Whatever happened to Equality?
Salacious whistles and sexist comments may fall foul of new laws against sexual harassment to which Britain is signing up, the prime minister will announce on Thursday.
The pledge to criminalise “verbal, non-verbal or physical” sexual harassment is one of the commitments in the Council of Europe’s convention on violence against women, which David Cameron will commit to signing at a special event to mark International Women’s Day.
Does that mean I can still wolf whistle at beautiful young men?
Does that mean that gay men can still whistle at each other?
Does it mean I have heard the last wolf whistle in my direction in my lifetime?
How depressing.
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March 9, 2012 at 00:30 -
Abuse of women is wrong. So is abuse of men.
The State determining what I think or how I act likewise…
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March 8, 2012 at 23:01 -
I was going to say something about whistling in the wind, but I think this is more a case of p*ssing into the wind.
Seriously though, it reminded me of a comment by a Canadian who visited Germany in the 1980′s and said of the DDR “It was so drab. Everything was functional and utilitarian. There were no flowers or trees, like there were in West Germany”
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March 9, 2012 at 11:28 -
USSR – The Soviet Union was a single-party state ruled by the Communist Party from its foundation until 1990. A federal union of 15 subnational Soviet republics, the Soviet state was structured under a highly-centralized government and economy.
EUSR – The European Union was a state ruled by unelected bureaucrats from its foundation. .A federal union of 27 subnational republics, the EU state was structured under a highly-centralized government and economy.
Of course you see a similarity with East Germany. The USSR just moved West.
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March 8, 2012 at 22:31 -
Can you eventually plead that you didn’t know she was a female.
After all with many female lawmakers it would be difficult to be sure.
Oh and stop women wearing lipstick as it is sexist.
Really though is whistling still done? When I was a lad most everybody was a skilled siffleur. Especially errand boys. -
March 8, 2012 at 21:42 -
I would love to live in a world of equality of the sexes but until then I shall continue to struggle for survival in my female oppressed existence.
We are not the same but have equal importance and should be respected equally. No man should ever intentionally make a women feel threatened as we are physically bigger and stronger but to legislate such a complex social interaction seems doomed to failure and misuse.
How does one determine in Law what constitutes Verbal Harrassment of a women? Begging a partner to come back after a split? Singing outside her window like the romantics of old? Asking her out on a date while at work?
The offence in such a scenario is manifested in the response of the woman. When Brad Pitt types accoust you at the watercooler it is “Welcome”. When the fat spotty bloke attempts to find love in the same manner it is creepy and could be deemed “Harrassment”.
If you want to stop Abuse of women. Teach your daughters self respect. Teach them to expect to be treated well. Teach them that a mans words and actions should be in sync. Too many women accept weasel words from abusive men and make excuses for them.
I took the extra step in instructing my daughters in self defence. They punch straight, kick hard and understand how to use the larger persons centre of gravity to throw. They know that in desperate situations they should break weak points in fingers, jabs eyes, throats and nerve centres as well as the classic nut cracker.
My 8year old recently neutralised a much bigger boy who decided to grab her round the neck. He cried for half an hour she informed me. She will never hit first but always hit back.
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March 9, 2012 at 11:05 -
Good for her!
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March 11, 2012 at 18:22 -
That’s great to hear. My future children will also be taught this way. Nothing would make me more proud than my daughter(s) being able to defend themselves.
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March 8, 2012 at 19:48 -
When I was much younger and slimmer than I am now (still got all my hair and teeth) I had to pass a couple of cotton mills on my way home from work, just as a shift of mill girls were coming out. Now anyone familar with Lancashire mill girls will know they can be quite intimitading, especially for a bloke in a suit (even if he was an amateur boxer).
But the wolf whistles and vulgar suggestions called out to me were quite flattering … and fun.
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March 8, 2012 at 19:54 -
And it’s obvious if someone is happy with the attention or not. If the women’s intentions were to have a laugh and a harmless flirt and you looked annoyed, they would shrug, think you a prude and stop. If their intentions were to bully they would up the ante. The implicit assumption is that only men harrass or bully. Rubbish – women are just as capable of it. So if they are going to go ahead with this half-baked nonsense I hope they intend for it to apply equally to women.
Grrrrr – this stuff just annoys the hell out of me. And I’m a bloody feminist.
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March 8, 2012 at 20:26 -
An old colleague of mine served his time with the millwrights in just such an establishment (Macclesfield in his case). Some of the tales he told about what lasses would get up to were quite startling. Several apprentices had their educations broadened in more ways than one in that mill.
He did say that on Chistmas Eve, you had your tools packed up and away by noon sharp. Young lads had been found tied to columns with their trousers round their ankles and their equipment well greased.
Harrassment? They’re amateurs these days, I tell you.
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March 8, 2012 at 20:39 -
Another extension to that, popular in the woollen mills of Yorkshire, was to place the neck of a milk-bottle over the young victim’s appendage, then the lasses would ‘arouse’ him – brings tears to the eyes just thinking about it…….
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March 8, 2012 at 19:45 -
oh FFS!!!! This sort of thing raises my blood pressure faster than the Today programme.
There is a BIG difference – a canyon, a gulf, and entire bloody continent – between a wolf whistle of appreciation and a wolf whistle of harrassment. The intention of one is to make someone else feel good, the intention of the other is to make oneself feel good at the expense of someone else. Sexual harrassment is about power. It is bullying pure and simple. If the person doing the harassing couldn’t use the gender of the harassee against them it would be something else: their accent, where they lived, their clothes, the colour of their skin. There are already laws to deal with this. Start by enforcing those and then see if anything else is needed.
Who the hell wolf whistles anyway these days? Its passe even for builders. Or is that just me? Whoops! -
March 8, 2012 at 19:39 -
Oh no, not the joyless, soulless PC brigade “at it” again! C’mon, lock me up, ‘cos of what I’m thinking (& I can’t whistle or I might do, so that must be a thought crime).
I think it’s reasonable to say that over 10,000s of years Natural Selection has favoured those women’s bodies which are the most attractive to men – the fittest in every sense of the word. It’s also favoured men for hunter-gatherer & alpha-male characteristics, etc. So why are these humourless Council of Europe oafs trying to go against the natural order of things? What they consider to be sexist behaviour is hard-wired into all of us animals. -
March 8, 2012 at 19:35 -
Can it be much longer before this is added to the water ?
For our own good of course…
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March 8, 2012 at 18:29 -
At school our games master was an ex-army P.E. instructor. We always felt we were constantly under observation and I can’t recall him ever smiling.
Once he lined us all up and told that when you leave the army they never give you a clean record rather it read something like “seven years of undetected crime”. I think this is how our politicians think about us all.
Wouldn’t it be nice if they started to trust us and started to clear out the overloaded statute book. At the moment they seem to have a Canute-like attitude to law making; make it a crime and somehow it will stop. Labour, Lib-Dems, Conservatives, joyless marxists the lot of them!
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March 8, 2012 at 18:26 -
May I respectfully request that Her Majesty’s Government publish a list of things that are not banned? It might be quicker than listing the things that are….
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March 8, 2012 at 19:10 -
It puts a whole new dimension on saying “You look smart in that new suit today”.
A woman could assuming its some kind of sexual innuendo, as could a gay guy. A straight guy might assume I’m gay and coming on to him, again sexual harassment.
About the only thing safe to do these days is to stay indoors and talk to my cat.
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March 8, 2012 at 20:32 -
Sorry, Alan, old boy — no pussy either, I’m afraid.
ΠΞ
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March 8, 2012 at 18:22 -
What a very PC subject for “International Womens’ Day”
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March 8, 2012 at 17:51 -
I used to work at a place where every passing woman below the age of 40 was routinely whistled at by the men working in the loading bay beneath the offices. Now, if these lads don’t mind their manners soon the bobbies will be round every five minutes. In fact, the police could set up shop in a portakabin at the place and cut out the travel time.
Of course, while this is reassuring for all the females going about their business, it is also oddly encouraging for the criminals who know the police are otherwise occupied.
Perhaps we can expect more police officers employed to deal with this as well as the usual stuff?
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March 8, 2012 at 17:48 -
It’s shit like this that makes us look petty.
What about doing more to sort out equal pay and things that really matter?
If a bloke wolf-whistled at me it would make my day
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March 8, 2012 at 19:11 -
Consider your day, duly made!
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March 8, 2012 at 19:44 -
Thank you kind sir!
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March 8, 2012 at 17:41 -
“Does it mean I have heard the last wolf whistle in my direction in my lifetime?”
Not if you wear a placard saying “I shall not file a complain to the police about whistling” and/or wander around areas that the police do not frequent. Or you could take a holiday in Florida in a bikini … -
March 8, 2012 at 16:56 -
Not to worry they will soon legislate that Political Correctness has now replaced the Holy Bible. Let’s face it their righteousness far out strips that of the first century Pharisees. A generation of vipers anyone – hypocrites possibly?
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March 8, 2012 at 16:48 -
Well for me, a lady’s cerebral output is the sexiest thing about her, so the law be damned Miss Raccoon……
whew…………..
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