Aussie women less likely to find wolf-whistling offensive. Seriously?

Aussie women less likely to find wolf-whistling offensive. Seriously?

Australian women are less likely to be perturbed by being wolf-whistled in the street and even hit up blatantly for sex, according to new research.

The study, carried out by two Perth universities, (Curtin and Edith Cowan) polled 1734 women across 12 countries, finding that Australians will accept certain behaviour and advances, deemed unacceptable by women from other countries.

Only a quarter (26%) of Australian women qualified being asked for sex by a man at a social gathering as inappropriate.

For countries like Egypt (100%), Japan (97%), Indonesia (99%) and Portugal (88%), however, that kind of exchange would be nearly unheard of.

Again, the study suggested that Aussie women are overwhelmingly fine with being wolf-whistled in the street by a stranger. Only 25 percent of respondents claimed to find this behaviour offensive.

On the flip side, the study showed that Australian women were less likely to be tolerant of mild stalking behaviour.

Sixty four per cent of Australian women wouldn’t appreciate a man showing up unannounced at places they are known to visit in the hope of a chance encounter. While 74 per cent deemed it inappropriate for a man to send them strange parcels.

Italians by contrast, weren’t put off by this at all. Just seven percent felt affronted by the idea of men popping up announced, and only 23 percent thought it was unacceptable for men to send them things.

Lead author Dr Lorraine Sheridan, from the School of Psychology at Curtin University, said the survey conveyed diverse perceptions of what constitutes inappropriate behaviour by men. The study showed definitive cultural nuances, with little consensus over less explicit behaviours.

 

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