shaking the foundations

[the_siobhan]

The building where I work is a tiny red brick structure that once housed the Victorian Childrens' Hospital. It's haunted by the ghosts of very small children. I know this because sometimes you can hear them crying late at night.

Toronto is going through some kind of a building frenzy, and we are surrounded on all sides by construction. To the west, the Toronto General Hospital and University of Toronto are launching massive multi-story structures almost across the street from each other. Glass appears to be the construction material of choice for 2005. It's actually kind of fascinating, because you can look right through the new building to see where it connects up with the pre-existing brick one.

I've been wondering how long it will take for people to notice the students who stand under the University building and stare up under the desks of the office workers. Or maybe the administration isn't expecting any of their staff to wear skirts.

To the east a company is putting up a new condominium. With considerably less glass. There are gigantic ads showing young people with fashionable hair and slightly hysterical smiles. I am always wondering why modern advertising seems to feature such prominent teeth.

And to the south they have completely blocked off access to the street and put up massive cages to hide the work. At the time it went up I assumed it was just another road resurfacing, but they've been there for over a month. There are huge cranes inside what seems to be a fairly small area. It wasn't until I was walking past the opposite wall during my 3AM break with coffee in hand that I notice that big sign that says Deep Lake Water Cooling Project. I peered through the fence but couldn't see much other than what seemed like some really heavy duty equipment. I suspect there is a shaft in there.

As a result of all this, men in bright yellow hats and very dirty boots are all over the place. I tend not to notice them much unless they are stepping out into the path of my bike, much like I tend not to notice other strangers who pass me by on a daily basis. We just don't interact much.

And some things I've read recently has started to make me wonder if that's unusual.

I've reads lots of old stories about women being harassed every time they walked past a construction site. Even seen episodes of old television sitcoms dealing with the subject. And I've always just assumed that it was some archaic problem from a less enlightened time. Like before I was born.

But recently I've read feminist communities and blogs where women are complaining about it. Talking about it happening now. In 2005.

And it has never ever happened to me. Not when I was a teenager. Not when I was in my 20's and dressed in nothing but cleavage and a wide belt. And now that I'm grey and chubby and passing at least four construction sites every day I'm not seeing it happening to anybody else either.

My father worked construction for years. And even though he was a bit of a tomcat in his younger days, and not above having a good look if it was showing, he had three daughters. I can't imagine a site full of grown men hollering obscenities at a teenage girl wouldn't have made him uncomfortable.

So is this just an American thing? Is it a problem in other places in Canada? Or in England? Or is southern Ontario just a sheltered little bubble?

Now I'm wondering.

Comments

[medakse.livejournal.com]

as mentioned before, my dad is a painter contractor. As a teenager (15 to be exact) I and 2 of my friends worked for him one summer, at a construction site, as painters' helpers. That meant we scraped paint off the floors of the building they were working on. It was a little freaky, being the only women for what seemed like miles around, esp. the day they all decided to leave early and didn't tell us, because I was the boss' daughter.
Did I mention this was next-door to a prison? that it was the new prison, as yet uninhabited?
anyway, one day I walked past three of my dad's workers, who said something to each other in Spanish. Not knowing I could understand them (my Spanish was much better back then). It was dirty, it was nasty, and I gave them an earful, including (I'm almost ashamed to admit it) the phrase "Do you know who my father is?"
It's common, very common in America, but not the just walking past, I think. You've got to be closer than that. That's my theory.

[panic-girl.livejournal.com]

I know this because sometimes you can hear them crying late at night.

This makes me want to hang out with you on a midnight shift! O_o

I don't really get yelled at by construction workers either. Maybe it is a U.S. thing? There's that whole hyper-masculinity culture there that we don't have as much here. I DO, however, have guys yelling out of cars at me all the time. So maybe we just have nice construction workers? ;)

[meetzemonsta.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's as prevalent as some people make it out to be. I lived in Philadelphia for about ten years and walked past construction sites every single day. Not once did I ever get harassed or see anyone else get harassed.

Young men out cruising in their cars, random guys on the street, and some punk rock lesbians on South Street? That's a different story.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

You hear ghosts at work? I'm fascinated. :)

I've been gawked at while walking past construction sites, and one or twice, one of the guys has asked if I have a boyfriend, but I've never experienced the overt harassment I've heard about. Most of the guys look like they're too busy working to spend their time catcalling every woman who walks past.

[nachtisch.livejournal.com]

In my experience cat-calling women in the street is generally coming from Spanish and Italian immigrant culture. Of course most of my experience with it has been in NY and L.A., so it may be biased. And I'm sure many other American men, no matter what their backgrounds, are more than happy to go with it too - I mean it's not outside of our cultural boundaries by any stretch of the imagination. A lot of times it's "Ciao bella!" which doesn't deserve a punch in the face, but a lot of times it isn't "Ciao Bella!" either.

Now that you mention it, I haven't had anything like that happen here either except once in your neighborhood - and that was just old men on a porch.

In London, and Europe in general, I've had several discomforting encounters with Egyptians and Moroccans. So has Miss J! I've heard that there is a cultural assumption there that European and American women are like woohoo free with the sex. Like a guy asked me "How much?" while I was buying a loaf of bread. And he didn't mean the bread.

I am politically incorrect.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

See, this is why questions like this fascinate me. In my universe, ghosts are a normal part of my experience and their existance is therefore taken for granted.

Obscene construction workers, on the other hand, I have no first-hand experience of. So I view the stories with suspicion and ask for confirmation from people I trust.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

There are gigantic ads showing young people with fashionable hair and slightly hysterical smiles. I am always wondering why modern advertising seems to feature such prominent teeth.

i expect it's at least partially as a class marker. buy our things and you too can be rich enough to have perfect teeth. or, only people rich enough to have perfect teeth will be your neighbors!

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

I believe in ghosts, and always have. I've just never experienced one firsthand, and I'm fascinated and rather envious that you have. I have had weird "feelings" about places I've been in though.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've ever been yelled at or wolf-whistled from a construction site, although the stereotype is just as prominent in the UK as it is elsewhere.

Mind you, I think maybe I'm not the sort of woman who gets wolf-whistled.

[nachtisch.livejournal.com]

I also remember once my Haitian housemate told me, "You're getting fat. I can tell you visited America!" and meant it as a compliment. And a friend of mine got "You have SOME ass, baby!" from a guy across the street in Berkeley who clearly meant it in a complimentary fashion. I totally think it's culture clash plus ideas propagated by the media about American women that just aren't true.

[liz-lowlife.livejournal.com]

It happens all the time in the UK.
I know it's not very feminist of me, but as I have got older, I really relish the odd occasion when one of them still thinks I'm worth whistling at!

[beaq.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it used to happen to me a lot when I was a teenager. Not just construction -- any place where men were hanging out slacking off. Not if they're really busy, though, or supervised. It hasn't happened to me for years, and I don't think it's just because I'm older, though it may have something to do with my demeanor and the fact that I don't wait around at bus stops so much anymore.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about the being hassled in the street issue just the other day, from something I read on LJ.

I'm with you on the not being hassled by construction workers (or much at all) on either side of the Atlantic. I've had lots of hassle for being a freak, but not so much for just being a girl.

Possibly because until I was 30 I was so skinny. I don't know. It's just as well, because my usual reaction to being hassled is violence, and I'd have ended up dead or in jail before now if it happened much.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Whereas, as I've got older, I relish the near-invisibility my age gives me to a certain type of man when I'm walking through the world.

But the attention I got from strange men on the streets - including, yes, the occasional construction worker - in my greener years was rarely as benign as a whistle. The catcalls, come-ons and obscenities didn't make me feel attractive, they made me feel like prey.

[kest]

Construction workers, not so much. Around here they tend to be wellpaid professionals, busy, and white. The guys that give me grief tend to be unemployed or homeless and invariably black. I don't know if it's a cultural thing or a class thing or what.

[melete.livejournal.com]

As a couple others have said, I've never really had any problems with construction workers yelling anything and there has been no shortage of construction in most places I've lived.

I generally notice it from men driving by honking, etc. Though one guy did once pull up beside me and looked like he wanted to ask where something was. Instead he wanted to ask me out on a date. That was pretty weird. I've also noticed it when I'm walking down the street past a group of idle men, especially in the puerto rican area where I work. Though the tend to leave me alone now that they seem to recognize that I work in the community center.

Rome was by far and away worse for random comments than anywhere else I've been. But I seem to have had it worse than some of my friends at the time. It probably had a lot to do with my clothes at the time and my hair, as even Italian punk rock and goth kids rarely tended to dye their hair random colors. For the most part it didn't both me. Actually, it didn't bother me when it was younger men or old men. What would creep me out was when the men were around my father's age.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Maybe our construction workers are just more accountable? I could see somebody getting hauled into the boss's office if enough people made complaints that he was threatening people.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I could see men from other cultures getting the impression that North American women like easy sex if they most of their experience has been with tourists . I think there is a bit of a tendancy for people to do stuff on holiday they wouldn't dream of at home, because who's going to know?

When I think about it, when my family lived in the Greek neighbourhood, I used to get approached a lot. Men in groups mostly just stared. That was creepy.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

When people wolf-whistle near me, I look around to see where the cute chica is at.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was the kind of behaviour I was thinking about. Wolf-whistles and "Do you have a boyfriend" don't really register as threatening to me.

Maybe that's part of the difference I'm seeing? That some women are finding behaviour frightening that's not registering on my radar?

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

i got rather explicit stuff shouted at me by roofers in little italy when i was living there. i stopped, and shouted abuse.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

*nod* I think each of us gets our radar set by our own experiences.

If you've been chased down the street and slammed up against a wall by some random male on the street, then a wolf-whistle may seem pretty tame. Just as, to those of us who lived through workplace discrimination in the years before the most recent wave of feminism might find what passes for sexual harrassment in the workplace now to be relatively minor stuff.

But it's still oppression, in my book, and scary/anger-provoking to those who don't have anything worse to compare it with.

[melete.livejournal.com]

most of their experience has been with tourists

You are probably right. Couple that with topics covered in a lot of our tv programs, espeically those that get exported, as well as movies.

It used to endlessly fascinate foreign friends when news reports would come through highlighting the US's more puritanical views on these things.

[emulsional.livejournal.com]

Construction sites in Canada have a uniformed police officer at every site. American sites don't require or use the police at all... so there's no one there preventing harrassment from happening.

[rufus.livejournal.com]

I've been "hey-babied" on the streets of New York -- admittedly, not by construction workers, but by little old Hispanic men sitting on their stoops, at least one random homeless man who mistook me for a fellow homeless person[1] and one younger Arabic gentleman -- and I have to say I found it sort of minorly irritating but not outright threatening. I've also had one random stranger confuse me with a prostitute and attempt a kerb-crawl, which was more baffling than anything else. [2]

But then again I am not now nor have I ever been any sort of willowy sylph, and strange men in trucks are far more likely to lean out of their windows and holler "Go on a diet, fatass!" at me then wolf-whistle. (Which has actually happened.) I suspect if I was subject to a daily gauntlet of "hey baby" and wolf-whistles I would be both angry and disquieted, and I would feel somewhat oppressed.

*however*, I have also heard first hand accounts from friends and acquaintences of more aggressive "hey-babying" that I *would* classify as threatening or disquieting, so I would say yes, it does still happen on a reasonably regular basis.

[1] He had reasonable cause to do so -- I was wearing an old German army parka, cut off sweatpants, duckboots and a ratty t-shirt and pushing a rolly-truck full of random household items at the time.

[2] Mainly because I was dressed for work in dull generic office-wear, leaning against a tree and reading a book at the time. I was next to a bus shelter outside the Trenton train station.

[bar-bar-ella.livejournal.com]

Construction sites specifically - yeah, it still happens in Australia, though I hazard to say that I think it's slowly becoming less common. About a decade or so ago, I think the construction industry here had it made very plain to them (via workplace duty officers or whatever) that wolf-whistling and calling stuff out was not acceptable and that offenders could potentially be done for sexual harrassment. And, damn - that's good. :)

Many of them who, before, might've been the sort have now "modified" their behaviour. A common one that I noticed (and experienced) from the construction on-site where I used to work was to stand at the gate to the site and STARE at you for a good half-block or more as you approach, then say "Mornin'" to you as you pass. Now - I always respond with a "Good morning" or a "Hi" or whatever when someone says good morning, but it still annoyed me just on its blatant rudeness scale. I mean, who STARES at someone so blatantly if you're wanting to be polite and wish them a good day? The blatantly rude thing with the polite thing tacked on just seems so... stupid.

Wolf-whistling is something I've always, always found vile and upsetting. I don't really know why it's always made me so angry but it does. Really blood-boilingly fucking furiously angry. *shrug* People whistle for their dogs to come, y'know? *shakes head*

The downright WEIRDEST thing I've been called (and this happened just a few months ago) by a bloke on a building site was a pie. :) A. Pie. I was walking down the street with Dom, who was eating a meat pie, and this dude on a ladder on a building site shouted "Hey, mate, you enjoying that pie?". I started laughing because Dom had just been saying what a crap pie it was and I started to say "He was actually just saying..." and this bloke talked right over the top of me, saying to Dom "Cos, mate, you've got one in yer hand and another one walking next to ya!". Hilarity ensued on the building site, me and Dom kept walking with very confused looks on our faces. I've been called some strange things in my time.... ;D

Actually, earlier that same week, a small child ran up to me in the supermarket, arms flung wide, shouting "Daddy!". Its mother was very embarrassed. :)