Foxy Lady
I just don’t understand why guys honk at women. What do they hope to accomplish? They can’t possibly expect me to, like, respond to them. Is it just that they’re showing appreciation, like an audience clapping at a symphony? That’s nice, but as far as I’m concerned stepping outside my house in a skirt isn’t really grounds for a standing ovation. I can maybe see it if I’m all dressed up to the nines, but not when my hair’s still wet and plastered to my head, I’m not wearing any makeup, and I’m wearing a coat that covers 65% of my body. The only thing exposed today were my knees. Is this the nineteenth century? Are men allowed to hoot and honk every time a woman exposes more than an ankle?
Dan
September 17, 2003 — 1:36 pm
We’re men. We’ll try anything, and we’ll keep trying until we get it right.
Claire
September 17, 2003 — 2:35 pm
Sometimes it’s kind of cool, and makes you feel good about your appearance for the rest of the day (even if it was just some weird, hairy trucker dude).
Kris
September 17, 2003 — 3:02 pm
But trying for WHAT, Dan? I don’t get what outcome they’re hoping for. That’ll I’ll come over and we’ll go for coffee and three years down the line we’ll be getting married? Or that maybe we’ll discover a kinship and become lifelong friends? Somehow I doubt it. All the other reasons I can think of involve me being objectified and them being harrassers.
See, I’m the opposite Claire. I want to go unnoticed. Here’s what goes through my head when a trucker honks at me: “He thinks I’m a slut. He’s telling me that my appearance outside my house is solely for the gratification of men. He thinks I should feel grateful that some random has honked and therefore justified my existence for the day.” None of which is a good start to my morning. 🙁
brigita
September 18, 2003 — 12:39 am
and *that’s* where the well-timed nose-pick comes in…
rdh
September 18, 2003 — 12:49 am
Are you sure there wasnt a dog or cat in the street, he may have just been trying to avoid running over someones pet. 🙂
Tricia
September 18, 2003 — 2:28 am
On the few times I get a honk or a yell, I think that I’m being made fun of.
Yes, I have issues.
aim
September 18, 2003 — 3:27 am
i’m sooooo with you, sis. i HATE that. seriously, it’s my numero uno pet peeve. you should be sad you even got me started. even worse than honking/yelling is when someone actually passes you on foot and SAYS something to you. (and the worst? while you’re jogging, sweating, huffing and puffing and feeling the most overweight and UNattractive you’ve ever felt in your life, and some asshole says something to you like, “nice ass” or “hey baby” in the process of looking you up and down – it’s awful and ridiculous!)
i’ve actually lost my cool before and been like, “what?! WHAT?! you think i’m gonna f*&$ing talk to you? you stupid f*%$ing idiot! F*$% OFF!” and the like. it usually doesn’t go over so well.
so someone – a fellow female trying to look at it rationally – once put it to me this way: “they” (the aforementioned harrassers) are actually so backwards and twisted and stupid and retarded, that they *think* they’re actually FLATTERING you by honking or yelling or commenting audibly under their breath. i don’t get it either, but it really does make sense when you look at it from the viewpoint of a different culture (which, in my experience, is where most of the harrassing comes from…either hispanics or black guys.) i don’t consider it racist to say, because i honestly can’t ever remember being ogled by a white guy (okay, nevermind – i have been, by a few old homeless perverts, probably.) but really – if you think about it, it’s like they think they’re doing you a favor or something.
hopefully this attitude and these actions will slowly die off with the f*&$ers who have perpetuated them the last few decades. because otherwise, there’s nothing we can do. i’m not going to smile and say thank you – i’m not going to have an outburst and run the risk of getting beat up or something. and i can’t just pull out my gat and blast every guy that says something to me. i just have to be proud that i’m a woman and have the self-control and maturity to ignore them.
Kevin
September 18, 2003 — 5:54 am
I’m a white guy, I ogle…So do we all. I may complement someone on their perfume or their dancing instead of whistle at them in the street, but it’s the same ballpark. Ethnicity has less than nothing to do with it.
Tricia
September 18, 2003 — 7:16 am
I agree with Kevin that ethnicity has nothing to do with it.
All men like to look; most just look and admire subltly, others comment rudely.
When I was in college, each living area of the dorms (and fraternities lived together on campus in the dorms)had a large bench in front of it on the quad. The frat guys would hang out on their benches when the weather was nice (which happened a lot in N.Carolina) and make comments to and about the women who walked by. They were even known to rate the women. I hated walking past these benches. These were not construction workers, these were intelligent young pre-professionals. While some of the hooting and hollering is about admiration, I think some of it is about power. How can men not know that most women are made uncomfortable by comments? I think it makes them feel powerful, especially if these guys are less educated, have less money, or (like my college classmates) are being surrounded by more and more intelligent women.
Just a thought. (I’m still mad about these benches.)
Kris
September 18, 2003 — 8:26 am
Well, if you wanna really generalize, women look too. We might even comment to our friends. But I would never, ever say something out loud that a strange guy could hear, even just to compliment him. I suppose if I were really feeling brave I might tell someone that I liked their tie or they had a nice smile (because that would make them feel nice), but no one likes a random telling them they have a nice ass. It’s demeaning and rude.
And I think that while the line might not be totally delineated by race, there *are* distinctly different types of guys who ogle. Kevin, you said you’d compliment a girl on her perfume or her dancing. Fine, those are legitimate qualities that you can “rate”. We’re really not complaining about you, and I’m sorry if you felt like I was lumping you in with the others. There are guys though, who aren’t giving real compliments. Like I said, the guys who honked at me yesterday couldn’t *see* anything. I was just standing on the street waiting for my ride. They honked solely at the fact that I was wearing a skirt. Or, as my friend Kevin put it, I’m a “tall blonde”. So what? They weren’t paying me a compliment. They were being hooting monkeys who saw a female they thought they could dominate. That’s how I read it, anyway.
I guess the point is that most women *hate* this stuff, so even the nice guys are going to have to take a zero tolerance policy towards it in public. Otherwise we just think you’re part of the problem.
And Tricia – You’re right, my first response is always to think they’re making fun of me. I always look around to make sure I don’t have toilet paper hanging off my shoe. Then I get mad.
Kris
September 18, 2003 — 8:29 am
Oh, and THANKS DAD. 🙂
brigita
September 18, 2003 — 9:15 am
i used to enegage these cretins (flipping them off, cursing at them, etc), but have come to realize lately that the second i respond, i hand hand them the power by giving them exactly what they were looking for—a reaction. by saying nothing at all, they don’t get the satisfaction of getting me all wound up.
because the fact is, guys who honk from moving cars or those that hoot en masse from construction sites are COWARDS, plain and simple. they would never behave like that to your face on their own because they know that they would get shot down faster than they could say “nice ass.”
i know i’ve told it before, but my favorite street harassment story was back when i was still engaging these fools. some guy said “nice tits” to me as i was passing and i yelled back “so’s your mom!” his response? “that’s not very nice…” hell no it’s not, @$$hole.
Kris
September 18, 2003 — 10:20 am
Hahaha… GREAT story. 🙂