First let me say, It's been a minute since I've wrote on this blog. Politics had my head in a bad place to the point I wasn't caring about anything. So I've been trying to limit myself on my political intake. Now to the subject of the article.
For years now there's been a debate over whether the rules of social engagement have changed. Naysayers call B.S. and say society is no longer accepting things you wouldn't do in front of your h.r. rep, parents, or pastor. However, what happens when something you would do in front of them is being considered unacceptable?
A video was made to educate people on harrassment and it had some controversy. The subject came up today and that's why I am writing about it. The hollaback video created by film maker Rob Bliss was made to show men and women what harrassment is and and to help men understand what it feels like.
There were a lot of articles on this video. I am looking at Rob's interview with the Christian Science Monitor, titled "catcall video reaction: Is hello on the streets harrassment." And a Huffington post article titled "When did hello become harrassment."
The first thing let's look at what harrassment is, which Rob in his interview quoted Webster's dictionary. "To create an unpleasant situation with uninvited or unwelcome verbal or physical conduct."
Now in Rob Bliss's video which is a two minute clip of a woman getting harrassed 100 times during a 10 hour stroll, she automatically starts off her walk not wanting to be talked to. Thus all communication was considered harrassment. Nobody has anyway of knowing this prior to trying to engage her.
Huffington post listed somethings listed as harrassment that they found to be controversial. There maybe a few that may of been disrespectful but there were some that were head scratching. Let's take a look at that list.
"Hello."
"What's up miss?"
"Have a nice day darling."
"What's up beautiful?"
"What's up girl, how you doing?"
"How you doing today?"
"How you doing...good?"
"Hello, good morning. God bless you, have a good day, alright."
"God bless."
"Hi beautiful."
"Have a good day beautiful."
"Damn."
"Damn girl."
"Hey baby."
"Nice."
"Sweet."
Huffington post agreed that about "65% of the video was harrassment" but even they had issues with some of what was considered harrassment.
Again there were a few huff post listed, mainly the last five that were disrespectful but not all of them. Health professionals tell people to acknowledge strangers because simple acknowledgement can help someone suffering from depression and other mental illnesses. So if saying "hello" or "good morning" is harrassment than mental health professionals are encouraging harrassment.
However, Rob admits he believes simply saying "hello" is harrassment. Rob Bliss says people, men that criticize are "missing the forest for the trees." And that "a single hello is innocent until multiple guys on a block are commenting."
So what Rob is saying is talking to strangers out in public is harrassment, and to assume what ever you're going to say to someone in public they've already been told a hundred times since they left their home that day. And that ignoring everyone is an acceptable way to deal with it. So if someone came up trying to engage you because they had an emergency, whether or not you can tell, ignoring them would be perfectly acceptable because by engaging you, they're harassing you. At least that's what any reasonable person can infer to be the logical message from Mr. Bliss.
I spoke to a Rochester police officer (RNYPD) back in 2004 about what constitutes harrassment because I was curious. The officer told me that "if I walk up to a random person in a bar and ask if I can buy them a drink, that it could be considered harrassment." That "what determines harrassment is if the person wants you talking to them, even if they're there looking to hook up with a stranger. If they decide you're undesirable, they can call harassment on you."
That's always stuck with me because I thought it was messed up, that a basic and extremely common greeting when out trying to date in a pickup environment could be considered harrassment.
Saying hello or good morning is simple common courtesy, it's being polite. There's a saying that chivalry is dead. Why because opening doors, pulling out chairs, or even offering someone the shirt off one's back is considered offensive to some. Now there are people in society attacking being courteous, saying that greeting people is offensive.
I understand that as a society we must evolve and that somethings are no longer acceptable. However, greeting people, being civil, using manners, or being chivalrous should not be considered wrong and unacceptable. These are just a few areas where society has to come together because, who wouldn't say "hello" or "good morning" to a stranger in front of their parent, pastor, or h.r. rep.
A line has to be redefined, somewhere over what's reasonably offensive to society from an individual because how are people supposed to mingle if the line it that narrow. I am an extreme introvert. I barely talk to anyone that I am not required to, and to be honest if this is how society is becoming, there's no point at trying to ever socialize outside of work, every. Better to stay quiet, than to risk it. I don't know, it's just my thought.
Update: I wanted to add this to this article because of how I closed it. I was just on reddit and saw a post about a guy who went on a date. They went back to her place, he said she said no. He stopped, things got awkward and when he left, she called him a weirdo and continued into the next day. While everyone was telling him he did the right thing, someone posted about this study. I checked it and since it's true, I'm sharing.
The national Library of Medicine published C L Muehlenhard et al. J Pers Soc Psychol. study:
"Do women sometimes say no when they mean yes? The prevalence and correlates of women's token resistance to sex."
What the study found was 39.3% of women surveyed said when they say No!, they mean yes and want the guy to continue. That's 2 of every 5 women.
In a world where no is supposed to mean no, these women are sending mixed signals and even vilifying men as weird for not pursuing after they say no. We really need to sit down as a society and talk about rules of engagement and conduct because 40% is a large enough percentage to cause too much of a problem in society. Men have said for years that women play hard to get and get told, they're wrong or lying. This proves that women are sending out mixed signals when it comes to their desire. It's wrong, it's messed up and it can lead to getting people in trouble.
Update January 2022:
this last meme wasn't to say that rape wasn't real, it's to further show education is needed on what defines rape and harrassment. Furthermore that there needs to be civil reform and women have to fully agree that token resistance is bad because 39% is too high a number. And can lead to getting a lot of people in trouble.
There needs to be equal consequence to people who accuse others falsely of rape. With charges being less on the victim if the accused is guilty of harrassment. Harrassment and rape are two very different things. Both maybe done by a sexual predator but a non predator will never do the other.
We must teach future generations to understand that no means no and clear definitions of rape and harrassment. In order to do that we must clearly define them with no gray area and there must be proper punishment for false accusations because of the damage that accusations can do.
Let me tell you, getting falsely accused of harrassment can be damaging as well. And even when the truth comes out, once accused, people always look at you in that light. Innocent to proven guilty goes out the window. You are forever viewed as guilty because of a prior false accusation. That is the type of society we live in. That too must change.
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