Uh, no. The situation on the street is different because I CHOOSE NOT TO ENGAGE FOR MY OWN PHYSICAL SAFETY.

There are plenty of women who have been trying to explain male privilege and the omnipresence of harassment for women in many, many, many threads in this very LJ. If you're interested in education, you can read them. I don't have time to engage with someone who doesn't see what's wrong with a man on the street saying "Nice tits" to a strange woman and who consistently places the onus on the women to react and not the man to refrain from being an asshole. I give up on you and your sense of entitlement.

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Lady, you don't know me, my background, or what I believe in or support. Your bias makes you see entitlement arguments where they don't exist, and makes you assume that just because I disagree with you that I am uneducated. You show me one place where I've said that anyone is entitled to the right to treat any other human being like anything less than a human being and I'll apologize. It hasn't happened, because I don't believe that for a second, but you've got your crusader helm on and thus can only see a narrow field of battle. Just like in life, you've every right to walk away from a situation you don't want to be in, and more power to you. Personally, I'd suggest you take a long look in a mirror to see the person who is making you think that everyone who disagrees is out to get you.

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Well said.

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I don't know you from Adam, but I sure as fuck can read.

If you don't believe that anyone is entitled to treat others as less than a human being, why are you defending the practice of yelling "nice tits!" at random women on the street?

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There are two parts to reading: literacy and comprehension. Look back over what I said. I do not defend the practice of catcalling at women on the street. I do not defend anyone who sexually harasses anyone else in the workplace. My point was that there is a legal difference between the two based on the context of environment. Your recourse on the street is to walk away. In the workplace, it's different because you're required to be there as a condition of employment. You can't necessarily simply walk away from someone in the workplace as a reasonable person could do from someone on the street.

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coffeeandink (paraphrased): This is wrong because it sexualizes a public space.
twfarlan (direct quote): I'm missing where you or anyone else could not say, "no," "no thank you," or just walk on and not watch if you didn't want to.

No, you don't literally say "why yes it is perfectly fine to catcall!". You just responded to an argument about why catcalling is wrong with "hey, if you don't like it, you can always keep walking".

But you're right, you're not defending street harassers. You're defending hotel hallway harassers with an argument that you later apply to street harassment. I apologize for misreading you.

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Thank you. Well-said.

I'm really fed up with how many men (and women) in this entire discussion absolutely refuse to grasp the sexual politics of the real world that make this "project" a shitty idea, and how they keep insisting on putting the "personal responsibility" on women to say no — rather than on men to learn some social skills and some respect for boundaries. The street-catcalling analogy is absolutely perfect.

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The guy with the truck should have been executed. He committed murder, so he forfeit his life. That seems simple, to me.

I agree that the public sphere ought not to be a place where you can have unwanted, unwarranted aggressive behavior directed at you. The act of catcalling is aggressive, no question, and it is bullying, dehumanizing behavior. I apologize if I have not been clear about this: I do not condone or defend that nonsense, nor do I think that anyone has a right to treat anyone else in anything but a respectful way... directly.

Let me clarify: when a man catcalls at a woman, she is not a passer-by or onlooker. He has directly involved her against her consent and in a very disrespectful manner. He has indeed objectified her, which I find unacceptable. There is no attempt to humanize the contact by addressing the woman like a person who has the right to choose to be involved or not in the exchange. In the original post, I'm not seeing harassment for this reason; the described behaviors involved asking politely and immediately accepting "no" as an answer. Anything else, I'd agree, would be intolerable and harassing. I also understand that this is a matter of opinion, where that line should be drawn.

It isn't an easy question, I do agree. I also agree that our preconceptions and prejudices need to be constantly challenged. It's a painful process, and it doesn't always give us the results we think we want.

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