Sunday, June 28, 2015

What if women harassed men on the streets the way men harass women?

To demonstrate the amount of catcalling a woman has to endure while walking in New York City, see video below.
WALKING  on the sidewalks of almost any major city in the world can be a terrifying gauntlet for many women. We know of the whistles and catcalls some men think are compliments but there is another type of street harassment that is even nastier and threatening.

Comedians Soojeong Son, who goes by SJ, and Ginny Leise visited a New York City park to demonstrate the practice of drive-by street harassment, which they define as the act of whispering something gross into the ear of a woman who is alone in public, then quickly walking away before there is time for her to react. 


The two women wanted to turn the tables to show men how "invasive and threatening" it feels. The two women took to YouTube to demonstrate what would happen if the situation was reversed. They spent a day in Manhattan's Bryant Park with SJ whispering vulgarities in the ears of unsuspecting men, before quickly walking off, leaving the "victims" with little to no time to react. 

SJ looks into the camera, " We might get punched in the face today, That's what I'm concerned about."


How did the men react? Did the women prove their point?



Uh, the results were not what they expected. Venus and Mars do not align again. 
Most of the men seemed to enjoy the experience. 

The flaw in their experiment is that men did not feel threatened by SJ, who - in all cases - is smaller in stature than the male "victims." If the "harasser" was - say - a 6'6", 300 lb. weightlifter, they might have reacted differently.

The other thing: because men seemed to enjoy that sort of attention, most men tend to assume that women enjoy the same type of treatment. Nothing could be farther from the truth. 

The project's results shouldn't take away from the scary harassment that women must endure  from men in our culture. Some men are aggressive, some are stalkers, even those who just leer is creepy.

series of attacks on Asian women in New York City recently had women on edge. The suspect in that case may have assaulted four different women in unsuccessful attempts to strike up a conversation with them. A few days after a search for the suspect bega, he was found dead from suicide.

The video below is of a woman in New York City over a period of 10 hours. She's dressed simply, not provocatively at all. As you can see, street harassment against women is nothing to laugh at. 



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