Timehost: We're going to be talking about the topic of sexual harassment on the street. What is harassment? Can it simply be looking at someone...commenting on their appearance? And we're being joined by a woman who's become quite an expert in the subject. Maggie Hadleigh-West has just directed a movie about the topic, called "The War Zone." She went to cities all across the country and confronted men on the street about why they act the way they do, when they look at, whistle at, stare at women. And the results are pretty amazing. Welcome, Maggie!

Maggie Hadleigh-West: Thanks. I'm glad to be here.

Timehost: Let's take the first question from online...

BlufftonBoy: Who are the most likely to make passes to women on the street that you have found? What's the common profile?

Maggie Hadleigh-West: That's a really rough question. Making passes and harassment are different things in a way. I think, though, that most men in this country in one way or another have engaged in street abuse. I think that it's not an indictment of men in general, or even men in my film, but more an indictment of the culture. If a man has been socialized to look at women on the street and fantasize about them, why wouldn't he? Making a pass at a woman implies that the guy is trying to date her. On the streets, it's a different thing., Sometimes it's about dating, sometimes about power, sometimes about miscommunication, so I like to characterize what I 'm talking about as street abuse. And that can be anything that's verbal or non-verbal that has a sexual context and that is uninvited.

Timehost: You embarked on an extensive project, spending years on this issue, and making it into a movie...

Sun7910: What did your research find?

Maggie Hadleigh-West: Well, the grandest conclusions to me are that I'm very surprised at how controversial my position is perceived. Because to me it's so logical that if a stranger is sexually aggressive to another stranger, and we understand that women live with the threat of rape, it makes sense that that would spark an anxiety in women, related to the fear of rape. I wouldn't call it a conclusion per se, but the thing I found interesting and sad is that it's often the nature of men's lives, which is being financially successful. And that is often illustrated on the streets through misogyny or drug abuse, or alcohol. You see a lot of men who are perceived as not being a man in this culture on the streets. Even though my film is about aggression and misogyny, I have to say I'm very surprised at the level of aggression on the streets. It's really very, very big. And because it's an interaction between strangers, it points out many of the ills in our culture. If it doesn't go the way the man wants to, suddenly you find yourself in this racist, or sexist or homophobic circumstance. Like a real woman would like this aggression, whereas a frigid lesbian bitch, or a bitch , would not. You might be a "white bitch", or a "nigger", or whatever racial slurs might come up. Or even ageism comes up. I've had men say, "You're cute, but you're old." It shocks me how dysfunctional it shows us to be in so many ways. Incredibly unempathetic to each other, also.

Timehost: Here's a follow-up....

_llush_: What do you think is the best way to handle a situation like that?

Maggie Hadleigh-West: Well, for women, I think they have to do whatever to be safe, and maintain their personal integrity. So if that means complaining to an organization or business that that man is affiliated with, because women have dollars and they can boycott businesses, we should do it. We should be really aware of what's going on around us. We shouldn't condone it, or laugh it off, saying, "Boys will be boys," but look at that behavior as a very destructive factor in relations between men and women, because we learn to distrust men at a very early age. We should be careful how we teach our children and what messages we put out in the world. I'm not saying changing the way we dress or walk, but we shouldn't buy into the idea that men can't control themselves. And men, it's so simple: Quit looking at us as if we're body parts. We're not breasts, asses, treat us as respectfully as someone else you'd care about. Because every time someone is disrespectful to a stranger, someone is disrespectful to someone he loves. Men often think their message is complimentary, but it need not be. We're not complimented necessarily by a stranger. And we should also be aware that women are raped, one in every 3 or 4 is raped -- so virtually every woman in this country has been raped or knows someone who has been. So it's very close to our experience, and they just need to ask themselves, "Do we want women to feel anxious about us on the streets?" I don't think the majority of men want us to feel that way. I hope they don't.

CrazyAboutMyself: Why is it almost a necessity for men to wanna holler at a lady...even if she's like, half a block a way?

Maggie Hadleigh-West: I don't think it's a necessity. I think men are very encouraged to do things like that. And I think more often than not they're whispering to us as we walk by. One thing I've noticed is that they wait until you've passed them, and then they say something to your back. A lot of people say it's no big deal, but the subtext is yes, it is a big deal, and that's one of the indicators of that. If we didn't understand that it's dehumanizing or degrading, we would look at them directly. I remember one woman on a radio show called in and said that when she walked down the streets of New York in the 50s she took it as a compliment, sort of -- "Well, I look good today." And what I say, is "Why don't you go on a date with that man? Why don't you introduce yourself? Because we understand that there's an underlying threat. Men understand that when it's about their own family members, just not about strangers.

AlphaMale_b4u: Your perception of behavior is subjective, what are your credentials?

Maggie Hadleigh-West: My credentials are I'm 39 years old, I've been harassed on the street since I was seven or eight. Every day, every week, every month, I have been inundated with this experience. In my film, a traditional way to look at this would be to have a psychologist or expert on the issue, but my feeling is "It's just women," every woman understands this issue, so I just used ordinary women. And because I have been doing more work on this subject than anyone else in the country, I have become the recognized expert on it. So those are my credentials. Also, the validation that I get from women constantly because I travel around the academic circuit talking about it all the time always reinforces the idea that this is not my experience alone. I'm getting worldwide press all the time. If this were just my experience, that wouldn't happen. It's touching on something that hasn't been talked about, something that hasn't been illuminated.

Timehost: Here's a question about your the movie, The War Zone...

Sammy_K15: Why call it that title?

Maggie Hadleigh-West: The title came from something a woman said to me many years before. She was working in a rape crisis center and she said that for women the streets are a war zone. And it stayed with me. I feel that when women walk down the street, they are literally traversing a mine field. And it's a constant battle for women to keep themselves safe. In fact, my first film, on the same topic, had the same title. I've tried to come up with another title, but I can't. It's perfectly appropriate for the essence of what I'm talking about.

hockeywing: I don't mind when guys just look and maybe say something to their friends, girls even do that, but what encourages them to yell what they think out loud? even when it's inappropriate?

Maggie Hadleigh-West: The first thing I would say is you should ask yourself what it is you get out of men looking at you in a sexual way. Because my experience was that at first I liked it too because I thought it was about me. And then I realized that it had nothing to do with me because they didn't know who I was, it was just part of a judgment made about me that ultimately I found uncomfortable. And I decided that the opinions I care about are those of people I know. I think when people say things to their friends, they're not saying things just to their friends. They want us to overhear them. There's a macho game that's played out in that circumstance. And when they yell at women, who knows what they're doing. It could be because they don't like women, or because they want a date, or because they like the way your butt looks. I can't read every man's mind. But we as a culture tell men, it may be rude, but boys will be boys. Women do it, but rarely. And when they do it, it's in a group because the same things always apply. If a woman is sexually aggressive on the street, she doesn't know that he will respond well to what she says, and there's a physical disparity. I don't think we need to target men, I think we need to cultivate sympathy and realize the circumstances of other people's lives. I think it's also really important for women to learn to validate themselves. It's important for us to begin to redefine beauty. To not take a stereotypical idea of what is beautiful, to let it dominate our lives. Because that's a part of what makes us buy into this attention on the street. We're told we should look a certain way, have certain hair, weight, etc. And most women feel inadequate about who they are physically, so when a strange man says, "You look hot," we go, "Yeah, I am OK." So I think that as women we need to think about who we are.

CrazyAboutMyself: Maggie. Why is it that even at the age 17, and men knowing I'm young, older men still try to pick me up....even when I'm with family members?

Maggie Hadleigh-West: That's because they've been trying to do that since they were 10 or 12. In my film, I have two boys who are around that age checking out a young woman who's 14 and a virgin, and yet she's already very very aware of sexual aggression that's been imposed on her. And has been aware of it and afraid of being raped since she was 10. There's another woman who developed breasts very early, and friends of her father began to treat her in a certain way. It's because they perceive we're women, we're female and we're there for the taking. If we weren't perceived as property, men wouldn't take these liberties with us all the time. It's wrong but it's been going on forever. Also, another question that's important to ask is if you're a 17 year old girl and someone is sexually aggressive to you, what is your father doing? Because what we usually do is let it slide. Everyone does. Maybe he hopes you won't notice it. But do we really confront it and say it's unacceptable behavior? So men are constantly in a climate of this behavior being condoned, so why should they stop? Once there was a man following me down the street who was discussing me in a very, very sexually explicit way. And finally I turned around and said, "Who the hell do you think you are?" And he said, "I was talking to this woman." But he couldn't believe that I would be angry still that those comments would be made, even if they weren't made to me. But I do have a problem even if it's addressed to other women.

Grizz_Bear_1: Sexual harassment on the street -- isn't it hard to define that it is really harassment?

Maggie Hadleigh-West: No. It's not difficult. You know when someone's being sexually aggressive to you. Because the aim is to make you aware of it. Do you not know when someone looks at your crotch and not at your face? One of the funny things is that men wait until a woman walks all the way past them, and then turns around and looks at her butt. We know it's happening. We're not stupid. So much of the information is non-verbal: licking their lips, grabbing their crotch. Does that mean you can never make a mistake? One of the characters in my film is there for that reason, because he was looking at my elbow, which was injured, and my elbow was close to my breast. I thought that he was looking at my breast, but he wasn't. So I included it because I'm not saying that this issue is black and white. But how do you know? When that's the way they so often look at women? In terms of other aggression, it's even more obvious.

f1fanaticx: In which cities did you do your research?

Maggie Hadleigh-West: I shot all over the country. New York, San Francisco, New Orleans, Chicago, and Minneapolis. And I covered those cities specifically because I wanted to cover all regions of the country so that people couldn't say "Oh, that only happens in New York." I know it doesn't. I've lived all over the country. I chose cities because of the cost of film and because there's obviously more aggression because there's more people on the street. And then I randomly chose women of color and interviewed them on the street because I didn't want anyone to say this is the experience just of a white woman.

leery787: Out of all your interviews, which was the most memorable?

Maggie Hadleigh-West: I'd have to say there are two of them. The first one is somebody I call Chicken Man. He was from New York and told me that he knew women didn't like being looked at sexually on the street but he didn't mean anything by it because he looks the same way at cars on the street. And I said, "So you're equating women to cars? And he said, "No. I'd say the same thing about a piece of chicken." And that was so shocking to me because it was so blatant. And it's just so funny. From another planet. It also cuts to the heart of the way we're perceived: we are for consumption. The other character is Joe, who is towards the end of the film. I was not shooting my film at the time, I was by myself, though with my camera. And he came up and was sexually aggressive towards me. And I knew immediately that he was disturbed. And I said, "Leave me alone." And then about an hour or two later, I ran into him downtown while I was waiting for a friend. I saw him doing what he had done to me repeatedly in a very short span of time with seven different women. And it scared me and made me angry, because I thought he was a sexual predator. So I picked up my camera and started following him because I wanted him to know that I had captured his image. Because I was trying to keep women safe at that very moment. The tone of that interview was also the most interesting to me because I feel that I went overboard. Because I was very emotional about his behavior. So I pushed him in a way that I believe was inappropriate. It's very difficult to miss if you see my movie.

titus898: Wouldn't it have been a truer test of men's street attitudes towards women if you had been dressed in the clothes most women wear, rather than something fairly "come hither"?

Maggie Hadleigh-West: I don't think I'm wearing anything "come hither." Or different from the clothes most women wear in the summer. What I'm wearing in the film is a tank top with a T-back so you can see my back, my shoulders, my arms. You can't ... there's no cleavage, it's a fitted shirt. And then a skirt that's about three inches above my knees with black leggings. So you're probably seeing 6 inches from my feet to my legs. And it's interesting that that's considered "come hither" because men can walk down the street with their shirts off. When I was in Chicago it was about 104 degrees, but women aren't allowed to escape from the heat by wearing less clothes without it being considered provocative . And women aren't allowed to feel comfortable with themselves. We should be able to wear whatever we want -- walk around stark naked and men should be able to control themselves. The thing is, they're not asked to control themselves. One of the lines I had in my last film is that when a person is robbed, they're never victimized for having their TV out and then it was stolen. Or because their car was stolen because it was out on the street. It's not the woman's fault. We're not seducing men into an uncontrollable behavior.

Home_Agian: What can I do to educate myself and others so we are aware and to help prevent street harassment?

Maggie Hadleigh-West: Like I mentioned earlier, just to be aware of who the person is that is harassing you, educate our children and not condone the behavior in men.

Timehost: Here's a follow-up...

Houli2000: Don't the "street attitudes" depend on what street you are on???

Maggie Hadleigh-West: If the question is referring to bad neighborhoods vs. good neighborhoods, street abuse crosses all social, racial and economic lines. I've been majorly harassed in the financial districts of New York, Chicago and San Francisco. I think it has more to do with the numbers of people on the street, rather than who those people might be. That's not to say that I'm not aware of racism and that there are certain areas where people of certain ethnic origin are less safe, but in general, the behavior is not specific to a particular part of a city or a race or a culture.

whistlers_momma: Did you manage to convert any of the men you interviewed to your way of thinking about whistling at women?

Maggie Hadleigh-West: As a matter of fact, I did. Not a lot. But a few. In defense of the men on the street, it's a very difficult thing to have a woman turn a camera on you all of a sudden and put you on the spot. It's a pretty remarkable man who doesn't take a defensive position. But there were some who said they'd never thought about it my way and were open to the idea. In New York , there was a street vendor who was 16 years old and said he went to the movie with four women, he was in the movie, and later told me he was mortified to be a part of that behavior, but he totally got it. And he came back with friends because he thought the film was important -- and to tell me he got it. But I didn't usually include the men who were apologetic or understood what I was saying, because that's not the experience most women have on the street. And I wanted the audience to understand that experience. And it doesn't happen that you're asked, "Oh, sorry, did I offend you?" But I didn't want it to appear hopeless, so my character of hope became my ex-boyfriend, Lorenzo, because I know he's a good man, I know what his intentions are. Not that many of the men in the film aren't good guys, because they are.

saltyair: When is this movie to be released...or has it been already. I've never heard of it and want to see it.

Maggie Hadleigh-West: Right now the film is showing in LA. Starting this Friday, at the Laemmle Grand Fourplex in downtown LA. I'm in the process of talking to distributors so hopefully it'll be in a theater near you soon and then it'll be on television. My company's name is Film Fatale, for further information.

Timehost: Thanks, Maggie, any closing thoughts?

Maggie Hadleigh-West: The most important thing to me about the film is that it begins a dialogue. This is a starting point to talk about something that's very complicated and large. And I hope people will open up the dialogue to those who are important to them.

Timehost: Thanks for having the dialogue here with us tonight.

Maggie Hadleigh-West: Thanks for having me. I love being had.

Timehost: I wont even go near that one. Thanks!

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