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I'm clearly in agreement with you that it's men's "issue." Your own bedroom, where you're not being perceived by anyone else, because of this, does not have a dress code. Indeed: men, and more specifically men's visual perceptions of women, are precisely why women's bodies are more sexual than men's. But...you do know you share a world with men?
This is obviously a sensitive topic. And it's not women's fault that they are (by default) effortlessly pleasing to look at. I'm just saying that women's bodies have greater and more pronounced visibly sexual qualities than men's, and this fact has social consequences that the sexes should negotiate with each other cooperatively.
In the past cultures have put guidelines on a woman's appearance, without negotiating with women about it. And now the shoe is simply on the other foot: women's visible sexual qualities are a man's problem, and he should simply ignore the bombardment of visual stimulation as women largely fail to realize just how potent the stimuli are because men have been socialized into silence on the matter. There's gotta be something in the middle.
Why do you think women fail to realize that men are visually stimulated? We're told this constantly. We're told that if a man acts out, it's because of what a woman wore, how she looked. Sure, men shouldn't rape, but did you see what she was wearing?
Given different cultural standards in modesty and dress, I don't believe that cleavage, breasts, legs, or any particular piece of a woman's body is just instant "brain off, hormones gone crazy" for men. It's all what we're used to.
Here it is, women's favorite motte and bailey. Yes, if a man rapes a woman he is responsible for it no matter what she is wearing. However, what you wear is signaling. Wearing clothing that draws attention to your sexual characteristics and then complaining when people give you sexual attention (eg, lewding, catcalling) is sexual harassment. On your end. You initiated it, you are responsible for it.
"Clothing that draws attention to your sexual characteristics" is very culturally relative. Fundamentalist Muslims aren't lying when they say they think women who aren't in burkas are flaunting their sexuality, and even in relatively liberal Muslim countries like Egypt (where a hijab is not required, just "strongly encouraged"), women not wearing hijabs are subject to levels of abuse and catcalling that would make New York steelworkers blush. (And incidentally, even conservatively dressed women don't get much less harassment because once you accept that you can determine a woman's modesty and how much she deserves harassment based on how she dresses, it's easy to rationalize that even women in full burkas are doing something to deserve it.)
There is definitely clothing that is intentionally meant to draw male attention, but if women have a motte and bailey, so do men whose motte is "drawing attention to your sexual characteristics" and whose bailey is "dressing in any way that I notice, especially if the bitch isn't with me."
I mostly agree with this and would say that both extremes here are bad, but I believe that in the West women are getting away with more than men in this case. For instance, women who wear shirts like this should be recognized as doing so to harass men and such harassment should be punished to a greater extent than it currently is.
I really don't think you want to establish a precedent of labeling message t-shirts "harassment" because you think they are meant to annoy you. And how exactly would you like women who wear it to be "punished"?
As long as it's considered harassment for men to read the message, there's no worse precedent set by labeling women wearing the shirt also "harassment".
Reading the message isn't harassment.
Of course it is. "Eww, that creepy guy was harassing me; he was staring at my tits!"
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