The big debate: should wolf whistling be criminalised in Britain?

Men who wolf whistle or are aggressively lecherous to women on French streets face fines under a new law against sexism and sexual abuse to be passed next year.

Gender equality minister Marlene Schiappa, 34, a feminist and writer, said workshops would be held across France to discuss the bill, as French president Emmanuel Macron on Sunday vowed to send police to enforce the new law

"It's completely necessary because at the moment street harassment is not defined in the law," Ms Schiappa told RTL radio. 

"The idea is that society as a whole redefines what is acceptable or not."

Here in Britain, the topic of wolf whistling is a familiar tune. Last year, Nottinghamshire police moved to make misogyny a crime – and included cat calls in its definition. The year before, a building firm was investigated by police after a young woman complained about “lecherous” men wolf-whistling at her in the street.

So, should we follow our Gallic counterparts and consign wolf whistling to the legal gutter – or is this just one further inroad by a Nanny State culture that needs to be told to go whistle?

Read the opinions of Eleanor Steafel and Martin Daubney, below, and then vote in our poll and explain your reasoning in the comments section.

Wolf whistling is a form of sexual harrassment. It should be a legal red line

By Eleanor Steafel

Every woman will be familiar with the scenario. You’re walking down the street and notice a man or a group of men looking you up and down as you approach. Oh good, what’s it going to be this time? A kind invitation to come and sit on their knee? An excitable declaration about the brilliance of your breasts/backside/legs? (Why, thanks, I grew them myself.) Or my personal favourite: “Cheer up darling, you’d be fit if you smiled”. (Note to self: fix face with more appealing expression.)

They catch you off guard, they tie your tongue, they can – infuriatingly – make you go bright red with embarrassment and anger. And, crucially, these chirruping men can even make you feel seriously threatened.

The wolf whistle has long been dismissed as little more than an irritation, and sometimes that’s all it is (though it’s an irritation women could live without). But every woman knows that a lewd shout from a car window speaks of something far more sinister.

Of course there is an ocean of filth which divides the Harvey Weinsteins of this world from the idiotic 19-year-old who heckles you as you walk past him and his mates. But in my book, if you think objectifying women on any level is acceptable, who is to say you wouldn’t be capable of something more menacing?

So how do we draw the line between serious harassment and meaningless flirtation? That was what Marlene Schiappa was asked when she put to the French government that men should be handed on-the-spot fines for catcalling or lecherous behaviour in public. “We know very well at what point we start feeling intimidated, unsafe, or harassed in the street,” she shot back, going on to spell out that a man who talks to you within 10 centimetres of your face, follows you for several blocks, or asks for your number 17 times, must be classified as harassing you.

Of course there is a difference between flirting and harassment – namely that it stops counting as flirting the second the recipient is clearly not interested in flirting back. And it is harassment if the person on the receiving end feels threatened. That’s all there is to it.

That women still feel unsafe in public in 2017 is a problem which must finally be taken seriously by the authorities. I don’t know any woman who doesn’t have a strategy for walking home in the dark. If a man says something to you, crosses the street towards you, or follows a little too close, your mind starts racing. My approach is to clench my fist around my keys in my pocket with one key sticking out between two fingers so I could defend myself if I needed to (ridiculous, of course, to think a key could do much to deter an attacker, but you do whatever you need to, to make yourself feel safe).

Critics will argue that it would be too difficult to mitigate, that a bloke heckling a woman in the street should not end up on a sex offender’s register alongside rapists and paedophiles. Anyway, how do you stand it up in court? And why would any woman bother to report a catcall?

This is the very reason women don’t report rape or sexual abuse. Because it is usually very hard to prove and women feel as though they have nothing to gain from going through the trauma of reporting it.

If we want to get serious about supporting rape and sex abuse victims to come forward and be listened to, we have to address all kinds of misogynistic behaviour, however minor we perceive it to be.

And let’s be clear, this law – if it were put in place – would never in a million years lead to hundreds of thousands of women going to the police every time they are catcalled. If you think that you are seriously underestimating women’s tolerance for idiocy. We are far too busy breaking the glass ceiling to waste time on hold to a police hotline.

No, this is about men who think it’s OK to objectify women, learning that the law will no longer stand for it. And it’s about women who are made to feel unsafe and small in public feeling they can go and tell someone and not only will they be listened to, but something might actually be done about it.

It is vitally important, because the wolf whistle is just the tip of a very large iceberg.

This absurd ban wouldn't stand up in court - so why bother?

By Martin Daubney

Zut alors! Have they been hit by un petit mal over in France?

Wherever you sit on the wolf whistling debate – from cheery, harmless compliment, to irrefutable proof of toxic misogyny – the one thing we should all agree on is that making it punishable by law is a logistical nightmare.

Evidentially, how on Earth are we meant to identify the culprit? France is considering deploying special teams of community officers into public spaces – but even with crack teams of catcall catchers out there, it would be a minefield to make a case. 

Think about it. Wolf whistling tends to happen in crowded spaces, or at night, and/or from cars that speed off. There's often a great distance between the complainant and alleged culprit. And the whistle can emanate from one man among many - such as those working on a building site, wearing identical clothing.

All of that would make the whistler extremely difficult to identify.

Would we need wolf-whistling ID parades of ten burly blokes in hi-vis vests and hard hats? Would we charge the whistler’s mates with joint enterprise if they laughed?

What if a woman thought a wolf whistle was meant for her, but a man was actually doing it to another woman (or man) on the other side of the street – and they weren't bothered about it? What if a man were whistling Kumbaya My Lord, and it was mistaken for a sexually-charged assault?

It’s absurd – and would give the CPS another giant headache.

We must also consider the effect criminalising wolf whistles would have on a court system that is already bulging at the seams. A Magistrates Court trial costs approximately £1,000 a day to run, a Crown Court trial about £3,000 a day. It would be a huge waste of everyone’s time and money.

Do we really want wolf whistlers clogging up the courts? Because make no mistake, most of these cases would go to trial, and for two good reasons.

Firstly, the aforementioned and obvious evidential flaws in the very make up of the offence. Secondly – and crucially – every man would be inclined to defend himself to the death, because if wolf whistling were to be reclassified under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 – which is reserved for serious sexual offences only – defendants may be subject to being placed on the Sex Offenders' Register with rapists and paedophiles.

To be thus charged with wolf-whistling would be both reputation-destroying and career-ending. Which employer would hire a man on the Sex Offenders Register, even if they were allowed?

If the police are serious about protecting women, they’d do better to prosecute crimes that are already illegal, such as female genital mutilation. But don’t hold you breath: despite there being over 5,000 new FGM cases last year, there have been zero prosecutions in the UK to date.

Instead, the authorities would rather invent new crimes, showing how how we are once again looking down the wrong end of the telescope, in this tiring and divisive war on men.

What's your opinion on wolf whistling? Vote in our poll and then explain your reasoning in the comments section below...