The Gender Equality Checkpoint

[DanaC]

Defne 'attention'.


On catcalling:

This isn't something that happens to the pretty girl, but not the plain girl, the young girl, but not the older girl, the available girl, but not the married girl. This happens to women pretty much randomly. It starts when you're very young - for most girls- and it continues, on and off, until you read the age of invisibility (somewhere around 40 usually).

This idea that we, the ones who get noticed, should be grateful for the attention because, hey - first world problems right? Men find us actractive, boo hoo, right? Feel sorry for the ones who get ignored, right?

Which fundamentally misunderstands both the tenor and impact of that kind of attention.

Walking to the shop, minding my own business, just going about my day - I don't need a total stranger to tell me to smile (is my facial expression not acceptable, Mr Man?), nor do I have any interest in sucking his cock. I don't particularly like the experience of having the entire street's attention directed my way because the two lads hanging their heads out of a second story building are shouting comments about my tits or my willingness to do it doggy style. It is of no interest to me that yet another random stranger feels I'd be prettier with make-up /wearing a skirt, or that I really should get some meat on my bones.

These are not compliments - they are an imposition. They get shouted at women of all shapes, sizes and aesthetic types.

But hey - we should all be fucking grateful right? Because that's what all women really want - attention from men. Got it.


As for propositions - when I was 18 years old my landlord (and a mate from around town) tried to persuade me to let him set me up as a high class prostitute. I laugh about it now - and I always had some affection for Harry (mad old sod) but actually, they were a little too pushy about it for that to be an entirely comfortable memory. They were in their early 40s.

[it]

Originally Posted by DanaC

These are not compliments - they are an imposition. They get shouted at women of all shapes, sizes and aesthetic types.

But hey - we should all be fucking grateful right? Because that's what all women really want - attention from men. Got it.

I didn't said any "should's" - She was speculating why men don't get it, I explained that it had very little to do with whether they know what is happening and a lot more to do with their point of view in the dynamic of what is happening.

Originally Posted by DanaC

These are not compliments - they are an imposition.

Those don't actually contradict:
I need to do groceries and get food and cook followed by washing the dishes - those are chores - frankly sometimes I really don't feel like it, I sometimes even hate it. But I am not sitting around wondering why people from actual 3rd world countries are rationing dried bread for the next few days because the sweatshop money is only coming next week would be having a bit of a difficult time "getting" my complaint.

I am not going to go and tell them that food isn't a privilege but a chore, because I do acknowledge that it can be both, and depending on where you stand, sometimes the value of one of those elements can greatly overshadow the other, and yet that in no way makes me feel any better about the chores ahead.

Yes, your mother's thing about appreciating bad food because of hungry children in Africa is total bullshit, both complaints can absolutely be legitimate in the same time. I am calling her out on it! And I am not afraid if she knows (OK maybe I am. Please don't tell her) .

Perhaps this still has a bit of a proportional problem, so a better metaphor might be this: I hated the army service and the war, the whole running towards people shooting at me and people you care about dying really isn't for me, It was genuinely a very difficult experience for me, but I can still acknowledge that and in the same time acknowledge that people who are living in areas that don't have the means to defend themselves at all might have a hard time seen where I am coming from. One problem doesn't contradict the other.

Edit: For an even more balanced example, someone in the US just got hurt in a car accident on the way from getting groceries, someone from a village in Africa just broke their leg because they couldn't withstand the 5 hour walk with a jug of water over their heads. They are both hurt, but the later got hurt for lacking the means of the former, and might find the particular complaint about driving safety a bit hard to identify with.

Regarding "should's" - if you are trying to get a value judgement out of me... That's difficult. When both sides stick to their guns and just refuse to see how their perspective comes from where they stand rather then the nature of the terrain, or in MMO terms (What class or skillset they picked rather then the overall gameplay), then both are pretty ignorant. I suppose my "Should" would be for both sides of that debate to get their heads out of their asses and try to analyze the exchange as a whole. But that's an ideal I gave up on awhile ago, I still believe most people can do it if they wanted too, but I realized a long time ago that regardless if they can, most people don't want too, since it has the awful tendency to invalidate what they feel.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by DanaC

These are not compliments - they are an imposition. They get shouted at women of all shapes, sizes and aesthetic types.

But hey - we should all be fucking grateful right? Because that's what all women really want - attention from men. Got it.

I was thinking about this when I read a This American Life transcript just now. Act 2 is a female-to-male transgender person, describing what it's like to suddenly go from no testosterone in your body, to a lot of it:

Griffin: After that shot, and after an average shot, my testosterone levels go up to over 2,000 nanograms per deciliter, so that I have the testosterone of two high-testosterone men in my body at once.

Alex: You have the testosterone of two linebackers.

Griffin: Exactly. Exactly. That's a lot. That's a lot of T. And what's amazing about it is how instantaneous it is, that it happens within a few days really. The world just changes.

Alex: What were some of the changes that you didn't expect?

Griffin: The most overwhelming feeling is the incredible increase in libido and change in the way that I perceived women and the way I thought about sex. Before testosterone, I would be riding the subway, which is the traditional hotbed of lust in the city. And I would see a woman on the subway, and I would think, she's attractive. I'd like to meet her. What's that book she's reading? I could talk to her. This is what I would say.

There would be a narrative. There would be this stream of language. It would be very verbal.

After testosterone, there was no narrative. There was no language whatsoever. It was just, I would see a woman who was attractive or not attractive. She might have an attractive quality, nice ankles or something, and the rest of her would be fairly unappealing to me.

But that was enough to basically just flood my mind with aggressive, pornographic images, just one after another. It was like being in a pornographic movie house in my mind. And I couldn't turn it off. I could not turn it off. Everything I looked at, everything I touched, turned to sex.

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