It is boring. The Hollaback catcalling video helped. A p2p served perpetually stream of phone uploads (edited by interns?) is needed to saturate the message and coordinate help to unsafe spots.
Cracked and BB are like my daily required reading.
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See it did help and it didn’t help… there’s some controversy around that video, how it was edited, how the lady in it didn’t get paid… and even still I saw a lot of chatter saying some of those guys were “just saying hello” because reasons.
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Yes, you’re right.
I worry too there’s too little movement solidarity … excessive focus on corporate branding … even victim blaming among people doing anti-violence work.
And I do like the idea of documenting a social phenomenon for allies who may suspect without fully realizing the severity of street harassment. It’s relevant by analogy for boingboing and other internet forum threads.
For e.g., I didn’t like the muddled, mansplaining directed at you and others in the slam poetry thread.
Why should boys and men feel entitled to summarily dismiss an entire category of aesthetic work as opposed to, say, courteously evaluating one poem based on shared aesthetic criteria?
And where does the nerve originate to pose and bait others … that poorly informed emotional reactions can substitute for considered judgment? As though insults would not obviously and predictably chill more nuanced, literate responses?
That entitlement is also exhibited during street harassment … the perpetrator suggests the victim should feel flattered by the attention, that s/he invited and wants the attention, could benefit from the casually dispensed though indifferent, objectifying and aggressive “advice.”
That thread showed —again — that those who identify their epistemological frame with reified, ahistorical objectivity sometimes just don’t want to know what they don’t know.
And they certainly have trouble acknowledging that social entitlement is historically sexist … in the courts or at the kitchen table or in a boingboing thread. I hope that continuing problem of entitlement doesn’t continue to mean that everyone else who identifies as feminist must go elsewhere for safer, more interesting conversations.
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That guy is awesome. The fact he as to deal with such things and the fact there are fuckwits who do such things to women… well there are times I feel quite embarrassed to share genetic material with half the species.
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I remember a time when people only liked heavily moderated forums that promoted a community was not only the norm, but what was preferred. The concept that completely unmoderated communication would ever work despite the many, many places it didn’t just because of idealism is absurd.
Every time a toxic group or culture moves in and ruins it for everyone, and they are never satisfied by sticking to one place but have to spread to prove how just they are. Hell, even the chans are moderated and the moderation gets heavier and heavier over time. Terrible people are just that loud.
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I liked the tacit acceptance and approval of the treatment he gets because he won’t wear a different helmet. The dudes know why he’s getting harassed, and their response is essentially “don’t dress like a slut” - its so fucking telling.
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It’s groovy.
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I don’t find that particularly feminine… its more tattoo flash to me.
Also, missing the point. ;p
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Where my feminists at?
I totally understand that it’s difficult to know when it is an appropriate time to give women sexual attention. The modern woman is baffling. We are on Tinder and we ball whoever we want and nobody is really allowed to judge anymore and we are feminists and we are easily angered by perceived degradation and we have a lot of feelings about words like “consent,” which make your dick scared and we also might want you to pull our hair when we fuck. I imagine it feels impossible to know how and when to express your interest without offending women. It is a minefield, the stakes are high and nobody is safe.
This is a good read.
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Fantastic article!
… Telling a woman that you think she is beautiful can seem very innocuous; sometimes it is. Sometimes, it will make her day. All this depends on context and I cannot explain when it is and is not OK, because that is like trying to explain intuition. …
There’s a test for straight men to consider using. It also may help with processing feelings of homophobia if you have those.
Men also try to pick up other men. If you (straight men) want to think through whether to offer a personal remark to someone who is trapped and must listen to you because s/he is working, imagine how you would respond if a man offered the remark to you while you were working and you didn’t feel free to respond candidly because you need to pay rent.
You might want to be courteous so you don’t risk your job. You probably don’t want to give a stranger a mistaken impression about your feelings. How do you respond? What if he’s mean about it? What if he won’t go away?
I think it’s a good, though not perfect, test. I didn’t invent it. What do others think?
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Well apparently a whoooole lot of other guys do find it feminine, which is the whole reason that (excellent) Road & Track article is able to exist.
I thought it was more the hair, which shows no matter what kind of helmet he happens to be wearing? I guess both, maybe. Personally, I don’t find it incredibly feminine, though… But I don’t find long hair necessarily feminine, either. 
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I am 100% sure if that helmet was Tribal Tattoo Skullz and Wrenches and Guns and Explosions there would be a lot less (maybe none?) gender confusion by onlookers.
It is unusual for motorcycle-y dudes to be into flowery stuff. Not wrong, of course, just unusual enough to tip the scales a fair bit on gender guesses.
Maybe, but I think some bad-ass chicks who are into bikes might like that stuff, too. But I’d also suspect the dudes he’s talking about probably buy into the gender-coding you’re hinting at here.
Maybe this is my problem with gender-coding culture in the first place. There are enough difference of opinion to sort of call the whole thing into question.
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Sure, but not everyone is as enlightened and smart and awesome as us.
Looks, for better or worse, will continue to be how a significant percentage of people initially judge others for many centuries hence.
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Enh anybody dropping near $500 to 1K on a lid can wear whatever design/color they want in my book. They are really comfy helmets but way out of my price range.
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I am all woman, and you wouldn’t catch me dead wearing that. Nor any of my female cousins. “Feminine” and “masculine” are lazy terms, based on stereotypes.
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It’s a paradox, but free speech gets more free with more regulation.
It’s like society getting safer when regulations relieve citizens of the need to wear a gun out in public for dueling and self-defense.
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