I would also expect some women complaining that men don’t distinguish between women who wear red bracelets because they are open to being hit on, and women who just want to wear red bracelets without getting that kind of attention. And then we would have campaigns telling men that it’s creepy to treat women with red bracelets differently.
More generally—sometimes signals are confusing because some people want them to be confusing. They want to eat their cake and have a plausible deniability about eating their cake, too. These people could be in a minority, but they will ruin the signals for the rest of the population.
I would also expect some women complaining that men don’t distinguish between women who wear red bracelets because they are open to being hit on, and women who just want to wear red bracelets without getting that kind of attention. And then we would have campaigns telling men that it’s creepy to treat women with red bracelets differently.
More generally—sometimes signals are confusing because some people want them to be confusing. They want to eat their cake and have a plausible deniability about eating their cake, too. These people could be in a minority, but they will ruin the signals for the rest of the population.
EDIT: Oops, this was already said here.