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The wolf whistle
by Let me begin by saying, I am just a little bit confused by what the whole concept of what feminism means to me.
I want to call myself a feminist. I was bought up in the very last years of the Y Generation and went to university on the tail end of a grunge revolution. Being a practising feminist was a desirable characteristic. In some ways, the triumphs that women fought so hard for are ingrained in me - the right to vote, to work, to have an equal wage, the right to own my body and what happens with it. And all of those are awesome things.
It's the more ‘radical' side of it that baffles me - radical, for want of a better word. When it comes to birth control, sex, dating and admiration, the lines begin to blur and I wonder about myself... do I really have the right to wear the feminist tag? Is it something I want to embrace, or is it still alive with the connotation of man-hating and bra-burning?
And what brings to all this philosophical earth-mother stuff, especially from a woman who's far too exhausted from the demands of life to think beyond the basic maintenance of a house and small children...? To break it down to its most basic elements: a wolf whistle, and a homeless guy.
Allow me to explain. A friend and I happened to be in the Sydney CBD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_central_business_district recently for a blogging meet-up. We walked a few blocks to the conference centre, enjoying the early morning sunshine and feeling pretty damn good just because... well, just because. It was a morning off from our kids, and that's enough to make most mums feel good.
And all that happy sunshiney lollipoppy warm-and-fuzzy stuff was ruined in about half a second... by a wolf whistle. It came, succinct and sharp, from a scaffolded building on the other side of the alley we were shortcutting through. Call me conceited, but that whistle was either for us or one of the massive blue garbage bins that were lining the street. And the bins weren't all that hot, if you know what I mean.
I don't object to a declaration of admiration - in fact, with my husband gone and any romance that was on the horizon slowly but surely fizzling out, I'll take almost any admiration I get. But not that kind. Not a faceless, non-entity wolf whistling at me from a dark building. There was something so... creepy about it. Something that felt aggressive and predatory and dangerous. A tone to it that made us walk very, very quickly down the remainder of the alley and back onto the busy, well-populated main street.
And the homeless guy, what does he have to do with all this? Quite simply, he made it better. Stay tuned - next Wednesday here on ITPR, I'll fill you in...
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Comments (8)
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Report Sun Jan 22, 2012 - 3:47 pmPretty good post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed reading your blog posts.Reply -
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Wed Jan 18, 2012 - 4:59 pm
Men and women are equal. Men and women are not the same. I believe both those things, and they're not a dichotomy. M2MReply -
1 reply, Last reply by LoriD on Thu Jan 19, 2012 at 8:36 am
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Report Thu Jan 19, 2012 - 6:44 amI miss the good old days of the wolf whistle. Back then though, the chippy's didn't hide in the dark!!... Just in case us girls wanted to whistle them;).Reply
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1 reply, Last reply by LoriD on Thu Jan 19, 2012 at 8:36 am
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Wed Jan 18, 2012 - 3:07 pm
I'm intriqued about the homeless guy.Reply -
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Wed Jan 18, 2012 - 11:49 am
We are still the hunted not the hunters....it's time to get predatory!Reply -
Report Wed Jan 18, 2012 - 11:28 amGreat ! Very nice!Reply
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