NY Post Trolling? "Hey Ladies - Catcalls Are Flattering! Deal With It"

Devil Ledbetter said:

Thank you.

My 13-year-old son hears his sister and I rant about it when we come home from our walks. The other day some neighbor kids catcalled a woman walking by with her dog. My son told them to knock it off, and that it wasn't cool. He then approached the woman and apologized that his friends were such jerks. Then his friends called him "gay" and he responded along the lines of "I don't know why you think that's an insult."

If only he'd clean his room and take his dirty socks off the coffee table, he'd be perfect.

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You're almost there! Those two points will be cleared up eventually, I'm sure. (-;

My daughter was a SLOB growing up. But she also started a Free the Children initiative in her school...and has been an activist for equality her entire life. All that we had to be proud of, and I still couldn't hold my tongue when I walked into the bathroom and found her clothes strewn about. (-: I raised my kids to be respectful and proponents of equality in all its forms. They GOT it, thankfully. Your son sounds awesome!

Nah, this is just gross. And overly defensive on the "not a gender traitor" front. But mostly gross.

If I'm trying to go somewhere and I have stuff on my mind, just being talked to by a random stranger is kind of weird. If said random stranger is catcalling or shouting "you got a name/number?" it just feels really skeezy. I don't think it's validating that someone I don't know and don't WANT to know finds my body appealing, and the fact that they feel the need to let me know about it is just gross and weird.

I really, REALLY hope she's kidding. But I don't think she is.

Click-bait. That's pretty much all there is to it.

cornflake said:

It's the Post, people. The entire thing is a troll.

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So it's basically America's Daily FMail?

This article reminded me that I like this video from upworthy about what men are really saying when they harass women. It's not meant to be validation.

I worked construction to put myself through college, and only infrequently saw this kind of behavior.

Let me just say the guys who engaged in it were in no danger of the ladies reciprocating.

Gravity said:

I worked construction to put myself through college, and only infrequently saw this kind of behavior.

Let me just say the guys who engaged in it were in no danger of the ladies reciprocating.

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You bring up a good point. Construction workers are stereotyped and blamed for most catcalling. I have been catcalled thousands of times over the course of my life. It started when I was 13 and I'm sorry to say that at 50 I am still subjected to this dehumanizing garbage. But I don't know if I've ever been catcalled by a construction worker. 80% of the time its some cowardly morons driving by in monster truck.

I'm still not convinced it's not satire/humor. I say that because I read an article a couple of days ago about breastfeeding that wasn't obvious satire, was run in a non-satire site, and wasn't labeled. After I read it, I was torn between being horribly offended and thinking it had to be a joke.

When I checked it out more closely, the author of the article had a book on parenting that was an obvious humor book. The article was something of an advertisement. Looking through the comments, about half the people got the humor, and half didn't.

I'm wondering if this is just a similar promotional sort of thing. The author does seem to be a humor writer, though I could be wrong on that.

cornflake said:

The entire thing is a troll.

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kaitie said:

I'm still not convinced it's not satire/humor.

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Yah this, obviously.

kaitie said:

We're sure this isn't sarcasm?

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Seems like the majority of responders took it seriously, but OP framing — which seems to be pretty influential in general — is a large part of why. If it had been linked elsewhere without any context cues (e.g. "Hey look at this."), I'm pretty sure 90%+ would regard it as an attempt at satire.

Personally, I like to kick catcallers in the shin! And then bite them while they're doubled over in pain.

I like this response

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stefa...ing_b_5691949.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063

I think it's really bad satire because it's not funny. If it were good satire, it would highlight exactly why catcalling is not flattering at all.

Fox News has this response (video):

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/08/28/let-men-be-men-fox-news-hosts-defend-catcalling/200585

The woman on the far left seemed to be in disagreement, but seemed to be afraid to say so.

The comments they are describing are really nothing like what I hear on a regular basis, the ones that bother me.

It can be helpful in identifying the morons from the non-morons.