When a compliment isn’t
On Stuff there was an article about the cat-calling/street harassment that an individual woman received while walking through New York (Stuff article here).
Here’s the 2 minute video:
Back at the Stuff article there are a bunch of comments from (I can only assume men) saying “A pretty woman wearing form fitting clothes, what does she expect?” I’m not even going to deal with that, because that is just so fucking ignorant it makes me rage. But there’s a more problematic comment that’s cropping up a lot, it’s the “most of those men were just complimenting her” type comment.
It’s pretty simple, if in the act of complimenting someone you a) make them feel uncomfortable or b) the compliment was not wanted then it wasn’t a compliment, was it? It doesn’t actually matter the intention. No-one has any right to make anyone feel vulnerable or uncomfortable. So if you think you’re being complimentary, you’re not. Just quit it.
