I would really love to hear you sing!!!
I love the Silver Bloggers too.. you know it was my idea? Lol, I was just joking to @lizelle about it but who knew it would provide such an awesome home? And help me accept aging a little .. actually didn't until I realised I am one of the cool silver bloggers myself! I don't have your gorgeous locks of silver yet ... Just annoying threads.
Can I protest a little!? Cat calling is NOT harmless. It may appear harmless, but what it says is that men think they have the right to very publically comment on a woman's personal appearance without invitation or knowing her. And if they have our permission to do that, where does that lead? If you think about it as "street harassment' it takes on a different colour. The young girl walking home and the men making lewd and suggestive comments out the car window. The whistling becomes comments like 'i don't care if you are underage' or 'i like exotic girls like you'. Because hey, if a whistle is okay, then ... When woman don't feel safe walking home, the behaviour has to be called out and nipped in the bud somewhere. It's definitely not always harmless and is part of bigger problem that objectifies and defines and subjugates woman in society. Just like the way older woman become invisible and unheard and unvalued.
Sorry darling, I don't mean to rant AT you at ALL... Just the situation.
I do miss being attractive, don't get me wrong. At least hubs seems to still think I'm sexiest most beautiful woman alive. Lucky as men age they start going blind.
This calls for a discussion of what constitutes harm and what is only hurt. In many things, we have so blurred the distinction between harm and hurt that many natural, honorable thoughts and feelings are suspicious as coming from a deep well of innate badness. While this is true for all of us - all of us have been conditioned to find fault with ourselves from the earliest age - men have been especially battered with the ram of self hate. And womens' hate of men has been fueled, I believe undeservedly and counter-productively.
Harm to me is bodily injury, or injury to property. Hurt is a feeling of un-comfortability.
The men I should have been afraid of never openly expressed their appreciation of me. It was the quiet ones who could do harm. There is an assumption that open appreciation of beauty leads to abuse, but my experience has not born that out.
When I was younger, if a man (or woman because that happened often too) expressed appreciation I would feel complimented, not afraid. At some point this changed for me, but not because I had been harmed by a cat caller. More because I was told that cat callers were potentially dangerous, the gateway to abuse, as you pretty much said.
So this is just one instance of how we have been made to hate ourselves so much that someone appreciating our beauty is hated by us.
There's so much more to say here, but I gots to go. Will come back later. Thanks for your comment!! I really mean that!