Originally Posted by
Sliske
Literally never seen it happen here in Northern Ireland (excluding drunks late at night). I've seen people laying on the road, walking around with a limp like an extra from shawn of the dead, black out drunk at noon, walking around in costumes, and a plethora of other weird shit. Not one time have I heard someone catcalling.
My opinion of catcalling is the same as most things when it comes to sexism.
Its only sexist if men do it, and its only sexist if that man is unattractive.
But lets say its everywhere - for the sake of argument lets say that this is common place. That most men - no, all men do this. Lets say all men cat call any woman they find attractive. What is the ultimate problem? It makes women uncomfortable? I have pretty crippling social anxiety. I get panic attacks if too many cars pass by me on my way to work, for example. Is this the fault of the drivers? Should the drivers take an alternate route? No - this is merely my brains irrational reaction to a non-issue. I do not blame anyone for triggering a panic attack in me because they looked at me while driving past me. I blame the part of my brain that is malfunctioning.
So what other immediate problem could occur? I honestly can't think of one. So unless someone can chime in with another one, i'll have to assume its either a long term over arching societal problem, or no problem at all.
In terms of large scale problems, we're of course talking about western society's perception and standards of women. Now, right off the bat, if we're going to talk about this, we're going to need to include the very similar, if not identical standards that men have. You know - no beards, just stubble. Muscley but not too muscley, short hair, short sides and back, tightly fitting clothes, around 5'8 to 6'2 tall. Is catcalling the cause of this perception or standard? No - it isn't. Catcalling is a result of these perceptions and standards. A group of drunk women will catcall most guys that pass them. Walk around town on a friday night if you don't believe me. This is just something drunk people do.
So again, to recap. The problems of catcalling are
1. Self imposed problems, such as anxiety
2. Problems caused by the collective interest of the west in well-built men and slender women.
Again I do not see the problem. I, once again, see rich women-children (why does woman-child seem so weird, but man-child rolls off the tongue?) who probably haven't encountered a real problem in their lives, ever, and so analyze everything around them in an attempt to create non-issues to complain about. This reeks of entitlement. You want everyone around you to behave exactly as you want them to, because lets face it - your parents and your baby sitters in your upper middle class / upper class home probably didn't question you much either. You don't understand what rejection or opposition is, because you've been in free fall for the past 18-24 years. Now, at last, you're encountering human beings with spines and you turn to these people, your turquise hair and beany perched on your disgruntled face and tell them "stop doing that, NOW!" and what do they do? They look at you, with a face like someone let off a stink bomb and tell you to fuck right off.