>I'll just say it's not a compliment if
>it makes you feel bad, harassed, unsafe, and annoyed.


I'm with you on "harassed" and "unsafe". Most of the time I agree with "bad"... but "annoyed"... meh.
Hell, even celebrities get annoyed with "I love your work", just because they can't go outside without
hearing it... doesn't mean it's not a compliment.

That said though, let me be clear that I'm not callous to the fact that some dudes overstep boundaries
by being "persistent". I definitely disagree with harassing anyone.


>The answer isn't to change your regular, every day, ain't
>bothering nobody self cuz you just can't do anything about men
>wanting to talk to you. How hard is it to just leave people
>alone when they look like they want to be left alone? How hard
>is it to just keep it moving if you do say "hello" and don't
>get a response or get one other than what you wanted? Not hard
>at all. But no. Instead of making that small change your
>suggested remedy is for women to work to make themselves less
>attractive.


Let me interject here to reiterate that I don't harass women on the street. Idk, maybe you didn't
read that part.


>Guess what? That doesn't work. so-called
>unattractive women get it. Women in modest clothing (even
>religious clothing) get it.
>You assume that we'd change our tune if we lived in the shoes
>of a less attractive woman for some time. That's so damn
>insulting and dismissive of an actual and valid claim. It's
>illustrative of super-sized serving of privilege.


Naw, it's illustrative of the fact that I know women who don't get that kind of attention and am
friends with women who've lost hella weight and can tell you the drastic difference in the amount
of attention they've received. I ain't just talking shit over here.

Anyway though, I said all that about being less attractive to drive home a point... not as a practical solution.
The main idea of that post is in the first couple of sentences. There are two sides to the coin of how
people respond to you because of your looks. The positive side gets left out in these street-holler
condemnations. A day full of positive interactions can lift your mood as much as a lifetime full of negative
ones can completely change the very person you are. People respond to you, in large part, based on your
physical attractiveness... hence coloring the nature of your interactions.

Now, what can be done about it? I don't ask callously, I ask realistically. Unless it's illegal
to speak to people on the street and the street is heavily patrolled by law enforcement, then we have to
realize that the request to stop speaking relies on good faith, the same as the request to stop downloading
music or movies. People do it because they want to, and they don't care how it hurts the artist... or better
yet they ask for autographs, because they might not see them again, and they don't care how the artist feels
(annoying!).

I have a friend who complains about this ALLLL the time, and initially, I sided completely with
women on this, but I don't wish men would stop speaking to yall, I just wish people wouldn't harass or
make anyone feel uncomfortable... this is an age-old concept though. I want world peace, too.
Let's make it happen.