I fear that the world is turning a dark corner and moving along a path that is destructive to the very cohesion that binds men and women together as equal members of civilisation.
I fear that men are going to be made to suffer for just being men. I see many instances that make me feel this is becoming a reality.
One of these instances is the controversy recently about a video of catcalling and harassment against a woman in New York City, who walked around the streets for 10 hours with her boyfriend filming her from a hidden camera in his backpack. In that 10 hour period she allegedly experienced over 100 instances of what she calls ‘harassment’, even though what’s shown in the video includes ‘hello’ and ‘how are you’, which is being redefined now as ‘harassment’.
You can see the video in this article here: http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/30/living/hollaback-10-hours-walking-in-nyc/
What’s of most interest to the less stupid amongst us is that it only shows black and Latino men engaging in the ‘harassment’, and white guys were excluded. An interesting article I read pointed out that this is more an incident of racism and privilege by the woman than actual harassment.
“What is really being said in this video is “I believe that I am entitled to walk through a minority neighborhood in the most densely populated city in America and never be spoken to by males who I find to be of lower social value than myself.” And it isn’t just the video that’s saying this. It’s the entire discussion about cat-calling.
It is wrong, and it is sexist. But more importantly it is racist, classist, xenophobic tripe, hiding behind the fact that hating men is completely socially acceptable. In the 21st century misandry has become justifiable, and even virtuous. We live in a world where it is accepted that all men are potential rapists, lower class men even more so — and as such, they are less than human, and little more than monsters which inhabit our worst nightmares. The mere utterance of a word from their lips, even the most innocuous of hellos is one the most heinous things we can imagine.”
Harassment has been established as “behaviour intended to disturb or upset, and it is characteristically repetitive. In the legal sense, it is intentional behaviour which is found threatening or disturbing.”
If any one person was engaging in repetitive behaviour with the intent to threaten or disturb the subject of the video as she walked around the streets, then it could definitely be described as harassment. But just because this woman walked around black and Latino neighbourhoods and received unwanted greetings and sexist comments, does not make any of it harassment.
Unfortunately, as a result of this video, many of the more stupid amongst us (and plenty of them can be seen amongst the commenters on that video on YouTube and around the internet) are calling for a redefining of the word ‘harassment’ to include ANY unwanted and uninvited attention from men.
Maybe men should only speak when spoken to, or when given permission by a woman…
There’s this fear many women have of men. They fear that all men are rapists, and all men are murderers, just waiting for the ideal opportunity to attack the helpless and vulnerable women around them.
Thankfully, not all women have this fear. It would really be sad if they did.
But it’s the noisy and the fearful who want to change the world around them so that they have less to be afraid of. Instead of receiving counselling for their issues around men, they want laws and social norms to be established so that the subject of their fears are punished and suppressed, just for the crime of existing.
Reminds me a bit like how the Nazis treated the Jews in the 1930’s.
If we allow stupidity and fear to gain a foothold, we allow incredible injustice. If society is changed in such a way that the vocal minority of fearful women are successful in the establishment of new laws that make it a crime for a man to simply offer a greeting or a smile to a woman or be charged with harassment, then we venture into the realms of the insane having control of society.
You don’t believe this is likely? Let me share one of these calls for changes to the laws. And there’s a lot of these calls for changes out there in internet land.
They want uninvited and unwanted greetings from men to be subject to the same laws as hate speech (which involve prison sentences). Because apparently saying hello to a woman means you hate her. I’m not sure how, but that’s one of the reasons why I’m calling these people stupid.
One of the comments on that article hit the nail on the head:
“The laws against smoking pot worked so well! The laws against pirating music and videos also worked really well. We all know that nobody smokes pot or downloads Game of Thrones. I guess making it a crime for a man to say ‘have a nice day’ would work equally well.”
Another commenter says:
“…it is obvious that the only truly effective solution is to ban *all* non-business/emergency communication between males and female strangers in all public places.”
They’re not being sarcastic. That’s what they think is ‘the only effective solution’.
Another commenter:
“Based on the comments mocking women,and trivializing this issue, it seems a law is certainly necessary.”
They want it to be a crime to mock women for being upset that men offer them greetings. And laws are certainly necessary to punish men for daring to say hello to women.
There’s over 500 comments on that article, and most of them are agreeing that laws should be implemented to criminalise male greetings towards women.
Really, you can’t make this shit up.
The problem I see is that so many men want to be held in high esteem by women that they throw themselves in to support this stupidity because they think that’s what women want of them.
Instead of women getting obsessively stupid about men saying hello (and really, if you’re going to spend 10 hours walking through the black and Latino neighbourhoods of New York City, you’ll probably get a lot of men saying hello!), maybe they could instead consider engaging in responsible behaviour that would minimise their exposure to the less responsible members of our societies, like not being a white woman walking around for 10 hours in black neighbourhoods…
I know that apparently makes me an apologist for those less responsible members of our society, but that’s just another example of the stupidity I see in these people.
If you walk through a neighbourhood filled with potential criminals loitering in the streets, I can only imagine that it’s a measure of your own stupidity that you would blame THEM for the consequences of your own choices. Sure, they’re responsible for their actions, but so are you responsible for your actions.
Expecting a criminal to not be a criminal just because you’re a woman walking by, and then blaming all men for that one man engaging in criminal behaviour against you, well…. just calling you stupid doesn’t seem to be a strong enough term for it. Insane is probably more appropriate. And so is everyone else that supports such stupidity.
The treatment of men in general is beginning to take the same form as how blacks used to be treated and perceived – as a threat. And it’s all because of the loud, the fearful and the stupid who get more media time than they should.
It seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same. People today aren’t any more civilised than they were 100 years ago, and they’re probably a lot less intelligent. Instead of waving burning torches in the street, they’re doing it online.
It would be nice to live in a world where common courtesy expressed by men towards women is considered reasonable, instead of a crime. It would be nice to live in a world where men are regarded as equal members of our civilisation, rather than considered criminals just because they’re men.
I know these seems to be extremes, but the extreme is becoming more mainstream, and more and more people are calling for restrictions of general male/female interactions, with punishments to be doled out to men for daring to want to talk to women.
It’s so sad to see how things are changing.
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