We have to do better than this. I have to do better than this. I can think of multiple examples of men harassing or catcalling women, but rarely have I intervened to say something.
I’d like to ask, would speaking up and intervening be an appreciated behavior? When I envision this scenario, I see this as likely to incite further discomfort, for “white knighting.” I’d like to know what sort of responses people who’ve been subject to catcalling would like to see from other men who happen to be present.
According to no authority, here is what I think is the standard protocol. If you know the offender, you pull their strings a bit—if they care how they appear to the people who they know, say it makes you want to avoid being seen with them, if they care about being high-class, say it’s low-class, if they regularly care about strangers as people, use an ethical argument, if they care about being hard-working, say they’re damaging the image of the company, etc.
If you don’t know the offender you can’t be so nuanced or even very friendly, but eggs, omelette, yadda yadda. If you or they are passing by with limited potential for escalation, feel free to insult their choice creatively. If it’s a “sharing the elevator” kind of situation, you’re going to have to put on your big boy britches (relative to the insults) and tell them politely that they’re being incredibly uncool.
I’d like to ask, would speaking up and intervening be an appreciated behavior? When I envision this scenario, I see this as likely to incite further discomfort, for “white knighting.”
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Knowing this, forget about the “appreciated behavior” and simply do what you believe is the right thing.
It’s not the criticism I care about so much as the feelings that incite it.
I don’t expect it to affect the catcaller’s behavior much, because the rate of negative reinforcement relative to the frequency with which they engage in the behavior is so low (not counting that which they receive from the women they do it to, which obviously hasn’t stopped them so far.) I think that explaining to them why the behavior is rude and hurtful is less likely to make them reevaluate their actions than it is to make them think “Some dick got all up on my case today.” If it doesn’t make the woman feel less like all the men in the world are aligned against her, and just reinforces that feeling, then I wouldn’t want to bother.
When I was in high school there was a guy who was in the habit of catcalling who moved in to our school. It wasn’t typical behavior in our peer group. When he called at a women from the car, or similar, people would react with laughter and a derisive “what the fuck are you doing Louis?”. He stopped quickly enough.
You might not be able to implement that if you are in the minority, but I could imagine it working.
It depends substantially on the cat-callers’ motivation. If he thought the behavior was high status, how should others indicate the behavior is low status?
As you say, some proportion of cat-callers will code your intervention as low status and therefore not worth listening to. But some people really don’t have a good sense of what the appropriate behavior is, and it is hard to classify three distinction with only behavioral data.
Now what about the other parts? Are there any other reasons to either speak up or not speak up, besides avoiding someone’s critique?
I try to helplessly flail in the general direction of that empirical cluster in another post, but in general I would advise that if you value other people’s long term emotional well-being, my best guess says you really should use a strategy of speaking up rather than not, wherever not disproportionately dangerous.
Helping people is a complicated matter, and I don’t think it’s just a male-female issue.
If someone is extremely conflict-averse, then the offer of help might be unwelcome because it’s likely to lead to more conflict in the short run.
Needing to be helped can be seen as having one’s status lowered even further than it was lowered by the initial attack/insult.
And on the other hand, sometimes help works. Sometimes it’s welcome. Sometimes the lack of offers of help is seen as a betrayal.
I don’t have general principles for telling when help is welcome, though asking the person whether they want help isn’t a bad idea if it’s a slow-moving situation. I also suspect that there are subtleties of body language which affect whether help will be welcomed.
I’d like to ask, would speaking up and intervening be an appreciated behavior? When I envision this scenario, I see this as likely to incite further discomfort, for “white knighting.”
If taking action expected to reduce future instances of catcalling is negatively received, doesn’t that seem quite irrational and counter to feminist long-term goals? Is the social-expectation impact of “white-knighting” higher than the impact of letting catcalling go on? (“Ah, women need a man to defend them from catcalling, they’re helpless on their own.”, or maybe “It’s alright to catcall as long as some other men aren’t present—it’s a social status thing of men”)
I think this also sidesteps a ton of other considerations: Some women (edit: “people” would be more appropriate and representative, but within context we’re talking about helping women who are being catcalled) have grown up all along as merely victims of various forms of various kinds of abuse and sexism, of which this is sometimes among the lesser ones. If no boys or men have ever stood up for them, and all girls they knew were also victims, what is the default model of the world these women will have, if the subconscious and instincts are left to their own devices? How are they going to feel, in this cruel, unchangeable, hopeless world in which they are helpless and everything they suffer is supposedly their own fault because they “tempt” the males?
I think the long term emotional impact of never having anyone help is far greater than the momentary impact she might feel from being white-knighted and the one the man might feel from the reaction. How true this is also depends on many other factors.
Society (social interactions) is needlessly horrible and complicated. By default.
Responses that directly refer to your desire to see the women as a person, as opposed to objectifying her through catcalls etc. or putting her on a pedestal because of her gender.
Therefore, responses that don’t work are motivated out of a desire to protect the woman because she is a woman, rather than because she is a person. “That’s a rude thing to say to a woman” is therefore worse than a simple “that’s rude”.
The idea of “white knighting” is distasteful because people consider white knights to be motivated to protect women because they are women. Removing that aspect gets rid of the white knighting.
If anyone still thinks you’re motivated by a desire to protect women because they are women, you could retort with, “she’s a person. She has feelings like anyone else.”
The idea of “white knighting” is distasteful because people consider white knights to be motivated to protect women because they are women. Removing that aspect gets rid of the white knighting.
Ideally yes, but not necessarily in practice. I’ve been accused of white knighting before for engaging in behaviors that I not only would, but had, engaged in on behalf of men (exclusively in such cases, in fact, since I don’t do much for women that I don’t also do for men.)
Of course, people can only read observed behaviors, not intents or past actions, but I was hoping to get a wider response to my question, in the form of “this is the sort of response I would like to see,” more than “responses motivated in this way are better than responses motivated in this other way.” The example that you provided helps, but it’s not always easy for a person to tell how their actions would appear to be motivated from the outside. It’s not something I would personally be likely to say, but I can easily see someone responding with “that’s a rude thing to say to a woman” simply because the thing they’re responding to is rude to say to a woman, whereas to say it to a man would simply be bizarre
From the linked article
I’d like to ask, would speaking up and intervening be an appreciated behavior? When I envision this scenario, I see this as likely to incite further discomfort, for “white knighting.” I’d like to know what sort of responses people who’ve been subject to catcalling would like to see from other men who happen to be present.
Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette.
According to no authority, here is what I think is the standard protocol. If you know the offender, you pull their strings a bit—if they care how they appear to the people who they know, say it makes you want to avoid being seen with them, if they care about being high-class, say it’s low-class, if they regularly care about strangers as people, use an ethical argument, if they care about being hard-working, say they’re damaging the image of the company, etc.
If you don’t know the offender you can’t be so nuanced or even very friendly, but eggs, omelette, yadda yadda. If you or they are passing by with limited potential for escalation, feel free to insult their choice creatively. If it’s a “sharing the elevator” kind of situation, you’re going to have to put on your big boy britches (relative to the insults) and tell them politely that they’re being incredibly uncool.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Knowing this, forget about the “appreciated behavior” and simply do what you believe is the right thing.
Well, as a utilitarian my idea of the right thing depends on what I expect the results to be.
One part of the result will be someone criticizing you, either for speaking up, or for not speaking up. You already know this.
Now what about the other parts? Are there any other reasons to either speak up or not speak up, besides avoiding someone’s critique?
(Possibly related.)
It’s not the criticism I care about so much as the feelings that incite it.
I don’t expect it to affect the catcaller’s behavior much, because the rate of negative reinforcement relative to the frequency with which they engage in the behavior is so low (not counting that which they receive from the women they do it to, which obviously hasn’t stopped them so far.) I think that explaining to them why the behavior is rude and hurtful is less likely to make them reevaluate their actions than it is to make them think “Some dick got all up on my case today.” If it doesn’t make the woman feel less like all the men in the world are aligned against her, and just reinforces that feeling, then I wouldn’t want to bother.
When I was in high school there was a guy who was in the habit of catcalling who moved in to our school. It wasn’t typical behavior in our peer group. When he called at a women from the car, or similar, people would react with laughter and a derisive “what the fuck are you doing Louis?”. He stopped quickly enough.
You might not be able to implement that if you are in the minority, but I could imagine it working.
It depends substantially on the cat-callers’ motivation. If he thought the behavior was high status, how should others indicate the behavior is low status?
As you say, some proportion of cat-callers will code your intervention as low status and therefore not worth listening to. But some people really don’t have a good sense of what the appropriate behavior is, and it is hard to classify three distinction with only behavioral data.
I try to helplessly flail in the general direction of that empirical cluster in another post, but in general I would advise that if you value other people’s long term emotional well-being, my best guess says you really should use a strategy of speaking up rather than not, wherever not disproportionately dangerous.
Helping people is a complicated matter, and I don’t think it’s just a male-female issue.
If someone is extremely conflict-averse, then the offer of help might be unwelcome because it’s likely to lead to more conflict in the short run.
Needing to be helped can be seen as having one’s status lowered even further than it was lowered by the initial attack/insult.
And on the other hand, sometimes help works. Sometimes it’s welcome. Sometimes the lack of offers of help is seen as a betrayal.
I don’t have general principles for telling when help is welcome, though asking the person whether they want help isn’t a bad idea if it’s a slow-moving situation. I also suspect that there are subtleties of body language which affect whether help will be welcomed.
If taking action expected to reduce future instances of catcalling is negatively received, doesn’t that seem quite irrational and counter to feminist long-term goals? Is the social-expectation impact of “white-knighting” higher than the impact of letting catcalling go on? (“Ah, women need a man to defend them from catcalling, they’re helpless on their own.”, or maybe “It’s alright to catcall as long as some other men aren’t present—it’s a social status thing of men”)
I think this also sidesteps a ton of other considerations: Some women (edit: “people” would be more appropriate and representative, but within context we’re talking about helping women who are being catcalled) have grown up all along as merely victims of various forms of various kinds of abuse and sexism, of which this is sometimes among the lesser ones. If no boys or men have ever stood up for them, and all girls they knew were also victims, what is the default model of the world these women will have, if the subconscious and instincts are left to their own devices? How are they going to feel, in this cruel, unchangeable, hopeless world in which they are helpless and everything they suffer is supposedly their own fault because they “tempt” the males?
I think the long term emotional impact of never having anyone help is far greater than the momentary impact she might feel from being white-knighted and the one the man might feel from the reaction. How true this is also depends on many other factors.
Society (social interactions) is needlessly horrible and complicated. By default.
Responses that directly refer to your desire to see the women as a person, as opposed to objectifying her through catcalls etc. or putting her on a pedestal because of her gender.
Therefore, responses that don’t work are motivated out of a desire to protect the woman because she is a woman, rather than because she is a person. “That’s a rude thing to say to a woman” is therefore worse than a simple “that’s rude”.
The idea of “white knighting” is distasteful because people consider white knights to be motivated to protect women because they are women. Removing that aspect gets rid of the white knighting.
If anyone still thinks you’re motivated by a desire to protect women because they are women, you could retort with, “she’s a person. She has feelings like anyone else.”
Ideally yes, but not necessarily in practice. I’ve been accused of white knighting before for engaging in behaviors that I not only would, but had, engaged in on behalf of men (exclusively in such cases, in fact, since I don’t do much for women that I don’t also do for men.)
Of course, people can only read observed behaviors, not intents or past actions, but I was hoping to get a wider response to my question, in the form of “this is the sort of response I would like to see,” more than “responses motivated in this way are better than responses motivated in this other way.” The example that you provided helps, but it’s not always easy for a person to tell how their actions would appear to be motivated from the outside. It’s not something I would personally be likely to say, but I can easily see someone responding with “that’s a rude thing to say to a woman” simply because the thing they’re responding to is rude to say to a woman, whereas to say it to a man would simply be bizarre