Before the "10 Hours" video -- Street Harrassment caught on camera

[chowder66]

15. They don't know us and act as if they do.

I was raised to never talk to strangers and I have always gone against that when I deem a situation to be harmless, sometimes to my own detriment.

This is only my opinion based on years of experience beginning when I was a pre-teen;

Women and girls learn and come to know the difference between catcalls and genuine greetings.
Opening ourselves up to what may seem like an honest greeting when we sense that it is not... validates these men to use their "greetings" and potentially leads them t assume that they are welcome to insert themselves into womens' lives (as though it's their right).

They do NOT know us and as you can see in many cases if you (the woman) are busy or not feeling "friendly enough" for them they continue to make statements to make us uncomfortable because "they" feel slighted. Funny how it's all about the mans greeting and the mans feelings if not responded to.

Good Morning, Hello, etc is fine in most respects if that person isn't lingering, or saying it with what feels like a completely unknown reason (getting no eye contact from the woman or the woman is lost in thought and not at all filtering in the "catcalling man" before he starts to beckon).

If there is interaction of any kind between two people (again, eye contact is typically a good start, smile or acknowledgement) then all sorts of greetings and good wishes are welcome and occur multiple times a day.

When these guys do it to 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 year old girls, does that really sound okay, would you be okay as a father knowing that your 11 year old daughter and her friend/friends were walking home from school or from a friends house and grown men were trying to insert themselves in their lives, acting as if they knew them? Hell I'm pretty sure dads would be pretty damn pissed if it was teenage boys doing this to their daughters let alone grown men. Do they really sound so honestly interested in your "day"?

It starts early and we develop a sense of what is dangerous, uncomfortable, honest or just plain old annoying. It's one aspect of "street-smarts".

We do not have an obligation to reciprocate if we are unsure or sure of anyones intentions. No one does, not even you. And if someone does not like it then they need to self-explore and figure that out for themselves. I urge anyone who is not good with rejection to work on it because once you have figured it out it's as if a whole new world has opened up. But that doesn't mean it still doesn't sting, it just doesn't sting for long.

I will give you this though; Because it is so common for women to deal with catcalls.... there are going to be times that we may actually "snub/ignore/miss" a genuine greeting and most likely we are going to know this a bit later in that day and feel shitty about it for a while. We may miss it completely and never reflect on it but this is not what our lives are lived for.
We've been conditioned to make our "being" uninviting (no eye contact/no responsiveness) when doing the most mundane things like walking somewhere. It happens, we miss a genuine greeting, and it's because more than a few rotten apples have spoiled the whole barrel and we do NOT expect men to get this. We just take it on ourselves. So to those men who we have ignored when you were genuinely greeting us, sorry. It's not you, it's many of your brothers that we encounter..... and a woman's self-protection mechanism.