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Zonie63 -> RE: 10 hours of walking in NYC as a woman (11/6/2014 8:45:52 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Greta75
I got to say, it is in absolute shock that quite huge number, infact, as of now, 100% of my caucasian locally based vanilla male friends, who I thought were super nice guys and gentlemanly, is trivializing this whole thing, saying that they are making too much of a big deal out of it, when I brought up the subject to them. Like WTF?
In comparison to local men, and infact, based on internet alone, in our local online media when featured this story, overwhelming majority of local men in my country called the men in video animals, basically disapproving of their behaviour. Whereas you go youtube and so many western men are saying this behaviour should be okay.
But with local men, if a woman got raped or molested, the first thing they always ask is how was she dressed, and they do often believe without a doubt that the dressing plays a major part. So they got their backwards parts too. But they are all in universal agreement that cat calling is unacceptable or basically any of those objectifying comments in the video are not civilized behaviour.
Really cultural difference huh?
Difficult to say. If we're comparing how it is from country to country, then one might compare the status of women from country to country and see how different areas of the world measure up. I came across this survey which did that, and the top ten were all Western countries. Iceland, Sweden, and Canada were the top three. The USA placed at #8. The highest ranked Asian country was the Philippines at #17 (although they still beat the UK which ranked at #19). Singapore ranked at #37, and Malaysia came in at #81.
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But I really don't understand the western men who will not indulge in such behaviour themselves, would support the behaviour saying we're over-reacting. They gotta know on some level it's not okay, if they don't indulge in it themselves, but they just won't admit it that it's not acceptable.
I've noticed a wide range of opinion among men. Even in this thread, not all men seem to be of one like mind on this issue (or any other issue for that matter). I've also noticed that a lot of men are not necessarily saying that it's acceptable or that it's no big deal, but merely pointing out that it could be much worse than what we see in the video (as one poster noted that E. St. Louis or Detroit would be far worse than what we saw in NYC). A lot of women seem to be saying that it actually does get worse than what we see in the video, although a lot of men who seem to be trivializing this may not be seeing that connection.
As for addressing the subject of how a woman dresses, that's always a can of worms. Strictly speaking, the view that it shouldn't matter is one that holds prevalence. Citizens in a free society have every right to dress as they choose and no one has any right to attack or harass anyone else based on that or any other pretext. But as this idea trickles down to the level of the hoi polloi, some things get lost in translation.
I remember when I was over at a friend's house, and his 15-year-old niece was about to go to the mall with her friends. She was wearing a very, very short skirt, and her uncle told her to wear something else. I wouldn't say that they got into an argument over it, but she was clearly not happy about it and genuinely could not understand why she had to wear something different to go out to the mall. Some might view his attitude as sexist and chauvinistic, although from his point of view, he might have seen it as more protective. If, as you say, a man's duty is to protect women, then he would see it as his interpretation of carrying out that duty. Sometimes, there's a thin line between being protective and oppressive, and that's the dilemma faced by many men in this society.
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