Jesus. Where does Yglesias get these commenters? What assholes.
Jimm with "a nice chuckle is all that is needed if you really think the harassment is about power (and not just appreciation)" is especially charming.
OTOH, ehhh, there's a certain something to be said for picking your battles. Women and visible minorities navigate a world of obnoxious sotto voce comments and behaviour, and women from visible minorities doubly or triply so, but trying to react to everything no matter how small (as leblanc says she's experimenting with) is a one-way ticket to ulcers and emotional exhaustion.
Ugh, what assholes.
I wish that at some point in my life I had seen some evidence that this street harassment goes on, but I really never have. Not once. Even though I believe that it does go on. I don't think I have much to contribute.
Despite my better judgment, there are times (such as this one) when I think a squad of vigilantes might do some good. But then I remember that we are supposed to be a civilized people.
I go, I go, look how I go! Swift as an arrow from a Persian's bow!
Count me in as not having seen this much. I I did, my responses would range from denial, through the dirty look to the audible "What the fuck?", depending on the likelihood of my ass getting beat. Seriously though, does anyone even have friends that pull this shit? I have friends who will say some awful awful things, but assailing strangers with it crosses several lines.
Guys, I think part of the point is that guys aren't walking with the girls when this shit happens.
As I commented as m's place, I've been mistaken for a woman and sexually harassed at the same time, and on more than one occassion!
9, cont.: and if the guys are around, apparently, they don't notice. That's the point.
12: and if the guys are around, apparently, they don't notice.
Well, no, though. If someone catcalls a woman you're walking with, you notice. You're socially obligated to notice, and usually to do something about it (even if it's just posturing). And if you walk enough places in mixed company it's basically guaranteed to happen at some point.
9: But I don't see this at bus stops or the sidewalk. Hell, I don't even see it by construction sites. The last catcall I witnessed was in the medium ghetto in 1999. And I'd sure as hell notice.
The construction workers' share of the Domestic Catcalling Product does seem to have declined in recent years. My own researches indicate that obnoxious college kids and pseudo-hipsters are working hard to pick up the slack.
I take that back. The homeless sometimes catcall. They talk a lot of shit too though, so I put them on background.
13: Sorry, Ned. Your #3 was on-point as far as my experiences go. I get miffed at people who hear these reports and then get dismissive in a sort of, "Really, well I've never seen that" sort of tone.
Well, no, though. If someone catcalls a woman you're walking with, you notice. You're socially obligated to notice, and usually to do something about it (even if it's just posturing). And if you walk enough places in mixed company it's basically guaranteed to happen at some point.
Hasn't happened yet.
Maybe I've seen it a couple of times in which the guy appeared to know the woman he was calling to, but she was actually a stranger. I'll keep an eye out for cases like this.
16: Which is why I stay the fuck away from Allston.
Wariness Mode enabled. I can't tell if Ned is yanking my chain or not.
I take that back. The homeless sometimes catcall. They talk a lot of shit too though, so I put them on background.
Sometimes the homeless even enter into bizarrely logical dialogues with you on the topic, like "Heh, is that your girlfriend? Heh, can I borrow her? Heh, where you folks going tonight? Heh, wish I could go with you."
"homeless" here meaning "bedraggled and mentally ill"
Earlier today a homeless dude saw me reading while walking down the street, and stopped me to consult on a question of word choice. No shit.
While potentially emotionally draining, I think that leblanc's response presents a real possibility of changing that kid's attitudes.
18: It's not that I deny that women get harassed. Women say they do, and I'm inclined to believe them. It's just that I tend to pay attention in public situations, and I can't for the life of me recall someone saying "Big Titties". If they had, or said anything like it, my radar would have beeped. I can think of overly friendly directions asking, inappropriate physical contact, and drunkenly loud misogynist shit, but I cannot think of a sexual comment by a homeful man directed at a stranger woman. I guess I'm sheltered.
Guys, I think part of the point is that guys aren't walking with the girls when this shit happens.
Re-reading my #9, I realize that it reads as a prescription to have guys with girls at all hours. That was not my point.
I just think that claims of offensive remarks should be taken in good faith, and if someone says they encounter that kind of shit frequently, he or she should be taken seriously. Not written off with a "Well, I've never seen that happen."
Stanley's point in 9, I believe, was that we as guys are unlikely to see much of this, because our very presence in a situation is an inhibiting factor for the sorts of guys who do it.
I just think that claims of offensive remarks should be taken in good faith, and if someone says they encounter that kind of shit frequently, he or she should be taken seriously. Not written off with a "Well, I've never seen that happen."
Everyone agrees.
24 applies to me too.
26: Yes. And my loose-and-fast play with the they/he-or-she distinction in 25 is because I'm tired.
I have actually seen this sort of thing a few times, btw. I'm sure it happens much more when I'm not around.
re: 11
Yeah, that used to happen to me too when I had long hair. When I turned and spoke that used to freak 'em out. A couple of times they didn't seem put off by me being a guy, which was odd.
That said, I've also had aggressive smart-arsed comments from kids. Kids in their early teens are just snotty wee fucks. They know they are too young for you to batter fuck out of them.
And I've seen or heard women being on the receiving end of cat-calling and comments, a lot. Sometimes from surprising places, too. I've seen groups of middle-aged suited business men being total bastards in pubs that way.
If men catcall women only when other men aren't around, that's seriously fucking creepy. It would be kind of an implicit assertion that the woman remains unraped at the catcaller's pleasure. I fear for the species when human behavior prompts me to think like B.
26: Yeah, my experience is the reverse of that. Being out in mixed company has often exposed me to the full range and depth of general male dumb-assery in ways I wouldn't otherwise have seen directly.
My personal recent favourite was a would-be hipster who, while our party was leaving a pub -- and "our party" included a big, fairly intimidating ex-military dude -- "hey, you two going home to dyke out?" That was classy.
31: No surprise coming from middle-aged businessmen, surely.
If men catcall women only when other men aren't around, that's seriously fucking creepy.
Sure, creepy, but also rational. Much less chance of some guy coming and flattening your face. In my experience guys who *do* catcall when other men are around are sometimes doing it specifically to provoke that sort of situation [i.e. to show off how 'hard' they are to their mates].
No surprise coming from middle-aged businessmen, surely.
No surprise that business people can be dicks. More surprise that they'd be OK with behaving like total dicks in public where the dickishness and the urge to behave with some degree of middle-class propriety are in conflict.
I tend to pay attention in public situations, and I can't for the life of me recall someone saying "Big Titties".
Do you have big titties?
It would be kind of an implicit assertion that the woman remains unraped at the catcaller's pleasure.
Um, duh.
I fear for the species when human behavior prompts me to think like B.
Right, because I say the things I say because I'm crazy and making it up.
Question, though: which is more obnoxious--cat-calling posturing 12-yo boys, or the asshole drive-by commenters over at LeBlanc's and Catherine's place (and the excuse-makers at Yglesias's)?
I usually can't understand a single word anyone more than four feet from me is saying in a bar or crowded party. I thought drunken rudeness wasn't the situation being discussed, anyway. The situation being discussed is men on public streets feeling entitled to catcall random women who are going about their lives. That's much more creepy.
If men catcall women only when other men aren't around
The argument for me is against people who argue that it doesn't happen at all. Given the preponderance of evidence that it does in fact happen, I'd rather have a conversation based on that, rather than quibbling for fifty comments based on the lack of subjective evidence for the type of offense in-question.
Kids in their early teens are just snotty wee fucks. They know they are too young for you to batter fuck out of them.
Exactly, which is why I'm so gleeful that LeBlanc pulled the "come here" thing with that little shit. If adults acted like adults around misbehaving kids more often--i.e., with some authority instead of being afraid of them--the world would be a better place.
The argument for me is against people who argue that it doesn't happen at all.
Nobody here has said that. In fact, it seems that most of the people at Yglesias aren't saying that either, they are claiming that it's a good thing and women should be glad to be appreciated instead of being whining sensitive flowers who are only reaping what feminism has sowed.
Given the preponderance of evidence that it does in fact happen, I'd rather have a conversation based on that, rather than quibbling for fifty comments based on the lack of subjective evidence for the type of offense in-question.
OK, we could do that, if it wasn't bedtime.
36: I thought drunken rudeness wasn't the situation being discussed, anyway.
Dude in question was not drunk, bar was not crowded. It was a Sunday afternoon, functional equivalent of being out walking on the street.
If you're looking for street stories, got loads of those too. I have, for instance and on more than one occasion, seen cars slow down and proposition women who are very clearly not hookers. Think of it as Catcalling Mach 3. (This has not, quite, happened to women I have been walking with, but I've seen a couple of close calls that way.)
It's not that I deny that women get harassed. Women say they do, and I'm inclined to believe them.
That's mighty white of you, thanks.
27: Ned, sweetie, if "everyone agrees" that guys shouldn't write women off when we say this kind of thing happens all the time, why do you feel the need to say (I count three times in this thread) that while you're sure it happens, you *personally* have never seen evidence of it?
I take it that the statements of women you know, in an imaginary friends sort of way, don't count as evidence.
Me: The argument for me is against people who argue that it doesn't happen at all.
Ned: Nobody here has said that.
Right. Fair enough. I will modify that statement to read "The argument for me is against people who argue suggest that it doesn't happen at all."
And that certainly is how this thread got rolling.
If adults acted like adults around misbehaving kids more often--i.e., with some authority instead of being afraid of them--the world would be a better place.
If it was being done all the time, yeah, it might work. As it stands, getting really angry with them just tends to amuse them, in my experience. Or provoke them to escalate to the point where you're damn near forced to flatten the little fucks, and they know you won't, so they win.
Still, I generally agree that more public 'policing' of kids (and adults) behaviour would probably be a good thing.
38: Exactly, which is why I'm so gleeful that LeBlanc pulled the "come here" thing with that little shit.
If she was going to do it, I'm inclined to think she should have persisted until the kid cried. Doesn't sound like it would have been that hard to get him there.
45: Eh, ineffective anger amuses them. It sounds like LeBlanc did it exactly right.
46: Oh, c'mon, don't second-guess the woman. She rocks.
Not that making the kid cry would have been out of line.
re: 47
I'm sure that LeBlanc did it exactly right for that context. But the more feral kids just lap that shit up. It's not about effective versus ineffective anger, more that for quite a lot of kids [here at least] there is no effective anger short of actual physical violence.
49: True. Which is why we should all start yelling at the little shits when they're 6 or 7!
I do wonder if a hearty "Who wants to sex Mutombo?" might have been quite comical in leblanc's situation, but that probably would have failed to convey the actual point.
42: B may be a super-crazy maker-upper of stuff, but really, I've gotta say she's not the only one finding the whole "I never see evidence of it" thing a little on the odd side.
I swear to Christ Saiselgy has the worst commenters of any A list blogger.
Also, gut punches don't leave a mark. Neither do things like joint locks. Just saying.
Worse than Drum?
54: Let's you and me form some kind of international organization dedicated to asserting the responsibility of all adults to scold misbehaving children in public.
joint locks
Yeah, that inevitably leads to: "Hey, man, who locked up all the joints. NOT COOL, BRO."
Not worse than Drum, surely. But still.
The drive bys at Leblanc's are way more obnoxious, though. Ironically, there's nothing that makes me want to hit someone with a brick more than a guy who invokes Gandhi-and-MLK at the drop of a hat.
Worse than Drum?
You might be right. I don't read Drum much, and never the comments.
What makes me want to hit people with bricks is when they feel the need to go tell a woman that she doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about and oh by the way, it's all her fault.
I would have been quite happy to have read that M. had tasered or maced those little snotnoses. (I'm not saying it would have been appropriate, but on a primal level, it would have made me happy.)
A more effective, and legal, approach might be to track down the kids' parents. Unless the kids were from completely dysfunctional, broken homes, it's almost certain that Mommy and Daddy would not like hearing about Junior's dabbling in sexual harrassment -- and that the kids, whiplashed from playing pretend badass to cowering before angry parents, would like it even less.
In fact, it seems that most of the people at Yglesias aren't saying that either, they are claiming that it's a good thing and women should be glad to be appreciated instead of being whining sensitive flowers who are only reaping what feminism has sowed.
Or they're saying it doesn't happen. It does happen to unescorted women a lot, and I have seen this. Enough so, that I have a hard time imagining urbanite types as NOT having seen this.
That stuff drops off massively when a woman is escorted, and the remaining ones tend to be hard core, so a potential fight is brewing when it occurs then. (That said, I've never had to get into that kind of fight; a simple nasty exchange usually handled the matter. Of course, Texas has concealed carry, which makes it quite different than the UK.)
max
['Fun with hooligans!']
Btw, your comment over at LeBlanc's, Slack, is brilliant.
61: You're not seriously suggesting that women confronted with asshole 12 year olds on the street should take it upon themselves to spend the rest of their afternoons tracking down a kids parents, are you?
Max, you're rockin' over at Yglesias's, too. Not that it's making a whit of difference....
63: We aim to please. It especially drives me nuts when people try that "don't be all confrontational, be like Gandhi" crap; it's like "you do know that Gandhi was all about confrontation, right?"
The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that taking it up with the parents is the only way to go. It's like when you get bad customer service at a store: Complaining to the slacker employee who has been giving you the bad service won't help. You need to talk to the manager.
If the manager doesn't care, either, then there's really nothing you can do except take your business elsewhere. Likewise, if the parents don't care about their kids' appalling behavior, there's really nothing a stranger can do with such kids (short of the taser/mace approach, see above) to make up for years of bad parenting.
#64: Finding the kids' parents is the hard part, sure (although it's nothing a private detective couldn't figure out in an hour or two, cheap.)
However, it's the only non-violent approach I can see yielding real results. Even in the case at hand, the kids merely resumed taunting M once she got far enough away.
I pass on as potentially helpful advice that the average 12-14 year old will usually fit into the average convenience store fridge.
GB, you are clearly completely insane.
Every sexist-remark-giving asshat should clearly have a customer service line working in the home offices.
B. Seriously. Let's not be unreasonable here.
If they're neighbourhood kids you know (at least a little bit), "go to the parents" is actually perfectly sensible advice. If they're random kids you don't know, it's maybe a little bit wacky.
"If you are calling about a dumbshit remark made on the street, press 1.
"If this call regards a subway-style catcall, press 2.
"Para español, marque 3."
#70: You think yelling at a bunch of 12-year-olds will accomplish anything except encouraging them, and I'm the insane one? The realistic options here are three:
(1) Yell at the kids, giving them attention and validating their existence.
(2) Walk away and pretend you aren't bothered, even though you really are.
(3) Try to do something that may actually have a real and lasting effect — e.g, find the parents and complain to them.
Granted, (3) requires an investment of time and effort. But this sort of thing doesn't happen every day, so when it does happen, some people may find it worthwhile to do what it takes to address the situation effectively.
Feldspar's coup de grace at the end of Catherine's thread is very, very good.
As far as yggles's comments go: you know that Brecht line about how the government would like to dissolve the people and elect another?
this sort of thing doesn't happen every day
I'm given to believe it does.
this sort of thing doesn't happen every day
Only, you see, actually, it does.
And yes, I contend that doing *exactly what LeBlanc did*--scolding the kid in an appropriately authoritative and adult way--accomplishes quite a bit.
Whereas acting like some freak in a movie--I must get revenge and will spend *however long it takes* to track down your parents!!!--would just make anyone insane enough to do it look like a fucking idiot.
Don't know if this is a typical experience or not, but I was on the receiving end of a leblanc type outburst when I was 15. I was at the beach is several friends, and tanning a little ways away were a couple women in their twenties. Very good looking, noticeably well endowed, and one of the guys in our group was loudly speculating about whether their tits were real or not. They started picking up their stuff, and one walked over and said something to the efffect of "Of course they're fake, asshole, it's Huntington Beach." Then they left.
I was absolutely fucking mortified. It definitely made me much quicker in the future to tell guys to shut the hell up when they started that kind of thing.
What would have been your reaction, Gswift, if one of the women had run off and hired a private detective (leaving her friend, of course, to keep an eye on you all so you didn't just wander off) to track down your friend's mom?
And what would your friend's mom's reaction have been when a strange woman showed up on her doorstep explaining that she'd hired a private eye to track down her son's parents because he was making comments about her boobs at the beach?
In fairness to the Gaijin, if you're talking about a situation where there are Neighbourhood Kids whose parents you might know, or at least be acquainted with, going to the parents would make sense. Outside that situation, not so much.
What would have been your reaction, Gswift, if one of the women had run off and hired a private detective (leaving her friend, of course, to keep an eye on you all so you didn't just wander off) to track down your friend's mom?
Heh.
GB, I'm going to have to throw my lot in with the "getting a private detective is nuts" crowd. Like Slack says, it's one thing if you actually know the kids somehow. But strangers? I don't even see how this is feasible. Do you have a PI on speed dial or something? And then what, he's going to follow them around? If I got a call from one of my kids that a strange guy was following them, he'd be explaining himself while looking down the barrel of a gun.
Before people start piling on GB, he means that response 3) doesn't happen every day, not the harassment doesn't.
It is a completely ridiculous suggestion, though. For that, pile away. That response is rare for a damn good reason.
Hey, 72 and 80 are like, the same fucking comment. I'm punchy. Bedtime.
Nobody has to know you hired a private detective.
Anyway, I'm not saying I would hire one at the drop of a hat. But I do like knowing that there is something meaningful you can do if you decide you're ready to fight back.
You think yelling at a bunch of 12-year-olds will accomplish anything except encouraging them
it might make them cry. I think I speak for many people with experience of management or education when I say it's possible to yell at somebody without validating their existence.
I still say, dump the little bugger in the fridge. It's quick, it works, etc.
Max, you're rockin' over at Yglesias's, too. Not that it's making a whit of difference....
*bows* Thank you, Mlle. It does make a difference, it just makes a tiny, tiny difference in the scheme of things, like returning shopping carts to the store. Still has to get done.
Speakin' of whichness, your post is wrong, ogged!
I'm going to bed, but perhaps y'all can see to it that the forces of good prevail in the thread here and those it links to,
So far, so good.
without letting it all degenerate into a shouting match.
s/b WOO HOO! BENCH-CLEARING BRAWL!
max
['Like you could avoid it, eh?']
If we mace him and then toss him in the fridge, DS, we'd have comity.
I think I speak for many people with experience of management or education when I say it's possible to yell at somebody without validating their existence.
I suppose an old-school R. Lee Ermey-style verbal reaming might shock the little brats into submission. But few of us have the talent to do it right.
#82: Actually, I meant the harassment doesn't happen every day, especially not from 12-year-old kids. (If it happened to M every day, this particular iteration presumably wouldn't have merited a blog post.)
I meant the harassment doesn't happen every day, especially not from 12-year-old kids.
I submit that we (the dudes) are not in a position to reliably judge this.
#92: Sure, we have no first-hand data. I'm just reasoning that if this kind of thing happened every day, she wouldn't have blogged about it this one particular time.
Or, straw that broke the camel's back.
I was involved in a similiar situation of (non-sexual) harassment by a 14-year-old near my size. It was always from across the street, etc. One day I saw him in a little deli I went to a lot and wheeled around and got nose to nose with him. He ran out of the building without my touching him. Basically his bubble of toughness was popped. I think that what Leblanc did worked pretty well. Yelling something at someone receding in the distance after they've backed you down (as the kids did) is self-evidently weeny face-saving.
Yglesias sure attracts the shits.
Try to do something that may actually have a real and lasting effect -- e.g, find the parents and complain to them.
Usually the parents will support the kid, either because their little sweetheart can do no wrong (middle class) or because family solidarity is the only kind of solidarity they've ever known (working class).
Parents who would pay attention to your complaint would have raised their kids better in the first place.
Usually the parents will support the kid, either because their little sweetheart can do no wrong (middle class) or because family solidarity is the only kind of solidarity they've ever known (working class).
don't stop there - if that happens, find the grandparents.
there's a sitcom in here somewhere.
Oh holy shit, I was out drinking all night celebrating my bar passage and didn't even see this shit until this morning.
I need an iPhone, man.
Guys, I think part of the point is that guys aren't walking with the girls when this shit happens.
I was walking down the street with my boyfriend a few months ago when an (obviously mentally ill, weird-acting) dude just walked right up to me and said "are you a goddess?"
It was the first time he'd ever seen a stranger so much as address a woman in his presence.
It really is a different world out there than you know, guys.
So, GB, actually, harassment does happen every day, or almost. Harrassment from 12 year old kids does not (although I got my ass grabbed by a 10-year-old in Cairo, once, so it's by no means the only time).
And yeah, the response is rare, but my larger point is that it shouldn't be. I'm trying to start a campaign (ok, it's unformulated as yet, and I'm the only participant) to yell at anyone who decides to comment on my body or make sexual comments at me, however non-threatening or barely audible they are. The point is to embarrass them and make them feel like shit, because that's what having strangers comment on your body and tell you they want you to suck their cocks like every other day makes you feel like like: embarrassed, humiliated, and like a piece of shit.
Those people worrying about my safety at Yglesias' are really a piece of work. The kid weighed like 90 pounds, man. And he was embarrassed, just like I meant him to be.
These threads always go the same way. Concern trollism moves to foaming misogyny in short order. Depressing.
My campaign to yell at people originated here.
The first time an asshole in a car tried to solicit sex from me, I was twelve. From my teens through my thirties street harassment was an everyday thing. But I was kind of skinny, so it was only when I was out with more voluptuous friends that I got to witness the tit thing, like when a middle-aged man in a suit would lean toward my friend while passing and whisper "titssss!" to her breasts. Where were the tasers when we needed them?
Oh yeah, coming soon: a post from Eug/ene Vol/okh on how m. leblanc's reaction was driven by her involuntary sexual arousal.
to yell at anyone who decides to comment on my body
Nice rack, leblanc.
oh good lord. I remember yglesias' commenters driving me nuts during the larry summers thing, but the combination of "how could you drop the F bomb, you made gandhi cry?" & "that was stupid, they might have shot you" is special.
I'd think that being yelled at once probably isn't going to change a guy's behavior, but if enough women did it it probably would.
Anyway, all this talk about going to find the kid's parents, or whether it will have any impact, is annoying me. The kid looked embarrassed and uncomfortable for at least a minute, and I felt a whole lot better after yelling at him, and beyond that I don't give a fuck about the outcome.
(that wasn't directed at you, Katherine. I agree that one episode won't change anyone for life, but the fact that men/boys are so startled when I talk back to them means it's not happening enough [or at all], and I'm going to keep doing it.)
Still, I generally agree that more public 'policing' of kids (and adults) behaviour would probably be a good thing.
OT, but mark my words, if Obama wins the Dem nomination, this will be a key theme of his stump speech. It punches all the right cultural buttons for him without commiting him to any specific policy positions.
My theory is that the Deval Patrick campaign for Mass. governor prefigures a notional Obama run, and this theme was incredibly effective for Deval, putting him squarely on the side of the stereotypical dignified African American church lady as opposed to the stereotypical street thug.
It was the first time he'd ever seen a stranger so much as address a woman in his presence.
I'm still just amazed that there are guys who manage to never-or-almost-never see shit like this. Maybe they have some kind of weird force-field going on or something.
the fact that men/boys are so startled when I talk back
What you need is one of these. If you think they look startled now...
110: Some sorts of introverts do have a thick screen that filters a lot of what's going on their environment, because the environment is too stimulating.
. The point is to embarrass them and make them feel like shit, because that's what having strangers comment on your body and tell you they want you to suck their cocks like every other day makes you feel like like: embarrassed, humiliated, and like a piece of shit.
Sometimes you're just the best, leblanc. I'm not reading the Yglesias thread (or, really, this one), but I can't understand how anyone could disagree with the above. What are the other options? Stand there and take it while someone makes you feel like shit? Great, but, unless I have to, I'll pass. As does most everyone else in real life. Particularly in one-off encounters.
you did the right thing, m., and just ignore the haters.
at the same time, i can say that some guys get this sort of shit from young kids, too.
i have been hassled in ways like this by groups of junior-high kids and hs kids. not the sexual references, true, but the same disrespect.
maybe if i were a giant it wouldn't happen, i dunno., maybe it's because i'm fairly short (think ed asner on mary tyler moore, only without his elfin grace and sylph-like form.)
all i'm saying is: punks are mouthy, and the mouthy can get voiced in many ways.
so sometimes i have confronted them, and gotten mixed success. and then you walk away and hear the taunts. what are you going to do? even if i were a giant, i'm not going to go back and fight each one of them. playing ahnold in kindergarten is a pretty stupid way to get arrested.
so they have some impunity and they know it, and i seethe and life sucks. i'm just saying: that aspect of it, i.e. the pure disrespect for grown-ups, is not gendered.
I'm still just amazed that there are guys who manage to never-or-almost-never see shit like this
I haven't seen it in years, but then my public time is mostly driving my car to work and the grocery store, then driving it home again. So I'm almost never in an environment where it would happen. My two-year-old makes a lot of comments about boobies, but there's a nursing baby in the house and about half of his comments are referencing his own.
"is not gendered" is too vague:
doubtless the punks are more likely to be boys than girls, and the victims more likely to be women than men.
but i still think that the thought in their heads is not just "she's a woman so we can get away with this". whatever i look like, it's definitely not a woman. the thought in my case has to be "look at shorty; he's funny looking and we can always out-run him. and anyhow: what's he going to do?"
I've always thought that bemused contempt works best in those situations, whether it is a women or a man receiving unwelcome taunts.
Otherwise, what is the saying "When you argue with a fool, people cannot tell which one is the fool."
Simply dump the kid in the fridge. One warning "Shut your lip, or you're going in that fridge", and then into the fridge. Worked a treat when a trio of local scamps were amusing themselves at the expense of my newsagent.
117: Nope, tried bemused contempt for about 14 years (that's right, I've been getting sexually harassed since I was eleven, people). Didn't work. Thanks for the suggestion, though.
Otherwise, what is the saying "When you argue with a fool, people cannot tell which one is the fool.
Except that--and in agreement with leblanc's #107--the minimal point is to satisfy your own anger. You're not particularly looking to win converts. More maximally, you're really just trying to police a border. No one involved has to come to agree with you. They just have to want to avoid that reaction of yours.
When you argue with a fool, people cannot tell which one is the fool
true, but "the one who's twelve" is usually the wayto bet if you're forced to make a guess.
119--
agree. bemused contempt is a kind of bluff.
works really well when you are visibly superior, e.g. much larger.
if not, then your bluff is likely to be called.
then you got nothing,
or you've got whatever you would have had if you'd skipped the bemused contempt and went straight for it.
There is a fine line between "bemused contempt" and simply being punked.
Those people worrying about my safety at Yglesias' are really a piece of work. The kid weighed like 90 pounds, man. And he was embarrassed, just like I meant him to be.
Well, isn't that the point. To the extent there's anything structural going on, it's that women are supposed to be afraid of men: the 12-year-old punk is trying to assert himself as a real grownup man, a member of the class who are entitled to be feared. By not being afraid of him, you're stepping out of line, and Yggles's commenters aren't happy with you for that.
M.Leblanc:
I don't have a problem with your approach. I am in favor of humiliation by whatever means is most effective at the time.
I think often the cat-callers like a reaction, so you have to be careful that you are not giving them what they want.
Your situation with the 10 yr old is appalling.
They just have to want to avoid that reaction of yours.
If there was a greater possibility of getting pepper-sprayed for making remarks like that, they'd probably decline sharply. You'd also get cheers from everybody else on the street, because few things in life are funnier than seeing an asshole get pepper-sprayed.
Question, though: which is more obnoxious--cat-calling posturing 12-yo boys, or the asshole drive-by commenters over at LeBlanc's and Catherine's place (and the excuse-makers at Yglesias's)?
I'll take option B, B.
Leblanc seems to be doing fine, but I do think it would have been kind of awesome to mock him for a having a little tiny twelve year old dick. Maybe that's the wrong attitude to take.
re: 126
A friend and I used to joke that everyone should be issued with cattle-prods. You get one free use a year. If someone really pisses you off, you can fucking zap 'em. Just the one though, so it better count.
Of course Leblanc did the right thing; almost every guy who does this knows it's wrong, but is either testing the boundaries or has decided to be a jerk. It's not as if they're part of the Bush administration, so they still have some shame, and shaming them will almost certainly make them think twice the next time (some small percentage will enjoy the confrontation and maybe escalate or be even nastier to the next person, but on balance, calling people out is the right thing to do). But, I would say to you, Leblanc, that if you're going to do this, you should try to think of it as a job you've taken on, rather than one emotional confrontation after another, because DS is right that you'll make yourself miserable. Think of it as cleaning up litter.
Obviously, you need to assess the cat-callers and assess your surroundings. Sadly, there are people (kids included) willing to hit you or smash your car.
I'm aware of too many violent beat-downs not to prefer just walking on.
Yglesias' commenters are such a bunch of tools. First insisting that m. leblanc wasn't really annoyed by those kids, that she should shut up and take it, and then insisting that those kids were really a threat, so threatening that she should not speak to them!
But women feeling threatened is just something we make up.
FYI: I'm referring to men and women just walking on. There are too many dumbasses with guns and knives who would rather beat you than be humiliated in front of their friends.
130: Oh, I agree with your last part, but it's not usually like this. With adults I take glee in my scolding. It just upset me cause it was a gang of kids, and given that that doesn't happen to me every day, I think I'll be alright.
130: And don't do it when you don't feel up to it, and don't feel bad about that.
131: Right, but leblanc seems pretty savvy. I'm pretty sure she can work that out, and that what she doesn't work out now she'll learn to with experience. I also think getting randomly hit by a stranger for mouthing off is (a) less common than people think, and (b) even less common if you're a woman. Obviously, that could be wrong, but such is my limited experience.
I couldn't believe that my guy friends in Paris weren't aware of the problem, when there were feral groups of kids harrassing me about five times a day, at least. And then at least once every other day, some genuinely creepy harrassment from an adult. Somehow they'd managed to close their eyes to the problem, or transformed the daily intimidations they had to have witnessed into some generalised "life is hard" observation. There were some undercurrents of racism too, both in the harrassment and in the blithe indifference to it. The "racaille" are just assholes like that, you know?
I also think getting randomly hit by a stranger for mouthing off is (a) less common than people think, and (b) even less common if you're a woman. Obviously, that could be wrong, but such is my limited experience.
Perhaps I am simply jaded and see a different population than most.
But, once again, I've got no problem with m. leblanc's action.
136: now that is odd - young Frenchmen of my acquaintance are totally aware of the phenomenon and use it as the intellectual cornerstone of their case for being a bit racist.
And look, m. leblanc's response to the kid isn't going to bathe him in a golden glow of remorse and cause him to repent and treat women kindly and with respect because this isn't a goddamn after school special. So what? She still did the right thing.
(And could we please trust a 25-year-old woman's ability to assess her risk from a young man?)
leblanc seems pretty savvy
Tim gets it exactly right, which is why all this concern for my safety is making me laugh. I've been living in urban areas for my whole life and dealing with sexual harassment for a long-ass time. You know, I see people who are actually dangerous all the time. They usually aren't commenting on my tits, they're keeping watch for the police, 'cause their friend is selling drugs down the block. I know what gang activity looks like, I know who is actually scary and who is trying to show off for his friends. I make spot judgment all day long about potential threats, whether to take a side street, whether to pull out my phone and act like I'm talking to someone, whether to confront someone or walk on. I've been making these decisions for a long time.
If any of you were there, on the sidewalk where all this happened, you wouldn't think twice about whether it was safe.
I agree that one episode won't change anyone for life
Not everyone, of course, but the embarrassment factor is pretty high. That kid probably won't want to encounter that again. There is also a chance that kid might actually feel bad, but that's probably less likely. But like Tim spoke of, that shouldn't be a concern of yours.
Otherwise, what is the saying "When you argue with a fool, people cannot tell which one is the fool.
I live in a busy area in which I see this stuff all the time. I probably particularly notice because I often walk it alone. It's almost always women, but I get it sometimes, too. I was getting sick of it and I got analytical about what reaction would be best for humiliation and my safety. I've done it twice and these are my rules.
1) Busy in a public area.
2) Be very loud.
3) Yell what they've done. 'Did you call me a motherfucker? What's your problem!' (which was one of two times I exploded)
4) Most important- Be real indignant and yell 'I'm not afraid of you'. Don't lean forward or get in his face, but don't back off either. Don't make fists.
With that, you've made him criminal if he should attack you, rather than two people getting into a fight. Two times and so far, so good.
"Oh noes, you might a catch a beatdown from a twelve-year old" really was the stupidest meme of the Saiselgy thread.
And could we please trust a 25-year-old woman's ability to assess her risk from a young man?)
No. No more than I would a 25 yr old man.
Frankly, I think a lot of people have a really poor ability to assess risk. Gender has very little to do with it.
But, I'll concede that I hear a lot about the bad things that happen in society.
If any of you were there, on the sidewalk where all this happened, you wouldn't think twice about whether it was safe.
Once again, I am not making a judgment about m.leblanc's particular decision.
I teach the legal portion of a class for people to get their concealed handgun permit. I hear these stories every day. I see them in court also.
There are many people who will assault you. Moreover, as terpball mentioned, if you engage the other person, it isnt necessarily self-defense, just because they swung first.
When some of us were young, a fight wasnt that big of a deal. Now, courts treat it differently. (At least around here.)
111: Here's your light bulb, apo.
138.---Maybe they were defensive with me because every time I brought it up, I put the caillera on a continuum with the harrassment from white guys.
I agree that one episode won't change anyone for life
One of the concern trolls accused M. Leblanc of turning the little jerk into a lifelong wifebeater, because he had been humiliated by a woman.
Yglesias's commenters have no sense of humor, but sometimes their seriousness is extremely silly (i.e. his trolls').
"Oh noes, you might a catch a beatdown from a twelve-year old" really was the stupidest meme of the Saiselgy thread.
That's a very common reaction any time this comes up though, which is what makes me think that making sure women know that it's dangerous to assert themselves and they'll be hurt if they try part of the point of street harassment.
I had a somewhat more aggressive and stupider story (on my part) about fifteen years ago, and people have gotten really angry with me when I tell the story. I was jogging on a sidewalk, and coming toward me was a bunch of boys -- maybe thirteen, fourteen years old, the kind of age where one or two are their adult heights, but most weren't. And they saw me running toward them, and spread out from the clump they were in to a line, reaching from the building on one side to the cars on the other without a gap big enough to run through. The cars were parked closely enough so that I couldn't get out into the street to run around them (I could have stopped and sidled between two cars, but not run).
Rather than stopping or turning around, I kept going at the same speed and aimed at a spot between two of them. I wasn't particularly scared, just annoyed -- I didn't get the impression they were planning to mug me or anything, just having fun making me interrupt my run and wait for their permission to get through. Instead, I kept going without slowing down, and hit one of them with my shoulder as I went through -- he wasn't expecting it and it kind of spun him around.
Now, I responded obnoxiously to a bunch of kids being obnoxious, but people have gotten really angry with me when I've told that story, and always under the rubric of worrying about my safety. And come on, I was there and they weren't, the kids didn't look all that dangerous, and since when is it appropriate for one adult to berate another for doing something possibly unsafe?
since when is it appropriate for one adult to berate another for doing something possibly unsafe?
Since forever?
Your family, maybe, but acquaintances? How much time do you think Gaijin Biker has to spend listening to people being angry with him for riding a motorcycle?
Careful, LB, you don't want to bait will into beating you up.
I don't know. Maybe Brock could answer that question.
Now, I responded obnoxiously to a bunch of kids being obnoxious, but people have gotten really angry with me when I've told that story, and always under the rubric of worrying about my safety.
That isn't obnoxiousness on your part, but also the crime profile was different fifteen years ago (maybe twenty).
it isn't necessarily self-defense, just because they swung first.
Yeah, I'm sure that's true. The courts aren't going to sit there and sort out who did what. And witnesses are not likely to go to court to testify. It's a calculated risk and maybe I've been lucky. But I think it gets in the guy's head, 'I'm in public, this guy's real loud and doesn't want a fight. I'll call him a crazy man and walk away.' I've also said, 'Come on, man, you're better than that, aren't you?' while walking past.
152: Come on, we were berating him in real time to make him do something, not secondguessing him after the fact.
I was wanting to make the point LB did about wanting women to feel afraid, but she already did that quite nicely.
So instead, I'm just going to note that every time I read the title to this post, I can't stop humming, "... everybody, everywhere..." I know at least some of you will understand.
it isn't necessarily self-defense, just because they swung first.
Tip for the day: Never wait around for the cops to show up.
Yeah, violent crime has dropped since 1993 according to the FBI.
This is not directed at will, but god, this is frustrating. Some kids catcalled m. leblanc and she called them on it, and we cluck about her safety. Becks punches someone who had been shoving her and we cluck about her safety. Girls get the message that it's not safe to make a fuss or defend themselves, and a bunch of clueless guys insist that this harassment never happens, because wouldn't women just refuse to stand for it and yell or hit back?
Come on, we were berating him in real time to make him do something, not secondguessing him after the fact.
No, we were second guessing him for having not gone to the doctor.
155: I think you're mistaking will, though. He's not saying that women need to feel afraid. He's just saying, based on experience, that people need to feel afraid. Which, I think, most guys get. But, in my v. limited experience, women need to feel it significantly less in public. So threats that he sees are going to be conditioned not just by his work, his local conditions, but also by his gender.
Cala:
Change the facts: Ogged was walking to the pool when some fifteen yr olds call him a Islamofascist America-hater.
Should he walk on or confront the guys?
152, 155, 159: Brock brought the whole topic of his health and avoidance up because he himself recognized he was taking unnecessary chances and seemed to be looking for the communal nudge/encouragement. It would be a whole 'nother story if he'd come here and told us he'd taken some proactive step that he felt good about and we all tsked tsked about what a dangerous choice he was making.
I was there and they weren't, the kids didn't look all that dangerous
Plus you're fast, right?
159: Which explains why the berating continued unabated after he made the appointment. Oh, wait, it didn't.
148: And people berate you for that story. Seriously?
Maybe it seems foreign to me because I come from a country with fewer guns and less of a cultural imaginary for things like "wilding."
With the dudes on the other thread the whole business had, I have to say, something of an air of wish-fulfilment. "Yeah, you better watch your step -- or one day one of those poor kids you embarrassed will strike back! And he shall be our Spartacus!"
163: Sadly, no.
161: Or, say, go back to 118. Good thing you piped up to tell dsquared how unreasonably dangerous that was.
164: Well, at that point the analogy falls apart. The berating would have continued if he had tried to punch his hemorrhoids into submission, instead of taking the more sensible step of making an appointment. But there is no real "sensible step" in the situation where someone is being accosted on a street and doesn't know how to react. It's a judgment call.
A friend and I used to joke that everyone should be issued with cattle-prods. You get one free use a year. If someone really pisses you off, you can fucking zap 'em. Just the one though, so it better count.
Would that be once per calendar year, or would everyone be on a different schedule, like with driver's license renewals? Because if the former, the New Years Eve would be out of control.
Well....during my short unfortunate stint as a graduate student at the University of Chicago I was mugged by a group of young teenagers when I ventured out of the sanctuary of Hyde Park to get my car that had broken down and had been towed to the nearest garage in the South Side. They hit me in the head a few times with a chain, and I had to be taken to the ER to get stitches.
The main reaction I got from people was criticism of my stupidity for having dared to walk through that neighborhood alone.
161: will, the analogy doesn't work. Aside from your bumping up the kids' age three years, catcalls to guys happen a lot less often than catcalls to women. (This thread is full of men having never seen the behavior to the point they suspect women are exaggerating.) A group of guys willing to catcall, and starting off with a racist taunt, can be a group interested in a little more than cat calls and probably interested in starting something. (McG's point from the other day about the likelihood of beatdowns from other men comes to mind.) A group of boys taunting a woman is probably just imitating what it's seen as borderline acceptable.
Still, I'd be willing to bet if ogged had chosen that moment to yell at a twelve-year-old, no one would be saying 'Gosh, ogged, they could have pulled a knife.' Mostly because we all know that you don't fuck with an Islamodemocrat terrorist, but still.
surely from a risk management point of view, smashing through such a cordon would be much more sensible than stopping and politely asking them to move? I mean, which would you do if you were genuinely scared of being attacked?
Or, say, go back to 118. Good thing you piped up to tell dsquared how unreasonably dangerous that was.
LB: I addressed my comments to both genders. Repeatedly. Perhaps you just missed that.
If the explanation for why so many of us men don't see/hearing this very often, although we do once in a while, is the logical one that it's mostly done when it's just the harasser or his friends and the woman, and not in the presence of other, unknown men, what keeps them from realizing this, and feeling like cowards?
170 seems mostly right. Maybe the effect of a campaign like leblanc's would be to make the male/female experiences more similar, but they aren't there now, for a lot of little reasons.
Maybe once you use it, the timer goes ticking down and you have to wait a year until your prod is reactivated.
Cala:
I am not disagreeing with you or LB that women have every right to take unnecessary risks, just like men. Have at it.
171: If I'd been scared, I would have changed direction and run the other way -- less confrontational and giving me a headstart.
173. Because they're wankers anyway, so they don't notice that behaving like a wanker is in any way out of order?
Interestingly (in the freak show sense of the term) I have no recollection of witnessing these sorts of sexual harassments. More precisely, I do not remember a scene (the sights and sounds) where a male harassed a female on the street. I do know these things occur, and not merely because the internet tells me it does. I remember, rather viscerally, my feeling of shame at having witnessed such harassment and having done nothing. This is to say, I remember MY reaction to someone being harassed but I do not recollect the harasser, harassed, or the harassing scene. I only remember that little lump in my gut where a better person should have lived, but didn't.
In any event, I am only saying that it is not merely the case the men ignore this sort of thing, they (we) actively forget.
173: I'm not really convinced that's the explanation.
We've had this conversation here before, but this sort of comes down to the idea that men can't really understand the pervasiveness of the ways that women are told to feel afraid. Sure, maybe it is dangerous to get into it with some kid on the street -- you never know for sure who is going to be a raging psychopath packing heat. But when you are a woman who has been constantly fed the advice that going about your life is dangerous -- don't walk alone after dark, don't stand up for yourself, etc. -- at some point the straw breaks your back and you decide, fuck that, and choose not to be afraid. LeBlanc et al are dead on, I think, that one woman making this choice won't have much impact. But collectively, perhaps, a few more women willing to talk back might just make the assholes of the world a little less confident of their ability to humiliate and frighten us.
But if you have the luxury of not being afraid on a regular basis, then the cost of just walking away from an isolated event probably is going to seem negligible.
I remember feeling afraid, like 179, although more for a general intimidation, not a specifically sexual one. I have seen/heard that though.
This kind of harassment seems to be another form of bullying, and the impulse to bully appears to be so widespread that it's hard to imagine its erradication.
180: So your alternative is some kind of obtuseness/choosing not to hear?
Why then do I see/hear it sometimes?
you decide, fuck that, and choose not to be afraid.
I understood that to be where LB and Cala were. That seems narrow-minded to me.
Why don't you just decide to only take acceptable risks?
Choosing not to be afraid doesnt make you any safer.
Will's house is the one between the Hatfield's and the McCoy's.
If I'd been scared, I would have changed direction and run the other way -- less confrontational and giving me a headstart.
Where is NCProsecutor? Is LB guilty of an assault? I suspect that there are some prosecutors who would say yes.
I don't get into many physical fights, but I'm really good at threatening violence in a way that makes people back down. You can't do it unless you're sure you can scare the person, but when it comes from an unexpected source (blonde midwestern dumbass-looking chick), suddenly they're afraid they're dealing with a genuine psychotic. You have to have a certain carriage to get away with talking back to people, and I'm pretty sure m. leblanc has it.
Why don't you just decide to only take acceptable risks?
Duh. We're talking about choosing to not always be maximally cautious, not abandoning all thoughts of safety ever. If you look at my comment telling the story, note that it includes me saying that I didn't think they were trying to mug me, and I wasn't scared. That's taking an 'acceptable risk'.
Is LB guilty of an assault? I suspect that there are some prosecutors who would say yes.
Quite probably -- that thinking is why I called myself 'obnoxious'. I prefer to think of it as dueling plausible deniabilty: they didn't mean to be blocking my path, it was an accident. And I could have sworn there was enough room to get through without hitting that guy.
It really is possible for men in the U.S., as of late, to be sheltered from street harassment. Until I left the country I didn't realize that construction workers actually do wolf-whistle at people walking by. Even if they're obviously 15.
Maybe the young men who are assholes, IDP, don't realize it because any time anyone says anything to them there's a chorus of 'oh, boys will be boys' and 'omg! you might have been killed for saying anything!'
Why don't you just decide to only take acceptable risks?
You misread me if you think that I think m. leblanc took an unacceptable risk, or that I think 'choosing to be unafraid' means that I think magical unicorns come along and protect you. I think that in the grand scheme of things, scolding a mouthy twelve-year-old on a well-travelled major street is not a major risk.
I may be wrong in this assessment, but this isn't about clapping your hands, believing in fairies and thinking that the world can't hurt you if you just look at it the right way.
Is the part of 173 that you don't think it is that harassment is less likely in the presence of other men?
If it is less likely in the presence of other men, particular if there seems some connection between the man and the woman, then women would notice this. Is it?
Are there women reading this who don't get harassed? I say this because I never do, really. It's happened maybe four or five times in my life, tops, and was only on one occasion actually threatening. (A guy who was convinced that I was a prostitute because I was out waiting for the bus at 4am (with luggage, amusingly enough) and wouldn't take no for an answer. Luckily, he stood about 5' 1" and was very slightly built, but it was a bit scary.)
I'd always put this down to being ugly (especially during riot grrl, when it was all Kathleen Hannah in baby doll dresses), but I do read reports from homely women who get harassed, so I assume that it's something else. Is it that Minneapolis is too provincial to rise to proper sexual harassment?
"suddenly they're afraid they're dealing with a genuine psychotic. You have to have a certain carriage"
An utter mystery as to how I have been able to pull this off since youth. Could be the talking to invisible people and punching at the air, but bikers cross the street to avoid me.
Why don't you just decide to only take acceptable risks?
Who gets to define "acceptable"? Or "unnecessary"? I'm just saying that if you have never, or are only rarely, on the receiving end of the sort of harassment being discussed, your cost/benefit analysis is going to shake out differently. As will your assessment of the risk.
Seriously, Will, if some 12 year old made an obnoxious remark to you, would you really be afraid to tell him off?
re: 175, I think we envisaged a yearly renewal, perhaps on your birthday. However, there wasn't a great deal of serious thought. More a lot of drunken chuckling as we envisaged scenarios in which people'd get zapped.
bob, it's your knee-length beard and the cracked, upside-down glasses.
I don't get all that much these days -- talking about harassment first-hand, I'm mostly talking about when I was a lot younger, high school and college.
Harassment seems to be different in different places. In Cleveland, I mostly got drive-bys of "You come back here and suck my dick, you fucking blonde bitch!" (always with a mention of hair color).
At first, I found the NYC equivalent ("Smile for me, baby") relatively harmless. But then I realized it's just a lot more insidious and planned. It starts with a quiet hiss or "smile" comment, and by the time you're at the end of the block, it's "suck my dick." Or it's subtle, but it's the same person every single day, and always increasingly insistent and pointed, but so subtle that no one else around would notice.
Maybe in Minneapolis, people are just a little more standoffish? I think that's quite possible. I've never been sexually harassed in Kansas City, for example.
Does the presence of other men make any difference in the incidence?
I was in an incident once when two big young drunks (street punk + roustabout type) were hassling women on the bus. There were probably 30 people on the bus (middle class, professionals, management) and no one did anything until the bus driver came back to talk to them. (I was looking around for support but everyone was looking at their feet.) When the bus driver came back only a couple of other guys stood up to support him. They actually had to be physically ejected.
Despite my loud talk here, I'm usually mild mannered and am not tough at all, but I was appalled that almost no one else was willing to do anything. These guys weren't ninja fighting machines and they would have calmed down immediately in the face of 6 or 8 guys.
So it's not just women who have been taught to be too cautious. I realized afterward that a lot of people worried that they'd have knives or guns, though to me they didn't seem like the type. (Disclosure: white guys, 25-30).
The stuff about tough blue collar guys is bullshit up to a point, but excessive civility can be a detriment in specific situations, and I don't think that this could have happened in an ethnic urban neighborhood. I go on and on about this, but Democrats and liberals are respected less because of their principled unwillingness ever to get mad.
I've never been sexually harassed in Kansas City, for example.
I really don't ever see it in this part of NC.
I find obnoxious comments more frequent when I have the audacity to wear skirts -- generally we're talking public streets, plenty of other passerby, but never when I've bee with someone else. Of course, the last time I thought I was being harrassed, someone honked at me. I ignored it, and he honked again. I wheeled around to glare and realized it was my a fried who had unexpectedly turned up downtonwn. "I'm not a creep, I swear!"
I've never been harassed in the presence of a man. Being with a woman makes it much worse.
Last year, I was taking a friend to the emergency psych ward, and trying to walk around the block with her. I had my arm around her shoulders, because she was crying, and we were both looking pretty sad. But it didn't stop every single fucking guy who passed us from yelling "Chocolate and vanilla! Taste great together!" (she's black, I'm white), or something about us being yummy dykes. A hearty "Fuck off!" seemed to help a little.
I ride home with a girlfriend I work with, and the train's pretty empty when we get on. Always, the first half hour is spent ignoring some guy licking his lips at us and making comments about lesbian sex. We're just sitting there, grading papers.
181: We've had this conversation here before, but this sort of comes down to the idea that men can't really understand the pervasiveness of the ways that women are told to feel afraid.
The word can't in this sentence is a very strong word, but I think it's correct. After some years of working at it, I've finally attained the ability to just shut up and listen in some conversations.
re: 201
Yeah, I've been involved in a very similar incident. A girl was being harassed on a train. I didn't hear what was being said, but a guy nearer did. He got up to go and get the guard and as he came back with the guard I asked what was happening. He told me. So I joined in.
The three of us chucked him off the train.
Also, I remember being on a night bus in London. Three young guys were mucking about having a fake fight, but falling on top of people and generally being obnoxious fucks. My mate N [skinny, looks like Vic Reeves] just turned to them, 'Gonnae fuckin' quit it, ya fuckin' ignorant wankers'. It worked too. They quit it. The fact that N has a strong Belfast accent may have helped.
I don't think harassment is all that much less likely in the presence of other men, because I've never seen much evidence that this is so. This leads me to suspect that men who never see it are either missing what's happening or are highly fortunate outliers, or both. Completely anecdotal opinion, of course, but it's based on a pretty broad cross-section of anecotes and more than just my own, for whatever it's worth.
I find obnoxious comments more frequent when I have the audacity to wear skirts.
Isn't there a lot to think about there? Because social conservatives and old-school macho guys want women to dress girly, but they also harass and condescend to girly girls.
206.2: While it was still moving? Hardcore.
Since I have been harassed by other men before on the street (more in a violence-seeking than a sexual way, of course, although it seems to me the line between the two is not so distinct), I can only imagine what women go through. That stuff fades as you get older, but it feels extremely threatening and can definitely ruin your day.
I only confronted people about it twice. Once, I was really pissed and prepared to fight in a way that cannot be faked. The guy backed off. The other time, we were on a bus and the guy unleashed a ten minute torrent of vicious, sexualized obscenities that had everyone (including me, frankly) cowering in terror. He maintained distance and didn't violate my personal space. But at some level I think he really, really wanted me to take a swing at him. I didn't, but I felt like shit about it.
The several times I let people get away with it, I also felt like shit about it, for days afterwards. But I think this stuff can be extremely dangerous. I suspect more so for men than women, for reasons outlined above. Women get somewhat more space before things get physical.
Anyone who fights back in these situations has all my respect. If decent people would back each other up in public on this stuff then it would be much more possible to stamp it out. But it's so risky to do. The bus incident happened when I tried to very gently interfere when the guy was harassing a woman and he turned on me. She left the bus ASAP. I got no backup. I think that guy was really unstable. It could have been much worse.
I've never been sexually harassed in Kansas City, for example.
There's also just not as much street life in KC, though, right? I've been catcalled a lot more in Boston or Berlin than in St. Louis, for instance, but I'm just not on the street in the same way in St. Louis.
193: It's happened to me but it's quite, quite rare. I don't really know why this is. I don't think it's attractiveness & I'm certainly not physically intimidating. I may give off an aloof vibe, I don't know. Or it may be my tendency to dress shleppy, the neighborhoods where I live, & the fact that I had no boobs & glasses before I was 18 & have been coupled up for practically my whole adult life(not that I'm always w/ my husband, of course, but I am likely to be with him when I go out at night).
The exception to this travelling alone abroad, when it happens every five minutes. Though, the form you get in Istanbul is slightly different--it starts with "hello, where are you from" & the best approach by far is to completely ignore/blow people off--attempts to be minimally polite result inevitably in "I would like to kiss you" or "I think George Bush is a strong leader! Would you like to see my ancient coins!" in about 30 seconds.
205: Because of my weird life and what I can only infer is atypical gender presentation, I've missed out on a lot of typical female experiences, and I've had to learn to kind of shut up about certain gender things myself, which is weird.
(Also weird is the pleasure I felt during my one-and-only real pregnancy scare (in addition to the panic, of course) because I felt that for once I was having a genuinely gender-appropriate experience. Likewise when I contemplated getting an abortion, had I actually proved to be up the spout.)
What neighborhood you're in makes a big difference for both how likely street harassment is, and how likely it is to be public enough for other men to notice. I've been on public transportation in Oakland a bunch recently (I'm on a jury), and on friday at Lake Merritt BART there were two kids (17ish?) who got on the train ahead of me as a woman (mid-to-late 20s) was getting off the train and one of them cooed to her while leaning into her space "aw, why you gotta get off the train already?"
I thought about yelling at them or something, but they were both bigger than me, and I couldn't think of a particularly witty retort.
re: 207
I don't really remember many times when I heard anyone say anything harassing to a woman I was with.* But I've heard stuff said to strangers in the street, or on public transport, plenty of times.
* The one time someone said it to a girl I was with: me and another male friend were walking back to our flat with our pretty, Chinese female flatmate. Two guys walking past said something to her. I didn't hear it but my other flatmate did, he wheeled and went after them. Adamant he was going to 'kick their cunts in'. I was the voice of moderation. He settled for verbally abusing them a bit before walking off.
I feel like I get harassed more when I'm dressed like crap, on my way to the grocery store or whatever, or on my way back from work when I look a little bedraggled and exhausted. When I dress up, and am wearing attention-getting clothes, more people look at me, but no one says anything. When I wore those 4" stiletto boots out to meet Bave, for example, no one said anything; they just stared at my feet.
Not getting out very much could account for a lot of my not witnessing it much. I feel excited as a kid when I get to walk city streets. I've spent my life in office parks, right here in my house, or on my bike.
Still, the lip-licking AWB refers to would be exactly the kind of cowardice, because he wouldn't do it unless more-or-less alone with a woman in a public place, that I was wondering about.
"Would you like to see my ancient coins?" is a euphemism, right?
Anecdotally, harassment: not daily, but often enough. Usually guys yelling things while they're in cars.
Incidents worth noting: a guy following me around midnight (thinking to myself, if I end up dead there's going to be a bunch of assholes blaming it on the fact I'm wearing a skirt), solved by telling him to go to hell and changing my route to walk past the bars with patrons outside.
Once a twelve-year-old on a decrepit bicycle rode by, pulled my hair and shouted 'white nigger!'. Unfortunately for his pride, the chain on said decrepit bicycle chose that moment to slip off of the gears and the light at the intersection changed, meaning I had the distinct pleasure of walking by the kid and laughing at him. I'm not sure if that counts as sexual harassment but it sure is bizarre.
Anecdotally, this does not happen to me in the presence of shivbunny.
Did I just hear poor Frowner say that she feels incomplete because she has been deprived of harassment all her life?
Presence of other men: a group of men together is probably more likely to harass. A mixed group of strangers might be less likely. Men are less willing to harass a woman with a man unless they also want to hassle the man, in which case they'll hassle the woman first.
207. I don't think the argument is that it's less likely in the presence of other men, but when the woman appears to have a male companion. Though obviously that's not a rule either.
I remember one occasion walking down a crowded street in ellivnattarGcM with Mrs OFE, and no attention being paid, but in the time it took me to duck into a newsagent and buy a paper she'd been firmly propositioned. The tossers assume that 3rd parties aren't going to do anything because, usually, they don't.
what I can only infer is atypical gender presentation, I've missed out on a lot of typical female experiences,
I linked to that picture of me in my androgynous phase, and it's funny, while it's not why I had that haircut, I did find it very relaxing on days where I was dressed so I could pass for male. Being sure no one was going to hassle me on the street was really pleasant.
he wheeled and went after them
I'm curious how women feel when a guy 'sticks up' for a woman like this. When is it good and not good?
218: no. I mean, those are paraphrases of an actual pick up attempt (it was near Ephesus). I doubt he actually had ancient coins, though.
re: 223
Past experience, people are usually annoyed with me if I do that sort of thing [not that I make a habit of it or anything].
I don't think harassment is all that much less likely in the presence of other men, because I've never seen much evidence that this is so. This leads me to suspect that men who never see it are either missing what's happening or are highly fortunate outliers, or both. Completely anecdotal opinion, of course, but it's based on a pretty broad cross-section of anecotes and more than just my own, for whatever it's worth.
Or people live in different places where different things are customary. AWB says she "always" gets harassed in NYC, and "never" gets harassed in Kansas City.
I don't know why you keep implying that the large number of men who claim to rarely or never observe this are oblivious.
"I think George Bush is a strong leader! Would you like to see my ancient coins!"
Oh, come on, don't make fun of Victor Davis Hanson.
223: see my 210, I did that in the bus incident and things almost got really ugly. No help from third parties either. The woman fled as soon as she could.
I wouldn't have interfered in cases of a quick drive-by comment to a woman. Men who step in there may be actively looking for a fight themselves. But this incident was much worse than a quick-drive by comment, it was a sort of continuing verbal assault on the woman.
Awhile back when I was crippled with a serious leg injury and could walk only slowly, the streets came to feel differently to me. I realized that I could neither run nor fight. Guys do get harassed, in a different way than women, and you tend to go around with an assessment of the chances of violence and your own capacity to respond. And basically, I had no capacity to respond.
I've been getting this terrible itch all day, right in the ancient coins.
I'm curious how women feel when a guy 'sticks up' for a woman like this. When is it good and not good?
Depends on the situation and how you stick up for them. Don't escalate the situation, don't make her the center of attention, and don't convey that the reason you're intervening is that the guy wronged you by macking on his property.
Then, dance on the head of a pin.
#232 ahh you birds love it really.
220: Weirdly, that was how I felt (on one level) for quite a long time--I felt that my lack of harassment was testimony to my failure to be attractive enough and that although it would certainly suck to be hassled all the time, it would at least be testimony to that-which-I-felt-I-lacked. Also, an awful lot of college-feminist bonding conversations revolve around "it's so terrible that these guys keep sexually harassing me", and when one has to 'fess up that one is never harassed, well...
I mean, at the same time I was also rather proud of how butch I was, so I'm not saying that my thinking was clear on this matter.
In later life, I decided that I'd rather be butch and intimidating than pretty, and that missing out on the various date rapes and scary thing that happened to my attractive friends was actually a good thing.
Choosing not to be afraid doesnt make you any safer.
This is simply not true. In fact it's dangerously not true. Being afraid in public is visible; people can read body language, avoidance of eye contact, etc. And acting like that can and does encourage bullies to pick on you. Being confident in public is likewise visible. I firmly believe that women (and men, and kids) are safer if we teach them to trust their instincts than if we tell them that they're supposed to live in fear because random violence is a constant threat (it's not).
Women are not stupid, and most of us have a great deal of experience with street harassment. It is usually not hard to tell the difference between someone who is casually being a punk because they think they can get away with it and someone who may be genuinely dangerous. And if more adults were unafraid of children--children--who just happen to be poor/black/Latino/etc. the would would be a better place. Not only because we'd call kids on acting like shits in public, but also because we would see them as *children*, rather than "super predators" or thugs-in-training, and we might start to treat them with legitimate concern and respect, rather than false respect born of fear.
Seems like a fine time to link again to this.
you tend to go around with an assessment of the chances of violence and your own capacity to respond.
Yeah, I think about the practically of those things fairly often. I wouldn't go out at night wearing sandals or flip-flop type shoes, for example. Precisely because the practicality of the footwear for fighting/running is something I think of. That's probably a little sad, though.
you tend to go around with an assessment of the chances of violence and your own capacity to respond.
Absolutely. I've never been harassed or in a fight as an adult, but I think about whether I'm going to wear glasses or contacts when I go out, and what kind of shoes I'm wearing. Just low-level background thoughts, but they're there.
I'm curious how women feel when a guy 'sticks up' for a woman like this. When is it good and not good?
Good, bad or indifferent, it takes real physical courage to do so. A guy who used to work for me intervened onetime in a situation where skinheads were harassing a Vietnamese man, and they proceeded to kick the shit out of him, in full view of a crowd of people.
It was near Ephesus
The Turks have a pretty nifty way of intervening when an argument threatens to turn to a scuffle: the customary procedure is to yell "Peace" (in Turkish, obviously) at the top of your lungs. It shows assertiveness and signals de-escalation all at the same time. Don't think that would work so well in NYC or Glasgow.
I generally figure that whatever I do to prepare myself for the nebulous idea of violence will have no effect on my ability to defend myself, because the next time I get into that position will be my first, so it will be more of a "learn by doing / trial and error" situation than anything where I can have any control over what happens.
Except for glasses, I try not to wear them in unfamiliar settings.
A woman I know went to one of those self-defense seminars where she was taught "Show confidence rather than fear, and look directly at the person" or something like that. But she had a spinal condition something like a hunchback, and said "But wait a minute! I'm a cripple!" Showing confidence wasn't reasonable in her case.
That's how she told the story, and she thought it was funny.
re: 239
he customary procedure is to yell "Peace" (in Turkish, obviously) at the top of your lungs. It shows assertiveness and signals de-escalation all at the same time. Don't think that would work so well in NYC or Glasgow.
I don't know, I've heard people shouting, 'Just fuckin' chill, pal'. Where the 'and if you don't I'll ensure you do' is implied.
I felt that my lack of harassment was testimony to my failure to be attractive enough
Hey Frowner, you want some fries with that shake?
Now that I think about it, I realize that I rely on rage to get me through things--that is, I have had a couple of fighty minor confrontations in my neighborhood, and sheer anger tends to give me better body language. I'd be absolutely useless in a real fight, of course.
It's odd--I've had a couple of young-guy-showing-off-for-girl situations that I would really have expected to happen to a guy rather than to me. One one occasion a sort of shove/body-check was performed? exchanged? Not initiated by me, but if some one is going to shove me, by damn I'm not going to reel backwards in shock and fear.
243: Ah, Knecht, where were you in 1994 when I would have appreciated it?
As B has said before, the personal style Frowner has developed is very successful.
Also, an awful lot of college-feminist bonding conversations revolve around "it's so terrible that these guys keep sexually harassing me", and when one has to 'fess up that one is never harassed, well...
I've had similar issues in conversations about women being intellectually ill-treated or shut out in classroom environments. Law school, in a fifty person class, you'd generally get maybe five people whose contributions were being treated respectfully by the prof, and who were allowed to speak whenever they wanted to -- everyone else could mostly leave their hands up until they strained a shoulder muscle, and might maybe be allowed to say something every couple of weeks.
And the people with a free pass to pontificate at will were all men. Except, um, me -- all my professors had me in the group of people permitted to drone on endlessly. I'd get all weird and bent out of shape discussing this, because it was a real problem that really pissed off the women I knew in law school, because while I completely agreed that it was a structural problem, as the counterexample it was very hard to say anything about personal experience without (a) sounding as if I were implying that "If you were all like me you wouldn't be having any trouble, and (b) feeling all unsex'd and alienated from the feminine experience and shit.
Assume I'd edited that so that the quotations and grammar all worked, would you?
so will, if you're really talking about stories you've heard from people who are trying to buy guns, that's an incredibly skewed sample. I've lived in some pretty crappy neighborhoods (and didn't have a car) and believe me, most people are not interested in a fight. Dudes who pull this stuff do it because they think they can get away with it, and they think they can get away with it because they've learned women (among others) have been trained to be afraid.
In general I think much more harm comes from being scared all the time than from not letting people get away with intimidating you.
I don't know why you keep implying that the large number of men who claim to rarely or never observe this are oblivious.
Because they are?
234: Frowner, the line of argument you're pursuing is bothering me: women don't get hassled (or raped, or whatever) because they're pretty. I have no idea why you, personally, don't get harassed (I've had people make the occasional comment in Minneapolis, though I agree it happens a lot less there than in a lot of other places), but I bet it's got nothing to do with what you look like.
Perhaps what we need, LB, is some kind of biochemical analysis--it may be that you and I both give off a "listen to me in class and don't hassle me outside of it" pheremone, and if we could synthesize and market it, we would never need to work again. You could start some kind of left-wing law firm and purchase an expensive New York apartment; I could move to New York and work for you, or perhaps simply stay in Minneapolis, buy a small apartment building, and become a crazy-yet-indulgent landlady (definitely one of my daydreams).
In short, 249 was pwned utterly by B.
244: So it sounds like you do get harassed (much the same way LB talks about having been harassed while jogging). I trust you that this stuff doesn't read as *sexual* harassment, and maybe that's to your credit--I think most women would interpret a guy refusing to give way to them on the street as sexual. I would (and I kind of make a point of not giving way myself when some jerk acts like that).
Haven't finished reading the whole thread yet but I got to the point where some people were eyerolling at the commenters who were saying the kids might have shot LeBlanc. Again, I think this is all a personal experience thing. I'll yell at people who harrass me in NY but I'm hesitant to confront some of the people in our DC neighborhood because, dude, there were nine people shot and killed just over the weekend. I was harrassed by a group of five corner kids on Saturday going to the carryout a block from our house and there's a calculus involved in these interactions about the potential for violence that I don't feel when I'm in other areas.
250: Oh, yeah, I was trying to explain my state of mind, not advance an arguement. I felt that the "normal" female experience was to be harassed, and that I was not harassed because I was deficient, rather than because I was scary, butch, or just lucky. This has more to do with a received and patriarchal notion of "normal" female experience than anything else.
Actually, I think it was nine people just shot over the weekend, not shot and killed. But still.
249: You really have to know the neighborhood and be able to judge people. A certain proportion of street toughs leave the house every day with the hope of thumping someone. The best you can do is convince them to thump someone else somewhere else, or perhaps to postpone the thumping until tomorrow.
I survived the not-very-mean streets of Portland for three decades without problem, including walking alone drunk at 3 a.m., and I knew the ways of not seeming vulnerable, but I've also known guys who were put in the hospital by thugs who just wanted to beat up a random person.
I read something about lion training once to the effect that if you show fear, they'll attack aggressively. If you intrude on their space too far, they'll attack defensively. But if you hit the sweet spot, they get uneasy and retreat. So you have to be forward, but not too forward.
In some cases, being friendly and pretending that you don't perceive hostility works too.
crazy-yet-indulgent landlady (definitely one of my daydreams).
I believe the technical term is "enlightened slumlord." This sounds like a plan: I'll get my college roommate the molecular biologist right on it.
Agreed with 251, which is why Will is wrong about the "don't refuse to be afraid" thing. Acting like a tough teacher/take-no-shit-mom/I'm-not-afraid-of-you-kids old lady (even if you are only 25) does help a lot.
I don't think it completely prevents it from happening, but it does make that kind of crap a lot less threatening when it gets read as misbehaving kids trying to show off.
250: I think it does have to do with the femme dress code, though. From the time I was twelve through maybe mid-forties, whenever I had long hair I'd get hassled. Whenever I cut it short, poof! 70% less hassle. Unless I was wearing a skirt, in which case, hassle.
255, 257: Sure, sometimes situations are genuinely dangerous. That's really not the norm, though.
244: No, I didn't feel that it was sexual; I felt that it was about race and class (stemming from a completely appropriate anger at the gentrification of our neighborhood--the young man in question was latino and obviously not middle class) and about homophobia. Also about showing off for the girl he was with.
I mean, I do get various stripes of homophobic harassment, but it's not the "ooh, hey, you're some kind of sexy lesbian" variety--it's more the "ooh, gross, you're some kind of butch dyke" kind, with the occasional "faggot" thrown in for variety (although not since I grew my hair and put on weight, in--among other places--the chest)
rage and extreme confidence are the "safest" in the 9 times out of 10 that people are looking for easy targets. It's that other case, where people are genuinely looking for a fight, that you need to be wary of.
261: Yep, see my 222. I was a step past short-haired, into practically-in-drag, but that haircut had a big protective effect unless I undercut it by dressing femme.
What about when a car full of chicks drives by and they all yell "Woooo!"? If that's harassment, then I've been harassed, by gum.
261: Yeah, I agree. When I'm in a femmy frame of mind I get harassed more. I'm not sure, though, if this is about the clothes or about the mindset, if you know what I mean.
And of course there's always the "smile, pretty lady!" bullshit that happens when you're feeling distinctly *un*femmy and are wearing something grubby.
I don't mean to suggest that validates their concern trolling but it does make you wonder "hey! if people can have different experiences on what they feel might be a situation with potential for violence, maybe people have different experiences with whether or not street harrassment exists, too, and you shouldn't just dismiss them".
254: I was operating on the assumption that m. leblanc knew the neighborhood pretty well. Anyhow, I got the sense that over at Yglesias' they weren't really offering a balanced assessment of the risks of m. leblanc's neighborhood but thinly veiling the 'boys will be boys' with a concern-troll about her safety.
261: Again the skirts. Apparently the traditional lady's uniform is harassment-bait. To me that puts the paternalistic "We know how to treat a lady like a lady, and we put her on a pedestal" line of BS in a nutshell. A real lady needs to be protected by a man, and she shouldn't wander out in public.
Way back before you people were born a friend of mine talked about this. What she said is that she knew how to walk down the street and not get harassed, but that that was not the way she wanted to walk down the street. She wanted to be cheerful and friendly and relaxed and have fun walking down the street.
263: You grew hair on your chest?
254: Going by homicide rates, DC is just about the most dangerous big city in America (DC and Detroit), which means one of the most dangerous in the wealthy/industrialized world. NY is one of the safest big cities in the country.
What about when a car full of chicks drives by and they all yell "Woooo!"?
Ogged, your previous employment as a roller coaster attendant at Six Flags does not count for the purposes of this conversation.
Yeah, I feel like when I do get harassed, it tends to be when I am just thinking my own thoughts and not looking around me with a flinty stare. Harassment works, in that it teaches you you'd better have a flinty fucking stare all the time.
Maybe this is why I don't get harassed when I'm dressed up, because I'm more aware of people around me.
What about when a car full of chicks drives by and they all yell "Woooo!"? If that's harassment, then I've been harassed, by gum.
Wear the tight pants and you get what you deserve, Shi'a.
270: That's exactly right. A traditional lady needs a big strong protector. Being helpless is part of the job description.
269: I think it was more that they were being incredibly racist, actually.
Re. men getting shouted at by women, it's a tough one: mostly it doesn't end up being harassment, because there's no threat behind it--it's more like what the trolls like to claim harassment is; a loud group of girls having a good time and inviting a cute boy to enjoy the moment with them. I'm willing to be corrected, but I bet you didn't feel threatened or harassed at the moment, Ogged--I bet you thought it was funny.
This is distinct from the kind of hen party "show us your trousers" type of women-harassing-men, which does indeed happen.
What about when a car full of chicks drives by and they all yell "Woooo!"?
Girls will be girls. And when they see a hot Persian alone on the street, well, you just can't go against nature.
(And before I run off to the crotch doc I'm going to add)
Of course, sometimes guys can pull off flirting with strange women without being harassing, too. The key tends to be a genuine smile and a friendly voice.
enlightened slumlord
All about the tenant screening and your relationship with a non-crackhead handymen, I think. Running numbers for 4- and 6-flats suggested that this is viable only if you can buy and considerably improve something battered thriftily and then get tenants who won't destroy improvements. Doable, OK income, but not easy money, and capital-intensive. Also, best to know how to talk about flanges in Spanish and to understand your immigrant tenants' culture well enough to identify damage and crime risks. Ultimately, you're investing in a neighborhood's gentrification. More risk and labor than the market and higher return if it works.
And when they see a hot Persian alone on the street, well, you just can't go against nature.
One man's meat is another man's Persian, I suppose.
Woooo!
Female mating call in the midwest. Male response: "Yaaah," or an intra-pack "Duuude."
Agreed with 251, which is why Will is wrong about the "don't refuse to be afraid" thing. Acting like a tough teacher/take-no-shit-mom/I'm-not-afraid-of-you-kids old lady (even if you are only 25) does help a lot.
Bitch, I didn't suggest that you should walk around showing fear.
You are correct that how you carry yourself impacts whether other people are willing to mess with you.
I really do not think that there is tremendous disagreement here. Both women and men should be allowed to choose what risks they find acceptable.
My suggestion is simply that it is a bad idea to get into arguments or disagreements with strangers. Confronting them is a potentially dangerous situation whether you are a man or a woman.
If you are willing to take the 2 percent chance that some 12 yr old is going to shoot at you, more power to you. (Once again, I am not suggesting that mLeblanc's risk assessment was incorrect in her particular situation.)
My suggestion is simply that it is a bad idea to get into arguments or disagreements with strangers. Confronting them is a potentially dangerous situation whether you are a man or a woman.
They should have thought of that before confronting me.
263: Yep, and now I wear those seventies open-collared shirts and a gold medallion. Really does cut down on certain types of harassment, although I've noted an uptick in other types.
Unrelatedly, why is it that our vegetable-impaired employee cafeteria makes better roast squash than I do at home? Everything else they cook is deficient.
Man I baked the fuck out of some acorn squah last night. That shit was tight.
Do you really think there's a 2 percent chance that a 12 year old saying "nice titties" is going to shoot a woman who tells him to knock it off?
286: Possibly because they add way more sugar and/or butter than you do at home? And/or because it's difficult to overcook squash.
I RESENT BEING CALLED AN ACORN SQUAW
I really do not think that there is tremendous disagreement here.
I think that's right. Where there is disagreement, I think it's about...actually, I don't know. This would hardly be the first time it took 300 comments to find that out.
290: yo you want to smoke my weed or not?
I made some butternut squash the other night and it was too sweet. The cafeteria stuff has a nice, er, nutty flavor. Further investigation suggests that they rub the squash with something which is probably butter-like and sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper. My Cook's Illustrated receipe seems to have the goal of maximizing sweetness. Also, I'm wondering whether a lower temperature for longer wouldn't be a better idea. Tonight I try again! You can't have too much squash, at least not this early in the season.
I love roasting butternut squash and making creamy soup in the fall, especially if the squash gets all caramelized. Mmmm.
I should eat lunch. And make squash later. Maybe squash-celeriac purée cream soup?
193, 199: Minneapolis is where I was harassed (which included an invitation to suck a dick)!
Noted without extra comment
295: I apologize in the name of my metropolis.
Frowner, one cool think to do with acorn squash is to make a spicy butter with, like, smoked paprika, cayenne, and pine nuts, and pour it into the hollow of the squash during the last ten minutes of roasting. The paprika, esp, is nice because the bitterness cuts any overbearing sweetness.
Come to think of it, a car full of boys did call me "bitch" once when I was out for a run. My PI took care of it.
Man I baked the fuck out of some acorn squah last night. That shit was tight.
The Roberto Benigni taxi driver character in Night on Earth confesses to doing something similar, if I'm understanding you correctly. The priest in the taxi then has a heart attack and dies.
In that case, I was wearing a bright red (with yellow stripes) shirt, so I did, in fact, deserve it.
298: You should have just smashed their windshield with your cock.
AWB, that's a thought. I'm having this dreadful yearning-to-be-vegan moment right now, so I might merely mix things in with olive oil. (Note that I'm not actually vegan; indeed, if tempted with a nice brie I'm sure I'd fall off the wagon, and it's not as though I tossed away my possibly-buttered lunchtime squash.)
We baked the fuck out of some spaghetti squash. Marriage has been better for his waistline (less fast food) but worse for mine (ate a whole squash.)
300: See how much you've internalized your own repression, Ogged? Sad.
Pop some beurre noisette up on there. Mmm.
A car filled with youths pulled up to w-lfs-n the other night, yelled "Yo why you gotta be a little bitch?" then sped off before he could correct their grammar.
Woooo!
Female mating call in the midwest
Variation in neighborhoods like mine: ululating.
Hierarchy of Squash (from lowliest to most exalted)
Summer squash and all its ilk
Spaghetti squash
Tete de Turc other pumpkin-like squashes
Acorn Squash
Butternut squash, the queen of squashes
Disagreement?
My most memorable harassment moment: Crazy person screams, "I've got ten dollars for a blow job from one of you rats!" My friend: "This is a bad neighborhood. Should you be screaming that you've got ten dollars?"
Re: 307. Your Moroccan Neighbors Won't Stop Their Damn Ululating?
308 is true. All squashes bow before butternut. It's creamily fine-textured, submits to all kinds of treatments, melts in the mouth, purées with ease, and has the richest flavor of any squash.
I was in a neighborhood bar once with two male friends - one of them a quite attractive young man (we used to describe him as "Brad Pitt meets Gregg Allman"). A table of giggling girls was nearby and wouldn't leave him alone. One of the girls was particularly aggressive, and wouldn't take no for an answer. We actually had to get up and leave, and we reconvened at another nearby bar.
And they followed us !
It was harrassment, and my friend really was quite sincerely annoyed. But the difference between being a man and being a woman in this world is that when I recall that episode, my primary emotional response is amusement.
One of the girls was particularly aggressive, and wouldn't take no for an answer.
See, that's when he should have pepper-sprayed her.
Count me among those amazed that there are adults who have lived in cities who have not witnessed this kind of harassment, and my rough calculation is that if I see it n times, then the average woman alone experiences it one-times-ten-to-the-n times (does MT not support superscript?). There's an anecdote about the judge and former Haitian president Ertha Pascal-Trouillot &mdash which I can't find because my Google-fu is weak &mdash that I take as an ideal for confrontation with thugs; basically, iirc, she responded to a purse-snatching in Paris with such a severe tongue-lashing that the perp returned her purse. An ideal, of course; I doubt my ability to do anything like that.
I can't stop humming, "... everybody, everywhere..." I know at least some of you will understand
This made me laugh heartily, as I am surrounded by child-created chaos.
On squash. Here's a quick-n-easy thing to do with acorn squash: split, clean, bake flat-side-down in shallow water for 20 minutes or so, then turn over, fill with sausage and bake on high heat for another 20-30 minutes. Great fall meal.
308: Summer squash doesn't belong on the list, name notwithstanding. It makes no sense to compare, say, a lightly-sauteed baby zucchini to a roasted butternut squash. By which I mean that I like summer squash.
I have a Japanese squash at home waiting to be experimented upon.
I guess I am just going to give up on trying to comment at Yglesias'. Those people just keep getting more and more nuts.
315: Zackly. Break out the diatomaceous earth.
I cannot fucking believe that the dude on air at kzsu right now is playing Hey 19.
I like butternut squash.
that I take as an ideal for confrontation with thugs; basically, iirc, she responded to a purse-snatching in Paris with such a severe tongue-lashing that the perp returned her purse. An ideal, of course; I doubt my ability to do anything like that.
I saw a purse snatching take place in Richmond. I am driving down a narrow street. An older woman (about Bitch's age) was walking down the sidewalk when some kid runs up, grabs her purse. She holds tight. He punches her in the face, gets the purse, runs off. People rush to help her. I try to follow him in my car, while calling the police on my cell phone. He gets away. It really pissed me off.
Your property isnt worth it. Your dignity isnt worth it.
Count me among those amazed that there are adults who have lived in cities who have not witnessed this kind of harassment, and my rough calculation is that if I see it n times, then the average woman alone experiences it one-times-ten-to-the-n times
This is related to the phenomenon that Glenn Loury (I believe, or maybe it was Martin Kilson) wrote about, whereby blacks and whites develop different perceptions of how prevalent racism is. Although research shows a minority of whites are racist, the proportion of racist whites in the population is larger than the black population, ergo blacks are likely to encounter as many racist whites as they do blacks, even on the conservative assumption that they meet a random sample of white people.
Similarly, if your average harasser is fairly industrious and harasses, say, between 20 and 100 females in an average week, then the average woman will experience harassment on a weekly basis even if the number of harassers in the population as small as 1-5% (and it could be higher, for all I know).
It is perfectly plausible to me that men in the unfogged milieu are not personally acquainted with a single harasser, and therefore have a hard time imagining how prevalent it is.
An older woman (about Bitch's age) was walking down the sidewalk
Good thing B had to go to the crotch doctor.
An older woman (about Bitch's age)
Dude.
My dad was so impressed by watching his older sister not just resist a purse-snatcher, but go on to beat him up, that it made a lasting impression on him, and I must have been quite small when he first told me about it. Must have happened in the twenties. No particular lesson, just "wondrous things I've seen."
250:
I don't know why you keep implying that the large number of men who claim to rarely or never observe this are oblivious.
Because they are?
[...]
I have no idea why you [Frowner], personally, don't get harassed (I've had people make the occasional comment in Minneapolis, though I agree it happens a lot less there than in a lot of other places), but I bet it's got nothing to do with what you look like.
Seriously, WTF, B? So Ned's just an oblivious asshole, but Frowner's experiences are valid? That's just bullshit, and it has nothing to do with claims that women exaggerate harassment. I've lived in Ned's city for 17 years and, away from frat parties, I can think of maybe twice that I've seen on-the-street harassment. My wife has lived here 9 years, and I know of thrice that it's happened to her (I'll ask tonight if she's just neglected to tell me of the other 3200 incidents).
To repeat: I'm NOT saying it doesn't happen, nor that it's uncommon. I'm just saying that it's bullshit to say that it's so ubiquitous that only a clueless asshole could miss it.
I'm just saying that it's bullshit to say that it's so ubiquitous that only a clueless asshole could miss it.
You had me going, until, you know: ...away from frat parties.
My dad was so impressed by watching his older sister not just resist a purse-snatcher, but go on to beat him up, that it made a lasting impression on him
A story passed down in my family, for which I have no independent verification, but which is widely so told and retold that I want it to be true, tells the tale of a certain 19th century ancestor on my father's side who foiled a brigand with a masterful ruse. As the story goes, she was accosted on the narrow path over the mountain on her way to town. The ruffian demanded her money. She told him that she would give it to him but it was secreted away under her bosom, so would he please turn around so that she could retrieve it. He did, and she pushed him off the cliff.
Chinese and Korean friends tell me that it's common for east asian women to get hissed native-tongue insults from recently immigrated asian guys if they're in the company of a white male.
There really is a geographic element to this. I would say that I barely ever get harrassed in NYC, whereas AWB is complaining of its being non-stop. IME, Paris was non-stop; NYC is a walk in the park in comparision.
Kabocha and buttercup squash also have a lot going for them, but it's hard to beat butternut's combination of deliciousness and ease of use.
I've been working on an article/dissertation section about the lengthy and contentious revision history of Moore's poem "Poetry" and just got to the point where I'm driven to yelling at myself mid-sentence, as I found myself writing things like "Even the collection containing the infamous three-line version includes a version of the five-stanza version OH MY GOD STOP WRITING 'VERSION' STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT."
Lighten up. Bitch is slightly younger than me. The woman was in her 60s.
Instance? Instantiation? Avatar?
Variant? Variation? Release? Ausgabe?
I've also been using "variation," but Christ. It makes me want to go completely off the rails and start gibbering about the five-stanza squash and the thirteen-line oyster.
Thanks JRoth. There was a time when I would have lashed out aimlessly under these personal attacks by the baitriarchy.
321: Plus, all of this is subjective. If I've just had someone yell 'big titties' at me, I'm probably not incliend to interpret the next seven leers as just harmless discreet oggling.
And there's also a matter of counting. Not to pick on JRoth, but he's automatically discounting frat parties and any harassment entailed by that. From his perspective, this makes sense; it's guys at a certain age, not the whole population, and to him, hardly seems common. To the girls wandering around Oakland it probably feels a lot different.
This is just to say that people likely to be victims of street harassment notice it more. I agree with JRoth & Ned that harassment doesn't seem to be as common in Pittsburgh. (Though my sister and I did get yelled at for being lesbians in Market Square once and it is to my eternal regret that I didn't kiss her right then and there.) And if Ned wasn't a fratboy, it's pretty likely that he hasn't seen a whole lot of it mostly because the average age of the city is forty, past (ime) the catcalling age.
Dude I'd snort thirteen lines of oyster for ten bucks.
Enumerate them in an appendix and refer to them by wordcount or date.
Even the collection which includes P(74) also includes P(212).
On a less cranky note, becoming a homeowner and a parent (staggered events) has led me to a much greater level of engagement with antisocial jerks like m. leblanc's. If a car's sitting out front of my house suspiciously (used to be a drug dealer next door), I'll walk up to the driver and ask if he needs help - they usually drive away pretty quickly. I caught some punks tagging in my park and walked right up to them - they pathetically tried to hide the can and deny everything. I went around the block and came back (with my dog), and they were gone.
None of this is in response to harassment, but it's along the lines of what's been said upthread about people needing to engage more directly to head off this behavior/activity. And yes, there's some degree of personal risk, but it's mostly about being the parental authority figure/citizen, not being confrontational per se. IME, others who are being confrontational are going entirely on the premise that everyone else will back down; they drop it immediately upon a strong response (as someone said upthread, actual dangerous criminals have better things to do than to get into loud fights with passersby).
Jroth:
it is ok bc you do not have big titties.
Chinese and Korean friends tell me that it's common for east asian women to get hissed native-tongue insults from recently immigrated asian guys if they're in the company of a white male
Totally off on a tangent, but a couple of years ago Fed/Ex released this incredibly clever television spot where the entire dialogue is conducted in Chinese, without subtitles.
They quickly pulled the ad after complaints from native speakers of Chinese: apparently the dialogue was a little too realistic and colorful for television.
You had me going, until, you know: ...away from frat parties.
I knew that wouldn't stand without explanation. I just meant that, in college, walking past the frathouses, I would hear harassment. Given that fratboys being assholes is a given (no offense, fratboys of unfogged), and that, by definition, fratboys have a large group of buddies to back them up, there wasn't much to be done about it. Aside from that pro-harasser environment, I haven't seen much around here. I have heard stories from women who are not my wife - I know that Pittsburgh, provincial, patriarchal backwater that it is, has its share of catcalling assholes. Maybe just not in the East End. (LB, what says Oops?)
250: Did I call anyone an asshole? Or are you just being needlessly defensive?
B don't be so hard on yourself.
"Realization" carries a bit too much metaphorical freight for this particular analysis, alas.
in college, walking past the frathouses
That's a far cry from Ned's claim that he had *never* heard it, like, at all.
347: Stop telling me what to do!!!1!
Why do you care, B? Maybe Ned's oblivious, maybe he's a shut-in, maybe he's a male Helen Keller, or maybe in a large country of 300 million, he's the statistical anomaly that hasn't seen it. He didn't argue that it doesn't exist, as far as I recall.
349: Good god, no it's not. It's the exact same claim that I've made. I've never heard this in the sort of situation that Leblanc mentioned.
Did I call anyone an asshole? Or are you just being needlessly defensive?
Presuming that you're not responding to yourself, I think that when I say "So you're saying that I, and every other man who never would have guessed that this is a problem based on our own experience, is oblivious?", and you say "Yes, you are oblivious", being defensive is justified.
What happen to Ned's rarely or qualifier, or his use of the present tense, suggesting his ongoing and recurring experience, not whether he had ever experienced it.?
352: No, but as I said a long time upthread, he did make a point of saying--three times--that he'd never seen evidence of it. Which, in reference to LeBlanc's post, sounded dismissive. What's the point of saying--three times--"gosh, I've never seen that happen" when someone tells you something shitty happened to them?
Did I call anyone an asshole? Or are you just being needlessly defensive?
Christ, this was predictable. Oblivious is not a neutral word. It's especially not a neutral word when the subtext is that the obliviousness is an element of unacknowledged male privilege. I wouldn't have said anything, even though you were baiting Ned earlier, until you came back in 250 and reiterated that, despite the fact that his (in)experience had been effectively corroborated, he was still just being oblivious. Maybe you meant it as a charming, quirky characteristic, like an absent-minded prof. I'd be curious to know how many people here were reading it that way.
That's a far cry from Ned's claim that he had *never* heard it, like, at all.
Well shit, maybe Ned's never walked down Morewood Avenue on a Friday or Saturday night. It's a big city, B. And if I've heard it twice in 17 years away from that street, then maybe zero times isn't so unbelievable. Sure, some unawareness of surroundings is involved - I'll bet that harassment has happened within yards of Ned and me and many other guys here without being noticed. People tend not to notice verbal interactions between others on urban streets (how many people could have even heard m. leblanc's encounter before she yelled at the kid?). No reason to get nasty about it.
Stop telling me what to do!!!1!
Bitch, I dont think it is really safe for you to yell at him.
357: He also said, at the start, that he doesn't doubt that it happens, and that claims that it does should be taken as evidence that it does. I'm not sure what more you could be looking for.
What happen to Ned's rarely or qualifier, or his use of the present tense, suggesting his ongoing and recurring experience, not whether he had ever experienced it.?
What happened to the comments by other people who've had the same experience as me (8 15 24 173 179 189), as well as m. leblanc herself, in 99, saying that she's aware that a lot of men never see this?
Seriously, I cannot believe we are being attacked for this, especially since we already had a thread in which I and everyone else who never saw this were enlightened as to its existence. And since in #3 I believe I used the sentence "I believe that it does go on." The only reason I said that in the first place was because Oggers was instructing us to go and post in the Yglesias thread, and I was giving my excuse for how I don't have anything to contribute over there because I have no firsthand experience with the phenomenon.
What's the point of saying--three times--"gosh, I've never seen that happen" when someone tells you something shitty happened to them?
I thought at the time that he was just repeating it because people seemed to be willfully misreading his initial expression of his personal experience (weird topic for a blog comment, I know) as a denial. Maybe I'm crediting Ned too much. Maybe there's another possibility.
Jesus, reread his first comment, #3:
Ugh, what assholes.
I wish that at some point in my life I had seen some evidence that this street harassment goes on, but I really never have. Not once. Even though I believe that it does go on. I don't think I have much to contribute.
How the fuck are you getting bad motives out of that?
There's apparently no standard way to import standard tree-building techniques used in genetics (neighbor-joining is cheapest, maximum likelihood or maximum parsimony more likely to be correct for certain phylogenies with missing or ambiguous information) to text analysis (eg: given a family of descendant texts, which have a common ancestor under generation model A). There's a journal, Literary and Linguistic Computing, and some standard tools have been written, but not released. It's an interesting field.
On another note, y'all jinxed me. I went to drop something off across campus, and on the way I was sexually harassed. At least, a disgruntled oldish guy said something obscene to me--I didn't catch the whole thing, but it was definintely obscene. You did this! You made this happen!
I do not, by the way, feel particularly validated as a woman. Although it was more on the pathetic than the scary end of the spectrum.
You know, "oblivious" isn't a neutral word, but repeating that you've never seen something happening isn't neutral either -- it's weirdly pointless unless meant to imply that the thing you've never seen really doesn't happen much.
How's about everyone drops their weapons and agrees there's no need to harp on the offensive implication of what the other party said?
Must we endlessly debate the precise dimensions of our straw man? 41.1 in particular is a fine example of the rhetorical chop block. It is entirely possible for a non-oblivious urban man to go years on end without hearing a catcall. I've done it. Why this should be so controversial I cannot say, and why, in our blessed era of cheap and plentiful mace, our society should be so affected by differences of muscle between the sexes is also beyond me.
355: Yes, it is oblivious. Because women talk about this stuff a lot. You read blogs, right?
Look, I regret that this has turned into a "B is attacking Ned!" discussion. I was not, and did not intend, to attack Ned. But if JRoth or Tim or anyone else wants to come in 200+ comments on and reanimate the issue after it's been dropped, then yes: I am unwise enough to respond to it.
At least, a disgruntled oldish guy said something obscene to me
Nice work, Emerson.*
* I know he's not in the Twin Cities anymore.
You know, "oblivious" isn't a neutral word, but repeating that you've never seen something happening isn't neutral either -- it's weirdly pointless unless meant to imply that the thing you've never seen really doesn't happen much
Unless, as was the case with Ned, you're responding to people saying that your claim is not credible. He wasn't just randomly saying it over and over again.
No, but as I said a long time upthread, he did make a point of saying--three times--that he'd never seen evidence of it. Which, in reference to LeBlanc's post, sounded dismissive.
But it wasn't dismissive.
If I say I've had a different experience from somebody else, it's not saying that somebody else is wrong about their experience. Sometimes we assume that we've all had the same experiences which can be used as a baseline for discussion, and then if someone starts disputing this baseline it leads to the presumption that they're arguing in bad faith.
But if JRoth or Tim or anyone else wants to come in 200+ comments on and reanimate the issue after it's been dropped, then yes: I am unwise enough to respond to it.
Seventy comments, by my count, as 320-something was a response to 250-something. But you're right that it's pointless.
At that point in time I was busy harassing Minnesota's Miss Congeniality 2006 down at the Lake Wobegon bar. this is the high point of the Coot Festival and she was named Miss Coot 2007.
355: Yes, it is oblivious. Because women talk about this stuff a lot. You read blogs, right?
Didn't we just establish with quotations that he continually acknowledged he'd read about it and believed it?
Oblivious is not a neutral word.
I was using a word you introduced.
It's especially not a neutral word when the subtext is that the obliviousness is an element of unacknowledged male privilege.
Nor is mentioning repeatedly that you've never seen women get harrassed neutral.
I wouldn't have said anything, even though you were baiting Ned earlier
But of course he wasn't baiting me or anyone with the repeated mentioning of not seeing "evidence" that women get harassed.
I'm not messing around with subtext at all. I'll say it straight out: you're pissed at me for not giving Ned the benefit of the doubt because I'm the Mean Feminist and he's the Well-Meaning Innocent guy. I did not attack him, nor did I revise the topic. I do not CARE whether or not he's ever seen street harassment. That isn't *relevant*. And I'm not the one that keeps insisting it is.
Yes, it is oblivious. Because women talk about this stuff a lot. You read blogs, right?
Agh! Ned: "Even though I believe that it does go on." He never fucking once said it doesn't exist, or that women don't talk about it. He said he'd never witnessed it (to his regret). Why did he repeat it? Because people imputed bad motives to his supportive statements.
Sorry I jumped in late, but Christ, you thought that comment #250 was a fine time to repeat your bad motive-ing. I'll drop it now, and I'm sorry I revived it, but it was a lot of bullshit from the beginning, and I really didn't like that the bottom line apparently was going to be that Ned (whom I don't know except here) is an oblivious asshole.
Yes, it is oblivious. Because women talk about this stuff a lot. You read blogs, right?
I've never heard a woman talk about it in real life either. I don't have the sort of demeanor that leads people to confide in me, for whatever reason. I always thought of myself as a "good listener", but this theoretical skill never gets used.
369: Well, yeah. Specifically, he was mostly responding to Doctor Slack, rather than B. If saying someone's oblivious for never noticing street harassment is so offensive, could we spread the outrage around a bit?
Or could we decide whether the argument is doing anything useful at all, and if not, chill?
365: I said something along the same lines as Ned did, and here's why:
I know women get harassed way more than I actually see. Why should this be? Is there something about my habits that keeps me away from the harassing? (e.g. I don't really go to bars) Does the presence of one or more middle class white guy(s) deter the phenomenon? What is the cause of the discrepancy here?
He said he'd never witnessed it (to his regret).
I, too, regret never having witnessed sexual harassment. Sounds like it'd be a good time.
Really, the question here some of us have being trying to explore is why it doesn't seem to happen as much in our hearing as we have reason to believe would be typical. And it was DS who just blew the whole question off, but then B openly endorsed that view, as if the other question wasn't interesting, or didn't have anything to teach us about the motives, or psychology or anything.
Particularly, see 21, 52, 110, 180, 207, all from Slack. None, I think, particularly out of line. I don't think Ned was out of line for saying he never sees harassment, but I also don't think there's anything wrong with calling him oblivious for it.
JRoth -- if questioning Ned's experience is such a big deal, could you direct the ire evenhandedly?
PEACE!!!
(in turkish, of course).
Really, the question here some of us have being trying to explore is why it doesn't seem to happen as much in our hearing as we have reason to believe would be typical.
For all who are wondering about this, I now have a new post up on the subject.
I, too, regret never having witnessed sexual harassment.
I see sexual harassment all too often.
I want to apologize in advance to any of the women who are fondled by my daughter. If you happen to be wearing a bikini top when we meet, please secure it tightly.
383: And a very good one, thanks.
383: And a good one. I've had exactly that conversation with a male friend, explaining that while there's some literal high-volume catcalling, a lot of it is muttering obscene shit.
Bitch - I don't think you're the Mean Feminist. As you may recall, I'm a pro-Twisty guy. When I use "patriarchy" and "male privilege," I'm serious as a heart attack. I understand exactly why you read Ned the way you did. That doesn't make the way you read him fair or right.
As for Slack, I was annoyed at his earlier, dismissive comments as well. As I said, I was all over it by 250, then got re-annoyed. If DS had showed up at 260 and said that, even though 2 women on the thread had commented that they hardly ever received harassment, no one could honestly have failed to witness it, I probably would've unloaded on him as well.
As for whether any of this is doing good, I doubt it, but it might be worth thinking about how readily we impute bad motives on each other here. I know how things tend to go whenever gender talk starts, and I get the longstanding, underlying frustration at Clueless Nice Guys. But if someone's first comment is right on all counts (MY's commenters: assholes; harassment: existent; Ned's contributions: minimal), maybe we can have a little innocent-until-proven guilty.
But this really helps, really advances understanding, although the "meant to be barely perceptible even by the person it's directed at" quality makes calling it out, for the bystander from whom it's actually been screened, difficult if not impossible.
PEACE!!!
(in turkish, of course).
BARIŞ!!
As for whether any of this is doing good, I doubt it, but it might be worth thinking about how readily we impute bad motives on each other here. I know how things tend to go whenever gender talk starts, and I get the longstanding, underlying frustration at Clueless Nice Guys. But if someone's first comment is right on all counts (MY's commenters: assholes; harassment: existent; Ned's contributions: minimal), maybe we can have a little innocent-until-proven guilty.
And, you know, maybe just as much willingness to overlook a little testiness. No one said Ned eats babies, or that he is the embodiment of Teh Patriarchy, which is right, because he doesn't and he isn't. Everyone should ratchet this back several notches.
370, 369: And I was merely responding to what you lot are saying.
Which I'll let drop at this point because I realize I'm being a stubborn ass.
Eh, no worse than anyone else in the conversation.
But the kind of overt and unmistakeable harassment DS apparently witnesses all the time is clearly different in kind from what leblanc's posts, this latest and the original that most of us have been under the impression we were talking about, described.
391: BARIŞ is the noun form. "susun!" or "sessiz olun!" are the interjections. You're totally oblivious to Turkish parts of speech. Typical.
395: Sure, both happen -- probably more often quiet than loud.
I understand exactly why you read Ned the way you did. That doesn't make the way you read him fair or right.
I don't think you understand how I read Ned at all. I wasn't calling him an asshole, I wasn't attributing The Patriarchy to him. I was saying that he's kinda oblivious if he's never noticed women getting bugged by guys.
And in fact, if you notice, I *did* quibble with what Frowner said. The difference is that she didn't come back and just keep repeating it; she clarified.
it might be worth thinking about how readily we impute bad motives on each other here
Indeed.
it might be worth thinking about how readily we impute bad motives on each other here
Yeah, what the hell are you bastards trying to pull?
Wow, almost at 400 already. Sorry to've pissed some people off (no I'm not, who am I kidding), but I won't be able to pop back in and clarify for a while, as I have to do some actual work. By then I trust the original topic will be long forgotten and we'll be talking about Harry Potter butt plugs, so...
This is the kind of bullshit I was talking about, Slack.
Cocksucker.
I have a sudden urge to pepper-spray everybody on this thread.
404: just try it, brown sugar tits.
Except Sifu, because he says sweet things to me.
403 is an admirable step toward the butt plug conversation.
(BTW since I'm noticing rumors of comity with B, and I can't be having too much of that, I will note that I think JRoth is right to stick up for the valid possibility of aesthetics influencing patterns of harassment. That grenade well-lobbed, I really do have to get some shit done here.)
Everybody looks at your cock if you wear a Speedo. Time for a swimming post?
You're all safe--now I have to go to the goddamn denitst.
I hate this "making appointments, seeing health professionals" bullshit, man.
Given 263 to 277, I don't think that's going to be an easy fight to get started. Of course presentation can affect patterns of harassment. That's way different from something no one in the thread said, that women get harassed because they're attractive.
I don't think that's going to be an easy fight to get started.
Don't be so pessimistic!
Can we all just read this article and rage about Blackwater?
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/10/02/blackwater/index.html
JRoth is right to stick up for the valid possibility of aesthetics influencing patterns of harassment
I didn't say that!
Seriously. I have no opinions on the relationship between aesthetics & harassment, except that I suspect it would affect the content - like "dyke" comments to short-haired women (which is what my wife got once, in a drive-by). And, presumably, "nice tits" comments to those with nice tits.
You're all safe--now I have to go to the goddamn denitst.
I just got a crown yesterday - and with my new iPhone, I read blogs while doing it! Get on it, Bitch.
women get harassed because they're attractive.
Unfogged pickup line: "If you were any hotter, I'd sexually harass you."
413: whoah, my dentist won't let me do that. Lucky!
aesthetics influencing patterns of harassment.
The sad part about all this is I'm not even that hott. If I'm going to have to deal with harassment every fucking day, more than anyone I know, I could at least have the benefit of being really, really, stunningly hot.
In my case, as I've said before, it's a case of being moderately ethnic looking, and attractive in such a way (pretty, overweight) that every guy thinks he's the only one in the world who wants to fuck me, so I'll be grateful for the opportunity.
I understand that your typical urban American harasser likes the curvy chicks. My first girlfriend got comments constantly, the next two hardly ever. It's probably different in other countries.
I didn't say that!
Yeah, Slack was just pulling the old "Lets you and him fight." On a slow day, there's no harm in it.
so I'll be grateful for the opportunity.
But in fact you're mocking. Oh, it's a cruel world out there for men, I tell you.
417: I think there's some association with perceived low status -- a couple of women upthread mentioned taking more shit when they went out looking disheveled (this may sound like it contradicts other stuff in the thread, but disheveled is different from butch. Looking butch is protective, disheveled the opposite) and I'd say the same back when I was younger and got more shit. Being non-skinny would fit into that same status hierarchy thing -- it's not that it makes you unattractive, but it lowers your status like being poorly groomed does.
I was mocked by strangers when I was at my fattest. Only then.
421: So does that mean we can reassure ogged's mom about his weight by pointing out that we pick on him?
Everybody looks at your cock if you don't wear a Speedo.
I understand that your typical urban American harasser likes the curvy chicks.
If I got half as much attention from guys in bars as the dudes on the corner...
420 is so, so right. Thanks LB. I have been trying to explain this for some time, to no avail.
"Lets you and him fight."
One of my favorite phrases in the English language.
I understand that your typical urban American harasser likes the curvy chicks.
I'm going to regret this so much:
Curvy chicks are more apparently noteworthy; if you're a street harasser (I would imagine), you're not making fine aesthetic distinctions, but rather harassing whatever women catch your eye. A woman with an unremarkable body but pretty face may not even get noticed by a drive-by harasser, whereas a woman with a plain face but, um, "big titties," would be spotted from a block away.
That said, I really doubt that there's any reliable relationship between a woman's appearance and her likely harassment-receipt. Probably bearing has more to do with it, but not even that - some guys will want to harass a mousy woman, others will try to bring down a confident-looking one.
God this shit makes me crazy. Knock it off, pervs! Christ.
I think there's some association with perceived low status
Probably true when white guys do it, less true when blacks and Hispanics do it.
I understand that your typical urban American harasser likes the curvy chicks.
Totally unfair. We're equal opportunity harassers in this country. And at least we don't hide our hot chicks under layers of floor-length sackcloth like they do in some parts of the world.
That said, I really doubt that there's any reliable relationship between a woman's appearance and her likely harassment-receipt.
Yeah, there are relationships going on there, but way complicated and multidimensional, and specific to particular class and regional issue -- not something that's going to be easy to sum up in a couple of rules, despite my 420.
I don't know what this is going to get me, but I just want to throw my hat in with Frowner's. I've never been catcalled, and rarely "harassed" in the way it's been talked about here. Yes, I've occassionally gotten unwanted attention, but it's almost always while with other women, and I was never under the impression it was directed at me specifically.
For example, a group of friends and I were harrassed while beer-gardening in Munich; we were college-aged girls, drinking, and a group of swarthy guys tried to horn in on our party. When we couldn't get them to go away, we left, but they followed us. It was a terrifying, since this was our first weekend alone on our trip through Europe, but we lost them by ducking into a restaurant.
And I was walking with a friend in New Orleans, we were subjected to whistles, etc, but it was clearly directed at her. I had been walking alone all day prior and heard nary a peep. In Raleigh, I've not experienced anything other than the rare homeless/mentally ill types, who say any number of things, but I never interpret those as being sexual, even if the language is. Because those are crazy folk.
So, in short, I know it happens, but it doesn't happen to me. And for a long time, I thought that was because I wasn't attractive. That is, I'm fat but don't have big breasts, so I'm not in general worthy of the sexualized attention. Or something like that. I still don't know why it happens rarely to me, other than my location (rarer in The South?), or the fact I don't wear skirts at all, or some other, less-easily-noticed attribute. I'm good at going unnoticed, I think, which is a skill I learned early in life. But really, it's disconcerting to not share this unifying female experience.
Is it really true that, say, two attractive women dressed for Saturday night will get harassed less than a schlubby or heavy woman? Despite what I said above about doubting the harassment/aesthetic connection, I have trouble believing that.
But maybe it's just from assuming the catcall paradigm, which isn't actually the norm. Or maybe I'm just not a natural-born harasser.
If I got half as much attention from guys in bars as the dudes on the corner...
Maybe you should find out what bars the dudes on the corner frequent.
431: Again, personal experience here, so I don't know how well it generalizes, but thinking back over my college years, I associate having some guy mutter "suck my cock," with walking around in the middle of the afternoon, scruffy and harried. I felt conspicuous all dolled up in a public place by myself, but I don't remember being done up attracting more actual harassment.
it's disconcerting to not share this unifying female experience.
Let us correct this right now, please. Being harassed on urban streets is not a unifying female experience.
It's an experience reported by (mostly) younger women living in (mostly) urban environments who live lifestyles that put them in positions to be harassed while walking alone on the street.
Okay, thanks! (Wrenae, really. "Unifying" puts me in mind of some experience we are all supposed to bond over. I decline to bond with fellow women over any shared victimhood.)
A friend of mine says she's had a bike-by-butt-slapping.
That's a very strange thing to do.
a bike-by-butt-slapping.
It seems to me that a biker would be too high up for this.
Perhaps on a little mountain bike? I hate that affectation. It would be just like that type to be harassers.
That's a far cry from Ned's claim that he had *never* heard it, like, at all.
I've never heard it all, either. This means it never happens. There can be no other explanation!
Um, under the assumption that you're teasing Ned for being oblivious or denying the existence of harassment, we've just had an outburst of crankiness centering on similar characterizations of Ned's posts, given that he did say he wasn't denying the existence of harassment. Given that, could we drop it before people start berating Bitch for being mean again?
And in other news, I hate you all. (Not you, particularly, SEK. I'm just cross.)
little dirt bike, I meant. Like a 20 yr old on a kids' BMX.
C'mon, LB. Smile.
Come here and let me give you a hug, LB.
Seriously, leblanc's link from 383 is really good, and so far troll-free, and actually moves this discussion.
so far troll-free,
The second comment on the thread appears to be emanating from under a bridge, actually.
No offense taken, my point was simple: as a deaf guy, I've never heard anyone harassing woman from afar. Point being, there are many possible reasons guys haven't heard them -- be it the social filters they employ in public, the volume of their iPod, &c. -- but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. (Also, that'll teach me to only read the first 300 comments. I thought I was being thorough!)
No, that's not a troll, that's a joke.
in other news, I hate you all.
LB is probably going to blame it on "that time of the month."
When Scott started writing his dissertation his hearing was perfect. That was in 1983, as I remember.
445--
the bear's a pal of yours?
then i'm sorry to have called the bear a moron.
strange eco-systems, commenting communities.
445: Oh, I'm sorry. I figured it was some idiot following you back from Sausagely's.
With the number of idiots who followed me back from Sausagely's, it was a fair assumption.
i'd already snapped at the bear before lb wrote 442,
but i'm glad to see you had the same reaction.
can't think why this stuff makes all of us a little edgy.
434: Not to start another heated argument, but it struck me that the three conditions you mention -- young, urban, and lifestyles that lead to a significant amount of being alone on the street (in other words, working outside the home, not wanting to drive much, and/or not being in a relationship so committed that you're always with a man) -- all tend to correlate with liberalism, probably in a political but almost definitely socially and culturally. Combine all three, and the correlation becomes very strong.
So it doesn't happen to all women, but does it happen to nearly all women who are liberal? (Obviously not all, given the women upthread who have said it has never or rarely happened to them, but most.) I don't know where I'm going with this -- hey, maybe feminists are justifiably angry and people like me who are oblivious can't be blamed for it, because they really do have different experiences? Comity! Or maybe it's a reactionary outpouring of misogyny that popped up as soon as women stopped knowing their "place." Or maybe there's no point at all. But it just seemed very interesting to me that in the process of denying the importance of a very broad classification, you outlined a subset of it that might be pretty specific.
453: When I was 12, Cyrus, I did not consider myself either liberal or conservative, but I was definitely young and urban, so hey, good call there. As far as lifestyle goes, I was alone on the street because I was walking home from the library or grade school. Is that what you had in mind? As far as correlation with feminism goes, this was 1964, so you know, don't think so.
in the process of denying the importance of a very broad classification, you outlined a subset of it that might be pretty specific.
And that subset would be "leaves the house without a male companion". Not that specific, surely.
442:The second comment on the thread appears to be emanating from under a bridge, actually.
Had to scroll all the way up to check. Whew, wasn't me.
I have seen with my very own eyes 3779 instances of street misogyny. So there. QED, etc. Let no one have doubts hereafter.
The answer is:Cattle-prods. For jumbo-size harassers:Tasers! Except that type probably would enjoy it and film it for the tubes.
"Your honor, I realiize it might look excessive, nut I have been harassed too many times when it escalated to physical contact, and I have known too many rape victims. While I do have sympathy for the family, I honestly had a reasonable fear for my health and safety. So I blew the little fuckers head off."
I figure it would take about 100 well-publicized cases. Y'all want a revolution without violence? Then you may not deserve your freedom. I can't give it to you by shaming strangers or thinking good thoughts.
Damn, and we were up to something like 35 days without a lost time call for violent uprising. Now I gotta reset the sign.
Had to scroll all the way up to check. Whew, wasn't me.
They're talking about Leblanc's post, bob. You're in the clear. (This time...)
Nah, that's vigilante justice, not violent uprising.
It's Bob. Tie goes to the runner.
I read about half the thread at Yglesias and more here, but that is what this is about isn't it? All Y'all feminists want us big strong manly goodthink men to stop looking at the dirty pictures and shame our buddies and strangers and reason and sweettalk and shun and give womens their freedom and dignity?
Yeah, I want Republicans to be Democrats and Democrats to be Socialists and the rich to be rationally and morally convinced to give their money to the poor. My second choice is to burn it down.
Y'all want to not be the sex-servant class? Have you tried begging on your knees? The Pankhursts never gave that a shot.
You want me to treat you as an equal? Make me.
It's not a liberal thing, dear god. It may be true that feministish women are more likely to be pissed off and bitch publicly about it instead of curtailing their lives to avoid it, though.
I decline to bond with fellow women over any shared victimhood.
What about shared anger and resistance to victimhood? I'm *really* uncomfortable and prickly at the implication that women who talk about this stuff together are bonding about being victims.
462: No more namby-pamby watered-down prickliness from here on out. The gloves are off!
Well thank god somebody managed to get riled up again.
I heard some guys whistling at a woman on the bus on the way home. It was easy to observe that it was a pack of young males and evidently the whistler had group status on his mind.
Everybody on the bus ignored it. Is this really the right thing to do? Would it have drawn unwelcome attention to the victim if I'd yelled "Shut up, you pig?"
462:"women who talk about this stuff together are bonding about being victims."
Well, I think you're guilt-tripping, umm raising the consciousness of, your liberal male allies. I didn't notice a lot of women arguing with and criticizing each other.
The educatin does have some marginal usefulness. But it was Medgar Evers and Philly Miss and little girls blown up in churches and having dobies sicced on em on Nat TV that turned the tide. And Malcolm and Stokely and H Rap Brown didn't hurt the cause, tho the revisionists say otherwise.
Violence and the threat of violence, or the shame of violence. Politics is not reasonable. Power & freedom are not gifts, but booty.
I want to second IDP's praise for the link in 389. It's a good post.
Also, re: I think there's some association with perceived low status
and
Probably true when white guys do it, less true when blacks and Hispanics do it.
Emphatically not true in my experience. I hear really horrible stuff directed at women of color on the subway, and the harassers often seem to be operating under a mentality of "I can't get away with saying this to white woman in a business suit, but you're fair game." Or sometimes, "...you're a sistah."
Harassers say stuff when they think they can get away with it. I think it was DS way upthread who identified that ethnicity can be one reason.
Also, with regard to the young/urban/liberal etc. thing -- I dunno. I would like to ask a bunch of rural, working class, non-liberal women who are working as waitresses, housekeepers, warehouse clerks, and other professions where they are interacting with the public and/or commuting at weird hours.
But it was Medgar Evers and Philly Miss and little girls blown up in churches and having dobies sicced on em on Nat TV that turned the tide.
Uh, Bob...Refresh my memory here. Who was perpetrating the violence in these instances? Oh yes, I thought so.
I just walked past Anderson Cooper. I did not harass him.
However, earlier in the evening, I spotted a man who was probably the handsomest I've seen in ten years---really, truly stunning. I said, aloud, "God damn." I don't think he heard me. But I didn't follow him down the block and insist he pay attention to me, nor was he likely to feel threatened by little old me dropping my jaw a bit. Either that, or, lo! I am Teh Oppressor!
I spotted a man who was probably the handsomest I've seen in ten years---really, truly stunning
And I winked back! Didja notice?
No, you ignored me utterly, you cruel temptor.
I spotted a man who was probably the handsomest I've seen in ten years---really, truly stunning. I said, aloud, "God damn." I don't think he heard me.
No, I heard you. You should have said hi! And I thought you would be taller.
hmmm, this would be a pwnage situation if it weren't that this Ruprecht is a fraud pretending to be me.
Anderson Cooper is very tiny, and not noticeably very handsome, though I'm sure with high studio lighting and direct eye contact, he lights up some.
When I told my wife about this thread she said that a guy hassled her today. On her way into the municipal building he smiled at her, so when she went out she waved at him. He sucked his tongue and whispered "rrrrrrica" (yummy).
I think this one is actually supposed to be a pickup move.
469:Try readin some Gandhi about soliciting and provoking violence. MLK and the Freedom Summer guys did. And note I added the "shame of violence" which can work on wussy liberals, and anger about violence can energize your own base to extremism.
Revolution is complicated, and most times you do need a moderate wing that the straights can negotiate with while the violence wing drives the enemy to the table. But there always be enough non-violent around.
B at 462:
What about shared anger and resistance to victimhood? I'm *really* uncomfortable and prickly at the implication that women who talk about this stuff together are bonding about being victims.
Uhhh, just for the record, no. I knew it might sound that way. No.
Bob, you're welcome to your theories about revolution, but pray do not cloak yourself in the moral authority of Gandhi and MLK to justify your suggestion that blowing the brains out of impudent children is an appropriate response to what is, after all, an eminently ameliorable flaw in our social order
"an eminently ameliorable flaw in our social order"
bull-fucking-shit. No offense. About as "eminently ameliorable" as private property and war. No, those will be easier.
I saw the most handsome man (guy, boy) ever, he looked like a fashion model, and he had the hugest, most gigantic enormous package (cock and balls, at his crotch) which just made me stare and stare at him, I mean at his face and his muscles and his crotch, which was just,
well, actually, it was a passing moment.
And I don't actually give MLK and Gandhi much moral authority. They sacrificed others for their cause just as freely as the Robespierres and Lenins and Maos. They just sacrificed their own people. That is supposedly more admirable.
"justify your suggestion that blowing the brains out of impudent children is an appropriate response"
Enough women and girls have suffered & died at the hands of the Patriarchy. Time for the other side to take some casualties.
can't get away with saying this to white woman in a business suit, but you're fair game.
This is exactly right, and why I said my being moderately ethnic factors in to my getting harassed more. Also, I dress kinda schlubby a lot of the time.
Bob, you're not using sarcasm, litotes, and hyperbole on these poor innocent people, are you?
Against my better judgement I will engage with 482 and say...
Private property: I consider to be a feature, not a bug in our social order
War: Well... mankind has struggled with that one for several millenia now. No relief in sight.
Sexual harassment: Remarkable progress in the space of only a generation! It's a firing offense in many workplaces (mine included), polite society has ever diminishing tolerance for it, a young woman such as M.LeBlanc may find the confidence to turn the tables on her tormentors, and guilty liberal men ask themselves whether they shouldn't be doing more to remedy it.
So yeah, I'm a wussy social democratic ameliorationist. What of it?
Well, he didn't not use litotes.
486:I read this last night, and being from a Midwest "Sundown Town" that remained all-white into the 80s, the post really fucked me up.
This social reality was created, and is maintained, with violence.
There is a continuum from that 13-yr-old "acting impudent" to a 13 yr old girl dead by honor killing, to 13 yr olds dying in back alley abortions from kids by their fathers. It is all violence against women, and will not be changed with reason and good will.
Maybe I am just being shrill. How fucking shrill can I get?
So yeah, I'm a wussy social democratic ameliorationist. What of it?
Your back will be two hundred and twelfth against the wall when comes the revolution.
488:"Remarkable progress in the space of only a generation"
What fucked me up most about Neiwert's post was all the progress blacks had made 1865-1890, and how it was substantially and violently reversed. Blacks had become barbers in small Midwest towns, and had their kids burnt out of town a generation later. Read it and weep for the last Black Southern Senator in 1896. How did he feel?
I wept.
We are losing choice. This is not acceptable. The enemy should be, must be, physically terrified of taking choice away from women. That is the way the world works.
Your back will be two hundred and twelfth against the wall when comes the revolution
So I've been told. Actually, it's a bit of a wash in my case. I've got a few other items on my conscience that objectively merit a more expiditious execution, but the reality is that my job is just not that important in the grand scheme of the capitalist system, so I figure I'll probably get off with a few years of re-education camp and a bitter self-denunciation. Might even qualify for rehabilitation after McManus is safely dead and his clique has been disempowered.
Or you can read about women in Iraq.
Are American women secure & comfortable in whatever progress has been made in a couple generations? They should look around. They can lose it all.
Not ready to play nice.
Bob, how's your hand/wrist doing? If you're not getting any painkillers for that, you should be. Not so much that you can't feel it at all, because then you're likely to put too much strain on it and injure it again. But enough that the pain isn't a constant distraction. Sincere advice.
KR is going to bed. Got to get up early tomorrow. The machinery of oppression isn't going to run itself, you know.
494 made me chuckle noisily. Thanks, Zippy.
Well, it looks as though if there are going to be any butt plugs in this thread, I'm going to have to bring them myself. Sadly no Harry Potter models in the offing, yet, but we live in a fallen world.
JRoth, sorry for misreading you. I guess I don't agree with you after all! And to respond to Ned way back in 226:
I don't know why you keep implying that the large number of men who claim to rarely or never observe this are oblivious.
I didn't claim anything about "large numbers of men." (For that matter, are there large numbers of men who claim this? It seems fairly common to claim that catcalling is just "appreciation," but actually extremely rare to claim one has never seen it. That's part of what nonplusses me here.)
Anyway, it's not hard to believe there are communities that are worse in this particular respect than others. I find it much, much, much harder to believe that there are urban communities -- in North America just for starters -- that are free of these forms of obnoxiousness to such an extent that it would be vanishingly unlikely to encounter them. There's just too much testimony (and evidence) in the other direction for me to reach for that as an explanation of first resort, and it's a bit confusing that you would bring it up, since I think you've been pretty emphatic at various points that you're not denying the existence of harassment in any particular setting.
I don't mind being accused of reaching for obliviousness as an explanation; obliviousness of all kinds is, after all, not exactly unheard of, there's no point tiptoeing around that, and let's face it, heterosexual men no matter how progressive are at extremely high risk of obliviousness about this particular phenomenon. (Which is why JRoth is wrong to accuse B of being unfair, BTW.) But note that I also did include the possibility of "extremely fortunate outliers;" that wasn't just a nasty joke, I think it's genuinely possible.
I'm really not calling you out as an asshole, though several hundred comments later I admit I'm still no wiser as to why it was so important to bring this up in the first place. Maybe I've just missed something.
That should about cover it for now.
498:Swelling 90% down, still wearing splint 24/7. Icing it once a day. Give it another week to self-diagnose sprain or fracture and decide if I want a x-ray and cast. You can google "Colles fracture" distal radius fracture" or "Scaphoid bone fracture (the most serious)" if you like. A cast (two months) may only retrieve 80% function after two full years of rehabilitation. Possible carpal tunnel symptoms forever.
Don't have much pain unless I stress it, put weight on the wrist, or move without the splint. Typing is fine, and I feel better every hour. I hope to fuck it's a sprain.
Take a tylenol every 8 hours, and a vicodin to sleep. Thanks for your concern.
I heard some guys whistling at a woman on the bus on the way home. It was easy to observe that it was a pack of young males and evidently the whistler had group status on his mind.
Everybody on the bus ignored it. Is this really the right thing to do? Would it have drawn unwelcome attention to the victim if I'd yelled "Shut up, you pig?"
IMHO, it would be lovely if more men would tell other men not to act like jerks in public. But I think doing it successfully depends on a lot of things--your age relative to the asshole, whether you can do it in the right tone, etc.
I wouldn't yell "shut up, you pig." Maybe a calm, but loud enough, "give it a break, stud, you're not impressing anyone." Or if you were noticably older than him, "knock it off; you know better than to treat women like that."
Wrist fractures are "very common" in active adults over fifty. An osteoparosis thing. I am very proud, while slipping sideways on the rocks, that I had the presence of mind to try to take the fall on the side of my arm rather than my palm. I don't remember or know how well I succeeded, but I do have a major bruise over there.
Bob, I'm sorry for your wrist and all, but I feel like my dentist socked me in the fucking jaw.
And she wants to do another one next week.
I can't tell if she's ripping me off with unnecessary semi-cosmetic work or if I'm just getting old and I really do need these fillings/half crowns/ etc to fill the "cracks" in my teeht from clenching my jaw all the time. Whichever it is: ow.
And if y'all think I am weird for doin my own doctorin, well, there isn't much money, and the old guy's fear of doctors. But I think I told y'all I was primary caretaker for a diabetic dialysis patient. Well, she was a liver transplant...outlived 80% of her annual class.... She also had a major tracheostomy, tube down the throat, a stomach resection, and had "terminal osteoparosis", meaning her ribs cracked as she breathed. Anxiety problems and drug dependencies. Spent three years working to keep her home and active and off a ventilator. Carried an ambubag like a watch.
So many different problems that the specialists worked at cross-purposes and I had to devour medicine on the web to keep her alive.
I am used to reading medical material.
505:Who has teeth? I related to a recent Arthur Silber post, cept he doesn't mention that the abscess means the nerve has died and the pain is lessening.
Do I have twenty years on ya? We old people have earned the right to curse our bodies to the boredom of the young.
bob if you give yourself a tracheotomy liveblog it, okay?
Dude, 507 is just wrong. An abscess means there's a trapped infection. The nerve in the tooth above the infection may or may not be dead, and the pain may well be bad enough to cause an otherwise healthy young man to call his wife every fifteen minutes and burst into tears while she tries to find a pharmacy that isn't saying 'maybe by tomorrow morning...' when it comes to filling a vicodin prescription following oral surgery.
(B, if you've got dental, go nuts. If you don't got dental, fill the ones that need it because an abscess is not only not fun, it's $400 to fix. Which is a lot of mice.)
This has been a public service announcement from the Department of Did You Know They Pull Out Teeth With Pliers in 2007 And Not With Fancy Laser Beams or Somesuch WTF?
Pfft just wait until the tooth falls apart and the abcess will take care of itself.
Also 509.1 makes me wish I had a wife to be a big baby at. So much better than solving problems yourself.
burst into tears
You better hope shivbunny isn't reading this.
Reminds of the time a classmate's parent came to give a talk about something in junior high and mentioned, as an aside, what time his kid's "favorite cartoons" were on. Good thing the kid was already unpopular.
Dude if the guy had said anything other than Robotech I totally would've made fun of that kid.
if you've got dental, go nuts. If you don't got dental, fill the ones that need it because an abscess is not only not fun, it's $400 to fix.
Yeah, well, these fucking filling/crowns are costing me $368 a pop, after the insurance. That's the problem.
[redacted by regret]
I'm with Bob. I wish I'd had my teeth pulled ten years before I did. The motherfuckers. They were never my friends.
Before going to the dentist, always ask yourself "Are my teeth my friends?", because often they just aren't. And you don't really need them.
Or at least: in the relationship-free life you don't.
I had four (healthy) teeth pulled when I got braces, then had four wisdom teeth "extracted." I have, like, six goddam teeth.
509: Whatever.
If at some point I start preaching peace & love for all humankind y'all can just guess I am goin out like Thomas Buddenbrook.
Before going to the dentist, always ask yourself "Are my teeth my friends?", because often they just aren't. And you don't really need them.
Or at least: in the relationship-free life you don't.
Must the relationship-free life also be the solid food-free life?
517: Yes, I'm really really sorry about that, Cala. I'm having a hard conversation right now with someone--it was just chit chat and then suddenly it got all difficult--and I really shouldn't have been commenting at all. I didn't realize that I'm a little worked up until after I hit send and re-read what I'd wrote.
You have blenders. And there's a lot of stuff you can eat without teeth. As long as no one's watching, because you look funny.
I actually still have 12 teeth, mostly fake, but I bitterly regret the $5000 I spent trying to save another eight or ten.
I'll admit it, 521 is referring to me.
Must the relationship-free life also be the solid food-free life?
The recent spate of articles on sex, love, and the nursing home suggest that the solid-food-free life needn't be a relationship-free existence.
516: I bet you'd give a hell of a blowjob though, gummy.
Tomorrow I get sharp things wedged deep into my gums for hours. Yay, talking about the dentist!
I do have bottom teeth, stumpy.
what about that Randy Moss, though. On track for the greatest season ever.
OMG I *so* should not tell you all this but earlier when I was bitching to the boyfriend about my sore jaw and new filling he said "great, another piece of hardware for my cock to ram into."
Which I thought was hilarious, by the way. That was the early, lighthearted funny part of the convo.
The guy is absurd. Have you noticed the rest of the team? Also seemingly pretty okay!
Moss's supporting players are pretty good. What's the name of that team he plays on?
532: the Lady Cocks or something?
Hartford Elasmosaurs or something. Owned by Uncle Gooze, the bear-fat magnate. Their offensive line is something else.
533, is that you at the lower center of the photo?
Late to the thread.
It's an experience reported by (mostly) younger women living in (mostly) urban environments who live lifestyles that put them in positions to be harassed while walking alone on the street.
When I was all three of the above, I still didn't get harrassed much -- maybe a handful of times in the US, fewer times but more obnoxiously in Europe. I've never really developed the hard urban-defense body language, I lived in some sketchy neighborhoods and spent a lot of time on transit and walking around alone on iffy streets. The only commonality I can think of that I had with the other non-harrassed is that I didn't wear skirts much.
This is, of course, not intended to support the haters, but to further my plan to bottle and sell my secret to you all so that I can retire young and rich. Sisterhood who?
Sisterhood you glad I didn't say banana?
512: Teehee. He isn't, and if he were, he'd realize that it is totally okay to need narcotics when they just ripped a tooth out of your mouth.
B, whatever you said I never saw. And I am sorry about the teeth/fillings/cracks/resurfacing/architecture. It sucks, and I am not sure who designed teeth, but there is a deserved asskicking even if the ass needing the kicking is a random evolutionary process.
She said you have junk in the trunk, Cala. Pretty sure she was hammered though. I'd just let it pass.
If the management is going to redact stuff every time someone says something regrettable and embarassing, this blog is going to get very boring.
The awful majesty of blog commenting lies in the lack of an "edit comment" function.
If the management is going to redact stuff every time someone says something regrettable and embarassing, this blog is going to get very boring.
I agree! Let a thousand regrettable and embarrassing flowers bloom!
Sex with ogged: not impossible. Trust me.
Speaking of Europe and various other alien nations, you gringas have it seriously good. As soon as I'm in Latin America, my obliviousness shuts way the fuck down and I see harassment right, left, and center. Local women have it bad, as in, they walk, eyes down, with friends, everywhere (at least in the city). American TV and movies have informed the Latin American public that north american women, and europeans in general, are just dying for some poor, but good-hearted and lusty young man to sweep them off their feet. I've frequently pulled escort detail just so that a Dane can buy tomatoes relatively unharassed.
I see no one wants to play the artful game I set up with 545. You people really are humorless.
In the 1950s it was not uncommon for Irish people working in the UK for a while to avail of the NHS to get all their teeth including healthy ones pulled out and replaced with dentures.
547: "Fernando!".
The musical group ABBA was named after a popular brand of pickled herring. The pickled herring company and the musical group had no formal connection. I was once informed that the musical group ABBA had become a major Swedish industrial power, but latest reports are that my leg was being pulled.
re: 549
Rather than after their initials? Which, coincidentally, are A, B, B and A?
You've bought the PR. They were all originally named "Bruce" and changed their first names to fit the acronym.
454: Yeah, fair enough. Dumb of me. Well, it makes sense if you, um, forget about all the women who've said they had to deal with it even as teens or young adults. And all the women who've said they have to deal with it not just occasionaly, but nearly constantly. And... Oh well.
The awful majesty of blog commenting lies in the lack of an "edit comment" function.
And the fun of e-mail, especially corporate e-mail, was that once it was out there, you couldn't do anything about it. Until Microsoft came along with Exchange and killed the joy, as they did in so many other things, by allowing users to recall e-mails.
Whether this is why Ogged hasn't learned a new OS is left as an exercise for the reader.
You know what's fucked up? When you get involved in a conversation about sexual harassment at the bar after work, and you respond by mentioning something you read online, and then you find out that one of your co-workers is M. LeBlanc. That's fucked up.
Small group of internet-connected young professionals who care about a certain set of issues and enjoy discussion of them in a particular manner.
555: Weren't you at Northwestern last year? I think I left you a comment or two.
