Okay.. I get the majority of these, but is "good morning," "how are you," and "have a nice evening" harassment now too?

Probably poor judgement on the part of the videographer. I think the atmosphere of all the other comments, day in and day out, weighs on most women to such an extent that those innocent courtesies, and any other comment from a man, have simply eroded the patience of those who are sensitive to living in such environments.
It will stop, someday, but what kills my spirit is understanding how the passage of time, the record of history, and knowing the calculation of both of those respective of whatever your experience you struggle with, means you'll likely have to exist in that world for the duration of your life within it.
I have struggled with things my entire life that, to this day, aren't things that will be recognized, let alone rectified, by the time my life is over, and knowing that while looking toward the future you have here is nearly unbearable.
Didn't mean to bring the whole thing back to a personal element. Just meant to express that I understand the cycles of human progress and the frustration of having the foresight to endure them.

But this doesn't include the winks! What about the countless winks?! And smiles? And the thousand other people who didn't give two shits or a first glance let alone a second!

I want to see the whole 10 hour video, because honestly 2 minutes of mild and mostly friendly/complimentary bullshit out of a 10 hour walkathon doesn't seem like a big fucking deal to me.

Harassment exists but this video did shit to expose or address it imo.

Would he say the same thing on a busy street to a man waking by with no interest in him?

If the answer is 'YES' then a) I can't believe he's not hoarse given the number of people one passes in a given day in NYC and b)it's not an example of gender-specific inappropriateness... but c) it's still anti-social because the body language (which men read all the time) clearly indicates a lack of interest in being stopped. These are the streets of a subdivision or Iowa City down town (don't get me wrong, I love Iowa City). Most people in New York to not greet random strangers in the street.

The exception to this is people whose jobs require approaching strangers - you know beggars, street vendors, promoters, and those guys who solicit for charity. Please notice that no one who might fall into those categories were included in the video, despite the fact that in NYC she definitely walked past all 3.

If the answer is 'NO' (IE he didn't 'greet' the disinterested camera man who walked by first but did 'greet' the disinterested woman) then the comment is both anti-social AND gender targeted. He's targeting a woman he doesn't know, when every ounce of her body language is saying that she doesn't want to be bothered. That's not friendly, that's more likely a attempt (conscious or subconscious) to exercise power over the woman walking by.

What about the man who saw that 'body language' as her having a bad day and told her to smile? To me, that's not harassment in the least, (well, honestly, most of this isn't, but I'm a friendly guy who does greet people, of both sexes, in passing...but then I live in the boonies, not NY) it's seeing a person having a bad day and making an attempt (although a pretty sad one) to make them smile, no?
I think if this kind of thing feels like sexual harassment to some, they really should not live in a large city where inappropriate behavior is the norm.

I "jokingly" say:

Sorry for you bob, but some men do have the candy women want.

There wasn't a single "innocent" call there, merely some guys thinking they're being more progressive and have a better chance if they holler "nice day" instead of "nice ass".

I've always wanted to take a catcaller and hire lots of gay guys to hit on him all day, just to see the reaction. I suspect I'd have to hire bodyguards too.

What about in LA?

Just to break down the math here. This is the equivalent to hearing some asshole say something for about 4 seconds on your 20 minute walk.

Not saying it's right. Not saying women should be harassed. You live in the city? Good luck walking anywhere for 20 minutes and not seeing or hearing some kind of crazy shit.

yeah...im not getting this.
i understand harassment and disrespect but how does being nice qualify?
i lived in NYC and i was friendly to everybody on the street ( i walked pretty much everywhere).hell,i met a ton of great people that way.

and @Dumdeedum,i also lived in lauderdale which has a huge gay community.i was hit on constantly..you get used to it and after awhile,even appreciative.
once the culture shock wore off i was actual flattered.

so my reaction to another man saying i have a nice ass is "thanks buddy"../does the buddy jesus.

but hey..im not a woman so what the fuck do i know.

the actress involved has since received rape threats.

Well done, misogynistic assholes for making her point...

Even the stuff that's not really harassment seems really annoying, it reminds me of the charity collectors that I have to deal with every time I go to the grocery store(I don't want to have to explain why I'm not donating to their homophobic charity every time I buy toothpaste). Makes me want to start a kickstarter for a t-shirt that changes to read "f*ck off" whenever someone you don't want to talk to talks to you.

So, as a practical matter... how do you approach a stranger on the street when you're interested in them?
Or is it simply that people 'out and about' are categorically off limits to approach?

I get that this looks bad - when you condense a day's worth of calls into a few minutes. But she prolly passed 100k people in that day just walking around.

(There were 3k kids in my high school, it didn't look like a lot when you see them all together at a rally. It isn't hard to imagine walking past 30 high schools worth of people on busy streets like NY has in a 1 day period).

All this video makes me think is that Indian women are onto something with that forehead dot business. Marking yourself as available/unavailable would not only spare yourself the pointless calling, but would also not waste the men's time on approaching women that have no interest in being approached.

-scheherazade

I'm amazed at the total number of people (guys I'm guessing) who don't think this is harassment.

My advice would be to take them on an individual basis. If they look like this woman, already quite bothered and unhappy, just don't bother. You won't get a good response. If they are happy, look comfortable in their surroundings, and don't give you a dirty look when you catch their eye, just be a gentleman and not a smarmy asshole...at least that goes for any woman I would have liked to hang with.

As to 'marking yourself unavailable', I have to say, wearing a wedding ring (what I would call 'marking myself unavailable') actually had the opposite effect for me. Before I wore one, I was never hit on by a woman in an obvious way, afterwards it was almost silly how often women (and even totally inappropriately aged girls) just walked up to me and offered sex. Perhaps it's not the same for women, but I can't imagine most catcallers would care they were 'taken', and might actually be encouraged by it, oddly and sadly.
IF men and women would recognize and respect such a 'marking', I would wholeheartedly advocate it. It could eradicate a gaggle of issues.

Imagine if she walked around YouTube for 10 hours. I wonder how many examples of "text harassment" she'd get.

Harassment is a bad thing, but I feel very sorry for anyone that does not engage in general pleasantness, and finds phrases like "how are you?" and "nice day!" to be a form of harassment. Worst still, to chastise and publicly present them as harassers on youtube .. what sort of lowlife do you have to be to do that? I don't care how many actual harassers you caught, that is not an acceptable method so put the net away and get the fishing rod out.

I say things like hello, nice day.. And if i'm in a queue and i think of something to say that i think someone might find funny or help someone out, i'll say it. I don't expect a reply, but if there's a fun person around then it might pass the time better. I asked someone of the female persuasion at my pool the other week if they were looking for the sauna (slightly hidden away) because i heard her talking to what i assume was her husband about the sauna. I do that for old men, old ladies, fat blokes, skinny women; all sorts.. i offer men and women help out of the jacuzzi if they need it. Her reaction was to say "No..... WHY?" very pointedly.

Well you know what? Fuck her - i did something nice and now she's the one that's being rude to others. I cannot fucking stand the high and mighty attitude of these people, as though they have never been guilty of accidentally doing something other people didn't want them to do. As though they have an inbuilt capability to read the motive of other people. Obviously i offered to explain the location of the sauna because i wanted to have sex with her in it (yeah, sex in a disgusting public sweat box & burnt genitals, my favourite), god forbid someone actually be nice to someone else. I felt like being rude back, but that'd make me worse than her.

There is a very fine line between being an activist against harassment, and being an unhinged arsehole who goes around over reacting and getting the wrong end of the stick and hurting people who were showing genuine honesty. I'm so sorry if you've been harassed in the past, but you don't see victims of domestic abuse blaming everyone that looks/talks at them funny in the street for all the pain they've suffered - which is substantially more painful and personality-warping than the average activist blogger jumping on the "trigger-warning" bangwagon.

Harassment exists and this blanket of "harassment" that these videos engender for all sorts of shit is distracting us from that issue, and to some degree turning people against the issue..... I mean, if i get unfairly treated like a scumbag for years by "mostly" women who assume i'm harassing them, do i get license to make videos about it and complain about women as a whole, judging every action of every woman to be one of harassment because of my own insecurities? That's why these kind of videos are so poorly received @EMPIRE.. the majority of the content is the videographer sneering at people for being pleasant and exchanging niceties, why should people laud that kind of behaviour? I expect that behaviour to be discouraged by women as well and i'd forgive them for taking more notice of the fewer examples of harassment than i did, because opinions are a bit selfish by nature.

And i didn't even question the validity of the supporting cast..... I'm sure Rob Bliss (OF ROB BLISS CREATIVE DOT COM EVERYBODY FAVOURITE AND LIKE PLS) would have no desire to help make this video more interesting! I quote his own philosophy here from his website, he believes in "giving people the content that they want." Interestingly worded remit... Why does no one ever question the source if it's a "reality" video? The guy practically states in his "approach" section that he aims to pander to people, he doesn't want to challenge viewer opinion...

Walloftext, sorry, but i don't like the sentiment of this video, and i will not let people in the comments tell me that i am a bad person for doing so - these are my reasons.

Come on, guys who don't think this is harrassment, how many times do you get asked "Hey, how are you", or "how you doing" or wished "have a good day" as you're just walking along in the city? I'm willing to bet it's none. It certainly never happens to me.

You start by introducing yourself, probably with the words "excuse me miss" first. if you think that the best way to meet new people is to straight up going for "daammmmmn", you have a lot of courtesy to learn.

Of course this all looks incredibly invasive to me. I'm from Finland, from Ostrobothnia. We do not talk to strangers and even less in this part of country. You can have 60 people in the same room with no one is talking to each other. It is considered rude, why would i talk to a stranger that i have never met and i'm never gonna meet again, i have nothing to say except empty small talk that is actually just a nervous tick, not actual communication... Just shut up, sit straight and mind your own business.

I can't imagine it ever happening in New York to me but it's happened in Seattle. Various people and I think it's because I look grumpy most of the time. Even if it's someone saying hi that I know I usually don't like to be interrupted from my thoughts or my walk.

Let's take this in a small village vs big city aspect. Live in a small town where tons of people know eachother, I'll bet the Hi's and the Return Hi's are more frequent and it's a generally nicer atmosphere. Same with say if this person saw someone that she's seen everyday on her own street in New York. Big giant city, you're more on guard you're looking out for yourself or you have a task you need to complete. The person who is genuinely just being nice, might be from the area and very familiar with that street and everyone on it. This new person walks in and they want to be friendly. Doesn't always seem that way because it's a big city and that person could be from anywhere.

I don't know what people should do differently except that understand when a pretty girl smiles at you or says hi it's usually politeness. There's nothing wrong with starting with being polite, just be polite back and not too forward.

She seems like an actress engaged in some sort of self-promotion who would be well-served to check her white/cis/thin/heterosexual privilege and realize that People of Color can't harass her because harassment = talking + privilege, and they don't have privilege. Where are all the white guys in $1,000 suits?


And to call most of these pleasantries "harassment" seems to diminish real harassment.

And furthermore, I don't get it: How does someone donate money to end "street harassment?" What exactly does this charity do? Run around and put muzzles on street gawkers? Write citations to anyone who whistles? How do they plan to legislate against people saying "good morning" or "you're hot" to someone on the street?

you would lose that bet.

look,i dont see anybody here denying that harassment exists and chaos posted that this woman is receiving rape threats from some serious twisted fuckers.

which just boggles my fucking mind.

maybe i am getting too old and no longer get the plot.
maybe the younger generation are so disconnected from each other that ANY form of interaction in real life is viewed as an invasion.(ironic due to just how much more connected we all are nowadays).which is a serious tragedy in my opinion.all those lost opportunities to connect and interact with another human being.

being polite and respectful should never be stigmatized as harassment.

now,as yogi pointed out,if somebodies body language and demeanor reveal a person in thought or not receptive to any interactions,then of course dont interfere in that persons personal space.

but thats not harassment,thats just annoying and rude.the opposite of polite and respectful.

if we are walking down the street and in passing we make eye contact..im gonna acknowledge you,because to me that is being polite.if you pass with your shoulders hunched and your eyes are fixated on the pavement then we shall pass in silence.

now i will make a bet.
i bet attractive people get far more attention in this manner than lesser attractive people.

but if you still feel any interactions from a human being you do not know personally is harassment,then you are dismissing a HUGE factor in what makes us all human.

what a weird perspective.
it appears everyone else has become the "other" to be cautious and fearful of.
i am feeling incredibly old right now.
and sad...........

I wouldn't say that they're "off limits", but I really don't think that going out with someone based purely on their looks is a good way to have a relationship.

Even if you're incredibly polite, you're still basically saying "I know nothing about you other than that you're aesthetically pleasing to me and as a result I would like to have a (probably sexual) relationship with you".

Call me crazy, but if I'm going to have a relationship with someone, I like to know a little about them first... more than just "she looks pretty".

OTOH, if you meet someone in say, a bookshop, and they're reading an author you like, or you're at a conference and having an interesting discussion, I don't think it's harassment to say "hey, we have similar interests. would you be interested in going out some time?". Just understand that she is not a "bitch" if she turns you down.

And again, if you're only interested in casual sex, that's cool too as long as it goes both ways, but maybe don't approach random strangers on the street on the off chance they're interested.

having lived in the bronx and schooled in NYC, i'd say that more than quite a few of the prolific catcallers in NYC are poorish, semi-retarded horndog construction workers, with little or no education.

best of luck in modifying their behavior

Men are going to have to learn to handle this, or we're never going to make it to the stars..

Actually, I get it all the time... from both men and women, and have my whole life.
In fact, if you ever meet eyes with me, I will always say hi, hello, or give you a friendly nod - male or female, old or young.


So the answer here is "All the time" and "This is normal"

Wow..., just wow. Really?
(This surprises me)

Talking to people and meeting people is what it's all about. I talk to people every day. Always make eye contact if possible, be friendly and help someone in need. Where I'm from, snubbing people is the ultimate rudeness and it just doesn't happen, unless that person is just shy.

That said, cheer up ladies, and look at this as a good thing...because what's really happening here is men that you would NOT want to meet are being nice enough to give you a clear indication that you do NOT want to meet them.
It's like a woman wearing a shirt that says "yes, I'm hot and horny, but I'm also a psycho bitch!" Use it as a warning they willingly give you about their personality, and suddenly it's a good thing (for you).

YES! If you are only looking for casual sex, they have websites for that.

and to play devil's advocate:

what's with the hair, jewelry and makeup? the end result of beauty routines is to make a person more attractive to the opposite sex and garner more attention.

attention received,....just from the wrong folk.

You might as well say her jeans are so tight it must take a team of Clydesdales to pull them off. But that's just blaming the victim.

Is it harassment if the pretty girl on the bus catches you staring at her reflection in the window, like, 3 times in a row?

The most awkward interaction with women is at night, when they are walking alone in the dark, and you are behind them and they can see your shadow from the street lights and your footsteps getting nearer. I can't slow down and just keep distance because then I am a stalker. I can't speed up because then I am chasing her. So now I am trying to do all the things I think a rapist wouldn't do, which is exactly how I imagine a rapist would think, so I try to stop thinking like that. Tension mounts until I am within striking distance, when she takes a quick glance over my shoulder and sees my grimace (a poor attempt to produce a friendly smile), and accelerates to the maximum possible walking pace without offending british insensibilities. Her max is my medium, so we continue onwards into the darkness in silence, a couple of feet apart, air full of tension, neither willing to deescalate by crossing the road. Awkward. But maybe that's just me.

Unwanted attention is pretty uncomfortable. To me, harassment suggests sustained unwanted attention. I guess the problem is for the guy it's not sustained, but for the woman it is. If she is getting it from every corner, then the net result is harassment. Catcalling is just plain rude and disrespectful tho, no excuse for that.

I'm repeating myself, but for me the most telling thing in this video is "the countless winks". These people consider winking at someone as harassment. Well I guess I better donate and buy a t-shirt or something. Stop the winking!

oh lookie here....seems there may an agenda (ya think?) and possible selective bias.
nooooooooooo....
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/10/29/catcalling_video_hollaback_s_look_at_street_harassment_in_nyc_edited_out.html?wpsrc=fol_fb

i feel like my brain is being harassed,by opportunistic dick-leakage.
wait..i mean "marketers"

yup. And when people on reddit asked for a release of the whole video, he responded with some bullshit that as an artist he's moving on to other projects.

This. The classist element here is palpable. The video even says, "people from all backgrounds." Coulda fooled me. I didn't see any well-to-do folk in there. I'd like to see the counter video where the tall chiseled guy in the suit says hi to random women on the street and we see their reactions. I bet you get quite a few blushing, smiling, tilting their head and tossing/twirling their hair. The reality is that this video is about undesirables with the gall to come up from the sewers.

Where there is a legitimate point comes from inherent physicality differences. Just the other day I turned around in line to find myself about 6 inches from a guy who's got to be 6'8" 325 pounds. I clock in about 6' 230. I'm not used to that feeling. I suddenly realized what it must be like for women all the damn time. Now if some little dude were to comment on my ass, sure, I will engage and laugh it off... But that dude? Even a "hey there" would make me sweat. That said, it's still a reaction rooted in stereotypes.

This brings me to a final point, which is what I'd call a form of sizism. Not the usual fattism, but rather the assumptions that go along with bigger people more generally. Brawny guys, particularly dark skinned brawny guys, are automatically assumed to be dangerous. BNBG, so to speak. While there is some obvious rational basis to this assumption, I think it has gone way to far and negatively impacts the social inclusion of bigger folk. We big folk have to go way overboard with passivity to not be seen as a rapist in waiting. Else, embrace your inner meat head and go cruise the gym scene.

"The biggest ingredients for this to happen is tons of people, passing by and mixing with tons of other people. Its a numbers game. Eventually you run into an asshole..."

Who said that? The guy who made this video.

edit: Link

Harassment was the couple of guys that just followed her non-stop trying to pick her up. The other was common male behavior based on our genetic impulse to find a mate.

Females do it too, they just don't say it to the person directly in most cases.

Is it so hard to believe that some of the people there are doing little more than exchanging pleasantries?

Being constantly complimented, given friendly 'hello's, or being hit on while walking.

Some people have it really bad...

I don't understand why she doesn't do what most women (and men) who don't want to be approached (be it by men, women, panhandlers, whomever!) while walking through a city do, and wear earbuds??? It's a very simple solution and provides an easy and practical way of ignoring most of these attempts (if not dissuading them altogether).

Also.. This.

And:
"Let's all stop and focus our attention on "catcalling" women. Let's forget the drone bombings of entire cities, the fact that the US has 900 military bases in over 153 countries, the fact that you are almost 9 times more likely to be killed by a police employee than a terrorist....let's take a break from that and focus on the fact that sometimes men are creepy to pretty women."


And:

"The path to empowering women is not by disempowering men.
While many feminist campaigns and viral videos are great at expressing the (superficial) problem, they're not helping to solve it. Prolonging the "battle of the sexes" and "blame game" mentality will never stop rape, harassment, or abuse. All that's being done is expressing pain and anger, which is fine, unless it's directed at another. Attacking men for attacking women isn't going to solve anything.
We need to go so much deeper than this. So much deeper.
We don't need to see more proof of "how fucked up society is"; this only propagates stereotypes that induce resentment and fear. We need to see the power of compassion, love, forgiveness, healing, empathy, and acceptance between both sexes. We need to learn why people hurt other people (hint: it's because they're hurting themselves) and how to heal it and empathize with it.
We need women to open up and love in the face of men approaching, not shut down and run away. We need men to open up and love in the face of rejection, rather than becoming bitter or forcing our will upon another.
Unabashedly, I do not support or promote campaigns that are based in pain, resentment, anger, or fear, no matter how noble the cause. I wish to lift up both sexes – nay, all people – without perpetuating the pain and conflict.
This darkness has been illuminated out in the world, now it's time to illuminate the darkness within ourselves and heal it. What we see out in our culture is a reflection of how so many of us are unable to resolve the conflicts, rejection, and hurt caused by the masculine and feminine inside of us. We can not fix this by signing new laws or going out and trying to control everybody; we do this by starting the forgiveness and healing process within ourselves and going out into the world shining love instead of hate."

A caring attempt to make someone's day better never starts with a command to smile. This has been written about much more eloquently than I'm about to by lots of people (including Abigail Van Buren or 'Dear Abby') but here I go.

When a passing stranger is told to smile what is being communicated is 'I want to see you looking more attractive and I don't give a shit about what you're actually feeling'. They are strangers, there is know way to know what the unsmiling person's day has been like or what has just happened to them (although if it's a woman alone on a NYC street - probably harassment)

So yes, the guy who told the woman in the video to smile was heaping it on like the rest of them.

Jesus, your ignorance beggars belief.

I don't understand why she doesn't ...wear earbuds???

Let's forget the drone bombings of entire cities, etc

The path to empowering women is not by disempowering men.

While many feminist campaigns and viral videos are great at expressing the (superficial) problem, they're not helping to solve it.

This has got to be a hard problem to fight; everything they showed is legal under the first amendment. So it seems the only way to fight street harassment is to make it socially unacceptable among macho douchebags.

But the douchebags don't care that what they're doing is distressing, they know that. The whole point is to belittle women who want nothing to do with them.

And yet, I get the impression most large cities in the world don't have this problem. What do they do to keep the dickheads repressed?

10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Man has been added as a related post - related requested by eric3579 on that post.

True enough, if it's a command. Listening again, he was probably not just being friendly.

And they edited out all the white dudes! http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/10/29/catcalling_video_hollaback_s_look_at_street_harassment_in_nyc_edited_out.html?wpsrc=sh_all_mob_tw_bot

Is it harassment if I point out how funny I think this is?

I know exactly what this is like. I can't walk to the supermarket without obscene girls whooping and hollering at me from all directions.

I tell them I ain't no hollaback boy.

Some of the comments were harassment, some were not. I'm sorry she is not happy walking through the city she lives in. She should move to a nicer place. I've never witnessed someone being catcalled where I live. I've only seen it in movies, usually depicting NYC

But seriously, it has to suck to feel like a piece of zebra meat walking through a lion's den all the time.

It's obviously a cultural thing that makes that behavior acceptable. It's human nature for men to have obscene thoughts about what looks to them like a hot piece of ass, but it's an unspoken agreement among "those people" that it's okay to actually act on those thoughts.

My wife has often been the target of strangers' attention, but I think neither she nor I would consider it harassment per se, though she has many times felt uncomfortable, ignored people, and tried to get away from them.

@ChaosEngine

Nobody is saying she needs to wear earbuds. She's welcome to tolerate assholes. You seem to be saying there should be stricter limits on their speech.

To me this video suggests a reverse power dynamic. It's about telling lower class folk to be comfortable being ignored by the privileged class. It's about telling them to only speak when spoken to. They should know their place.

It feels like Willie Horton ads all over again. It seeks to instill fear that dark skinned men might rape your white woman at a moments notice. That southern strategy, it gets you eyeballs.

The reason why these campaigns will get nowhere: the subtleties asked for are sometimes too arbitrary and too subjective to expect large numbers to go along with it and because women are not always mind readers (contrary to what this one may think), and misinterpretations can easily occur. Some dangerous psychos and sociopaths actually come across as being quite "charming," while some friendly and innocuous comments may be interpreted as being rather creepy. So, campaigns like this will get nowhere in actually changing anything for the better.

The skills of understanding context will continue to devolve as communities break down (along with families and childhood education). Increasingly, we are living in a society of strangers, and this is yet another result of the statism that progressives continue to defend. See, it's all about feeling safe. And without community, contexts that feel safe become more scarce. A state-driven "society" is not a community.

Meanwhile, in reality, the very attempt to legislate behavior like this will serve to further develop two trends: the "catcall" culture they so dislike and something along the lines of what's going on in Japan, the other opposite. Despite what this video attempts to portray, I have already heard the complaint many many times from women that they either get harassment or they get no attention at all.

And this'll be yet another "I told you so" that they'll miss.

10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Man has been added as a related post - related requested by Trancecoach.

Did you miss the part where I quoted trance saying she should wear earbuds?

Also please quote the part where I said "there should be stricter limits on their speech". For what seems like the 7 millionth time, freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences of speech. These guys are free to make comments on her ass or whatever, and I am free to call them misogynist assholes for doing so.

And this whole thing about class and race is a bullshit smokescreen, by men desperate to paint this as anything other than what it clearly is.

Here's Jessica Williams talking about being harassed by "wall street douches". So that's a black woman being harrassed by rich white guys.

Still think it's about how "dark skinned men might rape your white woman"?

Meanwhile, tranceidiot is desperately trying to somehow make this about his retarded libertarian agenda.

I have to say that the premise of your argument (quoted herein) doesn't stand up. It is an incredible over simplification of something which could very easily be multi-faceted. I've been told to smile (usually by women) many, many times in the past and not only do i not consider it harassment, but i don't think that their motive was as you say it was.

Can you take a step back for a second and think about what you're saying there - you're saying that every single person that tells a stranger to smile is operating on a very specific line of thought. Every single one of them, and it probably happens thousands of times a day to men and women. And according to you, the thought is at best childishly selfish and at worst aggressively domineering. I feel like you've over-analysed and reduced it to the point of it being an implication towards "perform acts for my sexual gratification."

The times i've asked "why?" in return, I've usually get a lot more of a thoughtful and friendly reply than you'd expect. One example:
"why?"
"fake it till you make it"
"what does that mean?"
And she went on to explain about a study that shows smiling releases calming, happier hormones and chemicals because of the conditioning of smiling and hormone release when we are developing.

Someone else said i looked sad and she wanted to be friendly so i knew i had an ally somewhere in the world.

Where did you get the premise from and what do you base it on? Because it sounds like you're not the kind of person who goes around telling people to smile - you seem to dislike it. In which case, i think you might be trying to explain something that you don't and can't understand. If you want to know why someone does it, i think they themselves are the best placed to explain and probably the last person we should ask is someone dead-set against it.

I'm not on anyone's side here, i'm not defending any one person's actions. I'm just trying to say that, as i have previously commented, it is not easy to guess at someone's motive; especially if you're jilted by the issue.

Many people in the world will tell other people to smile tomorrow, and they're going to have a lot of different reasons. Some of them will be a form of harassment and some will not. Some will make people sadder and some will make people happier; can you deny that statement being true? And if not, do we agree that you cannot therefore assume that a) someone saying "smile" to someone else is harassment and b) it is based on their selfish desire to make others please them?

Trance said he doesn't understand why she doesn't. You said why should she have to? Nobody is saying she has to. She might want to if she'd like to avoid hearing other people speak their mind. It's her choice. Similarly, catcalling is their choice. They don't need to be classy if they don't want to.

The Jessica Williams video is better in that it isn't about privileged white cisgendered problems exclusively. However, it also doesn't make the case very well. There isn't any evidence of "Wall Street douches" making catcalls unless you want to talk about a picture of a blurred out face in a suit verbalizing nothing.

The assertion that many men are making is that girls selectively complain about catcalls. Specifically, they only want attention from the men they want attention from, and expect us to read their minds... I'm sorry... Body language... and figure out the difference.

For example, a (female) friend of mine was a teaching assistant at UT. She tells this story about going over a study on gender differences regarding random propositions for sex. As you might expect the results were that men were more likely to say yes, and women no. Big surprise there. Well, once the professor finished, Vince Young raised his hand and said "that's not how it works." Every girl in the room (according to my friend) blushed, giggled, twirled their hair, and "made eyes at him." It seems every girl in the room was ready for proposition from an nfl quarterback... Just not homeless people drinking on the stoop.

There's a difference between "I want to legally enforce the banning of catcalls" and "Guys who do that are assholes".

Again, she should be able to walk down the street and she shouldn't have to wear earbuds. Asking why she doesn't is victim blaming. It's exactly the same as saying "well maybe if you didn't want to get raped, you shouldn't have worn that short skirt" (obviously catcalls are nowhere near as bad as rape).

And I don't think women selectively complain about catcalls, they selectively complain about unwanted attention. A guy offering to buy you a drink in a bar or talking to you a party is a different scenario to someone yelling "nice ass" on the street.

Obviously there was some harassment in the video. However 'good morning' or 'have a nice day' is unbearable/harassment? They are obviously generic attempts at gaining an attractive person's attention for starting a conversation. What is the suggested alternative environment? A place where no stranger ever pays you this positive attention? Should suitors hold a sign that says 'I find you fetching, could you please speak to me?' Give me a break.

It's a consequence of being attractive and calling this harassment is entitled whining at best. UGH.

Okay, so a suitable answer to your question, "why should she have to?" Is "because assholes exist, and she'd rather not listen to them."

Victim blaming? Really? No crime was committed. These men are well within their rights. You aren't a victim whenever someone does something you'd rather they didn't do. Laws exist to delineate when you are being victimized, and when you are being inconvenienced. Everything in this video falls decidedly into the latter category. Assholes inconvenience me all the time. I don't make a video imploring that we stop assholery. That would be dumb. Assholes won't listen. If they listened, they wouldn't be assholes. I just take reasonable measures to avoid dealing with it. In this case, if she really hates talking to poor people, she could just wear earbuds.

Personally I'd prefer a society without fences or earbuds. The fact is, most of those guys could be pretty cool, if crass as all get out. Personally I don't have a problem with crass. Crass can be funny. It might be offensive, but being offended is merely an inconvenience. Crassness by itself isn't dangerous.

I think the fact she's getting rape threats is actually WORSE because the people doing it know they wouldn't so they think it's ok to say, because they don't really mean it.

Just because something isn't illegal doesn't mean the target of whatever unpleasant activity isn't a "victim". You can be the "victim" of a prank.

And this is more than an inconvenience. Did you actually watch the video? While you could make an argument that some of the comments are relatively innocuous, there are plenty that are downright creepy, and a few even vaguely threatening.

And drop the "poor people" schtick. Being poor is not an excuse to be an asshole. Neither is being rich.

Again, it's about context. I say crass things to my female friends all the time, because I know them. That's fine. Hell, I don't even have a problem with someone getting abused (verbally) at a comedy gig. It's appropriate.

@Trancecoach, you downvoted this comment.

So, I take it you are in favour of rape threats? Don't be ashamed, man! Stand up and proudly proclaim your support of online rape threats.

I did watch the video. I didn't hear any threats. Hyperbole gets you nowhere.

There were the two persistent guys. Although I think that had more to do with her acting. They were doing the equivalent of fucking with buckingham palace guards. It was obvious she was doing the silent shtick far beyond what's reasonable. In a real situation that would be diffused with two words, "fuck off."

We describe good etiquette as "classy." Why do you suppose that is?

IMO we should all be forced to acknowledge the riffraff here and there.

You're right. It is about context. But this video distorts the context.

Manhattan has a population of almost 1.8 million people. If you don't live in a major metropolitan area, please try to wrap your head around that number first. That's not all of NYC, that's just Manhattan.

When the director of this video said "The biggest ingredients for this to happen is tons of people, passing by and mixing with tons of other people. Its a numbers game. Eventually you run into an asshole..." he wasn't joking.

Higher density population increases the chance of seeing or experiencing things that are unpleasant. If you sat on your porch in bumfuck whogivesashitville long enough, you will eventually see some unpleasant things. It just happens faster where there are more people. And the culture IS different in cities then it is in rural areas. People are more used to being constantly near each other and interacting.

I'm not excusing the behavior of some of the assholes in this video. What I am really saying is that, at worst this video is a bullshit grab for money. At best it's a failed attempt to help women or educate/change the culture to be less misogynistic.

"Did you actually watch the video?" Yes. Did you notice this was two minutes out of 10 hours?

Misogyny exists. Harassment exists. Abuse exists. Domestic violence exists. Rape exists. We should all work to end it. This video just muddies the water on all those issues in what I think is a clear money grab.

/cynical

It wasn't "10 hours of abuse".

This is what I'm talking about. This is how context gets distorted. It's a TWO MINUTE video.

Why you characterize a two minute video as "10 hours of abuse" (your words) is beyond me.

Why do you even believe 10 hours of video exists? Because the video title said so? Because someone told you? You read it somewhere?

Where do you get your reasoning from?

This

lol. Oh, we're doing this now?



Funny thing about this video is how women and men both feel free to catcall.

Oh Christ you're one of those fucking people. Fuck you! Don't say hi to me, don't even look at me. If you clutched your chest I wouldn't put any of the hours and hours of First Aid and CPR classes to good use. I would watch you die because you're a horrible person who shouldn't be invading other peoples lives with your fatuous pleasantries. Just Die!


/Scrooge

I'm not surprised it's beyond you, I'm certain most things are.

Huh, that's kind of rude.
Is that what smart people do? Just throw around random insults?

You use that word deserve. Why? Nobody is saying that. Shit happens to everybody, deserving or not. Our point is that this isn't a big fucking deal. It's just part of the shit people put up with living in a society. While qualifying it as "not as bad" you still compare it to rape. That's dumb.

The fact is she probably has it easier than every cat caller in the video. Thin, cis, rich, white woman problems don't rate. Sorry.

My concern about this video comes from a broader context. I'm a shade left of Mao, so I'm poorly represented in politics. Still, I would rather see the dems take the next two cycles. This video is embedded in a context of watching the left overplay their perceived (and previously realized) advantage with women voters. It's a transparent attempt to build momentum for Clinton 2016. People are sick of it. Polls suggest the strategy will cost them dearly in November.

We really need some kind of "report" function for psychopaths who wish people dead.

If you can't make a cogent argument then stop typing. Please.

I think we need a report function for people who can't understand sarcasm unless it's toggled for them so they don't have to think about anything for 2 seconds.

You don't have to read my posts.

So this started at as a sort of coherent argument and then went into Clinton '16?

What in the world are you talking about? People are sick of women wanting to be treated with some respect are you nuts? Do you know the year women were granted equality under the Law? Just tell me the year, and I'll leave you alone.

I hate to be the one to tell you, but you're a little sick in the head if you think that was just "sarcasm".

"I would watch you die because you're a horrible person". That's uhh .. a little mental. Also, the entire comment is blatant ad hominem.

Dude, shut up. You're not going to win this. You're not a psychologist, you have nothing to say you just want to try and find a way to render my posts moot. It's not going to work.

Also is this your first day? Have you read ANY of my other posts?

The truth is, I made a joke you didn't get. That bothers you so you try and turn it into a character defect. Thanks, got it, you don't get jokes because you're not funny.

well this devolved to a revolting state. I think I'll just go back to being speechless. might as well be at youtube with comments like this

Sorry, I had the volume muted. She had really nice tits!

Nothing lifts the spirits quite like bouncing boobies.

Some would argue 1868... But the courts didn't even begin seeing it that way until 1971. If you're talking about the ERA then I think you have your tense wrong. Don't go yammering about Scalia either. He's a fossilized troll, little more.

People aren't sick of women wanting to be treated with some respect. They are sick of it being elevated above all other issues for transparent political reasons. It's a "get out the base" strategy just like race baiting is for the right. Hyperbolic concern over cat calling falls squarely in the politics of fear and division. "Don't go outside or the evil men (read: your republican husbands) will make you feel uncomfortable." I'd like to think the democratic leadership could move past that.

10 Hours Of Walking In NYC As A MAN. has been added as a related post - related requested by ant on that post.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Official warning for ad hom attack. Chill out or take a VideoSift Break™.

You didn't understand it, even when it has /Scrooge at the end of it?

Satire has just fucking died. Better just ban me you dumb cunt.

You totally are!

Understanding and liking are two different things. Settle down.. you dumb cunt.

/scrooge.

Okay, busted. You got me.

Well, Jeeze, I'm gone for the weekend and come back to this....
Awkward...
Thanks @speechless @dag
Sorry this happened.

Edit: Not to mention seeing Yogi's message in my personal email at home...

*related=http://videosift.com/video/What-Street-Harassment-ACTUALLY-Looks-Like

What Street Harassment ACTUALLY Looks Like has been added as a related post - related requested by Trancecoach.

Ten Hours of Princess Leia Walking in NYC has been added as a related post - related requested by eric3579 on that post.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Three-Hours-Of-Walking-In-NYC-As-A-Homosexual-Man

Three Hours Of Walking In NYC As A Homosexual Man has been added as a related post - related requested by Trancecoach.

10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Lamborghini has been added as a related post - related requested by PlayhousePals on that post.