Usually in this space I avoid anything that might be a controversial subject, such as politics or issues that draw a clear dividing line between people, like religion or race. Partially this is because I feel this space to be a area of reflection as well as a positive column that will not scare you to death with the sins of modern society.
This week I saw a video though that beside being troubling on a number of levels also shows just how much we might be losing touch with the people standing beside us. The video is called “10 Hours if Walking in NYC as a Woman.” which besides being an interesting observation of the Human condition, has also become slightly controversial as well.
The video shows a woman walking silently through the streets of New York City and along the way the woman is barraged with greetings, exclamations and questions, some boldly inappropriate, while she walks.
While some of the comments are indeed inappropriate the real offensiveness is in the comments made by thousands of people online, where people are throwing frantic keyboard volleys of hate at the opposite gender over the video.
It is a shame that we cannot understand how hard it might be to be a woman in such an area where cat calls and gawking are more common then manners and politeness. To be sure I am not blaming the women themselves, some of the attitude taken towards possible sexual assault of their female students leaves me flabbergasted at how much gender bias still exists in the world around me.
There are also larger social implications, because if the video is correct, saying phrases such as ‘have a nice evening’ and ‘how are you?” could soon be considered harassment and I think we will lose a great deal of the potential for Human connection in this world.
Although I can agree most of the men in the video seemed to have an ‘agenda’ in the video for saying these phrases, the phrases themselves are not the ones to blame. There are people out there who still believe in reaching out and talking to the people who share the community around them and saying ‘good morning’ or even a simple ‘hello’ is what begins the conversation.
I just feel that slapping a label on these kinds of interactions as well as on men themselves is just as bad as the label some of the men want to slap on the women when they are talking about the causes of various levels of sexual abuse and assault.
The world should be a kinder place and you never want to see someone being harassed or being made to feel uncomfortable, but I cannot see how demonizing the very words people have used to express interest, information and a desire to communicate will not just drive us further apart rather than together in the long run.
