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[Zoe]

(does the "bitch face" really work for repulsing would-be harassers? xD)

That + being short and fat does the trick for me, I think. It helps being below people's peripherals.

 

[weemadarthur]

.

 

[besada]

thanks gals :3 will check the stuff out

and I've actually been meaning to get into pratchett so thanks for the reminder!

Because an alarm siren goes off in my head when anyone on GAF asks for book recommendations:

Pratchett/Baxter's Long Earth/Long War/Long Mars
John Darnielle's wolf in white Van (not fantasy, but enthralling)
Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance) [Dark fantasy/science fiction, involving identity, loss of such, theft of such, ecology, destruction of, consequences of wrecking, etc.]

 

[besada]

Now my head hurts.

 

[trab pu kcip]

Because an alarm siren goes off in my head when anyone on GAF asks for book recommendations:

Pratchett/Baxter's Long Earth/Long War/Long Mars
John Darnielle's wolf in white Van (not fantasy, but enthralling)
Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance) [Dark fantasy/science fiction, involving identity, loss of such, theft of such, ecology, destruction of, consequences of wrecking, etc.]

ohh thanks!
I actually started reading "guards! guards!" by pratchett and it's very well-written, witty and entertaining so far but the constant implicit sarcasm kinda keeps you from getting drawn into the fiction completely imo. which is a minor downer cause that's what I wanted in the first place.
will check the other stuff out you mentioned!

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

Yeah, some might think that Japan, being so 'safe' and 'sterile', with people so polite, would never have cases of harassment.

When I visited, I encountered some weird forms of harassment (though not sexual). Every now and then, I'd run into some weird middle-aged/older guy at a train station who would open up with wanting to "practice their English", and it would slowly turn into a weird, passive-aggressive anti-American rant.

Like there was one guy who seemed like he was nice, saw us as obvious travelers and wanted to chat about places abroad and practice his English. He was jovial as he talked to us about American trivia (he surprisingly knew a lot, more than us), and then he asked us if we could clarify the meaning of some passages on some English text he was reading. The passages seemed innocuous at first, but then it got weirder and weirder, with cryptic excerpts from the Bible and stuff about America being evil colonialists or something.

The whole point was to get us to read these statements out loud and assure him that we "understood what it meant", all the while with his shit-eating grin and attitude of superiority. It was fucking weird, and we had to bail as he kept going on and on with his creepshow.

After that, we learned to just ignore dudes approaching us with "can we practice our English?" approaches. Sorry if you're a legitimate English-learning train passenger, but those nationalist weirdos ruined it for the rest of you.

:O

wow. i never realised! every time i go back home, i take it for granted that i wouldn't be bothered on the streets :O

the groping in the subways is pretty bad but i've never come across people who asked me to smile or cat-called me in Japan... haha... how odd :>

when i first came over to australia, this was one of the things that i noticed. i think people are a lot more out-going here in melbourne, and at first, it really discomforted me. took a few years to acclimatize.




that thread is a cesspit, but i dare say that most of us girlgaffers actually would respond kindly to friendly comments even if we're just walking somewhere. i think most of the offended posters in that thread assume that we are horrible, bitter, feminazis who wants to take something away from them, or something. idk. it's interesting. depressing, but also black-comedy-like.

:x




haha bunbuns made besada headachey XD so cute ^___^

 

[InfiniteNine]

Which books do I not read!?

 

[Sevarus]

We actually had a discussion of male privilege and how part of that is being able to walk down the street without being harassed in my medical ethics class (yeah, I don't know what that has to do with medical ethics; these things just kind of happen). One of the guys in the class didn't understand what objectification meant, c'mon girls, guys are just trying to be friendly, etc etc.

The instructor remarked that he should go to the gay neighborhoods of some big cities and experience other men treating him like a piece of meat. And that even then, it's not the same because the physical threat isn't likely to be there like it is when a man harasses a woman.

Not sure how I feel about it, but it was an interesting comparison.

As a side-note, I've been whistled at by another woman before, and though it wasn't as offensive to me as when a guy does it... she was not someone I would be attracted to, and I did find it pretty gross.

 

[Pau]

ohh thanks!
I actually started reading "guards! guards!" by pratchett and it's very well-written, witty and entertaining so far but the constant implicit sarcasm kinda keeps you from getting drawn into the fiction completely imo. which is a minor downer cause that's what I wanted in the first place.
will check the other stuff out you mentioned!

This is something that gets better over time. At first, he is more concerned with the jokes. It slowly becomes more about the characters, to the point where I can't read some of the books without crying. Pratchett loves his word play, but he has a ton of compassion for his characters.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Well a friend of mine has chronic bitch face and she gets the whole smile thing a lot, so maybe Montreal is onto something! I'm not learning french though.

Heh, some people live their entire lives here without learning a word of French, so...

That + being short and fat does the trick for me, I think. It helps being below people's peripherals.

I'm not short and fat, but I'm rather plain looking. I can't help but wonder if attractiveness does have something to do with it... But meh, I'd rather keep my unattractiveness and not get harassed daily, hah.

 

[SquiddyCracker]

thanks gals :3 will check the stuff out

and I've actually been meaning to get into pratchett so thanks for the reminder!

Trab, you will love the Mistborn trilogy.

 

[InfiniteNine]

I'm not short and fat, but I'm rather plain looking. I can't help but wonder if attractiveness does have something to do with it... But meh, I'd rather keep my unattractiveness and not get harassed daily, hah.

Well you looked cool in the kendo uniform! Kendo uniforms might just be cool though.

 

[Leeness]

That + being short and fat does the trick for me, I think. It helps being below people's peripherals.

Pretty much. Haha.

Never experienced this. Obviously that's just my experience, though.

But I saw when that thread was 10 pages, thought "I'll come back in a little bit and read", and came back like an hour later and it was 40 and thought, fuck that.

 

[HGStormy]

Stopped by to see the reactions to the street harassment thread. Fun times for all, I'm sure.
Ring of Five Dragons by Eric Van Lustbader and Dragon Prince by Melanie Rawn are decent fantasy novels. Been a while since I read them, so not quite sure how well they've held up. I used to know a bunch of good ones but my memory sucks.
Have a nice day, gaf.

 

[shanshan310]

I was really late to the party, but I posted in the street harassment thread too. The most I've had to deal with such stuff is on my trip to Japan, while wandering around alone in Tokyo, a middle-aged (I'm assuming of course) man came up to me, maybe even tapped my arm, to ask if I wanted to go out for coffee. Since I'm not exposed to that sort of thing often, it was mostly amusing. He went on his way after I either told him no pretended I didn't understand (don't remember which I actually did). That was 11 years ago too. Ugh, I feel old saying that.

Yeah, same here. It ended up happening pretty much any time I went out somewhere that wasn't university. It was one of the things that made me thankful for the women's carriages and put off living there again, unfortunately There was one night I was out in Osaka with a couple of friends and over the course of half an hour we got hassled by three groups of men (the last of whom were in their 50s and kept asking each other in Japanese all kinds of creepy shit like did the other hear where we were getting off and how old were we).

Yeah, some might think that Japan, being so 'safe' and 'sterile', with people so polite, would never have cases of harassment.

When I visited, I encountered some weird forms of harassment (though not sexual). Every now and then, I'd run into some weird middle-aged/older guy at a train station who would open up with wanting to "practice their English", and it would slowly turn into a weird, passive-aggressive anti-American rant.

Like there was one guy who seemed like he was nice, saw us as obvious travelers and wanted to chat about places abroad and practice his English. He was jovial as he talked to us about American trivia (he surprisingly knew a lot, more than us), and then he asked us if we could clarify the meaning of some passages on some English text he was reading. The passages seemed innocuous at first, but then it got weirder and weirder, with cryptic excerpts from the Bible and stuff about America being evil colonialists or something.

The whole point was to get us to read these statements out loud and assure him that we "understood what it meant", all the while with his shit-eating grin and attitude of superiority. It was fucking weird, and we had to bail as he kept going on and on with his creepshow.

After that, we learned to just ignore dudes approaching us with "can we practice our English?" approaches. Sorry if you're a legitimate English-learning train passenger, but those nationalist weirdos ruined it for the rest of you.

man what the hell, that's awful. If it makes you feel any better a got to make a lot of people look sad when I told them I wasn't American (or Russian :s). One of the reasons I was thinking about learning a European language, since a lot of my friends were able to make the "no English" comment and walk away.

 

[iirate]

I'm steering well clear of that thread - it'll only make me rage. Kudos to those of you who've been trying to fight our corner, fruitless though it may be.

It's funny in a sad way that every time a thread on street harassment happens, it's the same old shit over and over again. Girl Gaf comes out in force to talk about it, are told they are wrong or ignored, and after repeating myself like four times in that thread I've just given up. Let them think that we are saying that saying hello is exactly like rape now. People like that aren't going to learn anything, mostly because they have their fingers in their ears.

I'm happy that at least one or two people quoted me and said they hadn't thought of it that way, and might have a different perspective from now on. Progress. Tiny, tiny, progress, but progress none the less.

Now that girl Gaf has mostly abandoned the thread out of exhaustion, they can debate what the word harassment means to their hearts content.


/rant

The way I've always seen it, you're not arguing to change the mind of the people with their fingers in their ears, but the people that may never make a post in the thread but see the argument and may take something away that they never really considered before.

That having been said, arguing at a wall is exhausting and something I gave up years ago. Kudos to all of you keeping it up.

 

[weemadarthur]

.

 

[besada]

And I thought that thread couldn't get any worse. Holy shit.

That was before someone compared women to pitbulls. Also, it can always get worse. This is what it's like with a moderation team known far and wide as Feminazi SJW-shills.

Just imagine what the same conversation looks like on IGN or 8chan

 

[Simply Sarah]

That was before someone compared women to pitbulls. Also, it can always get worse. This is what it's like with a moderation team known far and wide as Feminazi SJW-shills.

Just imagine what the same conversation looks like on IGN or 8chan

You've made me actually think about that and now I hate you forever.

 

[Kimaka]

I feel like it became "white men aren't the bad ones, it's the coloreds."


....... . . . . . . . . .

/headdesk

*edit: Nevermind, just saw the newest banned guy.

WOMEN ARE EVIL LIKE PITBULLS. NOT ALL OF THEM BUT YOU NEVER KNOW.

............

Any time I see 'it must be the culture', it feels like its a coded word for non-white people.

 

[Blood Red Sky]

Pitbulls, seriously? Ridiculous comparison.

Loads of the guys on GAF like and defend pitbulls, for one thing...

 

[weemadarthur]

.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Just imagine what the same conversation looks like on IGN or 8chan

Why are you doing this to me
I hate you

Spoiler

Nah not really. Sorry to suck up but seriously, you mods are really appreciated, it feels so good to see some misogynistic asshole spout his BS and then come back to the thread later and see his username greyed out. <3

Incidentally, there was a semi-discussion about this harassment video on my own forum yesterday, and I banned only one guy (whose key posts included "I have no sympathy for her" and "My favourite comment was the 'She not even hot wtf ...' one because that was exactly what I was thinking. LOL"). And the majority of posters (most of them male) called him out on his shit.

Progress. Slow, small, but it's there. I think. I hope.

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

Yeah, same here. It ended up happening pretty much any time I went out somewhere that wasn't university. It was one of the things that made me thankful for the women's carriages and put off living there again, unfortunately There was one night I was out in Osaka with a couple of friends and over the course of half an hour we got hassled by three groups of men (the last of whom were in their 50s and kept asking each other in Japanese all kinds of creepy shit like did the other hear where we were getting off and how old were we).



man what the hell, that's awful. If it makes you feel any better a got to make a lot of people look sad when I told them I wasn't American (or Russian :s). One of the reasons I was thinking about learning a European language, since a lot of my friends were able to make the "no English" comment and walk away.

:< I feel like I have to apologise for both of your bad experiences :<




also, holy shit at that thread. demoralizing.

and then, besada put things into perspectives.

o7 great work, mod team o7 gafmods are awesome and diverse and i see different dialog going on, even in that thread alone, there were a few mods with varied but civil discussion. to be honest, i dont see how anyone can say that GAFmods are Feminazi SJW-shills unless they are already drowning in their own bullshit narratives of extreme saltyness.

anyway, GAFmods <3 ilu <3

It's funny in a sad way that every time a thread on street harassment happens, it's the same old shit over and over again. Girl Gaf comes out in force to talk about it, are told they are wrong or ignored, and after repeating myself like four times in that thread I've just given up. Let them think that we are saying that saying hello is exactly like rape now. People like that aren't going to learn anything, mostly because they have their fingers in their ears.

I'm happy that at least one or two people quoted me and said they hadn't thought of it that way, and might have a different perspective from now on. Progress. Tiny, tiny, progress, but progress none the less.

Now that girl Gaf has mostly abandoned the thread out of exhaustion, they can debate what the word harassment means to their hearts content.


/rant

I think your posts actually were successful in making some of them rethink their perspectives, Fiction! <3 Progress, no matter how small, is very appreciated <3




Edit: I also laughed when someone in there accused Devo of raising a battle-cry at GG, inferring that we're just playing sides or something. battle-cry. lol. are we in third grade or something, sometimes i wonder about the state of mental maturity of some posters XD

 

[Kimaka]

Ehhh, yes, and no. I use "the culture," but for example-- guns in supermarkets? "The culture." But for a lot of people that use "the culture," they should really be using "the socio-econ class," but they don't because they mistake what it's like to grow up without hope of a future, with having to do with skin color.

I should have prefaced with any time it comes up in a discussion involving minorities. That thread had some comments saying that it must have been the culture which was why the men were acting that way. We don't know what class they were or what sort of cultural background they came from and that whole assumption bothered me.

I don't remember any of this, but I was a shut-in that played videogames until college (and I chose happily to have sex at 15 with my 16 year old bf), so honestly I don't remember any of this happening until college.

That isn't to say that most of it happens way too early, or too frequently (at all).

Same here. I didn't have experience with street harassment until I went to college. It was really weird because I never had a guy express interest in me unless we had known each other. I think it had something to do with me also being a shut in and when I went outside I was either with my brothers or friends. College basically forced me to be outside alone more often since I had to take the bus everywhere.

 

[Sevarus]

Between the harassment thread, the "females masterbating" thread, the "how do I give my girlfriend an orgasm" thread, and the "does this girl want to have sex with me???" thread....

I'm beginning to think maybe we are really mysterious creatures.

 

[trab pu kcip]

does any of you girls know if there's a princess leia bikini? not talking the slave costume but something that resembles it and is actually waterproof. I've seen all kinds of stuff, like wonder woman inspired bikinis but not the leia thing :l

 

[Musha_Soturi]

does any of you girls know if there's a princess leia bikini? not talking the slave costume but something that resembles it and is actually waterproof. I've seen all kinds of stuff, like wonder woman inspired bikinis but not the leia thing :l

This website you can design your own swimwear, so maybe they can make it for you, unless there'd be some problem with copywrite

http://www.splish.com

 

[Aiustis]

I'm wearing pikachu.

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

sevarus, yeah, i know right XD i feel a bit worried about some gafmen every time i come across those kinds of threads. and theres a few of them too... :x



halloween is not really celebrated here :< so im dressing up as... pyjama-wearing person :x

 

[Mineshaft_Gap]

Between the harassment thread, the "females masterbating" thread, the "how do I give my girlfriend an orgasm" thread, and the "does this girl want to have sex with me???" thread....

I'm beginning to think maybe we are really mysterious creatures.

I don't know about you, but I'm a Wood Elf.

 

[Mineshaft_Gap]

I don't like to comment on guys pics here ever. I just don't feel like it will lead anywhere productive.

But there's a particular person on the last page of that thread before it got locked who is oh my god.

 

[Yrael]

halloween is not really celebrated here :< so im dressing up as... pyjama-wearing person :x

I spent Halloween dressed as myself.

Everyone was terrified.

 

[Cat]

I was a fairy with my daughter. We had more trick-or-treaters than last year but not many overall again. Last year, it was only 4 groups. This year was more like 7 or 8. Next year may be my daughter's first year trick-or-treating.

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

I spent Halloween dressed as myself.

Everyone was terrified.

you are too cute yrael <3



awww that thread got locked :< ah well, it was pretty boring towards the end. it wasn't even about what women likey anymore.

tbh personality >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> body for me. i dont really like dudes who spend so much time on his bod, in all actuality. theres something a bit too self-absorbed about it :x

intelligence / wit are the things that really make me melt.

and i find, in my limited experience anyway, duders who are too much into gym-culture to be sort of the opposite of that spectrum.

 

[Jhoan]

Girl GAF am I a creep? I drunk. No get banned please. I good guy. Ask Pau and Karkador please. I get D drunk at party. Please mods.

 

[weemadarthur]

.

 

[Kimaka]

I don't like to comment on guys pics here ever. I just don't feel like it will lead anywhere productive.

But there's a particular person on the last page of that thread before it got locked who is oh my god.

Yeah, seriously. I debated quoting a particular person but decided to just make a general comment. I didn't want to come off as too creepy >__> I feel weird about commenting on non-celebrity pictures.

 

[meow]

I don't like to comment on guys pics here ever. I just don't feel like it will lead anywhere productive.

But there's a particular person on the last page of that thread before it got locked who is oh my god.

Thanks for posting this. I hadn't been following that thread (I tend to avoid because I've learned it just takes up a lot of time and makes me angry) but . . . I can appreciate those last couple of pages.

 

[Pau]

Girl GAF am I a creep? I drunk. No get banned please. I good guy. Ask Pau and Karkador please. I get D drunk at party. Please mods.

Honestly, you know what you did wasn't cool. I don't know exactly what went down, but from what I saw, you sounded like the kind of guys who harass my sister and me on the street, assuming a bunch of shit because we don't accept the sexual advances of a stranger.

You need to stop thinking that girls (white or any) owe you sex. Maybe you only think that when you're drunk, but don't be that guy. And don't blast it in every venue you can... like the GirlGAF thread of all places.

 

[Mineshaft_Gap]

I feel like I just took a punch in the stomach. I just read something that fucked my mind completely up and I feel like I have absolutely nobody I can talk to about it.

I'm freaking the fuck out.

 

[Mistel]

I feel like I just took a punch in the stomach. I just read something that fucked my mind completely up and I feel like I have absolutely nobody I can talk to about it.

I'm freaking the fuck out.

What was it?

 

[Amalthea]

I feel like I just took a punch in the stomach. I just read something that fucked my mind completely up and I feel like I have absolutely nobody I can talk to about it.

I'm freaking the fuck out.

You're never really alone. There are always people there for you.

I dunno what happened but it's important to stay calm. (I know it's hard since I suffer from panic attacks)

 

[trab pu kcip]

This website you can design your own swimwear, so maybe they can make it for you, unless there'd be some problem with copywrite

http://www.splish.com

thanks a bunch

 

[weemadarthur]

.

 

[sploatee]

I spent Halloween dressed as myself.

Everyone was terrified.

Hahaahah!!

Me too. I even stayed in and stared down our guinea pigs

 

[Morrigan Stark]

What was it?

lol, she just said she isn't comfortable talking about it...

That said, yeah, what Amalthea said. Perhaps you could PM someone here? It does feel like you want to talk about it, and just are scared to...

 

[trab pu kcip]

lol, she just said she isn't comfortable talking about it...

That said, yeah, what Amalthea said. Perhaps you could PM someone here? It does feel like you want to talk about it, and just are scared to...

this might be a good idea. I'm always happy to provide an open ear if someone here needs it. just putting it out there for Mineshaft_Gap, happy to help if you wanna pm someone. but I think this probably goes for a lot of girls here so don't be hesitant.

 

[Anastasia]

this might be a good idea. I'm always happy to provide an open ear if someone here needs it. just putting it out there for Mineshaft_Gap, happy to help if you wanna pm someone. but I think this probably goes for a lot of girls here so don't be hesitant.

Same here. I don't promise the best advice, but I'm also willing to provide an open ear. In any case I hope you feel better soon Mineshaft!

lol, she just said she isn't comfortable talking about it...

She said that she doesn't feel like she has anyone to talk to about it, not that she's necessarily uncomfortable talking about it. The two are not the same; i.e., I can have many people to talk to about something, but not want to talk about it, and vice versa. The fact that she is reaching out here on GAF should be clear enough that she wants to talk to someone.

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

Miney, the PM someone you feel comfortable talking with sounds like it would be my advice too !

Ugh its Monday here, GAFsisssss

;___;




and its already november wtf. where did the year go ;____;