It's 2015 and women are still getting the blame

Headline form the Birmingham Mail

As some of you may have seen on the news, a few days ago Poppy Smart lodged a complaint with the police over the harassment she was receiving from builders on her way to work.

Now, as a woman we learn to ignore cat calls and cars honking because it happens too often to react every time it does. Ian Merrett described wolf whistling as 'part and parcel' of being a builder. Well, regular harassment is unfortunately 'part and parcel' of being a woman. This story didn't shock me however what did were the comments that many people were leaving aimed at Poppy calling her attention seeking, a waste of police time and a pathetic bitch. There were also many comments claiming that she obviously liked the attention otherwise she wouldn't have gone to the press about it.

The thing is, it's easy enough to ignore or shrug off one or two cat calls but the persistent nature of these men is what made it harassment. The lack of knowledge so many people have when it comes to these matters is almost frightening, although not more so than the amount of other women telling her that she should be grateful that she was getting noticed. It's hard enough being a woman without other women attacking each other; each to their own if you enjoy being leered at by strangers then great but speaking from experience when you're on your own in those situations it's difficult to not be intimidated. One commenter on the Birmingham Mail Facebook page says this:

"I see a lot of you condemning the actions of this woman and asking "what the problem is?"

I imagine the problem this woman didn't much like feeling like little more than a sexual object whilst going on her day to day business. And I see you say that she should be grateful of the compliment? Compliments that were neither asked for nor encouraged. 
As for wasting police time, have you seen how many of them congregate with the ticket inspectors? If it takes 8 police men to try and tackle out of date daysavers there is certainly time for this. It might not be a police matter but a man, builder or otherwise has little business making comments on the appearance of strangers."

It's not up to others to decide whether you should see something as a compliment or not. Just because they would doesn't mean you should.

These men may laugh about this but if they were in the same situation with a large group of women - or men - harassing them every day, they would probably change their mind i.e. in this Adult Wednesday Addams sketch.

Listening to: Glamorous - Fergie