RUSH: You want to hear something really odd and the extremes to which liberalism now is going when there are no guardrails and when there are no controls, when there are no boundaries, listen to this. France. The nation of France. You see this? The nation of France is going to make wolf whistling and asking women for their phone number a criminal offense.
Surveys show that virtually all Frenchwomen have been harassed on the bus, on the subway, in the taxicab, wherever you find public transportation, women are subject to harassment in the street or elsewhere at some time, and it happens every day. Did you know this? That women are harassed every day? Asking a woman for her phone number is a criminal offense, and if a woman happens to walk by a construction project, there’s some plumbers there, you know, with the butt crack showing and they bend over and then they wolf whistle at her, they might end up in jail.
This is from the U.K. Sun. “Wolf whistling is set to be banned in France as the government declares war on men hassling women in public. Under new plans bugging women for their telephone numbers and following them could also be prohibited. The crackdown comes after surveys show virtually all French women have been harassed on public transport, in the street or elsewhere at some time. … Only a few countries, including Belgium and Portugal, have banned such behaviour.”
I didn’t know that. Did you know that? Yeah, I wasn’t aware that Belgium and Portugal have banned such behavior. “The UK and others have broader laws against harassment in general but none so specific. Some lawyers believe men should only be prosecuted when police officers witness an offence. Others say women should be able to file criminal lawsuits against offenders at a later date.
“But Marlène Schiappa, the under-secretary for gender equality, defended the plan and gave an example of behaviour that would be illegal. She said: ‘You are a woman in an underground train. I am a man. I follow you. You get off the train. I get off. You get on another train. I get on too. I ask you for your telephone number. I ask again. I ask a third time. You feel oppressed. That is street harassment.'”
Well, yeah. That’s stalking. I totally understand that. But somebody in a bar? If you ask a woman for her phone number — I guess it doesn’t include at bars, does it? It says public transport here. And the example the under-secretary for gender equality gives is a subway circumstance, a subway scenario. I imagine everybody knows if you’re in a bar you’re in there for one of two reasons. You’re in there to consume adult beverages or to hook up. And/or. So asking for a phone number might be crucial in a bar and they might be willing to look the other way, but I don’t know if the wolf whistle would be exempted in the bar.
Well, there’s no similar criminal behavior for women when they approach men. Women apparently are the only victims of this. They are not perps. So women can stalk and oppress and ask for phone numbers, which is good, ’cause the guys would love that. And, of course, they don’t whistle at men, but I mean you know. A guy knows when a woman’s interested, and a guy knows when a woman is not. I mean, when a woman’s interested, wild horses won’t stop her. If she is not interested, there isn’t any amount of money or anything else that will make her so. Guys instinctively know this.
But, I mean, women apparently are not capable of behaving in this criminal fashion. A lawyer in France accused the under-secretary for gender equality, Marlène Schiappa, accused her “of seeking to outlaw ‘heavy Latin chat-up lines.'” (laughing) The guy’s name is Gilles-William Goldnadel, and he said this is an assault on Latinos. This is how we operate and women love us. The swarthy dark look, women love us. Especially fair skinned women, they fantasize about us, and this is crazy, to say that we can’t ask for the phone number.
“He said the only consequences of the law would be to enrich feminist lawyers and to clog up the court system.” Well, that is true. No question about that.