@Lustig Andrei,
You responded to soundsighted by saying:
Quote:What in the world makes you think that a sincere compliment would make the average normal woman feel uncomfortable? In my experience most women welcome that kind of attention. Do you actually know any normal women? In the unlikely event that you do, check with them. Or put the question out here on A2k. How many of the female posters here agree with you and disagree with what I've just said. Again, this has absolutely nothing to do with rape and may not even involve any salacious thoughts on the part of the man, merely an aesthetic appreciation.
I don't know many women who view catcalls or comments on the street about their appearance or bodies as "sincere compliments" or "merely an aesthetic appreciation". Those things do make most women feel uncomfortable most of the time--based on my own experience, as well as the reactions of all the other women I've known. Yes, if you feel you do look good, and you've taken pains to look attractive, a single wolfwhistle might not bother you, and you might regard that as flattery, but most of the time, unsolicited remarks or reactions from total strangers on the street make women feel acutely self conscious and somewhat anxious about the fact their bodies are being viewed and commented on in that objectified way, and it does make them feel more vulnerable.
I'm not sure that many men can really understand this because they've never experienced it or been subjected to that sort of thing. It is a form of sexual harassment, and it is sexist. And, just as they should do with rape and sexual assault, men have to start listening to women's feelings on these issues if they really want to understand them, and their impact.
Women receive inappropriate comments, of all sorts, on their bodies all the time, and not just on the street. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of NY recently wrote in her new book about the sorts of unwelcome comments made to her about her weight by male colleagues in Congress and the Senate.
Quote:Kirsten Gillibrand: Peers called me ‘porky’
By LUCY MCCALMONT
8/27/14
New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand reveals in her new book that a number of her male colleagues on Capitol Hill made remarks about her weight, the New York Post and People magazine reported Wednesday.
“Good thing you’re working out, because you wouldn’t want to get porky!” Gillibrand writes in her new book, “Off the Sidelines,” the paper reported, citing an interview published with the senator in People magazine, which also had excerpts of her book.
"You know, Kirsten, you’re even pretty when you’re fat,” said another congressman, according to the Post.
Of that interaction, the paper reports Gillibrand wrote, “His intentions were sweet, even if he was being an idiot.”
The New York Democrat, who was featured in Vogue in 2010 and spoke about losing baby weight after the birth of her second child in 2008, said, according to the Post, a labor leader told her, “You need to be beautiful again” to win her special election in 2010.
However, the remarks continued after Gillibrand lost weight, the paper said.
“Don’t lose too much weight now. I like my girls chubby,” one lawmaker told Gillibrand, squeezing her waist.
Talking to People, however, Gillibrand said the men didn’t know better.
“It was all statements that were being made by men who were well into their 60s, 70s or 80s,” she said, in an excerpt published Wednesday of her People interview. “They had no clue that those are inappropriate things to say to a pregnant woman or a woman who just had a baby or to women in general.”
Back in 2010, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid raised some eyebrows during a fundraiser in New York when he said Gillibrand has been referred to by some in the Senate as “the hottest member.”
Gillibrand told POLITICO at a Women Rule event in March that the electorate has not moved beyond gender and addressed the lack of women in elected office.
“It is an old boys’ club without a doubt, we only have 20 women,” Gillibrand said. “But it is what it is, I wouldn’t say it’s sexist, I would say it is reality. It is a very male-dominated industry.”...
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/kirsten-gillibrand-book-110393.html#ixzz3HqQTEh7K
Gillibrand is actually being quite charitable and kind in terms of how she views sexist behaviors from colleagues on Capital Hill. Some other women have been more blunt.
Quote:Just listen to the women who have covered Congress for years. Dana Bash, CNN's chief congressional correspondent, said Thursday she has heard "comments that would maybe just blow you away from male senators." NBC's Andrea Mitchell agreed, recalling "stories of whom you'd not get in an elevator with and whom you'd protect your young female interns from."
Speaking of Senate elevators, there's also this disturbing 1992 anecdote about Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), relayed by the Washington Post's Karen Tumulty.
As recounted in journalist Clara Bingham’s 1997 book “Women on the Hill,” Murray found herself alone in an elevator one evening with 91-year-old Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), who did not recognize her as a colleague. He inquired whether the “little lady” was married -- and then proceeded to grope her breast, Bingham wrote.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/03/ron-johnson-gillibrand_n_5759790.html
If that's the sort of body commentary and behavior exhibited by our most venerable law makers, toward their female colleagues, and those females working around them, can you imagine what women in other walks of life, and college women, are forced to put up with all the time? Is it any wonder that it has taken so long to get this old boys network on Capital Hill so long to address issues of sexual assault and sexual harrassment in the military and on campuses at all? And that that fight is still spearheaded by female members of the Senate--like Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and Senator Claire McCaskill--who understand the importance of this issue from a woman's perspective, because it's mainly women who get sexually assaulted.
Neither sexual harassment, nor sexism, nor sexual assault, should ever be regarded as acceptable, let alone "normal" behaviors on the part of men or women.
That's why I see the White House campus initiative, It's On Us, as a good step in the right direction--it addresses all of those issues and gives everyone the opportunity to be actively involved in controlling the campus sexual climate around them, and to become part of altering both attitudes and behavior on their campus. Maybe the next generation of female Senators won't have to put up with inappropriate comments about their bodies from their male colleagues, whether it's about being "porky" or being "hot".
And, if you take a look at some of the other topics soundsighted has posted, and his comments on them, I think you'll find him both inconsistent and not altogether sincere in what he says. For instance, he criticized Hawkeye for using the word "****" in this thread, but he used the word himself in another thread. So, I'm not sure the opinions he's expressed here should deserve serious consideration or response. I think he often tries to be simply provocative and somewhat satirical in what he posts.
