The Sunday Post: Give a Little Whistle
Many associate the beginning of spring with the first call of the first cuckoo. I myself use a less bucolic method. For me, the season has officially arrived when I receive my first abuse from a passing vehicle, and spring came to my wintry landscape with the year’s most sustained bout of sunshine so far a couple of weeks ago. The abuse can vary from that traditional old chestnut – ‘Get yer ‘air cut!’ – to the relatively recent, but increasingly popular – ‘Weirdo!’
For those of you who have never met me or have yet to come across the odd post in which a snapshot from Petunia’s family album has been excavated, let us just say Phil Mitchell is not my visual role model – more a bit of Bowie with a bit of Wilde (Oscar, not Marty) and a little bit of Faces-era Rod. I’ve endured numerous forms of abuse from strangers since my adolescence, usually of the verbal variety, though there has been the odd occasion when I’ve been spat at from the window of a van as well as had the odd inanimate object hurled in my direction. Not that I would ever do such a thing, but were I to tweet an image of a parked white van it wouldn’t be to sneer at the ‘lower orders’; it’d be more of a helpful guide as to the kind of transport driven by the men that give me the most grief when out and about. Equally, casual appliance of the word ‘Chav’ in my case is a legitimate counter-insult rather than a middle-class put-down, as Mr Chav and I occupy roughly the same social demographic, unlike broadsheet working-class heroes who have patronisingly adopted it as a badge of solidarity with the kind of guys they haven’t lived next door to for the best part of thirty years.
I am not a lifter of shirts and I have no friends by the name of Dorothy, yet virtually all of my closest companions over the past twenty years have been women – only a tiny percentage of whom I have shared a bed with. A lot of men go through life without ever experiencing a platonic relationship with a member of the opposite sex that they’re not immediately related to; every close contact with a non-family woman tends to be sexually based, hence they often only ever see women in that particular context. Since my twenties, I’ve always easily bonded with women, possibly because there are certain things we’ve shared that many men don’t share with them, such as receiving uncomplimentary comments from strangers, ones related solely to appearance.
Some of the abuse I’ve had has been born of confusion; prior to my acquisition of Victorian whiskers, I was often mistaken for a girl – something I actually took as a compliment, always regarding myself as a bit of an Elephant Man re my physiognomy. A wolf-whistle would be the first instinctive reaction of the motorist fuelled by testosterone, and the second his error dawned the sudden shadow hanging over his masculinity would provoke a Tourette’s-like reversal of the favourable opinion previously expressed. It’s not nice, and I have to admit it can deflate your spirits a little; but I’ve no desire to have my experience recognised as an official ‘hate crime’. I accept there are a lot of wankers out there who resent the fact that I’m happier standing out from the crowd than blending into it when they lack the bottle to do so. And you do need bottle to put up with this shit year after year; but I am what I am and that’s that. The rough comes with the smooth and that’s the way of the world.
Therefore, when I hear of some ludicrous attempts to make the wolf-whistle a criminal offence because one case of persistent harrassment has been picked up by the incurable campaigners, I cannot help being cynical. And I come to this conclusion from an angle that a lot of men wouldn’t, so this is not a misogynist diatribe at all. My female friends are all gutsy broads – and they wouldn’t take that description as an insult; they apply it to themselves. Their reading habits cover more than fashion and food; they talk about topics other than shoes, clothes, cosmetics and babies; in fact, they cannot abide women who talk about nothing else. They are a long way from shrinking violets. Think Janis Joplin rather than Katie Melua. One of my female friends recently attended a hen weekend with a bunch of ‘girly’ types (not her types at all) and said it was one of the most tedious experiences of her life; she says that a bunch of women in a room together need an injection of male company to liven things up. Otherwise, the conversations are as dull as an after-dinner speech by Michael Fallon. At one point, she told me the C-word slipped out of her potty mouth and tumbleweed blew past; the fact that it did vindicated her stance.
Intelligent, sexy, witty women who laugh at ‘Carry On’ movies and abhor the Disney Princess as much as they do the serial litigators are, I suspect, greater in number than those who try to persuade each other (and the rest of society) that theirs is the true voice of the sisterhood. My female friends would call themselves feminists, but so twisted and mangled has that word become over the past ten years that it has lost the context they and I would use it in; in terms of equality, there’s no question we’re on the same level. It’s not even an issue. And should some stranger grab a piece of their anatomy, he’d be taking outrageous liberties and would be deserving of a slap – and, believe me, they’d lay him flat-out. But they would leave it at that, dispensing rough justice and not involving the legal profession. And if a wolf-whistle is rape, then I’ve been buggered more times than I’ve buggered.
There was recently a video that appeared online in which a hidden camera trailed a po-faced martyr walking down a street in New York, one who took silent offence at every comment she received on her journey. If all the comments had been vulgar and obscene, fair enough; but the majority were complimentary or merely wishing her good morning. Not that she regarded them as such; she was too busy playing the victim. It looked like a really cheap and dispiriting version of the promo for the Verve’s ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ and was a narcissistic exercise in humourless propaganda. By contrast, a couple of weeks back, one of my female friends was wearing a short skirt in a supermarket and the guy on the check-out told her she had a lovely pair of legs. When she recounted this to me, the pleasure she derived from a well-meaning compliment was evident on her countenance. She didn’t tell me the tale as though she was recalling being sexually abused by an uncle as a six-year-old.
At what point does sexism become empowerment? If a woman bares her breasts for a charity campaign online, how is she any different from a page 3 girl? The motivation may differ, but the end result is identical. A man who simply wants to look at a pair of tits won’t care that one photograph is paying the rent and the other is raising money for breast cancer. Anyone who knows ‘The IT Crowd’ will remember when laddish layabout Roy was poised to shoot a nude charity calendar of sexy young office girls and his female colleague Jen declared it to be ‘sexist’; when told by her boss that her job was on the line should the calendar not sell, she changed tack and told Roy such a calendar would actually be ‘empowering’. Fair-weather feminism indeed.
I have heard many times in the last few years that not all the female battles have been won. If the battles that remain are based around bloody wolf-whistles, then I think the battles have been won, and what we’re seeing now is an attempt to make the irrelevant and innocuous important because there’s nothing left to fight for. You, so-called social media feminists, are stuck with the crumbs leftover from the feast that was held before you were born. You missed being crushed by the king’s horse and burning your bra – tough; I missed Swinging London and the Regency. Get over it and grow up. You’re making your sex a laughing-stock, and the loudest laughs are emanating from your older sisters, my kind of women – real women.
Petunia Winegum
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May 3, 2015 at 10:01 am -
I’m with you on this Petunia but only to a point.
My closer friends are women… attractive, self-confident, all of them mothers and wives who battle daily with the bullshit batted their way with scant time to call themselves anything other than their own names, let alone feminist BUT – the case of which you write was not a one off occasion. The woman in question was faced with this daily, beyond whistles, there was cat-calling, commentary and suggestion. She tried to take different ways to work but it seems this girl was subjected to a continuing barrage of what can only called harassment.
Like you, I’ve been wolf-whistled (I kind of liked it and thanked those from whom it came), I’ve been threatened and assaulted because of the way I’ve appeared, but each time it has only been a one-off, where I’ve either been able to see off my would-be attacker, fight back – or simply run )or put up with the punches). It has never been a daily occurrence from the same source.
A woman who daily faces this while going about her way to work has every right to expect some sort of recourse. Personally, I would have gone for the humiliation angle, but not everybody has walked our roads to self-condience. What else could she do?
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May 3, 2015 at 11:10 am -
May 3, 2015 at 12:07 pm -
“She tried to take different ways to work but it seems this girl was subjected to a continuing barrage of what can only called harassment.”
Is she alleging that the builders concerned moved their building site to accommodate her ‘different routes to work’?
IT was only one firm of builders that she alleged were wolf-whistling – perhaps their continuance in doing so was a reaction to the prissy expressions she wore for the media photographs. Builders are notorious for their ability to puncture an ill founded superiority.
A smile, a friendly wave, and a bow of the head in thanks for the compliment might have endeared her to everyone.
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May 3, 2015 at 1:03 pm -
spot on Anna, builders will take the mick, that’s what they do to each other as well!
I would imagine all this delicate young flower has done is put any potential boyfriends on warning, they’ll be thinking I don’t fancy a lot of hassle from her over minor things. I’ll think I’ll stay well clear.
Nobody likes a drama queen except herself.
Been married 30 yrs so I’ve got some experience of the breed , some women don’t like men , others love them. Had some women managers who were great, loved men and used to save their ire for other women!
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May 3, 2015 at 11:38 am -
My small group of friends and acquaintances – all male – had a discussion on a similar theme recently. As the weather has improved on occasions, the ladies are doffing their overcoats and displaying their femininity. Are we expected, then, to admire them openly as a compliment or hide our admiration for fear of being thought a letcher?
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May 3, 2015 at 12:07 pm -
Also a dedicated straight, hetero, whatever the label is, but not bothered by alternative views, I agree entirely about the pleasure of women’s company. There’s some kind of complementary chemistry that brings real pleasure to spending time with a woman, difficult to describe but warm & unprickly- OK I’m a sad old widower, but I wasn’t always.
But not all women. It just doesn’t work with some.But back to whistles. I think back to my apprentice days when women in the factory were seen as fair game, and would have to be pretty quick & tough to keep hands at bay. Us young lads were at risk too. I think we’ve moved on a long way, & needed to, but some women need to realise that being a victim of another person’s actions doesn’t make them a victim of half the population.
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May 3, 2015 at 12:50 pm -
Talking of women in the factory and ‘fair game’, the thought occurred that sometimes it works the other way. A former work colleague was apprenticed in a textile mill. He recalled that on the day before holidays or Wakes week, it was wise for apprentices and even the older maintenance staff to have their tools packed and away by noon, lost hours pay notwithstanding. The tales of what befell the foolhardy or unfortunate few who failed to take this precaution at the hands of gangs of marauding mill lasses were quite hair-raising. Stripped, tied to a pillar and balls greased was the least of it.
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May 3, 2015 at 1:07 pm -
Yeah my experience of women at work, is some are very hands on, they come up behind you hug you , kiss you, put there hands…..and generally tease you verbally and physically
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May 3, 2015 at 1:30 pm -
“…women at work…tease you verbally and physically.”
“Physically” only happened to me once. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
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May 3, 2015 at 1:23 pm -
Reminds me of the, thankfully few, forays I had to make through the Typing Pool.
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May 3, 2015 at 1:32 pm -
Oh yes! We had a Typing Pool, too. Not somewhere you ventured when they’d all been to the pub on Friday lunchtime….
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May 3, 2015 at 2:26 pm -
It was always my ambition to work my way through the typing-pool – only managed to get part-way through them, although there was some degree of duplication involved.
Then moved on to the computer punch-room – same principle, but they had even more deft finger-work – again, an incomplete mission with much successful input but, fortunately, no hard-copy output.
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May 3, 2015 at 2:52 pm -
May 3, 2015 at 6:22 pm -
Much more refined at the biscuit tin factory.
Some of the ladies had a habit when in the works canteen of coming over to talk to people, resting their bits on ones shoulder & against the ear. Devastating to a blushing young apprentice in those more innocent times.-
May 3, 2015 at 8:57 pm -
One of the old ‘rites of passage’ for any young apprentice in the local textile mills occurred when he would be ambushed by a group of the ‘ladies’, be rapidly de-bagged and his todger inserted into the neck of a milk-bottle, the said todger was then encouraged to expand (they knew how), the wretched apprentice then learning just how close-to-impossible it is to reverse the expansion process in those pressured circumstances.
But all taken in good part – no calls to the lawyers, for trauma counselling or for the ‘offenders’ to be disciplined.
We think we’ve progressed since then.-
May 4, 2015 at 8:49 am -
Once again, this site proves to be highly educational!
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May 3, 2015 at 12:17 pm -
It’s something of a relief to be past the age to attract wolf-whistles but, in the past, I’ve always regarded it as much the same as dogs barking at passers-by – more an annoying declaration of territory than anything else – or, perhaps, the shrieks and howls of a troop of forest monkeys, in which case I suppose one ought to feel a sneaking gratitude that the similarity doesn’t extend to flinging their faeces at one’s departing back.
One incident from 20 years ago still sticks in the mind ; walking past a fence by a building site, I was treated to a textbook collection of whistles and calls which tailed off as I rounded the corner and revealed the vast bulk of a full-term pregnancy. The immediate response was a mass chorus of ‘”Oops, sorry, love! Didn’t realise!”
As far as I could tell, they were genuinely contrite. I’ve wondered about it since; was it veneration for motherhood? Respect for what was evidently another man’s property? Or regret that they had overstepped some mutually agreed boundary?
I sometimes feel that, if I knew the answer, a lot of life’s other little mysteries would be easily solved.
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May 3, 2015 at 12:26 pm -
For some reason, am reminded of the Ram’s raddle box…
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May 4, 2015 at 8:46 am -
Ooo-er, missus!
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May 3, 2015 at 1:43 pm -
Isn’t it just a game?
Young, pretty and ‘available’ you are assumed to be a player. Turn out to be of the wrong sex, too young, too old, not that pretty or definitely not ‘available’ and the other side backs-off smartly.
Whether that realisation that the ‘game’ is off is done respectfully or not probably depends on how much they feel they have been mislead. Pregnancy trumps all!
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May 3, 2015 at 8:55 pm -
Some women do like flirting and sex, others don’t!
It’s all a bit of a male minefield !
Perhaps the best advice might be careful where you step!
All said and done most of my female friends are lovely and worry about me!
Ah that’s nice!
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May 3, 2015 at 1:48 pm -
I was in the pub last night with a couple of mates, minding my own business, when I noticed a couple of what used to be known as “dolly birds” taking photos of us with their camera phones – the flash gave the game away.
Now I don’t mind bringing pleasure to a generation deprived of the finer things in life, but I couldn’t help but imagine what would be thought/said/done if the proverbial boot was on the other foot…-
May 5, 2015 at 11:02 am -
Flashing is surely beyond the pale.
You’re probably on some Russian website now, baiting the trap.
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May 3, 2015 at 4:10 pm -
Your description of your female friendships sounds very much like mine.
I’ve never been attracted romantically either to the sort of girly girl who shrieks ear-piercingly at the discovery of a new shade of pink. Neither, for that matter have I ever been close friends with blokey blokes who bang on about Aston Romeos or West Arsenal United.
The cliche extremes of either male or female behaviour just seem tedious and thankfully most people I have known well aren’t so easily pigeonholed.
It does always baffle me though that it’s often the extremes which end up getting married. I cannot imagine what on earth they ever talk about as they seem to have not a single interest in common outside the bedroom (and not even inside when it comes to furnishings). -
May 3, 2015 at 6:21 pm -
My closet friends have always been women. I don’t know what. I am not, as far as I am aware, gay. In fact, I have something of an addiction for beautiful women, but I hate the boorish company on men. I prefer the civilised, more empathetic company of woman. SO I am not a “man’s man” in the classic sense of the phrase.
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May 3, 2015 at 7:35 pm -
Closet friends? That’s a classic Gildas!!!
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May 3, 2015 at 8:49 pm -
I love intelligent women, don’t matter what they look like as long as they are smart. Once the allure of beauty has faded your left with so much more
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May 3, 2015 at 8:59 pm -
As my wise old dad advised, “Beauty is only a light-switch away”.
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May 4, 2015 at 7:09 am -
*guffaws*
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May 3, 2015 at 6:44 pm -
I must be terribly slow on the uptake, but is Petunia a man?
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May 3, 2015 at 7:05 pm -
From your perspective, he’s a stallion!
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May 3, 2015 at 7:34 pm -
Yes, dear.
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May 3, 2015 at 10:47 pm -
The name always made me think of the ‘essence of Petunia’ episode from Withnail and I …
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May 3, 2015 at 7:39 pm -
Ms Raccoon actually rang me this evening to enquire as to: a) which Christmas it was that I was lucky enough to have my photo taken with Barbara Windsor; and b) why she hadn’t seen it before I sent it to Petunia!
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May 3, 2015 at 7:54 pm -
Cue dirty Sid James chortle!
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May 3, 2015 at 8:58 pm -
Is there such a thing as a ‘clean’ Sid James chortle ?
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May 3, 2015 at 9:34 pm -
I have always had male friends, I enjoy their company and not that many women I know share my interest in current affairs, politics etc. I have a few very close women friends too but it’s a different kind of friendship. I have never felt oppressed by men, most are decent and I don’t understand why some women denigrate them so much. I worry about young boys including my grandson being subjected to this constant anti male bias. Maybe we were made of stronger stuff but we could handle men that misbehaved and warned the other girls, certainly wouldn’t be bothered by a wolf whistle.
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May 4, 2015 at 8:14 am -
Factory girls – oh yes. I remember them. Some real double baggers of a predatory bent that would shame Hyenas. It came as a bit of a shock for a young lad fresh from the shires to spend part of his training on Maintenance. And the porn kept in the maintenance shanties and freely exchanged up and down the production line? By the women? There was not a perversion portrayed, etc. Now that was an education.
It’s a hell of an experience to be half way up a ladder, screwdriver in fusebox, to feel a female hand slithering up my calf and halfway up the insides of my overall trousers like a boa constrictor. My mates were literally pissing themselves laughing, as this particular woman was notorious for “Liking fresh meat.” and they’d sent me in to replace a couple of fuses on the production lines sub board that fed the packing machines because they thought I needed taking down a peg. I was never good at heights at the best of times, but she almost made me fall off the steps.
Meanwhile, back on topic. I too watched that ‘catcalling’ video. Jeez, even for a University educated type she came across as completely up herself. Delicate ickle flower. Despite waiting for what I’d describe as a ‘catcall’, I gave up half way through. That vid was more like “How to be an entitled victim in one easy lesson”.
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May 5, 2015 at 12:17 pm -
* My mates were literally pissing themselves laughing, as this particular woman was notorious for “Liking fresh meat.” and they’d sent me in to replace a couple of fuses on the production lines sub board that fed the packing machines because they thought I needed taking down a peg. *
Interesting psychology that. Why would it be embarrassing to be sexually complimented by a stranger?
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May 4, 2015 at 10:25 am -
What’s the betting that by the time she’s 40, Miss Poppy Precious will be writing letters to The Guardian complaining that middle-aged women are invisible?
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