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Cat Call (My Wife Made This) (imgur.com)

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[–]WTFwhatthehell 65 ポイント66 ポイント  (25子コメント)

Some people don't particularly like this analogy since it implies that the sad creepy fuckers trying to weedle/manipulate/beg sex out of attractive women are just sad lonely people desperately looking for human contact like a beggar looks for cash when they prefer to paint it as a case of all powerful oppressors opressing.

But in practice it is the closest parallel by a wide margin and the pattern is almost identical whether you've won the genetic lottery or the cash lottery.

Imagine this, you're in a foreign city and people see you as a "rich foreigner" because of your clothes and skin colour, the majority of people are probably fine but almost everyone who actually walks up to you and tried to talk to you out of the blue wants to scam you, rob you, or sell you something and they're all trying to leverage your urge to be polite to try to force you to give them money.

Is the woman in the comic any more of an asshole than the guy in these exchanges?

Imagine how you'd feel in some of these situations then remember that for many women it's not just some cash at risk.

http://squid314.livejournal.com/327849.html

"Hey man. Where you from?"

"No."

"No what?"

"No I don't want to talk right now?"

"Why you no wanna talk?"

"I could tell you, but that would require talking, which I don't want to do."

"Hey! You can talk me! I your best friend!"

"I've never met you before."

"Yeah, but I want help you."

"What about me walking briskly and purposefully in this direction suggests I need help?"

"Why you so mean?"

"Because I've been in this city 20 minutes, and so far I've talked to about ten people, and every person who wants to talk to me has been trying to sell me something, rob me, or beg from me."

"Hey, man. Don't be so bad. Not everyone is same."

"Not everyone, no. But I think maybe everyone in India who approaches me out of the blue might be pretty similar."

"I think you just being mean. I just wanna talk."

"I don't want to talk."

"I just wanna talk. Hey, maybe I say something, I help you."

"Okay, fine. Let's talk."

"You want buy cheap hashish?"

"No."

"F**k you."

And he walked away.

"Hey, nice shirt."

"No! Go away!"

"I just said, hey, nice shirt."

"Oh, yeah, sorry. Sort of a reflex."

"What country are you from?"

"I'm sorry, I can't answer that question because I've been asked it over twenty times today, and it's always been a prelude to an attempt to scam me."

"Oh, no. I am an English student. I just want to practice English."

"Okay, I'm from the US."

"Ah, you visiting India for the first time?"

"Yeah."

"There's a really nice temple right near here. I'll show it to you."

"I'm sorry, I can't give you any money."

"That's okay, I just want to show you the temple."

"I really don't want to see it."

"Come on, very nice temple. You can't come all the way here and not see the best temple. Very bad."

"Riiiight. Well, if it will make you happy, okay, where's this temple?"

"Here it is. The temple of Mahanta."

"Oh. It's very nice."

"Let me show you my school."

"Um, it's really hot and I have to go now."

"What? You will see the famous temple, but you don't want to see my school? Come on, man, you owe me, I showed you the temple. School is very close."

"Right. Fine. Where's the school?"

"Right here. Let me show you. Ah, this is my teacher."

"Hello."

"Hello sir, my friend. How do you do?"

"I'm okay. This kid here just wanted to show me his school. I really have to go now."

"Wait. This school needs more money. Please give us 500 rupees."

"Um, I already told the kid I wasn't giving him any money."

"You come from very rich country. This school has nothing. Please give us five hundred rupees."

"You're blocking the door."

"I know. Please give this school five hundred rupees. We give good education."

"I'm not entirely convinced this is a real school. For example, there's a goat over there in that room. What kind of school has a goat in the room."

"School needs money! Please give five hundred rupees! Five hundred rupees, then you can go."

Yeah. I lost five hundred rupees. And then the kid followed me back to my hotel and kept pestering me until I gave him five hundred more rupees so he could buy a Hindi-English dictionary to study by.

Looking for "Glorious Services", a company that deals with credit cards and might be able to help with my ATM card problem. It's not easy to find, and it's in a part of the city where you have to painstakingly wade through piles of garbage to get anywhere. A man comes up to me and says "Oh. You're going the wrong way. It's that way."

"That would be convincing," I said, "if I had told you what I wanted."

"You want marijuana!"

"Uh, actually, no. I was just looking for the credit card place. Please go away."

A man, clearly some sort of beggar in tattered clothes, comes up to me. "You want credit card company? I show you where it is."

"Riiiiight," I say. "You know where it is because you have to deal with credit card problems so often."

"I know where it is! I show you!"

Well, I didn't want to wade through any more garbage than I had to, so I decided to follow him. After about five minutes, I realized first that we were going in the opposite direction to the one recommended by my guidebook, and second that we were going into ever darker and more isolated alleys. I also remembered a guy at the hotel the other day saying that when people offer to guide you anywhere, they are quite likely trying to lead you somewhere secluded so they can rob you.

"Um, actually, I can find it myself thanks for your help byyeeeeeeeee."

http://squid314.livejournal.com/327957.html

Right now Ganaj is probably acutely conscious of the fact that he is dependent on me. I can make his day awesome or ruin it completely on a whim. If I tell him "No", I'll probably go off and eat a three course meal at a fancy hotel restaurant without sparing him a second thought. He will go to the alley where he lives, look to see if there's anything in the trash heap the dogs and rats haven't reached first, and then go to bed hungry and cursing my name. If I told him I'd consider giving him money if he clucked like a chicken, he might well agree. Under these circumstances, to tell Ganaj "No" is harsh though often necessary. To tell him "No, and man you are sooo privileged even to ask that" is just cruel, even though it does point to a real and important problem.

Likewise, a socially awkward guy who has never had a girlfriend sits next to an attractive girl in chemistry class or something. For some reason he decides he has a chance with her and asks her out, probably in a socially awkward way. She says no. Then she goes out to party with her attractive friends and her attractive boyfriend, while he goes back home to cry in his room alone and unloved and worrying that no one will ever love him (think this is an exaggeration?

The girl's feelings of discomfort and constant harassment are just as real as the rich tourist's. But when she calls him from her exciting party with her attractive boyfriend on her arm and interrupts his crying-alone-in-his-dark-room to tell him how privileged he is, that is exactly 100% the most offensive possible term to use at that particular time

[–]fistofcurry 38 ポイント39 ポイント  (17子コメント)

But when she calls him from her exciting party with her attractive boyfriend on her arm and interrupts his crying-alone-in-his-dark-room to tell him how privileged he is, that is exactly 100% the most offensive possible term to use at that particular time

I was with you up until this point. Is this a thing that happens often? Do girls regularly call up lonely guys just to remind them that she rejected their advances? I guess I don't understand what this sentence means.

[–]WTFwhatthehell 3 ポイント4 ポイント  (11子コメント)

read the linked blog.

highschool kids don't tend to much but the blogosphere is full of attractive, social people with happy relationships who absolutely do very publicly piss all over lonely,desperate, awkward guys who approach them and ask them out etc (often in a not-massively-unreasonable manner) talking about how they're bad, privileged people who should feel bad.

[–]ShadowRancher[🍰] 30 ポイント31 ポイント  (4子コメント)

True but thats kind of off the original subject of this thread...I've never been catcalled by an awkward kid looking for love an attention its always bigger/older/drunker men who use it as a power play.

[–]WTFwhatthehell -2 ポイント-1 ポイント  (3子コメント)

By any chance: male? single? late 40's? ugly? alcoholic? unemployed or in manual, unskilled or semiskilled jobs?

What do you think the awkward, desperate, lonely people who never find anyone become when they get old, hairy and ugly?

[–]ShadowRancher[🍰] 17 ポイント18 ポイント  (1子コメント)

And any of that excuses aggressive behavior that makes other people fear for their safety? And that still doesn't fit really with the original argument I totally agree with your analogy but if we are talking about highschoolers now that is not the root of where the current crop of cat-callers came from. In my experience the older guys are usually homeless and bored and not nearly as aggressive just skeevy. Its the guys around my age that actually scare me (mid-twenties) they are both more aggressive and more able to back it up...but that may be that I've actually been attacked by that age group a couple of times.

[–]WTFwhatthehell 5 ポイント6 ポイント  (0子コメント)

it doesn't excuse anything. it's just deeply sad.

[–]sisterchromatid 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

And why do they never look for the multitude of similarly awkward, desperate, lonely, old, hairy and ugly women that exist in this world? "I'm lonely and sad, I deserve a relationship with someone more attractive than me"? In what world?

I've got a few things going for me, but I'm not the most attractive woman in the world. I look for men who are similarly attractive, instead of wasting my precious time and emotional energy hating extremely attractive men for not dating me.

[–]fistofcurry 10 ポイント11 ポイント  (3子コメント)

So if I were an attractive girl and a guy I'm not interested in asks me out and I say no am I then obligated to never do anything to remind him of my presence? Am I no longer allowed to post pictures with my boyfriend because he might see them and get his feelings hurt? If he won't leave me alone am I supposed to just smile and nod and never call him out on his behavior?

I feel as if you're conflating two very different issues and adding a dash of strawman. Both you and whoever wrote the last segment of that blog sound as if your experience with women is drawn from Mean Girls.

[–]WTFwhatthehell 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (2子コメント)

who said any of that?

you're no more obliged to hide your life than someone who refuses to give money to a beggar is obliged to avoid driving down that street in their car.

you seem to have missed the whole point but there's a difference between continuing to drive your car down the road and driving your car down that road while shouting "PRIVALIGED SCUM!" at the homeless man who made you feel uncomfortable by begging.

[–]fistofcurry 8 ポイント9 ポイント  (1子コメント)

I guess I don't see what privilege has to do with guys getting rejected. After all, unattractive women get rejected by men too, I wouldn't call that Female privilege. In your example, it would really only become Homeless privilege if you were forced by social pressure to give your car to the homeless guy.

[–]WTFwhatthehell -3 ポイント-2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Only that there's many different kinds. You can have one kind when you have something or can do something that people desperately need or want. Another kind when you don't have to fear for your safety in some context.

The second link goes into it a bit more:

Just to hammer the point in, here is a hypothetical dialogue between an oblivious version of me and the Indian beggar Ganaj from my visit to Varanasi.

Ganaj: Hey man! I will tell you your fortune for fifty rupees!

Oblivious Me: Check your privilege.

Ganaj: What?

Oblivious Me: Your privilege is showing. It's okay if you're oblivious to your privilege. Most poor people are. But you know how you can walk outside without being asked for money? You know how you never have to worry if all the people fawning on you and offering you favors are just looking for some cash? You know how you can walk outside at night without thinking about getting robbed? That's the poor privilege you benefit from every day.

Ganaj: I don't feel privileged.

Oblivious Me: I know! That's the most privileged thing of all! Part of poor privilege is never having to think about poor privilege, because it doesn't affect you!

Ganaj: I still don't really feel privileged. Then again, I don't really feel anything at all ever since all my fingers fell off from leprosy.

Oblivious Me: Hey now, cut it out! We're not holding an Oppression Olympics here!

So what am I not trying to say here? I'm not trying to trivialize the rich tourist's problems. The constant harassment throughout my trip to India really did make me feel uncomfortable and unsafe to the point where I had to cut my trip short, and I and other tourists shouldn't have to put up with that. I'm not even saying that everything I told Ganaj about "poor privilege" isn't entirely true. I am just saying, once again that the language of privilege is a uniquely terrible way to talk about these problems.

It's in reference to people who complain about guys hitting on females at all (not just catcalling) and say that anyone who dissents that they're just too privileged to understand what it's like to be attractive, have people want to be around you, have people want to be your friends or have relationships with you due to wanting to have sex with you.

[–]youcanteatbullets 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Mentioning something on a blog is a bit different than saying it directly to somebody. But I take the point.

[–]The_Yar 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (4子コメント)

To shorten this up, basically the idea is endeavoring to understand that a large portion of men are at a significant, severe disadvantage in the male-female social/sexual dynamic, and that this represents a very real source of stress for them that they often do not know how to manage appropriately.

Catcalling isn't a privileged male expressing his seniority and dominance over you. It's a stressed-out and disadvantaged individual making a desperate play. It isn't appropriate or kind or right - but assuming you aren't going to engage the catcall, the only appropriate response is to pity and calmly ignore.

[–]fistofcurry 11 ポイント12 ポイント  (2子コメント)

I have trouble believing that all cat callers are just desperate lonely men, just as I'd be skeptical of someone saying all thieves are just desperate people trying to feed their families. I'm sure it applies to some people but I doubt it's a rule. By that logic the majority of sexual harassment and rape must be committed by single men and women.

[–]aknutty -1 ポイント0 ポイント  (0子コメント)

The ratio of cat callers that are not desperate and lonely is probably close to the ratio of women that positively respond to said cat calls. And while not 0% I'm sure it's close.

[–]AppleBlossom63 -1 ポイント0 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I've always been under the impression that men did it for fun as a social or expected thing. For example, a group of girls in the mall are not obligated to comment on the appearance of models in ads, but they will, sometimes (depending on the girls) in a cruel and condescending manner. Sometimes girls do it to actual people walking by, which is absolutely no better than catcalling, especially when the result is someone feeling hurt or sad or even afraid. But most of those girls wouldn't dream of singling someone out like that if they're without their friends and the peer pressure to tease and belittle. They would move on their way and maybe probably suffer a catcall or the same thing that they've done to others. Some girls have no problem, though, with behaving the same with or without a group, like some guys have no problem being rude without their buddies. I like to think people like that are the cause of the rude group calling, or the sudden burst of tittering mocking laughter while the the bleach spot on my skirt is pointed out.

But thank goodness that there are a lot of people out there who don't behave this way and are even confused by people who do. It means that there is some decency left in this world, I guess.

[–]CannedToast 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Catcallers definitely do not do catcall because they are lonely disadvantaged men. Some dude honking at me as he drives by and yelling "HEY SEXY NICE LEGS" out his window is not doing it because he's lonely. Its not some bid to date me. Its not a compliment. Its just harassment.

[–]Methee 12 ポイント13 ポイント  (0子コメント)

It was a great analogy until the end.

The socially awkward guys aren't the ones that make most of the creepy catcalls. I've witnessed a gorgeous friend of mine get cat called in the worst ways possible by some very attractive men and even some lesbians.

I feel like that last story made it seem like the whole thing was about shitting on someone less off than you (whether with money or with looks/social interactions).

[–]Nachokiwi 6 ポイント7 ポイント  (0子コメント)

A very good analogy, worth the read by the end of it.

[–]braulio09 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

sorry, man. he's still wrong because he's judging people before they even speak.

[–]loegare 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Is the woman in the comic any more of an asshole than the guy in these exchanges?

the last panel neither are assholes, they became products of their environment, its sad

[–]Alexplode 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I don't understand how you have gotten it in your head than just because something is an understandable reaction, that makes it the right thing to do... I understand she's having a bad day and all but that will never excuse someone from being a jerk. Knowing about them will help me empathize with them (as it has here with cat-calling) but that doesn't mean they aren't also completely in the wrong.

Pay it forward in dickishness is no way to solve anything. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

[–]Bookkeep -2 ポイント-1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Yes, that happens to all tourists. But tourists don't make comics about it.