Not long ago, my daughter-in-law, sister, cousin and I were waiting for a table in a family-style restaurant, close to the exit. A middle-aged man had been eyeing my daughter-in-law. On his way out, he paused as he passed us, and said to her, “With all due respect, you are very attractive.” Feeling both protective and offended, I said to him, “That is wholly inappropriate, sir.”
My cousin snapped at me that it was only a compliment. My sister got mad at me for upsetting my cousin. My daughter-in-law appreciated my reaction but said that she has had “way creepier men say way creepier things to her.” I responded to them all that a stranger has no business commenting on the looks of a person, good or bad, and that this man would never have said a word if any man had been standing with us. Who is right? — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
In our society, it was once thought gallant for men to remark on the appearance of women they found attractive. That custom reflected sexist ideas about the relations between women and men. It presupposed, for example, that women should care about whether male strangers, in whom they have displayed no interest, found them attractive, and be pleased when they did.
There are obviously social contexts in which flirtation is generally considered appropriate — e.g., at a singles bar or a college “mixer,” to stick to the meat-space world. But in ordinary settings? It’s now widely understood that expressions of sexual interest are something you work up to only if the other party has given you reason to suppose that they might be appreciated. In such settings, invoking someone’s attractiveness, as an opening remark to a complete stranger, is discourteous and wrong.
The middle-aged fellow of your story evidently had some awareness of this. We typically say “with all due respect” in contexts where what we are saying would otherwise be presumed to be disrespectful. Your telling him off created a moment of embarrassment for him that might lead him to reflect on whether he ought to do this sort of thing again. If what you said embarrassed your cousin too, this may be because she still inhabits the world in which such remarks are considered a gift, not an imposition. And though your daughter-in-law responded gamely to the incident, she was setting a low bar with her reference to the “creepier things” she’d heard. The way to reduce such remarks is to make it clear when they’re unwelcome.
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