I’m just not sure what you think their motivation in this is, if not some sort of instinctual male delight in humiliating women.
No offense, here, I’m genuinely asking. I’m sure it’s unpleasant to suffer this sort of BS, and I certainly don’t condone it. I just doubt the perpetrators are actually motivated by your discomfort.
I don’t know about instinctual male delight. But yes, some people do like to make others suffer, probably because it makes them feel powerful and in control. Catcalling is just a male way of doing that. I’m shy and timid, and used to be even more so back when I was in school, and there I was more often bothered by the girls, who used to surround me and say nasty hurtful things about/to me (that I fortunately don’t remember).
Oh, I see. Sorry, it’s just that such assumptions about men are relatively common in our society, and can actually be more common in otherwise progressive communities.
While, again, I can’t claim to direct knowledge of these people’s motivations, have you considered that they may have been motivated by status concerns rather than pure evil? Not that such motivations are impossible, of course, it just seems unlikely that all such actions are rooted in pure schadenfreude.
… but that’s a rather different explanation to “some people do like to make others suffer [...] Catcalling is just a male way of doing that”, isn’t it?
The situation is complicated by the fact that a lot of women try to ignore being catcalled. I have no idea whether men who catcall believe they’re being
I’m just not sure what you think their motivation in this is, if not some sort of instinctual male delight in humiliating women.
No offense, here, I’m genuinely asking. I’m sure it’s unpleasant to suffer this sort of BS, and I certainly don’t condone it. I just doubt the perpetrators are actually motivated by your discomfort.
I’m not sure that it’s instinctual—the amount of catcalling has a lot of local variation.
Well, yes. I’m arguing against that.
I don’t know about instinctual male delight. But yes, some people do like to make others suffer, probably because it makes them feel powerful and in control. Catcalling is just a male way of doing that. I’m shy and timid, and used to be even more so back when I was in school, and there I was more often bothered by the girls, who used to surround me and say nasty hurtful things about/to me (that I fortunately don’t remember).
Oh, I see. Sorry, it’s just that such assumptions about men are relatively common in our society, and can actually be more common in otherwise progressive communities.
While, again, I can’t claim to direct knowledge of these people’s motivations, have you considered that they may have been motivated by status concerns rather than pure evil? Not that such motivations are impossible, of course, it just seems unlikely that all such actions are rooted in pure schadenfreude.
One way of increasing one’s (felt?) status is by proving that one can get away with making other people feel bad.
Good point.
… but that’s a rather different explanation to “some people do like to make others suffer [...] Catcalling is just a male way of doing that”, isn’t it?
Yes, I think you are right, it probably is more about status.
The situation is complicated by the fact that a lot of women try to ignore being catcalled. I have no idea whether men who catcall believe they’re being