Anti-Street Harassment UK- a new feminist group.

Okay, stop and let's rewind a moment. You are arguing that you should be "allowed" to say "nice breasts" because it's a compliment. But what exactly is the aim with a compliment? Because if I, personally, give a compliment it's because something is good and I want to make someone feel good about it.

But you're correct, different cultures feel differently about different things. Something which is viewed as a good asset in the UK might be something someone from a different culture is very self-conscious about, and would be upset if I commented on.

Now, if I were made aware of this, I would stop commenting on it to people from that culture. Because it was meant to be a compliment and compliments shouldn't have to be things people should grin and bear, or put up with. If I'm consciously forcing someone to feel uncomfortable with a compliment, be that compliment "nice breasts" or "hey, you have awesome hair" or "that was smart of you!" I am Doing It Wrong. Sure, I might not know people were hurt by it until told, but when I've been told, if I keep arguing the point and forcing someone to deal with that, I'm no longer giving a compliment. I'm not trying to make someone feel good. I'm being an ass.

Now, you? You know the current culture is that a lot of women might feel uncomfortable about attention from a stranger being focused on their breasts. You've said so. But you're going to keep RIGHT ON doing anyway because dammit, you want to! At this point, you're not trying to make people feel good. You're trying to prove a point at the expense of making other people uncomfortable and unhappy. You, sir, are being an ass.

Stick to what you dolls and doll houses.

Ok you really didn't have to explain the fundamental reasons which form society.

Basically to sum up:

> saying nice tits is wrong

> everyone is expected to know this and believe this

> therefore if I say it, it must mean I am wrong and I am saying it to cause offence

I get it. It doesn't mean I have to agree with it. I think that it is complete bull****. And if I find a woman's tits nice and I want to tell her I can't because she will assume that being someone who says this knowing it is wrong I must be a weirdo/ bad person.

Am I being an ass? depends based off what. Am I being an ass because I am not conforming to how people expect me to be even though I don't believe in it? Then yeh I agree. What can I do? I don't go up to people and tell them they have nice tits, because of the reasons we've discussed. I'm not an idiot, I know how to behave in front of people. But as I said, it distresses me knowing this. If everyone had my mindset, we would all be better off.

Like I said earlier, there is no "right" and "wrong". Only context.

...yeah, no, you're an idiot. You seriously think that at a stage where our value was determined by the fact that we went into marriage virgins and never slept with anyone else so that all our offspring could be proved to be our husbands, our fathers and our husbands would have tolerated sexual approaches by anyone who wasn't married to us? Women had to put up with a lot, including marital rape, but guys who claimed complete sexual ownership of their women were HARDLY going to stand by and let some stranger do stuff like that.

Quit playing with "logical" and if you're going to build a whole argument on "WELL, IN HISTORY IT WAS ACCEPTABLE, SO.." maybe, yanno, actually make sure it WAS acceptable in history first?

That sentence doesn't even make sense.

Jheez, you can even insult people properly, is English your first language?

When did I say or imply that I think that because something is legal it is therefore acceptable

Why isn't violence a topic of political correctness? Either it's considered politically incorrect or it isn't.

Going by your 'bingo' point, violence, such as characters being hit, beaten, electrocuted, tied up etc wouldn't be showed in children's cartoons as it's socially unacceptable.

Or perhaps we portray things in children's cartoons despite the fact that we don't consider it acceptable for people to do and we expect even children to be able to grasp the concept that what happens on TV isn't always acceptable in real life

Well you were saying "just coz something was fine back then doesnt mean it is now" or something like that. So I was using it to prove that legality is not a good barometer for morality, like I have already explained.

And it is a topic of PC, just not as hot a topic as sexism and racism, which it why it is more over looked when it comes to cartoons.

and anyway isn't tom and jerry like 30 years old? Do they still show it with all the violence they used to?

Anyway, here is a clip from a video i saw as a child http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASW3UCc17AI

(it might not have been that clip, but it was a disney cartoon with hitler in)

All I can say to justify my point is, I DO NOT think that would be acceptable these days. Do you? It's a cartoon for children after all.

"Women had to put up with a lot, including marital rape, but guys who claimed complete sexual ownership of their women were HARDLY going to stand by and let some stranger do stuff like that"

Yeah, and that's obviously bad for them. But what you said doesn't really take credit from anything I said. If a woman got wolf whistled at and their guy goes over and does something, that's a completely different story. Now like you said, they had to put up with a lot, so I highly doubt they would have been bothered by being whistled at. Now since you are making the claim that they were offended by it, you are gonna have to prove that to me, I can't prove that they weren't offended by something.

I will play with "logical" all I want, whatever that even means. Do you do a degree in history or something and you just want to feel involved?

The question is, are your feelings rational. Personally I think not. And you're talking about extremes, any women knows that if a man persistently shouts 'i want to **** you' they can call the police and have him arrested for verbal assult.

So are people still arguing that they think it's all fine?

If your mum, sister or girlfriend was walking down the street on her own and a car full of guys slowed up next to her and started calling her sexy and asking for her number, then when she ignored them, called her a bitch and drove off, you'd think that is acceptable behaviour? You wouldn't have preferred that one or more of the guys in the car had suggested to his mates that they not slow down and talk to her?

Because that's what this whole thing is essentially about.

Its not acceptable behaviour but it happens. Yeah, life isn't fair, but if that happened to someone I know I would expect them to move on (if the only thing that happened was them calling her a bitch, if they touch her thats different). As we've seen in this thread, starting feminist groups for the cause only makes people take it less seriously than before.

I'm not saying women can't move on, or that they need to break down and cry over it. But this and similar things happening to somebody regularly can be pretty unpleasant. And if all it takes is men to make more of an effort to tell their friends to stop acting like dicks, then why NOT try to encourage that?

All the group is really doing is highlighting a particular anti-social behaviour and encouraging people to show their disapproval of it. What we've seen in this thread is idiots blowing things out of proportion and getting upset just because they've seen the word feminist.

But the thing is, men wont stop doing it. The guys that shout at women in the street are probably the type of guys to not care about what anyone thinks. They will continue to act in this way regardless of what anyone says. It is already socially unacceptable to shout at women in the streets.

I still think the group is unnecessary. Sensible people will continue to be sensible, while anti-social people will continue to be anti-social - you can't change that. I still don't think there is a problem if the men are just shouting at the women, sure its not nice, but its not the end of the world. The problem arises when men try to take it further- following the woman, trying to touch her etc. This is completely unacceptable, but it probably doesn't happen so much.

But the thing is, men wont stop doing it. The guys that shout at women in the street are probably the type of guys to not care about what anyone thinks. They will continue to act in this way regardless of what anyone says. It is already socially unacceptable to shout at women in the streets. I still think the group is unnecessary. Sensible people will continue to be sensible, while anti-social people will continue to be anti-social - you can't change that.

I still don't think there is a problem if the men are just shouting at the women, sure its not nice, but its not the end of the world. The problem arises when men try to take it further- following the woman, trying to touch her etc. This is completely unacceptable, but it probably doesn't happen so much.