 1, 2014 8:41:32 GMT -5 OldCoyote said:

Out of curiosity just how was this being filmed,  How was the camera being carried. 

For all we know there may have be a sign on the backside of the camera saying "Checkout the hot chick".

The camera was on the backpack of a person walking ahead of the woman, as an earlier post clarified.

[zibazinski]

I'm so glad I don't work in the real world anymore. I lost two jobs and one was made pretty miserable because of men that didn't behave. When I lost my first one, I stupidly went crying to mommy, who basically told me that it had happened to her lots of times and to just get used to it.   

[zibazinski]

Btw, when DD was harassed like that, I told her to tell her female manager. The male manager was the one harassing her. The female scheduled DD on the days that SHE worked. But one time it didn't work out that way. DD called me all upset and I told her to get her purse, give the male manager her keys, and walk her ass out that door RIGHT THIS MINUTE. She did. The female manager called her and wanted to know why she quit without giving any notice. Good grief.

[8 Bit WWBG]

...:::"My biggest issue is co-workers who don't get not interested means not interested.":::...

I'm really not sure there is ever going to be a GOOD way for these interactions to go down.  Rejection sucks.  Any way you slice it, it sucks to be rejected.  Lets temporarily exclude the overtly sexual/ridiculous propositions (ex. "hey baby, come on back to my place right now" as if that had a chance) and focus on the more realistic and simple ones.  Asking her out to coffee, or whatever...

I suppose neither party knows what is going on in the other party's head, or what happened prior to that moment.  At the moment those two meet, either one or both have had a culmination of who knows what that directly influence their reactions at that specific moment.

A lot of comments (from various sources, not specifically here) centered around a rejected party not accepting "no" or getting insulting after being rejected.  One has to wonder whether or not those reactions are normal for the people giving them, or simply the exception -- and that its by virtue of sheer volume that said exception seems so pervasive.

I suppose if I'd been out trying to meet women, and striking out ALL night, I might very well react out of frustration and hurt the last few times.  I'm not saying that makes it right or anything, but in that instance, I'd look like a douche.  Absent the facts that the other 15 times I'd handled it with grace, only one impression would be formed.  I'm sure in the asker's mind, he/she considers him/herself benevolent.  So getting any negative response seems like a slight.  And yes, there are definitely people out there who get a real high out of rejecting someone they see as inferior.

Not saying that an insult is the way to go either.  I'm just curious what ELSE might be at play in that moment.

 

[zibazinski]

Do you have any policies at work that prohibit fraternization among employees?

[8 Bit WWBG]

I'm sure there is vague boilerplate verbiage in some obscure handbook for pure CYA sake, but its obviously not a deterrent.  There are many married couples working side by side in my office.  Many met at work for the first time, dated, got married, and still work together.  I'm sure there are plenty of relationships that didn't make it to marriage.  Given that most people spend roughly 1/4 to 1/3 their waking lives at work, inter-office relationships are a fact of life.

What I thought made for interesting debate were the cases in which women expressed frustration at having to deal with negativity or outright insults after rejecting someone's unwanted advances.  I attempted to delve into that specific area of this overall issue.

[Bonny]

Nov 1, 2014 17:05:20 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

Have a questions for the guys. So a strange woman says good morning/afternoon/whatever to you. If you didn't say anything back how many yelled after you calling you a bitch or I was just saying good morning or what an I not good enough to talk to? Or, if you try to be pleasant and polite and respond back to them but keep moving or turn away cuz you don't want to or don't have time to continue talking how many start walking after you or then still say all the other things they say if you ignore them?

I must not be pretty, or possibly have resting asshole face, because I don't think I've ever had a complete stranger on the street randomly say hello, good morning, or what have you.  I don't respond to anyone when walking through the city though.  Male/female/hot/homeless looking, doesn't matter.  I don't engage with strangers.

Dark,

For an eye-opening experience you should talk to Loop and your girls and about their experiences. It starts pretty young.

You also might have a talk about how to handle it. Most young girls feel a lot of shame. As if they were responsible for stuff these guys say/do.

ETA: One of the more memorable situations I had was encounter a kid in Jr. High (I was just 13) who would walk through the halls grabbing girls' crotches. The first time it happened to me I went home and told my parents. They made it clear it was up to me to deal with it. When it happened again, I ran after the kid, caught up to him and brought the full load of my advanced English and Geography text books (about 5 books), and repeatedly smashed them on his head. After about three rounds he got away. I never had a problem with him again. I'm not sure that was the best way to handle it but it worked.

[weltschmerz]

I got so tired of men leering at me and making inappropriate comments, that one day, I had had enough.
One guy came out with "Hey baby, can I get me some of that?"
I turned on my heel and said "OK, big man...show me what you got. I want to see if it's worth my time."

He mumbled something about it being cold out and ran away.

Arseholes.

[ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ]

One of the more memorable situations I had was encounter a kid in Jr. High (I was just 13) who would walk through the halls grabbing girls' crotches. The first time it happened to me I went home and told my parents. They made it clear it was up to me to deal with it.

They did nothing? My parents (especially my father), would have been marching up to the school principal's office to find out if the kid had been reprimanded or expelled.

He would have also been contacting the boy's parents to have a few choice words with them as well.

[Deleted]

Nov 1, 2014 8:51:46 GMT -5 mmhmm said:

Nov 1, 2014 8:41:32 GMT -5 OldCoyote said:

Out of curiosity just how was this being filmed,  How was the camera being carried. 

For all we know there may have be a sign on the backside of the camera saying "Checkout the hot chick".

The camera was on the backpack of a person walking ahead of the woman, as an earlier post clarified.

I don't think that was in doubt. The question was: was there anything that might have been off-camera (like, a sign on the backpack, as OldCoyote alluded to, or maybe a sign on the front of the camera person that said "We're filming a documentary about cat-calling... please heckle the woman in black behind me") to help them get the reactions they were looking for?

I mean should we take the word of a group that obviously mislead us? (I wouldn't feel mislead if the short video was more of an "average" of what happened over the whole 10 hours... instead of just the "bad parts" {most of which weren't actually "bad" anyway}. It's kind of like a movie preview... where they show you all the "good" parts... so you go, pay your $15.00 to get in, and then realize the preview was ALL the good parts... and the rest of the movie was crap.)

[Deleted]

Nov 1, 2014 17:56:50 GMT -5 ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ said:

One of the more memorable situations I had was encounter a kid in Jr. High (I was just 13) who would walk through the halls grabbing girls' crotches. The first time it happened to me I went home and told my parents. They made it clear it was up to me to deal with it.

They did nothing? My parents (especially my father), would have been marching up to the school principal's office to find out if the kid had been reprimanded or expelled.

He would have also been contacting the boy's parents to have a few choice words with them as well.

I agree. I would have been proactive as well. There's a difference between spoken word and physical contact.

[ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ]

I mean should we take the word of a group that obviously mis-led us? (I wouldn't feel mis-led if the short video was more of an "average" of what happened over the whole 10 hours... instead of just the "bad parts" {most of which weren't actually "bad" anyway}. It's kind of like a movie preview... where they show you all the "good" parts... so you go, pay your $15.00 to get in, and then realize the preview was ALL the good parts... and the rest of the movie was crap.)

The bolded & underlined text is pretty much what I'd been saying too.

[Tennesseer]

Nov 1, 2014 17:52:44 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

I got so tired of men leering at me and making inappropriate comments, that one day, I had had enough.
One guy came out with "Hey baby, can I get me some of that?"
I turned on my heel and said "OK, big man...show me what you got. I want to see if it's worth my time."

He mumbled something about it being cold out and ran away.

Arseholes.

The cold causes shrinkage problems.

[ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ]

I didn't say it doesn't happen - it does. Has it happened to me? Hell, yes.

But the video is is a misrepresentation - it's edited little pieces of a 10 hr taping - shortened down to 2 minutes of only the worst-case scenarios this woman experienced.

And again, the neighborhood & street that was chosen to do the filming in. The ones who set this up probably chose that specific street purposely because it's known to have men just hanging around there all day.

[Bonny]

Nov 1, 2014 17:56:50 GMT -5 ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ said:

One of the more memorable situations I had was encounter a kid in Jr. High (I was just 13) who would walk through the halls grabbing girls' crotches. The first time it happened to me I went home and told my parents. They made it clear it was up to me to deal with it.

They did nothing? My parents (especially my father), would have been marching up to the school principal's office to find out if the kid had been reprimanded or expelled.

He would have also been contacting the boy's parents to have a few choice words with them as well.

No. It was a big school with about 1,000 kids in each grade level (for a total of 3,000 kids). I didn't know who the kid was.

Had I known who the kid was I would have reported him myself.

I should add that there was a racial sensitivity as well. This was the mid-70s and San Diego City Schools had a voluntary bussing program. Yes the kid was black and I'm white. I never saw it as a racial issue; just some kid who tried to get away with bad behavior.

[Bonny]

Nov 1, 2014 17:54:20 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

For an eye-opening experience you should talk to Loop and your girls and about their experiences. It starts pretty young.

I'm going to file that under things I'd really rather not know.  I'll buy them some pepper spray, and teach them to tell police officers "he grabbed me".  That should take care of it.

Shit, pepper spray is cheap.  I give them my blessing to blast every asshole who so much as tells them to smile.

My point is that many girls will internalize the verbal abuse. It's one of the reasons a lot of young girls develop eating disorders. Having a man (especially their father) acknowledge that you know it happens a lot, that it's inappropriate, and that it's not their fault could help.

[ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ]

Nov 1, 2014 18:21:05 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

But the video is is a misrepresentation - it's edited little pieces of a 10 hr taping

All video is shot this way.  Nobody is going to watch the raw footage when a garbage truck rumbles by for 5 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of police sirens, or a jackhammer going in the background.  Unless you've watched all 10 hours of tape you actually have no idea if the two minutes is the worst of it, an average, or one of the longest tame segments they could find.  You're ASSuming they made it look worse than what it actually was, which is still a deflection from the actual point that we all know that this happens to women every day all over the country.

I have a brain, and a couple decades of life experience.  I didn't need a video to tell me that more than a few guys are creepy douchebags that see a woman out alone and feel the need to say stupid shit to her which has zero chance of getting them anywhere, but somehow makes them feel powerful or something.  I'm not a woman, but again that brain thing, I can totally understand how that kind of thing would make them feel unsafe or creep them the hell out.

Here's the headline used by a different website talking about this video. Do you really believe she was threatened with rape "HUNDREDS" of times? I didn't hear one in the video - there was catcalling, etc - but not once did anyone threaten her with rape.

If that isn't sensationalism or over-exaggeration to get a stronger reaction I don't know what is.

Lady walks for 10 hours in NYC receives hundreds of rape threats.

www.xolxol.ph/2014/10/lady-walks-for-10-hours-in-nyc-receives-hundreds-of-rape-threats.html

[Bonny]

But that's a headline from a different source. From the direct source it states that she got rape threats on-line.

Like anything you have to check your source.

[Deleted]

Nov 1, 2014 18:52:29 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

Here's the headline used by a different website talking about this video. Do you really believe she was threatened with rape "HUNDREDS" of times?

A misleading headline... well I never... *faint*

You're still deflecting from the fact that we all know this happens with or without this video to show us how prevalent it is.

The headline was no more misleading than the video... or the website the video was from.

[Opti]

What's happening on this thread is what happens almost every time

women try to bring up issues about discrimination or sexual harassment.

Its not that bad.

That never happened to me.

I don't think those incidents are real.

So things don't get solved and things don't get addressed because

the people who have a vested interest in denying things are bad

tend to speak louder than the people who say there is a issue.

Because in this instance, is how you try to solve the problem radically

going to change if there were 5 incidents an hour instead of 10?

Is there some special memo or guide I'm not privy to?

Because if you are ripping on the video I think you have numbers

and parameters on what you think women should let slide or put up with.

[Deleted]

Nov 1, 2014 19:38:23 GMT -5 Opti said:

What's happening on this thread is what happens almost every time

women try to bring up issues about discrimination or sexual harassment.

Its not that bad.

That never happened to me.

I don't think those incidents are real.

So things don't get solved and things don't get addressed because

the people who have a vested interest in denying things are bad

tend to speak louder than the people who say there is a issue.

Because in this instance, is how you try to solve the problem radically

going to change if there were 5 incidents an hour instead of 10?

Is there some special memo or guide I'm not privy to?

Because if you are ripping on the video I think you have numbers

and parameters on what you think women should let slide or put up with.

Well... in this particular case, your first and third assertions are actually true. It's NOT that bad... and... while those filmed and edited and spliced incidents are real, they aren't a real representation of a walk in New York.



******
I just had an interesting thought... I wonder what would happen if a similar woman (relative in looks/proportions to the sour-puss in the video) wearing something "happy" (IE: not black/drab/boring), with a pleasant expression on her face and happily returning greetings... were to walk the same route while being filmed.

Interesting experiment... do we have any New Yorkers here?

[billisonboard]

I think there are serious gender issues in our society that need to be addressed. I think that much of what is shown in the video as harassment trivializes the term. 

[Deleted]

Nov 1, 2014 20:07:01 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

relative in looks/proportions to the sour-puss in the video

Still missing the point.  She was being a sour-puss, as you put it, on purpose, to show that even when women are pretty obviously not in the mood to be hit on by every jackass they walk past it still happens.

Nope. Didn't miss the point at all. She wasn't showing that she was "obviously not in the mood". She was showing "I'm a timid, low-self esteem, sour-puss". That's a look that's bound to get MORE reaction... not less.

[Deleted]

Nov 1, 2014 20:05:28 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

I think there are serious gender issues in our society that need to be addressed. I think that much of what is shown in the video as harassment trivializes the term. 

I agree with this.

[Bonny]

Nov 1, 2014 20:11:21 GMT -5 @richardintn said:

Nov 1, 2014 20:07:01 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

Still missing the point.  She was being a sour-puss, as you put it, on purpose, to show that even when women are pretty obviously not in the mood to be hit on by every jackass they walk past it still happens.

Nope. Didn't miss the point at all. She wasn't showing that she was "obviously not in the mood". She was showing "I'm a timid, low-self esteem, sour-puss". That's a look that's bound to get MORE reaction... not less.

So in your book it's o.k. to bully timid people with low self-esteem?

[Opti]

...:::"My biggest issue is co-workers who don't get not interested means not interested.":::...

I'm really not sure there is ever going to be a GOOD way for these interactions to go down. Rejection sucks. Any way you slice it, it sucks to be rejected. Lets temporarily exclude the overtly sexual/ridiculous propositions (ex. "hey baby, come on back to my place right now" as if that had a chance) and focus on the more realistic and simple ones. Asking her out to coffee, or whatever...

The problem I have is almost every co-worker that has been interested in me

has generally been too smart to actually directly ask for a date, because they

generally won't explicitly ask unless they are assured of a yes. Those that I

have gone out with briefly usually ask about lunch or something easy so it

isn't actually a dating thing until both parties decide it will go there.

But because they don't explicitly ask ' do you want to go on a date and do X',

the persistent ones never give up entirely. And that's the case with my current

Spanish speaker who speaks some English. I shutdown unwanted touching once

before and its started again. Going to management has its risks. And I want

my new administrator to choose to offer a two job FT position that hopefully when

the census goes back up in the near future, I can have. And that would significantly

limit our interaction as its a regular M-F day job versus nights and weekends.

The really bad stuff IMO is actually the easiest to deal with unless it is way out

there and you will need corroboration. Bad behavior by well located men that

isn't too bad or done by guys perceived as nice, is a sticky wicket.

[Opti]

Nov 1, 2014 20:11:21 GMT -5 @richardintn said:

Nov 1, 2014 20:07:01 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

Still missing the point.  She was being a sour-puss, as you put it, on purpose, to show that even when women are pretty obviously not in the mood to be hit on by every jackass they walk past it still happens.

Nope. Didn't miss the point at all. She wasn't showing that she was "obviously not in the mood". She was showing "I'm a timid, low-self esteem, sour-puss". That's a look that's bound to get MORE reaction... not less.

So you think men hit on women more when they are timid, low self esteem sour-pusses?

<Insert swear word here>

So in your opinion men prefer to comment on the physical assets of weak women

as opposed to happy women?

Really the only difference I would expect is you wouldn't get any please smile comments.

If you walk down happy and smiling, you are going to be perceived as asking for it

to the belittlers.