I understand that for some it is easier than others to stand up to a group of builders commenting on their cup size, I think that the recent media flurry on the subject goes towards infantilising women and implies that not only should they be constantly afraid, but that they have things to be constantly afraid of.
What I do find aggressive and unwelcome is women speaking for me and suggesting that, by not being offended by cat-calling, I am in some way anti-feminist and clearly have no understanding of the real issue.
I am a women in my 30s living in the middle of London. Believe me, I have an understanding of the issue and *shock, horror* it still doesn’t offend me.
I don’t need anyone else speaking on my behalf and actually, it’s that which I find demeaning to women not a shirtless scaffolder telling me I’ve got a decent set of jugs.
I’m not a victim and men don’t make me feel like one.
So please, well-intentioned ‘living in fear’ lady – speak for yourself, and start to give all women what the deserve – the right to an opinion.
via Am I the only woman in the world who likes being cat-called? | Metro News.
Yep, I burnt my bra back in the 70’s. (Not as anybody would notice :D :D as I had trouble filling a 32A – sunbathing on the beach in a bikini meant tattooing front and back on myself :D :D ). I wanted equal rights for women with regards to pay and working conditions, but what I didn’t want, was to lose my feminity and no way was I offended by the looks, the wolf-whistles or the admiration from the opposite sex.
In fact in all honesty I would look at the fellas and think, ‘Cor he’s got a nice bum or those muscles are more than welcome to embrace me.’ Office banter was just that… we would laugh and joke and us girls would give as good as we got. We never cried sexual harassment… we just dealt with it. Yes I can understand someone wanting to stop the office perv with his wandering hands, but putting a hand on your shoulder… FFS… it has now got to the point where the opposite sex must be shit-scared to get into the lift with a woman just incase she is some feminist who shouts ‘sexual harassment’ if they are too close to them in the lift.
Even in the 80’s as I pushed a pram down the road, with one screaming child in it and I hadn’t slept for a week, when that wolf-whistle came my way… of course I acted coy and shy, but deep down I was thrilled. There I was walking down the street and feeling like a knock-kneed knackered old nosebag when this wolf-whistle echoed from behind some scafollding and just for that moment I felt on top of the world. I felt like shouting ‘Yep I’ve still got it’ even though I felt like shit through numerous nights of wondering what the word ‘sleep’ meant.
Like the journalist wrote in the Metro, it didn’t offend me either… I could handle it and I definitely didn’t need another woman telling me I shouldn’t have to deal with things like this.
I normally agree with some of the things that Fleet Street Fox writes in the Daily Mirror, but yesterday’s article I just couldn’t agree with.
She was referring to Angelina Jolie as being a hypocrite simply because she made the film Mr & Mrs Smith and one of the scenes was where she and her husband (both off screen and on screen) smashed up their home as they try to kill each other and in real-life she campaigned against sexual violence.
This is a woman who campaigns against sexual violence one day and sexualises it the next.
In Mr & Mrs Smith her and Brad Pitt’s married characters smash their house up and try to kill each other in a long scene that makes domestic violence look like “normal sexual impulses”.
She knows, as we all do, that domestic abuse thrives on silence and denial, yet she tolerated it in a movie that normalised marital abuse and charges the public a tenner to be titillated by it.
What’s that if it’s not society and modern culture “tolerating” abusers and “letting them get away with it”?
No offence but it is a film…. I bet there are a hundred and one films where we could look at a scene from a movie and turn it into something it is not. Not once did I or have I ever thought that that scene constitutes domestic violence or ‘sexual violence’ as Fleet Street Fox thinks.
I see it as what the producer wanted you to see… two people who are assigned missions to kill each other and their love for each other stops them. I don’t see it as sexual violence to women… FFS Angelina gives Brad as good as she gets. :D :D
It is like all this people who say, porn makes paeodphiles or violent games make kids turn violent. Nope, there is something wrong in their heads in the first place… if you banned violent games and porn, these mixed up kids and adults would still kill each other and paedophiles would still fancy children.
When you look at Tom and Jerry, we would sit and laugh at how that poor cat would come off the worse at times, never did we constitute this as animal abuse. It was a cartoon… something you laughed at. Separating TV and Film from reality should be easy.. those that can’t have the problem… and no matter what they watch they will find the violence and sexual innuendo in amongst any programme. Even good old Tom and Jerry
Filed under: Thoughts and Opinions Tagged: Angelina Jolie, Builders, Domestic violence, Feminism, Fleet Street Fox, Mr and Mrs Smith, Sexual Innuendo, Tom and Jerry, Wolf Whistle 
