Wolf whistling - a hate crime ??

It's not a hate crime , that's just ridiculous. However I've always disliked it and found it embarassing and disrespectful. I am very glad that I'm too old to receive them now.

It seems to me the world is going a bit mad. No wolf whistles? They are now a crime? A friend of mine said yesterday that she was wolf whistled about a week ago - ''And I loved it!''was her reply.

I haven't read any comments saying it's okay for men to harass women, trisher. Some of us don't regard a wolf-whistle as harassment but have also said that lewd remarks, depending on how lewd and a few other things (like one's ability to walk away or answer back in kind) could sometimes by classed as harassment.

When DH and I lived in Cornwall when we were first married many moons ago, people in shops, men and women often called us 'my lover'! It was just a friendly warm cornish expression and absolutely no harm or disrespect was meant by it. I don't expect you'd hear it these days, as sadly the PC brigade would be horrified!!

I d love to be wolf whistled I remember when it did used to happen i felt very 'appreciated' Neither a hate crime nor any kind of crime its a valid way to say 'ummm you look ok' As an older lady I miss it I dont even here youngsters getting whistled any more

Aged 16, I had to walk past a group of lads everyday on my way to work. They whistled, I blushed.
And here I am, 42 years later, still happily married to the ringleader, who still whistles at me on occasion (another customer for Specsavers)!!

When I was 24 (in 1972!) I went out from the office where I was working, to get sandwiches for colleagues. I was wolf whistled at, even though seven months pregnant. I looked up to the roof where the whistle came from and promptly fell down a hole!!!!!!! Oh boy, did I feel silly!!!!! I was so shaken up I had to go home!!!

If you read the article it isn't about just wolf whistles, in posting it as such the OP has misrepresented what was being proposed. What I am trying to do is to show what is happening today, not what happened in the past which seems to be all GNs can discuss. "Ooo I loved being whistled at," neither helps with the situation as it is today nor answers what do we do about groups of young men who are being offensive to young women? Wouldn't it be good if we could move the discussion on?

Nottingham City Council are ridiculously pc.

I have been here for over 40 years so have first hand knowledge of council tax waste .
Each year they host an awards ceremony in 'celebration' of work done for the for the LGBT community.They even fly the bl**dy rainbow flag from the mast.
Wolf whistle as a hate crime is just typical of this right on council.

The police do not have resources for any extra work.

I had a call on St Pancras station from Nottingham police who were INSIDE my home.
An invalid neighbour phoned them as men were trying my doors,and again 20 minutes later to report them walking down the road with my computor.It took a further 20 minutes for them to arrive from a station 10 minutes drive away.
My door was in pieces, my daughters wedding dress for the following week was spoilt,my house was a jumble.
Appallingly, timings on the official incident report had been entered to show a quick response.
Needless to say a formal complaint followed.
It is quite usual to report an incident and be allocated a crime number over the telephone,as no one is available to visit.

It is silly and embarrassing to wolf whistle,but a hate crime...goodness me.

Well said Trisher

It really does shock me that so many women on this thread firstly haven't read the actual article and are very much ok minimising the sexual insults from men on women.

Granny2016 I'm sorry for your personal experience, I myself have been physically assaulted and also had my home burgled took pretty much everything I owned and my brand new car - but this is completely unrelated to this being termed a hate crime.

Several people have already done the moving on bit you mention, trisher. Several people have commented on its not being just about wolf-whistling. However, the article does say that wolf-whistling is included in what are called hate crimes.

"Uninvited sexual advances and unwanted verbal contact with a woman, including catcalling or wolf-whistling in the street, are to be recorded as a hate crimes in a new effort to tackle sexist abuse."

Some of us are arguing that wolf-whistling is not, by definition, misogynistic or sexist abuse, as is the Times article I posted. It depends. Like most other things, this is not a simple right or wrong, black or white issue.

What other moving on did you mean?

K&K, it shcoks me that some posters don't seem to have read some of the comments on this thread and keep banging on about sexist abuse. Nobody is saying that sexist abuse shouldn't be tackled, they are just saying that they don't think everything that is being called sexist abuse is so.

Some people don't seem to do nuance.

I once wolf whistled a man that I knew well, he ignored me! I felt a twit, next time I saw him I told him what I had done turned out he had seen me and knew it was me who had whistled and decided to ignore me to make me feel embarrassed, he thought it was funny, never did get my own back.

Rosina that was particularly silly reaction.

"Pet" is the sort of term used by Geordies to both male and female friends. If it was just that, it should not be thought of as offensive in any way.

Which in other places is "me duck" or "chuck" etc. Down in the south west men and women will call their mates "me lover".
These little local dialect words are part of our culture.

This article from the Guardian explains the issue more clearly...

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jul/15/is-wolf-whistling-a-woman-set-to-become-a-hate-crime

This is an extract from it...

A single whistle is unlikely to constitute an offence, and police action has to be proportionate to the incident. But if it was part of a pattern of behaviour – for example, online harassment, stalking and constant wolf-whistling in the street near a woman’s home – the perpetrator could well be arrested and prosecuted.

And another...

In a recent poll, the group End Violence Against Women found that 85% of women aged 18-24 had experienced unwanted sexual attention and 45% had experienced sexual touching. Online there is a similar story. Research by Demos into misogynistic abuse online found that 6,500 women were targeted by 10,000 aggressive and misogynistic tweets using the words “slut” or “whore” in a three-week period in the UK. The Fawcett Society says women and girls face a “tidal wave of abuse and harassment” every day.

Ok so my husband is a builder and employs people in the trade. I think it would be fair to say they have a few very sexist men amongst their number. Think oglng page three, crude graffiti on walls etc. He would now tell any of them not to call out to passing women from his site. I think some men, mostly younger and some not entirely aware of appropriate boundaries, have in the past called out things that are unwelcome and offensive. Think of your own daughter or younger self. A group of men can be very threatening.
When i was young, i would cross the road rather than walk past a building site. In those days the comments were not as crude as nowadays.On the other hand, a man on his own just saying something nice was lovely.

But in none of these circumstances would they be hate crimes. And actually, now I think about it I would hope a lot more girls would tell any catcallers to back off. Although when I see women still tottering in pain on high heeled shoes I wonder whether much has changed. Chinese women used to bind their feet because men found little feet sexy.

thatbags

In your post, I believe you are having a subtle really not that subtle dig at me to suggest I haven't read the thread, well I have and I stick by my original comment and that is whether people on here believe it or not wolf whistling at women who are just going about their daily business is very much in the majority of cases unwanted sexual attention.

I worked in London when I was 25 and there was building work happening in the building around the corner, every single day I had this from a man. It was awful, it made me take an alternative route to work.

It is not acceptable for men to treat women in this way.

Absolutely thatbags.

There is plenty of crime here in Nottingham. The whole thing is absurd and demeans the idea of hate crimes in general. There are derogatory terms used against women that are hateful and should be illegal. A wolf whistle, however, is nothing of the sort.
This all came about as the result of a 23 year old woman being whistled at. She moved heaven and earth to get the offenders sacked and was no doubt gutted when they got off with a reprimand .

I'm disappointed at some of the attitudes on this thread. Perhaps when it's your granddaughter on the receiving end of the abuse you will think again. When you were younger, a wolf whistle and a cheeky comment could be seen as a compliment. More often than not, these days it is much more than a wolf whistle and if young women now feel unsafe (I have read about this many times), then I am glad something is being done to change that.

ExaltedWombat were you hoping to get a rise with your comment?

@kateg

She wasn't 'gutted' according to the pressrelease, but 'satisfied' it had been handled internally. It wasn't just wolf whistles...

^A 23-year-old digital marketing coordinator has reported a group of builders to the police for sexual harassment. Every morning on her way to work, Poppy Smart faced gestures, disrespectful comments and wolf-whistles – the builders would even come out of the site to whistle as she passed them, and, on one occasion, one of the men deliberately blocked her path. Smart described the behaviour as “incredibly intimidating” and said it had led her to consider changing her route to work.

After a month, she reported the behaviour both to the firm who employed the men and to the police. The police investigated, but dropped the case when Smart was satisfied it had been handled internally.^

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2015/apr/29/wolf-whistling-is-not-the-story-our-reaction-to-sexual-harassment

There is no reason anybody should have to put up with that kind of behaviour.

I wasn't being subtle, k&k. If I had been the very least I would have done is not address you directly. I'm a straightforward kind of person on the whole .

I'm sorry you had to deal with unwanted sexual attention at any time in your life since it was a problem for you. However, I still say that, if it was just wolf-whistling (depends how much as well; an excessive amount might be criminal but if you were just embarassed by it... shrug) I wouldn't necessarily class it as a hate crime.

I think that adults having to deal with/put up with unwanted but mild sexual attention (like being looked at in an appreciative way, and even being whistled at in an appreciative way) by someone of the opposite sex (or the same sex for that matter) is just part of being an adult sexual animal.

Now where did I put my tin hat?

Had a quick look at your link, dd. I remember that case from last year. As the article says, what is mentioned there falls squarely into the category of harassment and there is no reason why anyone should put up with harassment.

I think the only argument on this thread is what counts as harassment and, in particular, what counts as hate crime.

I wish. Used to love a wolf whistle back in the day. PC gone too far again. Most women understand a wolf whistle is just a bit of fun and appreciation that they look good. And the difference between that and harassment or worse. Need to be careful not to emasculate men too much ladies. So they're all too scared to approach us in case we set the law on them. Then we'll all sit back smugly and realise we actually liked 'men being men', appreciated a look up and down and banging on none of them appreciate us anymore.