- Xsoteria:
- Summary: I am talking about non rude looking, non staring, nothing obscene, no guys sticking around watching pretentiously, no harassment, nothing. The problem is your rampant sexist attitude which automatically assumes that men are incapable of simply casually looking at things like this, without staring like a horny bull, with some twisted element behind it etc.
I mentioned "inappropriate staring" in practically every one of my posts. I was not suggesting in any way that all gaze is creepy or sexual which was why I repeatedly specified the behaviour I was objecting to. And you maintained that such behaviour was deserved because of the woman's "choice".
- Xsoteria:
- I don't think it's such a big deal if someone is breastfeeding their kid, it's a pretty normal thing. As a normal thing, it's nothing to be ashamed of. And as such normal occurrence, performed in public, being casually observed, is not a breach of some huge moral or social code.
That's great that you see it that way. And many people agree with you. But many others do see it as a breach of moral or social code, and respond to it with the, again,
inappropriate responses I've been talking about (leering, staring, gestures, comments, general shaming/harassment.)
"Excuse me creeper, will you fuck off and stop looking my way?"
"What?"
"Don't what me, I'm breastfeeding a baby here, you can have the basic courtesy not to look?"Is this a scenario which ever/sometimes/often occurs? How does its occurrence compare to actual sexualised or disgusted stares? And if a woman has, over however many months or years, been subject to repeated occurrence of the latter, is it reasonable for her to be defensive when confronted with a man repeatedly looking at her child/breast? Having said that, I'm surprised that the person who has accused others on the board of using a straw man is relying on an imaginary instance of a single dubiously rude woman to justify their argument. Was your fictitious woman overly hostile? Sure, maybe. She misinterpreted a man repeatedly looking at her child/breast. I'm not saying someone who launches into a tirade of abuse is always in the right. And your fictitious scenario tempts us to side with the guy. However, we're in the man's head in that scenario. We have absolute proof that he is not staring in a creepy or hostile manner because we know what he is thinking. A woman who notices a man repeatedly looking at her has no such proof, and may have reason to assume the opposite - maybe he has an angry or creepy 'thinking' face; maybe she caught his eye enough times that it seemed like staring; maybe she's inferring from experience; maybe she just has a bad feeling about him; you or I might disagree with her reasoning, but it may have led her, nonetheless, to feel threatened by this man, whom she knows nothing about other than that she has caught him looking or staring at her or her child.
The whole 'social contract' idea you brought up earlier is an ideal that doesn't take into account social power or, in this situation, social vulnerability. (Not to mention that a central part of it is that transgression is punished, again supporting that individuals have a right to complain of ill treatment within it.) A woman with an infant is in a more vulnerable position, and at risk of more, than a man who is looking at her. As such, even though I wouldn't support the abusive language your fictional woman used, as she is not in an ideal, nonviolent, universally-accepting-of-breastfeeding world, I support her right to voice her discomfort.
Presumably a reasonable man would respond with, "I apologise for making you uncomfortable - it was not my intention, and I think you misinterpreted a few glances as staring. But as we live in a rape culture, I see how your distress might have arisen, and as such will employ the minimal effort to stop you feeling at risk of harm, by either looking away as you've asked, or explaining this to you and convincing you I meant no such harm."
There is no real effort or harm in not staring at a person. There is effort in trying to exit a situation to find somewhere out of the public eye, and there is [potential] harm from strangers if a person does not do so. If you value reasonable action, it remains the responsibility of the staring stranger to merely avert their eyes. Is the alternative to explain to a woman that they have a right to look at her? If I'm at a bus stop at night and a person is 'looking' at me, I might say nothing, but I would
love to be a person with the confidence to ask a stranger to stop doing something which is making me uncomfortable. They have no reason or right to make me uncomfortable. If they did have such a right, why would we have indecent exposure laws? Why not let a man masturbate to women on buses? Because no-contact harassment can still be harassment. If you're not talking about acts with overt ill-intent, that reduces it to a) a mistake on the part of the person who
feels harassed, or b) a mistake on the accidental-harasser's part. In either case, the experience of harassment is present. If the woman doesn't say anything, the man is no more 'unjustly' attacked than if she didn't notice him at all; if she does say anything, again, he has the option of not looking at a person or of responding to the 'unjust' attack.
If a man is wrongly accused of 'staring' (in whatever way, sexual, disgusted) at a woman's [clothed] breasts or butt, the same thing happens. He can either say "I wasn't staring, I'm sorry if you feel objectified, I was just glancing around and/or admiring your shirt/pants" or he can just look away. If he responds with "I can look where I like" and continues looking (probably, by this point, overtly) at her breasts or butt, I'm not going to applaud him and give him an award for protecting Men's Rights and the Social Contract. He's made her feel uncomfortable. If her comment ("Please stop looking at me") has made
him feel uncomfortable, he can express that. If she felt uncomfortable and he says her calling him a creeper (when he wasn't creeping) has made him feel uncomfortable, probably she can empathise, they can both apologise, and everyone can move on with their lives not making others feel like they can't do normal everyday public things. I don't know I don't see how any of this is extreme or unreasonable.
sorry for the wall of text