October 30, 2014

"The men who are sitting in their offices or in cafes watching this video will... be able to comfortably assure themselves that they don’t have time to sit on hydrants..."

"... in the middle of the day and can’t properly pronounce 'mami.' They might do things to women that are worse than catcalling, but this is not their sin." Says Hanna Rosin, analyzing the racial politics of that woman-walking-down-the-street viral video.

61 comments:

rhhardin said...

They don't have black leaders to tell them to live on free stuff only.

Jupiter said...

"They might do things to women that are worse than catcalling, but this is not their sin."

She talking about Muslims?

Jupiter said...

"But the video also unintentionally makes another point: that harassers are mostly black and Latino, and hanging out on the streets in midday in clothes that suggest they are not on their lunch break."

Yeah, the FBI's crime statistics unintentionally make a similar point.

YoungHegelian said...

Since that obviously doesn’t show up in the video, Bliss addressed it in a post. He wrote, “We got a fair amount of white guys, but for whatever reason, a lot of what they said was in passing, or off camera,” or was ruined by a siren or other noise.

Oh, yeah. And the dog ate my video!

I'm calling bullshit on this whole "sure-the-honkies-did-it-too" excuse. Catcalling is a varsity grade sport in minority neighborhoods. You want your ass or boob grabbed? Be an attractive blond woman & walk unescorted through a latino neighborhood.

When multi-culti lefties have to admit in public that their nasty little coalition has nothing in common other than re-arranging other (preferably white male) peoples money, and that many of the coalition partners just really don't like each other, you see dishonest nonsense like this. "Oh, yeah, there were TONS of evil white guys in there....." just like there always an evil white guy behind it all.

YoungHegelian said...

The scene they really regretted losing was when one of the Koch Brothers yelled out "Hey pretty baby, you up for a mustache ride?", but some asshole hardhat started up a jackhammer at just the wrong time.

glenn said...

I fearlessly predict that a sequel is coming. Our subject will walk through White minority neighborhoods. Where she will be greeted by cheerful "Good Mornings" or "Good Afternoons" and friendly waves. That's what my neighbors do every day.

Mary Beth said...

Not every time someone hanging out in the street talks to you is sexual harassment. Sometimes they're panhandling.

n.n said...

Rosin must not have received the memo. JournoList are to avoid their traditional race baiting strategy in order to deprive their competing interests of leverage gained from equivalence arguments.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, all you homies and piropistas, we didn't mean to other you specifically-- we meant to other you along with the white guys, really we did.

I'm Full of Soup said...

What will these lib publications like Slate and The Atlantic do without their unending stories about race? The basically have no other topic to write about.

Howard said...

Now that The Crack MC is SuperFly Non-Gratis, the denisons of Althouse feel free express their racist operating systems in a safe environment.

Next up, more pro-rapist attitude brought to you by Instapundit via AmazonPrime®

Anonymous said...

Exchange in the comments:


Miguel de la Colina: It's like a parody of a parody.

trunk: It's like oil. Every time you think you've reached Peak Slate, some massive new reserve of Slatiness is discovered.

Bob Ellison said...

That link crashes my browser, Dolphin on Android.

Drago said...

Howard said...
Now that The Crack MC is SuperFly Non-Gratis, the denisons of Althouse feel free express their racist operating systems in a safe environment.

Howards Axiom: The more aggressive the sexual harassment of white women by minorities the guiltier the white denisons of Althouse.

Jason said...

THIS JUST IN: Viral Catcalling Film Catches Democrat Constituencies Engaging in Boorish, Misogynist Behavior.

Howard said...

Yeah, Right. Who do those splibs and bean dips think they are catcalling? Kim Khardashion? Hell no. Ms Double Dee is looking for a pencil-dick new-aged neutered male with mommie issues. IOW, a librul teabagger

Howard said...

Drago: Just because you fly-boys had to beat the scanks off with a stick doesn't mean you wouldn't catcall if you were hard up. Not everyone is a natural stud muffin like yourself.

fivewheels said...

"They might do things to women that are worse than catcalling..."

Or maybe they fucking don't.

Achilles said...

She should have done this in Kandahar. Or bagdad. Or Cairo. Theres some places in England that would have been entertaining too. She would have got some really good stuff there.

Of course her objective wasn't to find actual misogynist oppression. It was to find boorish behavior. Good thing she went to New York City and got a bunch of democrat voters to give her the goods for her war on women video.

fivewheels said...

This is why so many men and women think feminists hate men: Because you're shitty toward them.

Bob Ellison said...

Is this some new, weird form of spam?

fivewheels said...

And yes, I know the original topic is men being shitty toward women, but nowhere is it a controversial statement that men are often shitty toward women.

But you acknowledge that a whole, large class of men aren't doing this, but you have to -- you absolutely have to -- make it clear that they're still bad people. For sure. Definitely. Could not possibly believe otherwise.

Bob Ellison said...

Trolls, identify!

David said...

This tells us more about class than anything. Nearly all of the men making comments were not of the class (or race) of the woman they were pretending to approach. I say "pretend" because all of these men--every one--approached in a way that showed they knew they did not have a chance with her.

Contrast this with the famous photo "American Girl in Italy" by Ruth Orkin (from 1951.) The girl was Ninalee Craig, who was interviewed on the Today show in 2011. Here is part of the Article that described that interview:

Craig spoke about how, despite what some might say, the photo isn't a "symbol of harassment." Craig insists that the image is "a symbol of a woman having an absolutely wonderful time."

Craig should know -- when the photo was taken, she was a 23-year-old traveling alone through Europe. While staying at a cheap hotel, Craig met photographer Ruth Orkin, who was also traveling alone. The two spoke about the fun and challenges of being alone while on the road in Italy. They hatched a plan to take photos that focused on what it was like to travel as a single woman.

For two hours, the photographer and amateur model walked the streets of Florence. Photos were taken at markets and in cafes. The street-scene photo came about naturally. According to Craig, Orkin shot only two pictures of her walking down the macho street. One of them turned out to be absolutely iconic.

As for whether or not the photo was staged, Craig says no way. "The big debate about the picture, which everyone always wants to know, is: Was it staged? No! No, no, no! You don't have 15 men in a picture and take just two shots. The men were just there. ... The only thing that happened was that Ruth Orkin was wise enough to ask me to turn around and go back and repeat" the walk down the street.

In the interview, Craig also remarked that she never felt in danger while walking among the admiring men. "None of those men crossed the line at all," she said.


I realize that this quotation does not entirely support my theory about class. Nina Craig's admirers were from a different society, not just a different class, but they too (or most of them) were pretty aware that Nina was out of their league. She knew that they knew and was not threatened. (Plus she had Ruth with her camera for backup.)

To me it shows more what women have been taught to become, for good or ill. Who is more liberated and independent, Ms. Orkin and Ms. Craig who set off alone through Europe in 1951, and dealt with things as they came, or current women, who have learned to react fearfully every time the world does not go as they might imagine it should?

Now there was one guy in the current video who was genuinely menacing--the one who walked beside her for four minutes or so. A woman in 1951 might have confronted him, or turned into a public place where she could summon some help. The subject of our video did neither (perhaps because the videographer and probably others were already there to help her. A Ruth Orkin convoy.)

But I repeat that this mostly a class thing, unserious guys catcalling to a woman obviously out of their league. To be blunt about it, these guys are not the guys that today's feminist activists are talking to. But they are pissed that such guys might dare to enter their space, even verbally.

N.O.C.D.

dhagood said...

so crack got banned? took long enough...

madAsHell said...

Twenty years from now she will be wondering where the catcalls went!

Freeman Hunt said...

Maybe they've got women chained up in their desk drawers. Maybe quarantining them even.

Achilles said...

The truth about the feminist movement is becoming self evident. They care nothing for women.

Funny they are doing this to prepare the battlefield for Hillary. She will be held up as the ultimate achievement of the feminist movement whose sole success in life was marrying Bill. And it is also great her rapist of a husband can get back in the white house too.

The feminist movement died on that blue dress with those sperm.

chickelit said...

I still don't understand how this explains why white males are the scourge of feminists. Can someone please forward me the memo?

Drago said...

Howard: "Drago: Just because you fly-boys had to beat the scanks off with a stick doesn't mean you wouldn't catcall if you were hard up. Not everyone is a natural stud muffin like yourself."

Okay okay. I'm laughing with you.

But you do force me to come to the defense of those fair ladies who, perhaps, were not able to always maintain their finishing-school-imbued and ladylike defenses against the robust and vigorous charms of the more dashing of we lads.

Though I would be loathe to discuss it in any detail as would be expected of a gentleman.

Having said that however, having worked my fair share of construction during my high school and college days in settings precisely mirrored by that of the videos, I can honestly say I never "catcalled" any gal.

Drago said...

chickelit: "I still don't understand how this explains why white males are the scourge of feminists. Can someone please forward me the memo?"

'Cuz marxist/leninist critique requires the white male to be the focus of all guilt/fault due to power/racial/gender inequities.

It's really quite simple.

Joe said...

Where she will be greeted by cheerful "Good Mornings" or "Good Afternoons" and friendly waves. That's what my neighbors do every day.

Which is harassment, dammit.

William said...

When I was in the service, I had a friend of Mexican descent. He was a good looking guy.. He came on like that to women. He got a lot of bitch faces, but he also got lucky on a fair number of occasions. The awful thing is not that so many men are jerks but that so many women are attracted to jerks. Some jerks are jerks precisely because it's a winning Darwinian strategy. The point of the game is not to win enduring love or approval of the feminists, but to stumble across the goal line.

Quaestor said...

White men are SO EVIL, we only catcall when no one is listening.

Quaestor said...

In a world where a woman is in danger of her life if she shows more skin than her eyes and fingers, the controversy over a video about catcalls numbs the mind with banality.

Something tells me that leftish gender politics has just about run its course.

rcocean said...

It just shows how powerful us white men are. Even when 90% of the sexual harassment in the video comes from Men of color, we're still to blame.

Because we have all power, and we're ALWAYS to blame.

Cool.

rcocean said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
rcocean said...

feel sorry for rich, Jewish, well-connected journalists like HR. She just SEEMS to have a lot of power. In reality she's a tool of us powerful white men.

Y'know like the Stone-cutters.

Carl said...

Jesus, who does Hanna Rosin's hair? A blind man with a Weed-Eater?

Swifty Quick said...

What they really don't like is men looking at them with any lascivious thoughts implied. Ogling, basically. Even mildly.

And the basis for that among women is that they REALLY don't like it when men do that to other women in their presence. It's that old green eyed monster thing.

Alex said...

Is it even possible to ban someone on a blogger?

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

Should do the sensible thing.

Wear a burqa.

RAH said...

I was unfamiliar with the photo American Girl In Italy.
That is a beautiful photo . Every man is looking at her. She must have felt wonderful to know she elicited such a reaction of admiration. Plus she was dressed nicely in the dress and shawl.

I expect every women would have felt great if a man busy watching her fell over an object. That is confirmation to the woman that she is attractive and still has what it takes to attract men.

Crude comments are not welcome. Most of the comments in the video were fine. The guy who walked along was a a pain and just creepy.

I lived in Miami while in college and regrettably never had this happen Neither in DC. The only place it usually occurred was at construction zones.

A friend was walking with her 13 year old daughter and the daughter was wolf whistled. The workers evidently thought the girl was older. My friend roundly castigated the men for that behavior to a young girl

Doug said...

This reminds me - I always get a chuckle out of the TV ads for home security systems that UNFAILINGLY portray the break-in thug as a white guy. Yeah, THAT's why people are buying home security systems!

CStanley said...

Maybe they've got women chained up in their desk drawers.

I've heard they keep them in binders.

Larry J said...

fivewheels said...
"They might do things to women that are worse than catcalling..."

Or maybe they fucking don't.


There seems to be an assumption on their part that white men must be guilty of something, because priviledge!

Alexander said...

Woman makes racist video of misogynistic minorities.

White men hardest hit.

The reason the left are so supportive of birth control and abortions is, apparantely, because when they do raise a new generation, that generation inevitably devours the old one. First it was free love and free spirits, and destroying the fuddy-duddy prudish conservatism.

Now... my understanding is that the women do not want the the uncouth ruffians of color to speak unless spoken to, and to keep any sense of sexuality out of the public places, lest they need call for their fainting couches.

Unknown said...

A much more important ethical question at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/19/magazine/why-tell-koko-about-robin-williamss-death.html

RecChief said...

When you politicize everything in life, then you have to have proportional representation of each demographic I guess.

Shanna said...

The truth about the feminist movement is becoming self evident. They care nothing for women.

If they did they would be talking about what is happening in Iraq, not this.

Shanna said...

A friend was walking with her 13 year old daughter and the daughter was wolf whistled.

I went to honduras on a mission trip at 13 and I remember a bunch of guys doing this weird hissing cat call thing. An older friend kind of steered us away from them...

West Texas Intermediate Crude said...

Nice collection of Tom Robinsons.

ussmidway said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
MagicalPat said...

Those clever, yet evil white men.

Always assuming they are being taped, time their catcalls for when a Siren or other noise is going off.

Or, obviously knowing where the hidden camera is located, and its approximate microphone range, they withhold suggestive talk until they are far enough away.

Here's another possibility, and we won't know until we see all 10 hours of video, is it possibly that some people said NICE things?

Is it possible that some evil white guy offered assistance when some goon hit on her?

Why did the guy who followed for 5 minutes give up?
Did someone step in and say, " Dude. Quit following this woman."

We will never know.

But I'll bet the White guy stuff she has is not only not helpful to the cause, but damaging to it.

Otherwise, they would have included it. In any form.

Heck, you could put in subtitles in case people could not make out what was said. You know, like they DID with the other guys.

Or were those subtitles in case you couldn't understand the minorities slang?

That would be racist of course.

MagicalPat said...

“We got a fair amount of white guys, but for whatever reason, a lot of what they said was in passing, or off camera,” or was ruined by a siren or other noise.

Hello subtitles!

You used them for the Blacks and Latinos, but not the White guys.

Hmmmm. Must be protecting them.

Diamondhead said...

These are the people who killed Emmett Till.

Trashhauler said...

Regarding Italian men, decades ago my wife and I spent a week in Naples, while I attended a NATO conference. My wife decided to take a normal city bus to a museum and learned first hand about being pinched, stroked, and molested on the crowded bus. It got so bad she had to get off and find a taxi (which, in Naples, puts you in a different class of danger entirely).

Funny, but she never got that treatment from the many Italian military officers she met.

Jupiter said...

"Crude comments are not welcome. Most of the comments in the video were fine. The guy who walked along was a a pain and just creepy."

I am fairly certain that the guy who walked along belongs in a shallow grave. I'd put a hole in that psycho.

Freeman Hunt said...

Catcalls and predatory looks do make the world seem more hostile to young women. That is a legitimate point. There should be an expectation of better manners.

Jason said...

Everybody look at me and my large, pedulous, perfectly-formed 36DD breasts which I describe with precision on my own website.

NOT LIKE THAT, CREEP!!!!

Masscon said...

Tan and tall and young and lovely the Girl from Ipanema goes walking and when she passes each one she passes goes aaahhhhh!

Different time different place... plus ca change.