"Women are life support systems for pussy."
Yes. It's a shocking statement. Where did I hear it? From my ex-husband, who passed it on as a "joke" he and "the boys" heard at the local pub. This was about 20 years ago.
Just last week, I had a conversation with my class of 8th graders about how to express disagreement or anger without put-downs. It was partly in response to a major temper-tantrum thrown by a student who didn't like what someone had to say about her choice in boyfriends (too young,) and partly because we were preparing for a classroom debate, and discussing rules of order.
We talked about how, in modern politics, put-downs are the norm. About how adults on both sides of the party lines generally discuss politics by calling names and putting the other side down, rather than by presenting facts and logic about issues. They all agreed that "that's what my dad/mom/etc. does." I told them that one "persuasive" propaganda technique is to push emotional buttons, because when emotion is engaged, logic and reason flee. That, when trying to convince masses of people with differing povs to vote a certain way, it's the norm in politics to paint the "other" as "enemy" using emotional buttons. That they couldn't do this in a classroom debate; that they needed to recognize it when they see it, but that we'd be using facts, logic, and rules of order.
In other words, the adolescents in my classroom would have to be more mature than the average adult debating politics.
What does that have to do with the thread title? This:
Women come with background experience. When we have been treated as sexual objects valued primarily for our sexual attractiveness or services enough times, by enough males, we tend to perceive looks, stares, leers, and comments as predatory. This IS reality.
It might be that background culture and experience play a big part in our perception of male attention. My mother, in her 70s, was raised in a time when a woman's place was to serve men, be subservient, and take care of herself. Her value was in her attractiveness and her service. If a man looked and made comments, she was complimented, because she knew she was doing what a woman was supposed to. She knew her place.
Of course, she also excused physical abuse, which I witnessed and experienced my entire life growing up with her. I was smart. Smarter than many of the boys, who didn't like that. They did like that I was physically precocious. I didn't have boyfriends as a teen, because they didn't want me to open my mouth, except in one circumstance. I was a tomboy. I didn't decorate myself to attract them. I didn't have to. Slender, long legs, narrow waist, trim hips, and over-sized breasts were enough, no matter what I did or didn't wear. This worried my mother, who was constantly trying to dress me up and make me "pretty." To this day, she carefully says nothing about my appearance unless I wear something she likes, or do something with my hair she likes, and then she lights up and gushes about how "pretty" I look. I've been somewhat of a disappointment, having spent most of my adult life successfully grooming myself to be unnoticeable one way or the other. It's a conditioned response to the behaviors some men have been defending here at DU.
I've been married twice. In both instances, my husbands liked my physical appearance, but not my brains. Which is why I gave up trying to be married or in a relationship after the second marriage ended. I couldn't find men who liked me for myself. Unless they were gay. When I wasn't offering "eye candy," I was invisible, which I found preferable.
I watch my female students being groomed by their mothers to be the flower attracting the bees; I watch my girls obsessing over fashion and hair and makeup and I worry about them. I worry whether or not they will find boys that like THEM. I see that they do; while there are still predators, and teenage boys still gawk, I see most of my boys treating my girls like people rather than "life support systems for pussy." I see that we have slowly evolved. I see hope for the future.
I'm a grandmother. I learned the art of camouflage and have used it well, and now I'm past the age men are interested in leering at. It's been a long time since I had to worry about men evaluating me for sexual potential. I haven't forgotten, though, and when I read all of the "debate" about how men think it's okay to stare at and make comments to and about women they've never met, and how about "militant feminists" are the problem, the politically correct surface layer is cracked, exposing the corruption of a group that supposedly supports social justice.
Men, I have no problem with those of you who like to look at women. It's how you go about it that is at issue.
I'm off to run last minute errands; I'll be back in a few hours to see what DUers have to say about my input.
= new reply since forum marked as read
I have never heard another man say anything like that before, and I have been around macho construction guy types many times in the past.
to post on DU; I won't let it get to me. But thanks. 
"women's place was to serve men"
I am not sure that was ever true. Most of the service was for children, far more than it was for men.
"Her value was in her attractiveness and her service."
And perhaps after the age of 30 it is more about service than anything else. But what is the value of a man in this society?
If the woman supposedly gets her personal self worth and social esteem through service to her family (which often loves and honors her in return) does not the man get his personal self worth and social esteem through service to his employer?
"I was smart. Smarter than many of the boys, who didn't like that."
And as a male geek, couldn't I write the same thing?
And couldn't I also write that most of the girls didn't seem to desire me because of my smart-ness?
"I watch my female students being groomed by their mothers to be the flower attracting the bees; I watch my girls obsessing over fashion and hair and makeup and I worry about them."
I had three sisters and don't remember my mother doing any such grooming. My sisters probably did spend lots of time on fashion, hair and makeup, but they all seem to have done "well" in life, however that is measured. They did better than I did. I worry more about my nephews than I do about my nieces. Although even my niece turned down two free years of college to instead take on $30,000 worth of student loans 
Raising the children was a part of that service, but it was all about service. I was, thankfully, not raised by my father. I did, though, spend a few months with him as a teenager. It was an experience that, thankfully, didn't happen in every household, but at one time it was very common. As a man, my father went to work, brought home a paycheck, and did yard work. My stepmother went to work, brought home a paycheck, and did all the housework, cooking, and kid work. As a girl in the household, I was assigned both yard work and housework. However, my stepbrother was never asked to do housework. As a matter of fact, it was expected that he would go watch tv while I did the dishes, and that before I was done cleaning the kitchen after dinner, I would serve him dessert in front of the tv.
If you are getting the idea that I've not forgotten, nor forgiven, that experience, you are correct. The important thing, though, is that it was not an isolated situation. It was common among all the friends I had from 2-parent families.
Gender roles were at one time much more strictly assigned, and to be honest, when I stayed in my father's house, I saw little difference between expected "service" and "servant."
With the rest? I do agree that you could write the same thing about male "geeks" and girls. I often tell my smarter male students not to worry about the girls in middle school, that there will come a time when they will be more appreciated. And I see that changing, as well. Not as much as I'd like, but I do see boys outside the mainstream getting attention from girls...and from other boys.
I would have liked your smartness, if you would have welcomed mine. It would have been refreshing, to say the least. 
Kochies it is. 
IMO. 
Rec'd. 
And so are men.
...at least if that's the kind of pussy you're talking about.
for the reasons you mention. I've just become a jeans and t-shirt kind of woman, and at this point in my life, having been retired for a while, I almost feel weird when I put on a dress. I never really was much for makeup and frilly stuff, but the hits still kept coming anyway. Like you say, I think it's the breasts. The breast-to-waist-to=hip ratio. I did find sex pleasurable (who doesn't?), so I guess that just telegraphed out even though I always dressed modestly and more or less asexually and wasn't really trolling for men. I'm not sure how a woman can control her sex appeal, but a man can certainly control how he deals with it. (And women, too, of course, in the reverse, although for some reason men don't seem to have a problem with women staring lasciviously at them. Men and women are culturally different in that way.)
ed. And I realize I'm generalizing about how men react to women's stares. Some of you may not like it at all.
