On being a woman in public
Today in another thread, a few women shared the relief they felt after they discovered that they became 'invisible' as they aged. (Please note that I am not referring in this post to the way that society in general ignores older women, that's a subject for another discussion). The context of this discussion was about the specific type of attention that your appearance, as an adolescent girl or a woman, attracts from men and boys. This harassment is always insulting. Whether the person doing the harassing intends it to be so, or even whether a subset of women considers such attention tolerable is beside the point. Outside of a very limited set of circumstances, there's really no reason to treat women as if our appearance is public property.
Almost everywhere we look, we are bombarded with the message: for girls and women, looks matter most. From the time we're born, it's the most frequent compliment girls receive. Intended to bolster self-esteem, it's actually just setting the foundation for the skewed sense of importance placed on our appearance. I'm sure I don't need to give examples. You most likely have a few in mind already. Concern with body-image starts for girls in preschool. Before we even enter adolescence, we've already learned that girls must be thin. Younger and younger girls worry about their weight and diet, and while a good diet is good for everyone, restricting calories at a young age out of anxiety over our appearance and in the absence of any actual threat to good health is simply unhealthy in every way.
Sexual harassment usually starts in elementary school. Over the next few years we almost all experience such treatment to some degree or another, from strangers, peers, teachers, and later co-workers. Most of us will alter our behavior or the way we dress to some extent or another, in order to avoid certain comments or other forms of attention.
This attention can be mild (smile!) or extremely aggressive (see link below), but the reason men treat women this way is because they're seeing the same messages girls are, but from the other perspective. Instead of getting the message that they are meant to be appraised, judged, and scored based on their looks -- the message for boys is that they are meant to treat women in this way. It's the subject of 'jokes' that most everyone laughs at. It's fodder for countless music videos and tv-shows. Until the past few decades, it was hardly questioned at all. It is a form of oppression, but extremely few recognize it as such.
At least in some situations, it has become legally actionable. At work, for instance. Thanks to the pioneering work done by Catharine MacKinnon, women have legal recourse for being sexually harassed at work. On the street of course, it's a different story. Campaigns to raise awareness of the oppressive nature of this behavior have started to become more popular, so things seem to be just starting to change on that front. The backlash, however, is impressive.
It was good to see women speaking of how much more relaxed they were feeling, as a result of this new invisibility... as a result of no longer being subjected to that particular form of appraisal, judgment, etc. It was painful to think about the opposite end of that experience. The first few times, as a girl, that you notice the weight of that attention. The first time it's overt, and aggressive, and obviously sexual in nature. The way those experiences change you. The way you stop thinking it's shocking and horrifying and depressing, and start accepting this, one of the many facets of 'normal life' in the patriarchy.
And now for the examples I mentioned above. This was posted, coincidentally, just a few hours before I saw the heartwarming comments from women commenting on their newfound relaxed attitude with respect to their appearance. It was shared in a discussion which took place after a woman posted about her 14-year-old daughter's first experience with street harassment.
Trigger warning, graphic language warning: http://rookiemag.com/2012/05/it-happens-all-the-time/
And again, I will restate this emphatically so as to avoid at least some of the whataboutery: Yes, there are exceptions, of course, as in most everything else. Some women may enjoy it, and some situations may involve prior consent for whatever reason, etc. But we are not discussing the tiny minority of possible examples in which it could be considered as acceptable to treat women and girls as if the mere fact that they're outdoors in public being a woman or a girl somehow makes them fair game for such treatment. However many women you can find who don't mind, they don't provide any boy or man with a 'get out of harassment free' card. If you don't *unquestionably* know with a very comfortable degree of certainty that in your particular, isolated case, it is welcomed by the woman you're showering with such forms of attention: stop doing it.
= new reply since forum marked as read
messaging that translates to "I want to fuck you" is a compliment.
'Cause that's what we're here for, dontcha know. 
for those totally sarcasm deficient, I feel I must include this tag:
never know what someone might alert on, and how a jury might rule.
but equally insulting and oppressive things.
I'm sure most of us are all too familiar with that creepy feeling that comes from men who don't care whether or not their behavior is appropriate.
This was made absolutely crystal clear last year when Rebecca Watson was slammed mercilessly for daring to suggest that men not proposition women who are practically total strangers alone in elevators in the small hours of the morning.
If I had a dollar for every time a man assumed that I would for whatever reason welcome his comments on my appearance, his ideas about what I should allow him to do for me, or even just that creepy, lingering smile and googly-eyed look they give you (shudder) ... I could buy a used car. 
Seriously though, perhaps it's these direct and unflinching accounts of male behavior that get me labeled a 'man-hater'... it's a pity that more people aren't aware that the real problem is that most women bend over backwards to be nice, especially here. Most to so far out of their way to be fair that we end up with the same situation we have in the media, where journalists feel somehow obligated to present both sides of a debate as if they're equally valid.
And the result is the same, too. Except in this context the consequence isn't a bunch of morons thinking climate change or evolution is all a big lie... in this context the consequence is the denial of the effects of objectification, prostitution, pornography, etc.
Sorry, ranting again.
One more thing though: It's important to remember that many men DO know this behavior is inappropriate and oppressive. Many men see it for exactly what it is. Those men are certainly not affected by these kinds of critiques, nor would they confuse such comments with 'misandry'... in order to do that you'd have to think such horrid, entitled behavior was somehow an inherent part of being a man.
