Degrees of Misogyny

Godot said:
A compliment is a polite expression of praise or admiration. When is it impolite to compliment someone on their appearance?
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Let's say you are in a bar. The bar becomes very quiet. A gang walks in. The leader of the gang walks up to you. Word on the street is that he's gay, and he has been arrested (but never convicted) of rape several times.

He looks around the bar. Then he walks up to you, looks at your butt, and says "you're cute. I like you." Then stands there.

Are you going to take that as a polite compliment on your appearance?
 
Okay. You’ve deduced that it is impolite for a rapist and gang member to give you a compliment, while looking at your butt in a bar? Anything else?
 
Godot said:
Okay. You’ve deduced that it is impolite for a rapist and gang member to give you a compliment, while looking at your butt in a bar? Anything else?
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For the purposes of this thread we must assume everyone is either a rapist or gang member or both.
 
Confused2 said:
For the purposes of this thread we must assume everyone is either a rapist or gang member or both.
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It is impolite then to compliment a woman because all women view strangers as potential rapists or gang members? Are you implying that men should never speak to strangers, much less compliment them?
 
Godot said:
It is impolite then to compliment a woman because all women view strangers as potential rapists or gang members? Are you implying that men should never speak to strangers, much less compliment them?
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It depends on who you are and where you live.

Do you respect women?
 
Godot said:
It is impolite then to compliment a woman because all women view strangers as potential rapists or gang members? Are you implying that men should never speak to strangers, much less compliment them?
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That is the gist of the thread, yes. Welcome to the Misogyny thread.;)

There is certainly something to be said for both issues. Approaching someone to speak to them is a risk to them.

I think the question at-hand is: is it possible to have a functioning society where that risk is minimal without, at the same time, eliminating the necessarily social aspect of society in a public place.

In my opinion, Tiassa, Bells et al, (and pardon me for summarizing my take on your views) feel that the risk of a negative encounter should be zero, even at the cost of (what I deem to be) a functional society. I, and others, feel that all society - including the women - would be harmed by such a measure.

One could draw a loose parallel with traffic. (I am sure to get lamabasted for this analogy). Walking on a public street puts one at-risk for a negative encounter with large moving vehicles. We do not remove large moving vehicles in the hopes of zeroing the risk of any encounters.

What we do, is target the abusers, not simply everybody.
 
Possibly helpful to know in advance that I'm a bloke.True story.
Late one night I was looking in a shop window when I was hit from behind - my head hit the shop window - suddenly I'm seeing stars and tasting blood in my mouth. Tiassa might or might not identify with this - DON'T FALL DOWN. As soon as I could I turned to find two young thugs in front of me. They weren't immediately hitting me and I needed some time to get my head together. Kind'a past the point of worrying about being beaten up by two young thugs - they've already started. Normally I wouldn't want to talk to a pair of thugs but at that moment it seemed like a very good idea. Dialog. Turned out they were having a night queer bashing and I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nice guys really, they apologised and held out their hands to 'shake'. I advised them I didn't shake hands with scum like them (dialog again) and they should go home now. Each looked to the other for the signal to attack and neither gave it. They went (I assume) home. Dialog is safety. Keep the channel open.
 
Godot said:
True and you’re more likely to be raped from an acquaintance than a stranger.
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I have heard that before and think it is probably true. So be careful about 'just going back for a coffee'. The average loon in the street is far less dangerous.
Edit... many years ago a girl invited me back for coffee and we ended up doing competitive cooking. Her main course was better (though sometimes very strange) but (I claim) my puddings were best.
 
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DaveC426913 said:
That is the gist of the thread, yes. Welcome to the Misogyny thread.;)

There is certainly something to be said for both issues. Approaching someone to speak to them is a risk to them.

I think the question at-hand is: is it possible to have a functioning society where that risk is minimal without, at the same time, eliminating the necessarily social aspect of society in a public place.

In my opinion, Tiassa, Bells et al, (and pardon me for summarizing my take on your views) feel that the risk of a negative encounter should be zero, even at the cost of (what I deem to be) a functional society. I, and others, feel that all society - including the women - would be harmed by such a measure.

One could draw a loose parallel with traffic. (I am sure to get lamabasted for this analogy). Walking on a public street puts one at-risk for a negative encounter with large moving vehicles. We do not remove large moving vehicles in the hopes of zeroing the risk of any encounters.

What we do, is target the abusers, not simply everybody.
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Are you able to distinguish normal communication in society with that of sexual harassment?

To suggest that society as a whole would be less functional if people were no longer able or allowed to sexually harass women on the street..

Is that what you are suggesting, Dave?

Because this is what we have been addressing in this thread.

Women tell you just how dangerous street harassment is. Literally, we are telling you how awful it is. And this is your response? Do you listen and pay attention when we tell you how terrible it is? Or do you think it is better to complain about targeting everybody when that isn't what we are actually talking about?

No one is talking about targeting everybody, Dave. None of us who are against street harassment and sexual harassment have even mentioned targeting everybody. So I cannot even begin to fathom to understand where this is coming from with you.

We have been quite specific about targeting the actual abusers, those men who sexually harass women and girls on the street.

I mean, you could try to shift that goal post some more.. Change the subject some more..

Any laws about street harassment and sexual harassment targets the abusers, Dave. Not everybody.
 
Godot said:
What you're describing is stalking and harassment. What Bells' is describing is a simple onetime compliment.
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According to whom?
 
Godot said:
What you're describing is stalking and harassment. - -
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Yes, it is. But it's not much different from what Bells is describing.

Let's make a small adjustment: say it's several different guys contributing to this, and one of them is not just rude but a psycho - seriously dangerous.

You don't know which one.
Godot said:
A compliment is a polite expression of praise or admiration. When is it impolite to compliment someone on their appearance?
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For one: When you are interrupting them and forcing them to pay attention to you via implied threat, in pursuit of your own agenda.

dave said:
What we do, is target the abusers, not simply everybody.
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Nobody was targeting "everybody" - at most, the target has been men who force their attentions on women in public places. Since this is inherently at least potentially abusive, regardless of the content or motive of the contact, that makes a reasonable starting point for demarcating the target population.

Meanwhile: Who's "we", and how is this "we" identifying abusers?
 
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Bells said:
To suggest that society as a whole would be less functional if people were no longer able or allowed to sexually harass women on the street..

Is that what you are suggesting, Dave?
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No.

I don't know why opponents keep having to put words in mouths to make their case.


Bells said:
Because this is what we have been addressing in this thread.
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You know something Bells, we've been addressing a lot of things in this thread. It's 638 posts long, with who knows how many participants. It's meandered across quite a few subdiscussions.

This thread is not owned by you or by anyone else. You don't get to call the shots, and you don't get to bully anyone else into silence.

If I want to discuss an aspect of male-female interaction (which is well within scope of the thread title) other than sexual harrassment with B/S and Godot, then I'll do that.


Now that will be entirely enough of that.
 
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