You say that you don't brush it off at all, but just before you said "But IME, those folks are few and far between.". Your experience does not really matter here if you are not a woman that experiences that type of harassment.
What the person you were replying to was trying to tell you is not that the problem are men who start the conversation with "hey pretty girl, can you sit on my face?", but rather people who start with a polite conversation, and if they feel they are met with a warm reaction think it opens the door to more.
It might be only a small percentage of guys who follow up with inappropriate actions, but when as a woman you get 20+ men a day starting to make small talk with you, you end up with a high probability of having at least some of them being weirdos.
On the other hand if the woman answers coldly to the small talk tentative, some people may take it in a bad way. The line you have to walk to not appear too warm to weirdos and not too cold to easily offended people is very thin.
If you can't understand that under these circumstances some women become anxious at the idea of men starting small talk with them, well that's too bad.
As for what you can do, maybe start with asking women you know how they feel about it. Maybe they are all fine with it. It is also very dependent of where you live. If you live in a dense city women get harassed way more often than in a suburb area, it's kind of a number problem.
You assume bad faith and evil from everyone except yourself.
You read what you wanted to read into my comment and ignored anything that contradicted your view that I'm ignorant/oblivious/probably an evil harassing rapist.
I live in the most densely populated city in the US, and was born, raised and have lived here most of my life.
I am acutely aware of the situation and the issue, but you assume you know know better than anyone else. Which is a bunch of entitled (although entitlement of a different kind than I mentioned in the comment to which you responded) bullshit from an entitled, self-righteous asshole. That'd be you, in case there was some confusion about that.
So, as I should have said (which was my initial impression, given your deliberately obtuse and clearly bad faith response to my comment), fuck off jerk.
Which is what most women I know will say to entitled assholes like you.
Edit: It occurs to me that I didn't explain myself clearly enough. As such, I will. And I'll use small words so you'll be sure to understand.
>If you can't understand that under these circumstances some women become anxious at the idea of men starting small talk with them, well that's too bad.
Who said that? Not me. In fact, I said just the opposite.
>As for what you can do, maybe start with asking women you know how they feel about it.
Who says I haven't? I'm sure I've had more conversations about stuff like this than you have. But you seem to be so wrapped up in how sensitive you are to even imagine that someone else could have been there long before you.
>Maybe they are all fine with it. It is also very dependent of where you live. If you live in a dense city women get harassed way more often than in a suburb area, it's kind of a number problem
I am quite aware. But small talk isn't harassment. That you equate them says more about you than it does about the very serious problem of harassment.
Given that you've decided that anyone who doesn't explicitly mirror your talking points, they're obviously idiots, evil or both, shows exactly how disrespectful, self-centered and entitled you are. I definitely wouldn't leave any woman alone with you.
Wow, that was a very measured response to my comment.
From what you wrote it looks obvious to me that you completely missed the point I was trying to make, but I share the responsibility for that at least as much as you do, it is not easy to get points across through HN comments, especially when you have no clue who you are talking to (+ I am not an english native speaker in case that was not obvious yet).
I could try to re-explain things better, but you have shown that you are not in a state to take in anything that I say anymore, so I hope you will eventually find a friend who can explain it to you better than I did (and that you will refrain to insult them just because you feel attacked).
What the person you were replying to was trying to tell you is not that the problem are men who start the conversation with "hey pretty girl, can you sit on my face?", but rather people who start with a polite conversation, and if they feel they are met with a warm reaction think it opens the door to more.
It might be only a small percentage of guys who follow up with inappropriate actions, but when as a woman you get 20+ men a day starting to make small talk with you, you end up with a high probability of having at least some of them being weirdos.
On the other hand if the woman answers coldly to the small talk tentative, some people may take it in a bad way. The line you have to walk to not appear too warm to weirdos and not too cold to easily offended people is very thin.
If you can't understand that under these circumstances some women become anxious at the idea of men starting small talk with them, well that's too bad.
As for what you can do, maybe start with asking women you know how they feel about it. Maybe they are all fine with it. It is also very dependent of where you live. If you live in a dense city women get harassed way more often than in a suburb area, it's kind of a number problem.