This afternoon I had the chance to catch up and watch the controversial video about the woman walking the streets of New York that we also discussed in the podcast. During the podcast I didn’t much want to comment on a piece I had not yet seen. After viewing my initial reaction is where are all the white men? Its hard to imagine that if she walked through every neighborhood of Manhattan, not a single white man catcalled or made a comment? The editing feels contrived, not entirely candid.
Perhaps I am inured to that type of harassment from years spent living in the city, and from when my daughter lived in the city too, and the constant worry about much worse events happening. I was mugged four times when we lived in Boston, twice at knife point, and two of the incidences were by women. Additionally, my children were with me during two of the muggings. Relatively speaking, catcalling and comments are easy to shrug off and ignore. The man who followed her for five minutes was truly perverse, but what would you do in a similar situation? In reality, you would never let it get that far. If I were alone without a cameraman present, I would have been very frightened and after about twenty seconds would have ducked into one of the many stores that were passed along the way.
What are your impressions after viewing the video?
Published on October 28th, with over 31 million hits.
Good Morning Gloucester 