Comment on Self-Made Man

"As a women, you couldn't walk down those streets invisibly. You were an object of desire or at least semiprurient interest to the men who waited there, even if you weren't pretty.[...] We walked by those same groups of men. Only this time they didn't stare. On the contrary, when they met my eyes they looked away immediately and concertedly and never looked back. It was astounding, the difference, the respect they showed me by not looking at me, by purposly not staring."

This quote at the very beginning of the book stood out to me a lot, because it is so true. In the paragraph following this quote, Norah Vincent explains that this is just the way boys are brought up and because every men does it, they just copy this behavior and act the same way without thinking about it. Most women do not like to be stared at by every men they walk by and think it is rude, but I have never heard a guy talk about it this way, even though it makes a lot of sense when you think about it. I have often seen guys in groups even point out pretty women to each other when they were walking by and even pointing their fingers at them. Norah Vincents writes that she finds it rude, but eventually got used to getting stared at all the time. I have never really thought about it a lot, because it just seemed so natural to me. Everyone does it everywhere in the world. But yet the feelings of the women are so obvious and easy to understand if I think about it.
I think I mostly see guys stare at girls, when they are in groups like sport teams on trips or their male co-workers. This kind of shows how weak we are that we only really feel strong enough to stare at women when we are in groups of people that protect us and also that we actually do know or at least sense that it must not be the greatest thing for most women to be stared at by a bunch of guys.