WE have become such “sensitive flowers”. So said Joanna Lumley this week. “How can wolf-whistling be offensive to women? It’s a compliment,” the actress insisted, in exasperation at the growing backlash among women against unwanted male attention.
She’s right, no? I mean, aren’t things just going a bit far, now that we’re talking about some police forces being able to investigate as hate incidents petty behaviour such as wolf-whistling? Aren’t many females actually flattered by wolf-whistling?
If you’re knocking on a bit and get a compliment from a passing male, let’s be honest, you don’t feel outraged, you float home on a cloud of girlish glee singing “I’ve still got it” to the tune of I’ve Got Rhythm. It’s wrong to imply that every man is being sexist or predatory when he comments on a woman’s looks; sometimes he’s just being appreciative.
If we’re not careful, we’ll spook men so badly that they’ll sit tight-lipped staring at the floor and stop interacting with women. Surely it would be insufferably po-faced to criminalise the enjoyable sexual dynamic between males and females at such a harmless level? Well, there’s a lot of truth in that. Some women in some situations do consider wolf-whistling flattering.
But it has to be judged in its context, and in some circumstances, it’s far from flattering; in some circumstances, wolf-whistling is intimidating. And that is how we should assess it: does it make women feel degraded or unsafe?
What about the lone schoolgirl walking home past a building site and being whistled and leered at by a pack of men twice or three times her age. Is she supposed to take that as a compliment? Should she blush with pride and smile winningly? Is she a “sensitive flower” for feeling angry and threatened? I have been in that position, like countless other females. “B***** off,” I used to shout back. Then I would tense up inside, waiting for them to turn nasty, which sometimes they did, their “compliments” turning to abuse.
I remember words like “frigid” and “ugly”. I felt utter contempt for these slobs with their stained, overhanging guts who thought they had the right to judge every passing female – even children – on their looks. But I also felt afraid.
Wolf-whistling, cries of “get yer tits out”, bum-pinching, knee-fondling and other “appreciative” gestures were commonplace in the 1980s and 1990s. It’s better now; but not by as much as it should be.
The Everyday Sexism Project has shown that women still run the gamut of unwanted sexual attention all the time. Even if they don’t feel threatened, they feel objectified. They can no long keep up the rictus smile of feigned appreciation; and why the heck should they?
Ms Lumley went on to say that, in the 1960s, as a model, she put up with photographers telling her she looked “fat as a pig” and took it as “good-natured banter”. People were “tougher” back then, she claimed.
Were they? Or were they just habituated to the inequality that was part of the fabric of society? In the 60s, it was still legal to discriminate against women at work and pay them less for doing the same job as a man. Putting the onus on women to put up with unwanted attention today, as they did then, instead of making certain men consider how their actions might cause fear or distress, does not seem “tough” to me. It seems like giving up.
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