Flattery or threat?
A woman has complained to police over being wolf whistled by builders. Cue this VERY heated debate . . .
LIBBY PURVES
After a month of being persistently harangued and wolf‑ whistled at on her way to work through Worcester, Poppy Smart thought of changing her route. But then, darn it, decided that in 2015 women shouldn’t have to reorganise their lives around the recreations of uncouth youths.
So she shopped the Worcester Whistlers to the Old Bill for harassment.
Extreme? You could baulk at her calling the police — far more effective to grass them up to their bosses, since building firms are always putting up placards assuring us of their courtesy — but it’s clear that this was nasty.
It went beyond mere high‑spirited whistling from scaffolding above, and Poppy made it clear she was upset, especially when one accosted her on the pavement one day, barring her way.
Tougher women often say: ‘ Oh, it’s quite flattering,’ or merrily shout back. (A cockney girl I worked with, when they howled ‘Big t**s!’ at her, would yell back: ‘Fit into your hollow chest, then, wimpy boy.’)
But some young women, especially if they seem vulnerable to the more bullying types, really suffer from suggestive verbal assaults. A very pretty black friend of mine, in her 20s, won’t go on buses at all because of the nasty sexual jeers she gets from black boys and white alike.
The real issue is that very young men have grown ruder. Feet up on train seats, shouty laddish banter across the heads of quiet fellow‑ passengers, late‑night burping on the Chelms‑ ford line. And it is so rare to get an offer of a seat on a crowded bus that it comes as quite a shock when you do.
So look, boys. Women don’t want to be treated as fragile “laydeez” all the time, we’re equal, we can work and earn and have our say and become PM or, horrors, your boss. But that doesn’t give
carte blanche to any man to yell unpleasantries in the street.
And if guys do show a moment’s chivalry — well, we melt. And they are rewarded with a big smile and the satisfaction of feeling like a gentleman. Chaps should take heed . . .
MELISSA KITE
TO PARAPHRASE Oscar Wilde, there is only one thing worse than being wolf‑whistled at and that is not being wolf‑whistled at. Shortly after I turned 40, three years ago, I remember walking past a build‑ ing covered in scaffolding and bracing myself for the inevitable outburst from the saggy‑trousered workmen perched on it. But none came.
At that precise moment, I realised I was middle‑aged. Neanderthal men no longer hooted when I walked past. After years of fighting them off, I was now provoking deathly silence.
Poppy Smart will realise this one day, when she no longer gets the chance to be offended by builders who find her physically attractive. By then, the time will have passed for her to toss her head in the air and march haughtily past shouting: ‘ Oh yeah? You should be so lucky, sunshine!’ That was my strategy, back in the glory days when the men in sweaty T‑shirts bothered me. Sure, it was inconven‑ ient sometimes. But on balance, I’m glad I handled it myself, with humour and perhaps even style, rather than run to the police or an equality body.
Because I would hate to give suc‑ cour to that faction on the Left that persists with the fantasy that you can get rid of something called ‘everyday sexism’, that you can make life fair. Guess what? You can’t.
A woman who can’t deal with a whistling man is not going to be able to deal with very much that this world is going to throw at her.
And let’s not pretend that we women don’t like to ogle men. The Diet Coke ad has, for years, featured a gaggle of giggling ladies egging on a hunky man as he opens a can, spraying himself suggestively with the drink.
All I’m saying is, if girls can giggle, then let men whistle.
LINDA KELSEY
IT’S all too easy to dismiss 23‑year old Poppy’s official com‑ plaint as a waste of police time and money. But when you look at the broader implica‑ tions of fighting back against behav‑ iour which is both upsetting and intimidating, you start to see that she has a point worth making.
Everyday sexism, even of the relatively minor kind, gnaws away at your self‑esteem and undermines your confidence.
I’m not sure what you are supposed to do when you are assaulted by a wave of wolf‑whistling. Smile and say thank you? Ignore it? Toss your hair and wiggle suggestively?
However you respond, the fact is that being whistled at puts you in a position of powerlessness, one in which men are literally calling the shots.
Ideally, Poppy would have been able to tell these guys to their faces that she didn’t welcome their whistles. But when you’re one lone woman up against a bunch of burly blokes, it takes a lot more courage than I know I’d have in a similar situation.
When one daughter of a woman friend did exactly that a few months back, she was accused of being a ‘bitch’, a ‘stupid cow’, ‘frigid’, a ‘les’. She may have been proud to have stood up for herself, but she arrived at the office that day shaken and in tears.
As a feminist since my teens, it’s ironic that while we’ve made great strides towards gender equality over the past 40 years, the result of these gains is that we are now expected to take so‑called minor sexism on the chin and laugh it off. But it wasn’t funny then and it’s not funny now.
I’m not suggesting wolf‑whistling should be criminalised. But neither is it harmless fun. It’s mindless and insulting. So thank you, Poppy, for being brave enough to blow the whistle on the wolf‑whistlers.
ANGELA EPSTEIN
There’S nothing like a blush of warm sun‑ shine to bring out your inner Beyoncé. And so it did for me the other week, as I sashayed down the High Street in Manchester, freshly washed hair swinging over my shoulders.
And then came that heavenly sound. Well, not quite from heaven. rather from the top of some scaffolding, where a bunch of hod‑carriers issued a rakish wolf‑whistle and warmly prof‑ fered: ‘Nice day, darlin’.’
Was I offended? Did I feel sexually objectified? Was this tantamount to harassment? No, no and definitely no.
When you reach middle age and your husband is more absorbed by the figures on the gas bill than your vital statistics, you crave affirmation that you still ‘have it’ (well, sort of).
That’s why there’s nothing nicer than an appreciative wolf whistle from a passing male. At least in the benign context of broad daylight, on a busy main road, with lots of other people around.
It may not be courtly love. But a wolf whistle semaphores to a woman that she’s still feminine, desirable and, crucially, that she isn’t invisible.
Of course, no woman should be allowed to feel physically threatened, as Poppy Smart clearly felt. And if wolf whistles are accompanied by vile language and obscene gestures then there should be recourse to the law.
But the fact that some commenta‑ tors have compared wolf‑whistling to racism is ludicrous. Being Jewish, I’ve been subjected to bigoted remarks in the street — and, believe me, being on the receiving end of such comments makes you feel threatened, frightened and utterly demeaned.
By comparison, infantile cat‑calls from bored builders are innocent, unremarkable and yet can make a careworn, middle‑aged woman feel momentarily glorious. So let me enjoy those appreciative cat‑calls, too.
Gentlemen, as you were . . .
HANNAH BETTS
POPPY smart’S vic‑timisation‑dressed‑up‑as‑flattery went on every day for a month, all because she had the audacity to be on her way to work.
Every morning, every encounter, left her distressed and humiliated. For wolf‑whistling and its ilk are nothing to do with issuing a compliment and everything to do with a patronising and aggressive attempt to make women feel like lesser beings.
Feminists such as myself are not opposed to flirtation (personally, I live for it), but stalwartly against a practice that makes women feel insulted and intimidated.
Flirtation implies interaction, a playful complicity — not being treated as some derided object.
Perpetrators claim such behaviour is harmless. However, the underlying meaning is clear: as a woman, one’s identity is effectively that of a mobile sexual opportunity. Whatever our brains, personalities, bodies and age, to be female and at large in the world is to be gratuitously exhibiting one’s sexual availability.
In 2012, Laura Bates established the Everyday Sexism Project, a website‑ turned‑campaigning‑organisation that invited women to submit their experi‑ ences of sexism as a means of exposing the prejudice we face — from minor to major — typically under the hashtag #ShoutingBack.
In doing so, she brought the world’s attention to the collective force of such day‑on‑day abuses; a drip‑drip effect in which women feel frightened, bullied and belittled.
Thanks to smart Ms Smart, perhaps we can finally begin to treat such ‘minor transgressions’ as the big, daily deal they are.
AMANDA PLATELL
Just wait until she reaches my age, 57, and Poppy Smart will be glad any man is pre‑ pared to down his Black & Decker drill to pay her a compliment — even if it is from a stranger on a building site.
I’ve been wolf‑whistled at since I was a teenager. Well, it was in Australia, where a man’s idea of foreplay is: ‘Are
you awake?’ But I always took it as a compliment. I also discovered that a big smile before walking on by was the perfect way to disarm the situation.
Especially as, like most young women then and today, I wanted to look attractive to men, and it was a harmless acknowledgement of what I was seeking to achieve.
Yet these days there can be a darker side to unsought attention.
I was talking to a friend yesterday who told me that his 15-year-old daughter had once been the target of truly offensive building site ‘ banter’. One young man hadn’t just whistled, but shouted out, asking if she’d perform a sexual act on him. Another’s sexual intentions were too rude to repeat in a family newspaper. That really was sexual harassment.
She was distressed, her dad was incandescent. Yet he didn’t go to the police. Instead, he took down the company’s number on the site’s poster and went to see the boss.
The manager was mortified and said he’d deal with it immediately, which he did. His daughter has been able to continue her walk unhindered.
In Poppy’s case, a complaint was filed to the boss of the company concerned and she has not been harassed since. She hasn’t seen the wolf-whistlers again. So that has sorted that.
Considering that reported rapes increased by 29 per cent in England and Wales last year, surely the police have more important things to do than waste their time and our money on tracking down a man who says: ‘Morning love.’