Some people on Fox News – to be more precise, four women and one man on Fox News – have a conversation about catcalling women in the street. Olivia Kittel at Media Matters comments.
On the August 28 edition of Fox News’ Outnumbered, hosts highlighted a New York Post opinion article that suggested women “deal with” “flattering” catcalls. Co-host Kimberly Guilfoyle defended street harassment saying, “let men be men,” and, “look, men are going to be that way. What can you do?”
She summed up with:
They mean it in a nice way, I think, like they find you attractive or they want to pay a compliment.
Which is a stupid and irresponsible thing to say. Some do, maybe, and up to a point, but not all do. You know how we know that? Because many get hostile if the women react in ways they don’t like.
But after that the one man took over, and did far more talking than any of the women had, until I got irritated and stopped watching at 2:40. But how classic is that?
Guest host and Fox contributor Arthur Aidala reenacted his personal signature “move” – aiming a slow round of applause at women on the street, which one host said she’d find flattering.
He said his slow clap – which he stood up to perform, standing over all the women, just in case we’d gotten confused somewhere along the way – gets him “a 90% success rate” – he gets a smile. Really? It looks incredibly creepy, to me. But he’s confident that he would just love the same treatment. He said “I don’t know about the ladies but” – he gets up in the morning and tries to dress nicely, he’d love it if more people would let him know. Really? Strangers in the street? I don’t believe that for a second. He’d be repulsed and outraged if men did it, and if women did it he would assume they were hookers – that’s what I think.
Strangers squawking at you in the street just isn’t that much fun. The Fox women actually mostly did admit that to some extent along with minimizing it or dismissing it or saying they’d gotten used to it.
Yes, we can get more or less used to various things, some of us more easily than others. That doesn’t mean the things we get used to are fine. We get to expect better treatment even if we are accustomed to shitty treatment.