There are some anti-street-harassment videos circulating at the moment, and you know what they say about reading the comments. Yeah. That
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Wow - thank you for that awesome, thoughtful post. I'm usually not a sensitive person. I am old enough and well rooted in my personality and sexuality that a few wolf whistles and comments won't faze me. But there is a fine line between a nice comment, flirting, and sexual harassment and unfortunately every person has their own perception of where that line is.
The problem is (in my experience) to educate people that communication is a two way road and a comment is bad when the *receiver* says it's bad, and the sender in that case does not get a vote in that. The sender can only decide if they want to say "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way" and refrain from it from now on, or if they go "oh, you're too sensitive" which translates to "I really don't care if I hurt you. Your problem."
I'll keep the kilt in mind and tell men that before they can judge, they will have to wear a kilt for a week. They can claim they lost a bet or something, but I really think that's a good educational experiment :-) I can just imagine the comments you got to hear.
I actually do recommend the kilt experiment. I think there is a pretty big population of basically stereotypical appearing/acting straight cis white men who have literally never, ever, been on the receiving end of this sort of thing. I wasn't, for a long long time. It's eye-opening. Not just drunk women saying stuff. Also being very conscious that you are being conspicuously unusual and hoping you don't encounter someone who wants to make too big a fuss about it. And the wide range of the non-obnoxious comments, from friends and strangers, which is really an education in how easy it is to stray from the completely nice to the relatively awkward.
The problem is (in my experience) to educate people that communication is a two way road and a comment is bad when the *receiver* says it's bad, and the sender in that case does not get a vote in that. The sender can only decide if they want to say "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way" and refrain from it from now on, or if they go "oh, you're too sensitive" which translates to "I really don't care if I hurt you. Your problem."
I'll keep the kilt in mind and tell men that before they can judge, they will have to wear a kilt for a week. They can claim they lost a bet or something, but I really think that's a good educational experiment :-) I can just imagine the comments you got to hear.
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