View Single Post
Old 06-06-2015, 11:53 AM   #40
DanaC
We have to go back, Kate!
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Yorkshire
Posts: 25,964
Not really. What I'm suggesting is that as cultural understandings change it is unfair and unwise to expect all members of the community to move at the same pace and in the same direction. It's a little like not taking offence when an elderly person makes a mildly racist assumption about 'coloureds' - recognising intent is important in any human interaction. We all make assessments as to other people's intentions when they interact with us.

Quote:
if the only reasons they take a negative tone is because of the hidden agenda you assume is there, which you assume because of the negative tone... That's a super imposed image, not an observation.
There are different kinds of catcall/uninvited remark which carry very different meanings. Some of the negative elements are obvious, some intended. Some are not intended - but they do not happen in a cultural or social vacuum.

We talked earlier about attitudes towards rape. We can view that issue at a case level - an experience level. Or we can look at how it fits into the bigger picture. Catcalling (and Eve Teasing as it is known in India) also speaks to that bigger picture - it says something about how we view not just the roles of men and women, but the responsiblities, expectations and permissions of men and women.

There is a spectrum of unwanted attention, ranging from clumsy, but well-intentioned come-ons to intimidating and demeaning jibes. They all have at their base an assumption both that women want male attention, regardless of where it comes from - and that men have a right to women's attention. Because the thing about catcalling a woman is the man isn't just paying her attention -m he is demanding hers back. Whatever reaction you give, whether it is to engage, try to scurry away, try to laugh it off, blush whatever - you are now dealing with him and his wants not you and your own stuff.

If I've got dressed up and am dancing in a club and some random lad moves up close and tries to make nice - I wouldn't be offended - that's the game. Everyone's clearly playing - we're all in the kind of place where the game is played and God loves a trier after all.

If I am on my way to the bus stop to catch a bus and get to a lecture - or I'm coming back from the shop, with some knotty problem on my mind - maybe wrapped up in a coat and not feeling particularly sociable - I am not playing the game - random strangers are just that: random strangers. Why would any random stranger assume I want to know what he thinks of me?

Drunk lads out on the pull - fair enough - they're in that mindset, they're on the playing fields, and if it strays a little towards catcalling people who aren't playing, you kind of see why. But when guys just do it as an ordinary part of the day - to girls and women who are just trying to go about their own damned business - on the high street, the bus, the school gates - that is different.

What it all goes to say is - that for those men, any woman is potentialy playing the game at all times - if they like her then she is fair game. She might have chosen to not play the game - but that choice doesn't cut it. She might have clothed herself in baggy, saggy clothes that hide her shape and try to make herself invisible - but that also doesn't cut it. Because she is female - and therefore fair game.

So no - I don't like what underlies it. I don't like what it says about my right, as a woman, to opt out of the mating dance. But that doesn't mean I am going to lamp every guy who still thinks that shit is acceptable. Because, like most aspects of sexism and gender relations there are two distinct strands to look at: the theoretical, taking account of the wider cultural context and structures and the personal, taking account of our lived lives as human beings.
__________________
Quote:
There's only so much punishment a man can take in pursuit of punani. - Sundae
http://sites.google.com/site/danispoetry/
DanaC is offline   Reply With Quote