I have been reading this thread with fascination for the last couple of days. I didn't plan on actually wading into the minefield, but I just saw catcalling happen while walking outside a few minutes ago.
A woman is walking along, minding her own business, when a homeless man shouts, "Holy cow! Look at the handles on that cutie!"
And this is in a fairly progressive city, so it doesn't just happen in NYC.
It's one of the things that makes me grateful to be losing my hearing: finally a silver lining for this particular cloud. The rudeness is probably still occurring, and now there are also snide remarks about my service dog, but other people's mouth noise doesn't enter into my awareness until someone takes physical action or enters my field of view. It's good, because most of what gets filtered out is stupid to begin with.
The senior citizen who rubbed up on me in a public bus when I was thirteen was nasty, and the "boyfriend" who tried to rape me in the park when I was fourteen wasn't much better. My judo was good that day and I improvised a creative way to use walls. At some point I learned to tune out the blabbermouths, but I really hate being touched unless it's some sort of fight sport. I absolutely despise human contact unless that person and I are fighting or training... come to think of it, the sliminess of mandatory social contact and the sheer dishonesty behind it is probably one of the reasons it all makes me sick. The worst were the ones who tried to run me off the road while I was on my motorcycle. They ease up from behind and give your bike a bit of a bump, or try to force you off the road sideways. I'm sure it was "all in good fun" and "just a joke" and similar excuse making. Walking isn't that great of an idea because you never know when someone is going to throw a drink cup or something similar out of the window of a moving vehicle.
It starts in elementary school where they pull your hair, throw rocks or snowballs at you, call you names, shove you, or make fun of you. Apparently it's because they like you. All the adults applaud and encourage this behavior because it's an acceptable form of expressing positive attention. Yet when they do it to other boys, the person on the receiving end of the shove or the slap is considered justified in hitting back. If you dare to complain to a teacher, you'll be punished for having started it or done something to create the response. Apparently males aren't supposed to have agency or the capacity for independent thought, much less the ability to control their impulses. This doesn't quite mesh with what I've observed of male behavior in the workplace and elsewhere: they also appear to be capable of compassion and to have the ability to bond emotionally with other humans.
Now, anyone who's ever met me knows I'm uglier than a bag of hammers. Being born into a female body is something I regard as a birth defect, or a cruel joke played on me by a Supreme Being who is basically an enemy. I can only imagine what the attractive ones go through, although in fairness they usually have boyfriends with them so they aren't targets.
