Crickets Indeed

68 thoughts on Crickets Indeed

1. Um, me? But I’m enclosed in a fine armour of fat, so people tend to go for the “shout and run” harrassment instead, or, when I was cycling, “throw things”. I don’t know if you can count that as respecting boundaries, but I certainly haven’t experienced persistent harrassment after expressing or showing lack of interest. I’m 34 and live in rural Australia, but most harrassment happened living in Melbourne.

2. *cautiously raises hand*

   I’m twenty-years-old and live in a suburban town near Portland, OR.

   To be fair, I’m quite young, don’t go out alone on a regular basis, and have a rather remarkable ability to ignore/avoid people. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.

3. I’ve had it happen exactly twice, likely because, as lilacsigil says, I’m also fat. I was in southern ontario when it did happen. I’m also (I’ve been told) very physically imposing, and have always chalked it up to that-I don’t “fit” the girl mold, and the two times I have been bothered were when I had lost a lot of weight and was looking a lot more girly than usual.

4. I’m shocked that there are women this has never happened to. Men getting in my mental space and not taking a hint happens to me like twice a week. It’s so bad that I felt bad earlier tonight, when I asked some guys sitting in a pub to watch my stuff while I went to pay my bill, and I dreaded them using it as an opportunity to chat me up against my will, and instead they nodded, did me the favor, and let it be. I felt guilty for doubting that they would be cool. That’s how bad it is.

5. I don’t date, I’m not attractive, I’ve never been interested in men, I don’t interact with men except in a professional setting, but this has still happened to me. I’m twenty eight, by the way,

6. I’m 20 and currently live in Portland, OR. But I went to high school in Bourne, MA and before that lived in Frederica, DE. I’ve not had a man disrespect my boundaries, but I also tend not to pay attention to other people when I’m in public. Maybe I give off a don’t talk to me vibe? I’ve also never been on a date and only been approached once by a guy in public, but he was wicked nice and respectful. For what ever reason guys don’t seem to be that interested in me.

7. Um, I don’t think I’ve had someone continue to bother me after I said to bug off. Main caveat being that I don’t go out much. When I do, it’s usually in such a way that I am clearly unavailable. I’m also pretty oblivious, though, so it’s possible that I am fully and absolutely ignoring them (this is a good trait when you’re picked on a lot as a small child. How can someone harass you if you don’t notice them?)

   No, wait, I have had that happen, but it was outside of the US. I don’t put it in the same category as interactions in the US for a number of reasons. It’s a pretty complicated situation, with various kinds of power dynamics, and I don’t know that comparison is valid. Part of the reason is that feminism hasn’t made very much headway there. Also, this guy in particular had some issues, and most of the guys we worked with were very respectful of the women (from the US, at least).

   25ish, central TX, grew up the suburbs of a v. large city, lived in PA for awhile. Have visited several other countries.

   I am wondering why the question is only limited to men not respecting women’s boundaries? How many women are/are not respectful of boundaries? Especially, after following the link, I see she is referring to men generally trying to insert themselves into your consciousness. And if we’re talking any kind of harassment of that type, I’d say that I’ve encountered that from men and women alike. If we’re talking specifically sexual harassment, I can see men being more likely to do that to women, than have a woman do that a woman, if nothing else than proportions alone.

   And I’m also going to note that you don’t need someone to be trying to get attention to make you feel icky/dirty/uncomfortable. I *have* been in that situation before.

8. Attractiveness is neither an objective nor one-dimensional measure. I’m not going to make the general statement that you’re wrong because maybe you kick puppies and hate Jews, but, more likely than not, you’re wrong in making a universal statement like that.

9. I haven’t, really, but I keep to myself to the point where it’s a little unhealthy. I’m starting to wonder if I scare the poor menfolk. It also could be that I’m short and look a lot younger than my actual age, which is 20. I’m at a small residential college in the boring part of Maryland.

10. The only time this has happened to me (respect of boundaries/ no persistance )was late in my third trimester of pregnancy. It was like all of a sudden the bling on my left hand became visible. But, after that its back to the same old same old.
    I really dislike the assumption that women are all playing hard to get and REALLY mean “keep trying” when we say “not interested.”

11. Most of the time, the men that do try to “talk me up” do lay off after I tell them that I do have a boyfriend. Sometimes, it takes an “I’m married” to have them completely back off. Most of them are cool with it, I’ve never had a problem with a man getting into my personal space after I’ve expressed that I’m not interested.

12. I have not to my recollection. I have had guys proposition me once or twice, but I said I’m taken and walked away in the middle of their apology; they never followed.

    I lived in a suburb of Minneapolis and now am at a small rural college in the upper Midwest, and I’ve never been one to go out to bars, clubs, concerts, what have you, so that probably has a lot to do with it.

13. I haven’t had it happen at all in my 40s. I get a couple of drive-by comments now and then and that’s it. But in my teens and 20s? I was flypaper, dude. Or dude flypaper, whatever.

14. I worked in restaurants for two years and, before that, sports stores (how great would it be if I could say that and people not automatically connect it with near daily harassment?) I definitely do not (unfortunately) qualify to comment on this thread. My reflexes, awareness of where my lines are drawn, and how best to react depending on the setting are quite well developed now. =/

15. I can think of it happening twice, and I’m hella oblivious and I’ve been told I come off as unapproachable and “not nice” in general. Yet it still happened twice! It hasn’t happened since I was eighteen, though. I’m twenty-three now and spend way more time downtown than I used to, which is where both of these times took place. The creepier one was when I was sixteen, because he kept trying to tell me a “joke” about a girl having sex with a guy she met in the street. The second time, the guy just kept trying to initiate a conversation until my bus that had been idling up the street finally came. Nothing more aggressive than that, and only the first time freaked me out, so I could have had it much worse.

    It wouldn’t shock me if it did happen again–it certainly happens to my friends. But my city has a hardcore small-town mentality (usually not my favourite thing), so it’s harder for people to behave that way in public. I think it gets restricted more to private venues that I don’t happen to go to.

16. I don’t think this has ever happened to me…
    I’m a student in quite a privileged part of the UK. I don’t go out that much. I often dress in a ‘soft butch’ style, and I wear glasses, which might help, I don’t know.

    Hang on, it did happen to me, but not from a man: quite frequent boundary-breaking from a boy at my school, when he was 10 and I was 9.

17. Oh, and I meant to add that I’m pretty sure that privilege plays no small role in this. This is an inappropriate place to ask extensive demographic questions, but I’d be interested in knowing the figures on more than just age and location. Class privilege, white privilege, cis privilege, and so forth almost certainly intersect to influence the likelihood of a woman being perceived as an accessible, vulnerable target. And I’m guessing that stigma and de-sexualizing stereotypes related to age, weight, and certain aspects of disability also play a role. Not that that would have to do with *respect*–just a different side of the same fucked-up coin.

18. Okay, rambling (and my first comment is still in mod anyway), but now I’m stuck on the idea that the same factors that might make some women be perceived as less-than-ideal harassment targets in terms of interest (e.g., older, heavier, etc.–I noticed people in both threads indicating age and weight as factors in their own lack of harassment) could also lead harassers to think of them as better targets, if they’re perceived as more “desperate” for attention and willing to put up with crap. So my previous thought was incomplete. I think it has way more to do with offender and broader context characteristics than victim characteristics. Which… is probably not the insight of the century. Sorry!

19. Aaaand I just realized that I completely got sucked into the idea that this is all only about street harassment, which clearly it isn’t (or shouldn’t be). And while I am somewhat ambivalent about how persistant and invasive my experiences with street harassment have been, I am in no way ambivalent about how much of a jerk my great-uncle is for always getting into my space and being inappropriately sexual regardless of my subtle or obvious resistance. Sorry, last comment — I need to stop thinking out loud here. Consider me retroactively crickets.

20. Hi, I’m 24. I live in rural Illinois and I can say that I have never been harassed except in a drive-by-whistling manner.

21. It’s not something I’ve ever had to deal with, either. I’ve been catcalled and honked at while walking, honked and gestured at while driving, and approached by a handful of creepy men in various definitely-creepy but oh-so-dismissible ways while just out and about, but I’ve never had anyone who was in a position to persist do so in the face of fuck-off signals. Considering how many girls I’ve known who can’t do a damn thing without having to deal with random dudes being all “Pay attention to my mating dance! I insist that you validate me!” at them, it’s something I’m grateful for, and I’m more than willing to acknowledge the apparent rarity of it.

22. *raises hand* Lurker checking in . . .

    I’ve experienced what I would call harassment precisely once – suggestion, polite refusal, continuation, me telling him to fuck off – and this was by an obnoxiously drunk guy at a party who had done it to three or four other women as well, to the point where the people throwing the party ‘accidentally’ locked him outside.

    Otherwise, nothing. Nada. Never been catcalled on the street, never been persistently hit on in a bar, nothing like it. From reading Feministe and other blogs, I’m aware of how much of a freak this makes me (I actually went through a phase of wondering if this meant I was too unattractive even for these guys to bother with . . . messed up, yes.)

    It’s bizarre. I live in a big student city, full of random idiots roaming the streets and jerks in bars (though not particularly criminal ones) and pretty much every woman I know has been catcalled a few times, if not worse. Even a religious friend who dresses about as conservatively as Western norms allow – long skirt, long sleeves, hat – has had trouble three or four times since coming to the city in July.

    The only explanation that seems sensible is that, from distance, I look a lot like a guy: I tend to wear jeans and trainers, get cold easily so pile on the form-concealing layers, and cut my hair short. Even so, it’s perfectly obvious from the front, from less than about a hundred yards, that I’m female, so that can’t account for everything.

    I’m 20, British and white. I live in a big city in northern England. Also straight, cis, and middle-class, though I’ve certainly had the first queried on a regular basis (though, again, never as an insult; just by people who didn’t know.)

23. I’m surprised by (and jealous of) the number of people who are left alone because they’re “unapproachable.” Because my “fuck off” face is EXACTLY WHY men harass me. They feel the need to put a “stuck up bitch” in her place, as I’ve been told. And I second the commenter that mentioned women doing the harassing. For whatever reason, white women of any age or sexual orientation feel the need to get me to dance for/with them when I’m at a bar or party cuz, you know, we ethnic types exist for their amusement. I’ve been groped several times by white chicks trying to give me a “compliment” about my body or hair. It doesn’t scare me as much as when men do it, but it definitely makes me feel just as icky and annoyed.

24. Because my “fuck off” face is EXACTLY WHY men harass me. They feel the need to put a “stuck up bitch”

    Sam here. I’ve been followed more times than I can count, with yelling about how I think I’m too good to talk to someone, or my personal favorite, need the stuck up fucked out of me.

25. This is very interesting. I’d put myself in the category — while not exactly *never* having been harassed — of being rarely harrassed as described in the OP. Certainly I’ve never been harassed as often as many, many women describe.

    But in my case I can think of a couple of reasons. The first is that I’m deaf, so I’m entirely prepared to believe I have simply not noticed a good deal of commentary that might have been directed at me, especially when I was younger. (I fake being hearing very well, so it wouldn’t be obvious esp. to a casual observer that I didn’t hear them — it would likely come across as a first class ability to absolutely not react to a thing.)

    I’m also very independent and go my way all the time. I also sidestep around confrontation. (I’ve had to be, to deal with those who do know I’m deaf and try to shut me down.) So there may be a lot going on with my body language.

    It’s also possible that some harassment I’ve gotten I ascribed to being deaf rather than to being a woman. There are power plays — trying to get you to obey them, making suggestions as to what you should do, directing you where to go are common patronizing techniques (hey, we practice them on children all the time) — that I might not be reading the same way (as sexual harassment) that other women might.

    I have also found that getting older (low 40’s) seems to have started shifting the dynamics to some extent. I was really rather startled a few years ago when I realized that younger men (young 20’s, college age) were getting intimidated by me. That’s *weird*.

    I must say, though, online is a whole ‘nother ball of wax. Online I have definitely been harrassed and even stalked (twice, which is why I no longer post under my own ID and haven’t for probably over a decade now). But I’m very good at deleting and skipping crap; I came of age on the wild, wild usenet 🙂

    I see a lot more in terms of being dismissed, overlooked, discounted, ignored etc. because I was either female or disabled, though.

    Final note: I’ve lived on the west coast my entire life. I’ve seen different dynamics in Texas and in NYC that might have meant I’d had entirely different experiences had I lived for any length of time elsewhere.

26. When I read this yesterday, something about it just hit me kind of wrong. I couldn’t quite figure it out, but now, reading the comments, I understand what wasn’t sitting right with me. Many of the responses that say they haven’t experienced the harrassment also include “explanations” like being “unattractive” or “overweight” or looking male.

    To suggest that there would be crickets when searching for someone who hasn’t been harrassed suggests that there does not exist a woman who hasn’t felt harrassed. So if you actually don’t feel you have been harrassed, what is wrong with you? I absolutely know that was not the intended message of the question or the post, but the fact that people are responding with “negative” descriptions of themselves to explain why they don’t fit in shows that that is how it is being received.

    No matter how many times it is argued that the harrassment is about power and not about beauty or desireability or whatever, it is still hard to believe, because of the world we live in. So I’m not surprised that people are responding with what is “wrong” with them. I think the question was posed just a little too casually, to be honest, considering how complicated our relationship is with desireablity. No matter how intellectual we may be about the power dynamics at play, it is hard not to feel a little bad about yourself if you don’t have the same experiences.

    And please don’t flame me about this. I understand it is about power and abuse and not about attractiveness or desireability, but we do live in a world that tells us that it IS about those things, which means you have to work twice as hard to convince yourself it isn’t.

27. I’ve never been able to figure out if it’s because I’m not that attractive, or because I am a really good at giving off an “I’m invisible” or “Go away” vibe, but I just don’t experience strangers harassing me. Or maybe I’m just not that good at noticing what’s going on around me.

    But I’ve had plenty of experiences where men who I know through work, or as neighbors or whatever, say or do deeply boundary-inappropriate things.

    Which is sort of why I’ve cultivated my “I’m invisible/ Go away” aura. The more I know you, the more you’re going to just be annoying. Seriously.

28. “No matter how many times it is argued that the harrassment is about power and not about beauty or desireability or whatever, it is still hard to believe, because of the world we live in.”

    Well, some of it does wind up being about beauty or desirability, because the harasser is getting his harassment on purely for the benefit of other men. Men who are harassing as an expression of social dominance and entitlement are pretty equal-opportunity, but women who fall outside conventional beauty norms are less likely to come in for harassment from men who are trying to demonstrate how conventional and Hetero-dude Approved! their desires are to their buddies.

29. Another lurker here. I’m midtwenties, somewhat heavyset and usually prefer shorts, jeans and t-shirts (not dressy.) Other than the drive-by whistles (a few times), I’ve been hit on by Latino boys a few times, but they usually go away when I pretend not to understand them. I just don’t get messed with.

30. I cannot understand how there are so many people in here saying they’ve never had anyone invade their space who continues to harass in the face of rejection. I thought for a minute and this has been such a common occurance in my 33 years that it’s hard to pick just one event. The most annoying ones have all occurred at clubs where I was dragged by friends. In all cases they run about the same course. Some dude comes over and asks if you want to dance. You say no thanks, I’m just having a drink and waiting for my friends. They can’t take no for an answer and pester good naturedly for a minute or two before it becomes ugly. Then its all, “Eff you, bitch!” But I’ve had harrassment on the street, at parties and even in K-Mart. I’m not vain enough to believe I’m irresistably hot. Maybe it is the bitch face encouraging it.

31. I’ve never had a guy push boundaries like that that I can recall. I’ve lived in Winnipeg since I’ve been 13, and I’m 23 now. And as to what Mama Mia said, at first I put it down to being fatter than the normal beauty standard, but then I thought about it some more, and realized that it’s not something I hear a lot about from my friends who do fall within the beauty standard. They might just not be mentioning it, but I think it’s more likely that that kind of behaviour is just a lot rarer in this city. The only time I’ve ever even been catcalled is when I was on a trip to the US. The only time my sister’s ever mentioned something like that happening to her was on a trip to toronto.
    Of course, I do have a habit of being oblivious to some things. It’s possible that if someone tried to engage my attention to start with, I wouldn’t notice at all. Maybe it’s just that men in Winnipeg are a bit less likely to push for that attention if they don’t get it straight off the bat. Or maybe me and my friends are just lucky.

32. A lot of people appear to be reporting on not being bothered after they’ve plainly said “GO AWAY,” but I think this is just as much about men not taking hints or respecting your walking away/book reading/music listening/”sorta busy here,” is it not?

33. “I cannot understand how there are so many people in here saying they’ve never had anyone invade their space who continues to harass in the face of rejection.”

    It’s an oddball roll-call; you’re going to get a disproportionate representation when you ask for abnormal experiences, and it’s going to look off when everything’s piled up together.

    Fillyjonk’s follow-up post gave the number of post views vs. the number of non-harassed respondents and figured that less than 2% of readers were responding with their non-tales of persistent-harassment-free life. Which, yeah, sounds about right. If you stack 2,000 different iterations of “I can’t go to the goddamn grocery store without some douchebag waxing poetic about the fact that he also likes Frosted Flakes and isn’t that amazing and clearly this means we’re made for each other or at least that I owe him a date” against 30 or 40 “Nope”s and 30 or 40 qualified “Nope”s, it looks less weird.

34. Thinking about it for a couple of minutes, I don’t think I’ve ever been harassed by anyone when I have clearly stated my non interest.

    As far as I can recall, the most someone has overstepped boundaries has been when I was 18 and often went clubbing with friends. If we were a group of mainly girls, there’d usually be a couple of guys who’d try to join in, or cop a feel, but we’d just igore them and they’d go away.

    If anyone were to approach me and I didn’t want to engage with them, generally I’d engage in the required chitchat for a couple of seconds and then go back to whatever I was doing/walk away, and that’d be that.

    I’m early 20’s, from NZ, maybe it’s a cultural thing? I almost never get approached by people (men or women) let alone receive unwanted attention.

    Just as littleA finds it hard to believe that there are those of us who haven’t had these experiences, I find it hard to realise that there are a lot of us who have. I’m not denegrating or doubting anyone’s experience, it’s simply that such experiences are absolutely foreign to me.

35. I think the nature of this post is naturally going to attract comments from women who describe themselves as unattractive. I think the post would be of greater value if it were limited to women who think they are physically attractive to men or women who are told (by both men and women) they are attractive to men.

36. @Lee

    … Wait, what? Are you serious?

37. This brings up some interesting and annoying feelings I tend to have. Knowing that I’ve very rarely been hit on when not online (I’ve always blamed it on hitting 200 pounds well before high school ended/being too much sexy to handle, if I’m having a good/cocky day) makes me feel almost like I’m missing out on a crucial part of the female experience. And yes, I realize that this sounds horrible, because harassment is NOT good, not for anyone, and nothing to be wished for. But I have a complicated set of feelings about this idea for the following reasons:
    1. I feel as though a lot of feminists have experienced this and, since I have not, I don’t really have the “right” to comment on the amount of harassment women receive on a day to day basis, be it catcalls or persistent jerks in a bar, as I’m simply bringing up the anecdotes of others. I know it happens all the damn time and that men feel entitled to comment on a woman’s body whenever he damn well pleases, but I can never really use that argument to a feminism ‘lolwat?’ type (i.e. HEY GUYZ SOO AREN’T WIMMINZ PRIVILEGED TOO CUZ WITH SEX COMES POWER LOL!?1) because s/he might feel like I can’t say that it happens all the time without experiencing it.
    2. Even though I have a boyfriend, even though I’m happier with myself than ever before (erm, depending on the day), the fact that we as women are raised to think that we must always be attractive always has always made me feel almost saddened by the fact that I’ve never been hit on a lot, etc. Again, a lot of women who HAVE experienced the harassment mentioned in this post and in the comments might assume that I’m almost resentful of being able to walk down the street without catcalls or go into places without creepy persistent men bothering me; this is not the case.

    Overall, I know that anyone can be a feminist with or without experiencing every problem that women face, and of course harassment is in no way a feminist requirement. Also, I understand that even talking as though I feel less desirable due to a lack of being constantly hit on is a ridiculous way to view things, and it’s something I’m trying to work past as I actually start living with the same bodily pride I’ve been encouraging others to live with for the past three years. Basically, I’m just sharing this super long, tl;dr, probably-sounding-privileged-and-making-some-upset and self-centered comment about myself to explain how this is a complicated issue to me, and maybe I’ll find some others who find that they too have some odd, complicated emotions to work out regarding conventional attractiveness and being seen as targets for men with too much privilege to handle.

38. @Jadey,

    Yes.

39. And what’s your reasoning behind that? Because it sounds to me like you’re saying that [supposedly] unattractive people obviously aren’t going to be harassed anyway so their input is meaningless, which manages to be shaming towards… pretty much everyone, actually.

    Victim-blaming has been an issue in both of these threads (my comments included) with this idea that the cause of harassment is somehow located in the people who are being harassed. This also reinforces idea that some people are somehow “undeserving” of harassment, because they’re not attractive enough. I call bullshit — we are not at fault for our own harassment or lack thereof. We live in cultures that police our bodies and load us down with double standards and catch-22s.

    The original question asked about *respect*. There are many ways to show respect, and ignoring someone or considering them worthless or less than a person is NOT respect anymore than considering someone property or an object to be used. Violation of boundaries and respect doesn’t always have to do with sexual harassment. And it has not one goddamned thing to do with whether one is considered attractive or not.

40. I really think a lot of it has to do with the kind of place you live in. I live in a city where everyone takes public transportation, and where everyone walks quite a bit, and where there are tons and tons of people, and where nightlife and going out is a huge part of the culture. I grew up in Seattle, which is a very different kind of city — people drive everywhere, bars close early, etc. Even when I go back to Seattle now, people tend to get together in large groups, either at bars or in someone’s home. In NY, it tends to be smaller groups of folks going out.

    So I think a lot of the harassment happens in culture-specific contexts. Most of the harassment I’ve experienced happens while I’m walking in Manhattan; I don’t spend a lot of time walking in Seattle, and when I do, I’m almost never harassed. I would imagine that’s even more true in suburban and rural environments.

    I think this post has been misunderstood to be about harassment or getting hit on generally. The point that I think Fillyjonk was trying to make is that most women, in some capacity or anyother, have experienced men who continue to try to engage with them after they’ve made it clear they aren’t interested in talking — whether that has to do with being hit on or not. I don’t get hit on very often at all, but I do have men try to talk to me about what-the-fuck-ever when I’m not interested in chatting.

    As for Lee’s comment… gah. No idea what to say except, no, the post would not be of greater value if it was for Hottiez Only.

    1. Agreed, Jill. I can’t think of many times I’ve been harassed (that didn’t involve assholes yelling out of car windows) in the states, but can think of plenty of times when I was living in Sydney. I think this has absolutely nothing to do with American vs. Australian men — I think it has to do with the fact that I live in a rural car culture in the U.S., and I used tons of public transportation in Sydney, which is where a vast majority of the harassment happened. Opportunity is a really big variable.

       And I also agree that the post wasn’t just about sexual harassment but about a more general refusal to accept boundaries, even when there’s no sexual aspect/motivation whatsoever.

41. *raises hand* I’m 44 and live in Illinois.

42. I was talking about this post (and the original series of posts on this subject at Shapely Prose) with my husband this morning, and it turned into a great teaching moment.

    At first, he responded to my synopsis of the issue with the “But how are men supposed to talk to women, then? It’s so hard for men to approach women! Because women are always rejecting us and being standoffish in public, we get all angsty and nervous and don’t know how to approach a woman we’re interested in.”

    So I basically said, “Um, then don’t approach them. We’re just riding the bus or walking down the street or buying groceries or whatever. And we’re not obligated to talk to you.”

    He still didn’t quite get it and continued to talk about the whole Nice Lonely Guy Who Doesn’t Know How to Talk To Girls. We went back and forth for a little bit about it, but then I managed to get down to the heart of it. That Nice Guy (and by extension, most guys, hubby included) blames women for his inability to talk to chicks. But it’s not our fault. It’s his problem. We’re not obligated to make things easy for him, especially when we’re just trying to buy groceries or whatever.

    Then the light bulb went off over his head. “Wait a minute, I get it now!” he told me, “When men come up to a woman, it’s like we expect you to talk to us and make us feel better about whatever. We’re acting like women are supposed to cater to us on demand. Wow, that’s messed up.”

    And then I gave him a kiss for being smart and open minded.

    Just thought I’d share.

43. @Jadey,

    I will give a more thorough answer when I have more time.

    When you say “Because it sounds to me like you’re saying that [supposedly] unattractive people obviously aren’t going to be harassed anyway so their input is meaningless, which manages to be shaming towards… pretty much everyone, actually,” I was not trying to say that at all and I apologize that it came across that way. Frankly, I think every woman is going to be harassed. But like “mama mia” @27, I am deeply disturbed by all the people responding with “but I am fat, unattractive…etc.” The question asked for comments from “women who has NOT had a man continue interacting with you against your will after you have answered ….” And some (not all) of the comments, starting with “Amanda Marcotte” at #3 were answered by people who WERE continually harrassed after stating no interest.

    More later.

44. @LiterateShrew#44: This is an area where women are privileged. If you walk up to a guy and try to talk to him, you are significantly more likely to get a reply than if a guy walks up to you. (OkCupid even found numbers for this: http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2009/09/03/how-to-get-people-to-reply-to-your-messages-in-online-dating-part-i/) It’s like how a white person walking up to a real estate agent is more likely to be given an apartment than a black person, and in similar ways it causes the discriminated-against group to adopt harmful behaviors, which wind up justifying the original discrimination.

    Of course, in your privilege, you find it hard to understand how the underprivileged group feels, so you’ve managed to get a member of that group to accept his subordinate status. Good job.

45. I’m the inverse of what most people appear to be saying they are.

    I never suffer street harassment. Okay, well, twice. In my life. But I used to get guys coming up to me and imposing themselves on me for a conversation all the damn time, because I am a geek and the majority of the time, if I was in social spaces at all I was hanging out in places where there were relatively few women and the men were very often NiceGuys(tm).

    They didn’t call me a bitch for not giving them the time of day, but I did acquire one leech who thought he was my boyfriend and attempted to emotionally manipulate me with his illness and his certainty that we were destined for each other, despite my telling him, flat out, that I thought he was completely unattractive, until I actually acquired a boyfriend, at which point he came up with elaborate fantasies of forcing my boyfriend to kill him by challenging him to a fight, which he would of course lose and die because his Crohn’s disease made him so frail. I told him that was incredibly stupid. Thankfully, he never tried to go through with it.

46. Another lurker.

    I live in Canada, mostly western Canada (Alberta, BC) and have not been had men continue to interact with me when I don’t want them too. I am a young looking 48, fit and kind of exotic looking. Perhaps when I was younger I didn`t notice it happening but now I have an effective _go away_ face.

47. For anyone reading/posting on this thread who previously did not have this happen to you, may I introduce Jeffery @46. Good going buddy.

48. There was a post awhile ago where someone had said that when people walk up to one another, they feel entitled to that interaction. That post (or comment, I forget now) presupposed this happened more in men to women interactions than anything else, and that as the recipient, denying that interaction would earn you the “bitch” label – which was often enough a deterrent from ending unwanted harrassment.

    This reverse privilege idea in comment 46 is interesting, but you’re ignoring the line between interaction and harrassment. This question asks specifically about harassment. I do not have some comparative privilege in harassing men and would likely be much less effective at it than what happens when they do it to me. A guy took off my shoe in a public place recently and no one told him to stop. You really think I would have gotten away with it if I had some fetish that i tried to satisfy with a stranger?

    In terms of my interactions, men harrass me much more than women (and probably can’t think of a time when a woman has harrassed me at all); I’m incredibly confident in my appearance and in my social interactions and have lived in DC and the Midwest in a larger city.

49. @50: Oh, certainly. I’m absolutely only talking about interaction. It sucks and is totally wrong that women get labeled “bitch” for refusing interaction and that men pursue it after being told to go away. But it also sucks (admittedly less) that nice guys (and sorry if that’s an officially sarcastic term around here; I mean it straight) get scared to talk to women at all because they’re afraid of offending them. (See http://xkcd.com/642/ for an illustration of that fear.)

    So, yes harassment is a real problem, but it bugs me when people lump all men into that one group. But as #49 pointed out, there was a pretty strong implication that this was a woman-only thread, so I’m sorry for intruding on your support group.

50. You’re citing a comic as evidence that men are afraid of women? That fear, JeffreyY, is completely unfounded. How often do women go apeshit on men for talking to them? Most women put up with unwanted attention and harassment constantly. Most will not even clearly tell a guy “get the hell away from me” let alone flip out and make a scene. Because “making a scene” is not something nice girls do. Instead, we are supposed to coddle “nice guys” and give them our full attention whether we want to or not. And it’s pretty funny to suggest that onlookers will jump to defend a woman who’s being pestered, let alone touched against her will. I want to move to that planet.

51. So, yes harassment is a real problem, but it bugs me when people lump all men into that one group.

    Once more with feeling: IF IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU, DO NOT MAKE IT ABOUT YOU.

    Okay, I feel a little better now.

52. I’ve always wondered if I had some kind of sign on my forehead inviting men to follow me home, catcall me, look through my windows, etc. I had this one guy call me fifty times in a month when you would think he would have stopped after me not calling him back the first three times. Though I didn’t tell him to go away, you’d think it would be clear. Even after I *did* tell him to stop calling, he still called back once, and honked at me and followed me this other time in his van in a shopping centre. Then there was a guy who followed me home on the bus because I was wearing a short dress and black panty hose. I gave him a fake number to get rid of him. Ran into him again and he hadn’t taken the hint and asked me out. Other example: I had a creepy boss when I was 17 who kept talking to me about his dick and how he was worried it wasn’t big enough. I was too young and naive to know anything about sexual harassment back then. At one point he put his arms around me, so I finally elbowed him in the ribs to get him off of me. I was fired the next day for apparently being incompetent. I was devastated and became suicidal. Most recently, even though I am now 43 years old, 30 pounds overweight, don’t die my hair so it’s silver, and don’t bother dressing in style (usually wear sally ann castoffs), there was a man who emailed me for the third or fourth time, circumventing my blocks of his email addy by sending me invites to MySpace, LinkedIn, etc., after we’d had a convo about a year before and I had told him to stop communicating with me. At this point, I seriously think I have PTSD from this kind of crap. And I’ve heard worse stories than mine – I don’t know how women cope, I just don’t. What I do know is that women who have been assaulted at a young age are, statistically, more vulnerable to experiencing multiple subsequent assaults. This is what happened with me. Also, women with disabilities have a rate of sexual assault of about 98 per cent, which is absolutely sickening, and tells you that men just make a beeline for any woman who can’t fight them off. I’ve suffered from depression and mental illness (no kidding) so maybe that’s where the sign on my forehead was from. These days I get really vicious and I think I would physically attack and harm any guy who went the least bit over the line if I possibly could.

53. btw I am making a distinction between harassment and assault. The number of times I’ve been assaulted is very high and is a whole other issue which has a lot to do with my trauma.

54. I have to say, as a big lady, that I don’t experience a lack of harassment on the streets. I’ve seen some comments on here from people saying they don’t get cat calls because they’re fat, which surprises me. I’m fat and I continuously get unwanted attention from really creepy guys who don’t let up. Because I know my appearance doesn’t represent the socially accepted idea of beauty in this country, I’ve always just concluded that women, in general, experience cat calling.

55. Also, I agree with SarahMC. When women are cat called on the street, the most common way they deal with it is by just ignoring it.

    JeffreyY, you seem to be talking about men’s fear of rejection. I understand how this could be relevant to bring up in certain situations, but when you’re actually trying to put it in the context of men going up to women on the street, or when they don’t respect someone else’s space and continue to pursue them, well, that’s just ridiculous.

    First of all, some of the men who harass me on the street do NOT fear rejection and, actually, they expect it. One time when I was waiting for the bus, a man passed me on the sidewalk, made a comment about my chest and actually did a squeezing motion with his hands to suggest that he was going to touch my chest. And then he continued to walk away. He didn’t fear any negative response. He didn’t even care what my response was. HE walked away from ME.

    There were people around who witnessed this, and some of them even gave me weird looks that said, “WTF?!” Yet, he walked away without anyone saying shit to him, including myself. And yet, I’m the “privileged” one? How so? He sure as hell didn’t act like he had a “subordinate status”.

    I think you might be confused about what this discussion is really about. If someone approaches you in a very polite way, and you politely tell them you’re taken, not interested, etc., and they don’t respect your space and continue to talk to you, that is harassment. Harassment isn’t “justified” just because you’re rejected.

56. I wasn’t going to respond, since I definately DON’T qualify, but it seems as though the comments are off that track anyway. I am shocked to hear so many women say they are never harassed. I live in DC and don’t think I know a single woman who doesn’t get at least the occasional guy who can’t take a hint. Personally, I get approached nearly every time I leave my house and almost every week there is at least one guy who doesn’t accept that I’m not interested.

    I’ve been called a bitch, a whore, an ugly dog (so why were you interested in the first place jackass), a racist, a lesbian, etc., all because there clearly must be something wrong with ME for not responding to “What up, sexy?” by handing over my digits and taking off my clothes. I have had men grab my breasts and stick the hand up my skirt, all while merely running to the grocery store. And it’s not because I’m attractive or skinny or young, it’s because most of the men feel entitled to invade my space because they think I’m less than them because I’m a woman.

57. I live in a very rural area and I’ve still had it happen at least a few times. Like Amanda, I’m really surprised (though pleased!) to read that there are women this hasn’t happened to. Just a few months ago I stopped at the grocery store to get a very quick piece of pizza on my way to work and the guy that was at the cash register starting talking to me, despite the fact I was very clearly in a hurry and then asked for my phone number. Why did this seem like a good time? I also had a man who was working at a gas station start singing the song “Julie” by Bobby Sherman and ask me for a hug, again when I had already mentioned I was in a huge hurry. Seriously, when did it become appropriate for random strangers to ask women for hugs? I was really creeped out. The worst though was this summer when I ran into a professor at the bar and he kept following me around, asking me if I was ok, was I safe, etc… It would have been fine if it was once or twice, but it was seriously the whole night when I was out with my friends. Creepy.

58. I don’t think I was clear- I do agree that it is more where you live and I probably experience this a lot less than people who live in a more urban area. I just wanted to say that it can happen anywhere, so I was still shocked that there are people this hasn’t happened too. And I’m overweight too, so that didn’t provide any protection either.

59. *raises hand*

    Never had guys be boundary pushing. I mean, I’ve had homeless people try to talk to me while I was clearly ignoring them but that’s about it. If I say go away they go away.

    And though this shouldn’t matter in the slightest, in light of some of the above comments, I’ve never had a problem finding boyfriends.

    I’m 24, have lived in nyc for the past three years and the bay area before then.

60. I had a lot of attention living in the city (New York/LA) but rarely persistence of this sort. I am tall and assertive – my body language probably reads ‘I have some martial arts training so those 90lbs you have on me won’t stop my fist getting to your balls’ – so if I get the chance to say no politely and firmly to a man’s face, nearly all will back off. They only seem to persist if they are, say, in a car or on a building site – at a safe distance from any reaction. It’s happened three times at parties (once I’m told, the guy was high on coke, once he was a loser egged on by friends and apologised as they were leaving, and once just a raving berk who thought – fortunately wrongly – he could pester and bully a woman into sex).

    That said, and this is why I’m posting despite it having happened in an urban setting, I have never had it happen in a rural or village setting, in any country. This is true of other women I know. I think this is because country people know all our neighbors so there is strong social pressure on local men to be genteel, to local and to visiting women. I also think rural families tend to be very close-knit and strong, so the local boys are frankly just raised with better manners and a bit more – if this isn’t an unwelcome word on a feminist website – chivalry. (Obviously rural communities can be TOO traditional, but mine isn’t, the women mostly have paid work and hold a majority of positions of authority in the village hall, and there’s gays and blacks and Jews mixed in with a majority of white Anglicans, and we’re all an equal part of each other’s lives). Also if a strange man were impertinent, any other local who happened by would get involved, so I think that country people can give off an untouchable close-knit vibe. Then again in my home village it may be because I nearly always go around with my huge bristling dog…

61. Lee – I’ll bite. Bearing in mind the definintion of harassment in this thread – attention that persists AFTER the man has been told or had made clear to him that it is unwelcome.

    I think attractiveness is a red herring. And I am (told that I am) extremely attractive. I am 20-something, 5’8, blond, toned hourglass shape, great skin, pretty smile, etc. I have been talent-spotted by modelling agencies more than once.

    But the three instances of more serious harassment I listed in my first post (still in mod) all occurred BEFORE I was attractive. I was NOT an attractive teenager, and I don’t mean I THOUGHT I was unattractive, I mean objectively. I was short and awkward, with bad skin, no figure to speak off, braces (and braces, and more braces), and I hadn’t ‘grown into’ my features, as it were. I was not popular or cool or sexy.

    Then suddenly at 18 it all changed. And since then I have not been ‘harassed’. I get comments but never anything disrespectful. Usually it’s, “You’re beautiful”, “Have a nice day”, “Good morning, ma’am”, etc.

    I’m not just so gorgeous that men dare not meddle with me. I’m not so friendly that I lap it up and never reject anyone (I’m married so I have to!). I don’t dress to hide my looks. I read feminist literature but I don’t wear an ‘harass me and I’ll rip your balls off because I’m a man-hating feminist’ T-shirt. And while I grew up on a farm (as I mentioned previous post; I’m home visiting hence the possibly confusing tenses in there) in a more genteel culture, now I live in New York where there are lots of men who could harass under a protective veneer of anonymity. So by your implied logic, I should get harassed constantly.

    My husband and I speculate that it might not happen for several reasons:
    1. My work is populated mostly by women, married men, or gay men, and we all make fun of each other and are great friends so harassment isn’t an issue.
    2. I have a British accent so people say they assume I am very smart, which scares the crap out of the sort of man who might harass a woman. Or, they assume I live abroad so there is no point pursuing me.
    3. I wear a wedding ring (this last year only).
    4. I was raised to say things unambiguously, eg to a man I know who tries it on, “You are very nice but there is zero chance I will ever sleep with you” which leaves no scope for him to fool himself that persisting is worthwhile; sometimes women are trained to say, “You’re very nice but I have a boyfriend/am on the rebound/want to focus on me for a while” all of which can be read as, “You’re so nice and if x factor changes I’ll sleep with you, so persist”. And for a man I don’t know, “Sir, you are very kind, but I do not pick up gentlemen I meet in the street.” The formal idiom works in my accent; they seem to rise to the occasion by being similarly gracious in return (or, they think I’m an antediluvian freak and flee at once).
    5. Maybe instead of doing it as primarily a power thing, as they might to a woman they thought was ugly, men are more likely to be trying to sleep with me, so act gracious to preserve their chances at another shot.
    6. Perhaps most likely: men are more resigned to being rejected by a pretty woman, since in their view she was a long shot anyway, hence they didn’t invest much in the encounter and are less likely to wax all bitchy when rejected. It’s not embarrassing to be turned down by a woman who, you can console yourself, could get anyone. It’s mortifying to be turned down by Plain Jane who ought to be grateful you even looked at her. Of course I am sure the vast majority of men, not being dickheads, don’t think this way, but we’re talking about a certain segment of men – the minority who harass – and my brother and husband agree this is probably a fair assessment of the kind of self-entitled, nasty, insecure man who’s capable of pestering past a no.

    I could come up with another thousand but it is all comparatively unimportant. I have plainer friends who get harassed all the time and gorgeous ones who hardly ever do, and vice versa. I also have spoken to women who wear hijab (headscarf) and get harassed, and know that in Egypt, women in full niqab are slightly MORE likely to be harrassed, while in LA they think you’re a freak if your skirt reaches below your knees. But in other cultures wearing less might be seen as inviting trouble. I had a beautiful blond classmate who never got harassed happen living in Dubai with an uncovered head, a beautiful friend who had the same pleasant experience in India, and yet another who was hissed and clicked at constantly in Morocco.

    The upshot being, the correlation of looks and level of harassment is very weak, as is that between clothing and harassment. (The latter is important only because it affects how people respond when you complain, eg ‘you wore a short skirt so asked for it’). The big factors are a culture that says it is a male right or no big deal, a society and law that provide no penalty social or legal, and THE MEN WHO CHOOSE TO DO IT. These are the only things on which it can ultimately be blamed.

62. “I really think a lot of it has to do with the kind of place you live in.”

    Given my experience, I have a lot of difficulty agreeing. I’ve been harassed in places such as rural Va. and in places such as Manhattan. On the street, at parties, even while shopping for fucking groceries. There doesn’t seem to be any obvious pattern…

63. I agree with Faith- I live in a very rural area and there is no difference in the manner of the men who live here. There’s just a little bit less of them. I’m harassed less than some of my friends, but I would guess it’s because I usually have my kids with me and I wear a wedding ring.

64. Yeah, I didn’t mean to imply that women in rural areas DON’T experience harassment. I was just pointing out that by virtue of living in a big city where everyone commutes in public, you come face-to-face with a larger number of creeps, so there are more chances to be harassed. And that, in my experience, I’m harassed significantly less in driving cities like Seattle (and MUCH less in the suburbs, where I just don’t interact with other people). I certainly did not mean to say that other women don’t see other patterns.

65. I saw stats somewhere that said single women get harassed far more often than married women. Also, judging by the statistics I’ve heard of for sexual assault of women with disabilities, men prefer to attack or harass women who look vulnerable. Because predators are cowards that way.

66. I’ll raise my hand here. I’m 40, currently living in rural NC, but had this happen when I was living in NYC as well as here – once when I was (very obviously) 8 1/2 months pregnant.

67. @51 JeffreyY: Funny you should mention that particular xkcd strip. Several feminist blogs have pointed out the problems with it. The first one that comes to mind is this post by Sweet Machine at Shapely Prose.

    On a related note, check out this FANTASTIC piece by guest blogger Phaedra Starling on the same site.

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