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Women and girls are harassed relentlessly from a young age, government report says - REBOOT

Jolly_Penguin said:
Saying "smile" to somebody isn't usually a demand on their behaviour, anymore than saying Goodbye (God be with you) is a demand that they be religious. Saying "Hello" actually usually carries more of a social demand with it, as most people will say "hi" back to it.
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Utterly false. Telling someone to smile is asking them to behave in a certain way. It is literally counterfactual to claim otherwise.

Saying Hello or Goodbye to someone is not asking them to do anything. Nor does anyone have to take Goodbye to mean anything other than "Farewell".

Hence your equivalence is baseless.
 
ruby sparks said:
Jolly_Penguin said:
That's not what you cut out of what you quoted. You can do better.
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Gosh, jolly, so can you, than the line you are taking in this thread, surely?
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I see nothing wrong with saying "smile" to people as a greeting, in passing, etc. And I'm not ashamed, regardless of how many times people here try to shame me. I also see nothing wrong with saying "hello" or even "bless you" when somebody sneezes, even to an atheist. But but what if the atheist doesn't want to be blessed? We actually had a thread on that once here long ago.
 
If you don't see the valid issues highlighted in those videos and raised in numerous places, including online, by many women, then you must be wearing blinkers.
 
ruby sparks said:
If you don't see the valid issues highlighted in those videos and raised in numerous places, including online, by many women, then you must be wearing blinkers.
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I didn't say I don't see valid issues highlighted in those videos. I said it isn't defacto bad to say "smile" to somebody. If you cant read the one without leaping to the other, that isn't on me. That's on your bias.
 
Jolly_Penguin said:
ruby sparks said:
If you don't see the valid issues highlighted in those videos and raised in numerous places, including online, by many women, then you must be wearing blinkers.
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I didn't say I don't see valid issues highlighted in those videos. I said it isn't defacto bad to say "smile" to somebody. If you cant read the one without leaping to the other, that isn't on me. That's on your bias.
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Obviously, it isn't hypothetically wrong to say 'smile' to someone. But that's not the contextual/situational point here.

It isn't hypothetically, devoid of context, wrong to do many many things. It isn't defacto wrong to kiss someone for example, and the intention could be friendly.

Furthermore, I think it's stretching a point to suggest that the men in the video are not, often, possibly mostly, hitting on the women, and that it's often unwanted and annoying (and in some cases slightly worrying) for women, to be hit on, while just going about in public.
 
phands said:
This whole "Smile" thing is another derail from the real point that the harassment is real and unending.
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Actually, it is directly on point. Some here called saying "smile" always harassment. That stretching of the word "harassment" to that extent calls the "relentless harassment from a young age" into question.

It is a clear demonstration of how these terms get worked to fit whatever conclusion the writer wants to reach. Depending on how you define what "harassment" means, you could demonstrate it to be everywhere all the time, or you could demonstrate it to pretty much never happen ever.
 
Jolly_Penguin said:
ruby sparks said:
If you don't see the valid issues highlighted in those videos and raised in numerous places, including online, by many women, then you must be wearing blinkers.
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I didn't say I don't see valid issues highlighted in those videos. I said it isn't defacto bad to say "smile" to somebody. If you cant read the one without leaping to the other, that isn't on me. That's on your bias.
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It is de facto bad to tell another person, particularly a stranger or co-worker/acquaintance, how they should look or feel in any particular moment.

And there is no culture on this earth where telling someone to smile is a customary greeting.
 
ruby sparks said:
Jolly_Penguin said:
Actually, it is directly on point. Some here called saying "smile" always harassment.
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If anyone said that, I would disagree with it. If someone said it, then I genuinely must have missed it.
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All I have said in this entire thread was that I see nothing wrong with saying smile in and of itself. I have been told that this means I am compelling behaviour, disrespecting women (even though I applied it equally to men and women), disregarding the agency of women, and so on and so on, and that this amounts to an illustration of the OP; that harassment is relentless. If that's what gets leaned on to make the point, then the point is incredibly flimsy now isn't it?

Smile everyone. Have a great day.
 
Jolly_Penguin said:
All I have said in this entire thread was that I see nothing wrong with saying smile in and of itself.
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Can you see how that might be construed as moving away from the context of the OP and the videos I posted and the problems it highlights?

And who said saying 'smile' is always harassment? Because if no one did, wouldn't that be a bit of a straw man you've been arguing against the whole time?
 
phands said:
This whole "Smile" thing is another derail from the real point that the harassment is real and unending.
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It is not to derail the point - it is an attempt to minimize the effects and frequency of harassment by claiming that not all of it is harassment. Especially when the complaint is handwaved without any reference to frequency or importance.
 
ruby sparks said:
Can you see how that might be construed as moving away from the context of the OP and the videos I posted and the problems it highlights?
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It would be if it wasn't immediately jumped on by Toni and others as an example of the problem. But then again, in the video you posted, not everything said to the girl (or guy) was harassment either.
 
Jolly_Penguin said:
It would be if it wasn't immediately jumped on by Toni and others as an example of the problem.
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I would have to remind myself of the order of events and what exactly was said. I don't recall anyone saying that saying 'smile' was always harassment.

Jolly_Penguin said:
But then again, in the video you posted, not everything said to the girl (or guy) was harassment either.
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Possibly not. That's a tricky one. Might depend on an agreed definition of harassment. Even if we exclude that, it might still be possible to use other words such as inappropriate, in at least more cases. And ultimately, no, it would not even be necessarily correct to say that. Then we might get to 'unwelcome nonetheless'.

And, who knows, in some situations, it might even either be welcome or at least not unwelcome (not in those videos I mean, where each instance was presumably included because of that, in that woman's case). A different woman might not mind, or not always mind, I suppose.

Joanna Lumley, for one, is famous for having said that she enjoys and enjoyed getting wolf whistles, for example.
 
laughing dog said:
phands said:
This whole "Smile" thing is another derail from the real point that the harassment is real and unending.
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It is not to derail the point - it is an attempt to minimize the effects and frequency of harassment by claiming that not all of it is harassment. Especially when the complaint is handwaved without any reference to frequency or importance.
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^^^ That
 
ruby sparks said:
Jolly_Penguin said:
It would be if it wasn't immediately jumped on by Toni and others as an example of the problem.
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I would have to remind myself of the order of events and what exactly was said. I don't recall anyone saying that saying 'smile' was always harassment.
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Notice that JP did not provide actual evidence to support his claim - he simply is reporting his impression, not the actual statements.
 
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