Wolf-whistling is a type of sex crime - of course it should be criminalised

Which of our inviolable customs was Mr Cameron protecting by giving men the right to whistle at women?

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It’s a story calculated to leave those of the Farage tendency fulminating. Police question builders who wolf-whistled at a passing woman. You can guess the script: political correctness gone mad; feminism running wild; what kind of country has this become, where a harmless bit of fun gets your collar felt and shouldn’t the police be out arresting muggers, burglars and illegal immigrants rather than persecuting honest-to-goodness, salt-of-the-earth builders?

For more than a month, Poppy Smart, a 23-year-old marketing co-ordinator, walked past a building site in Worcester and was greeted by wolf whistles. On one occasion, she said, a worker stepped in her path and said: “Morning, love.” Eventually she complained to police, saying: “I think more women should speak out about this behaviour – maybe it will make people think twice.” So, is Ms Smart a humourless time waster or a crusader on the front line of the sex war?

It is tempting to think that the battle of the sexes has been won and lost. It hasn’t. It’s still being fought, and we should be grateful to Ms Smart for bringing that to our attention. It is an all too familiar story of women feeling harassed and intimidated by groups of men: a female colleague of mine, no wilting violet, told me yesterday that she felt so oppressed by a gang of scaffolders who were whistling and then shouting at her that she complained to the foreman, and threatened to go to the police herself. This is a common pattern: men whistle at a woman, and when she doesn’t respond, they up the ante by hurling sexist insults.

Of course, in the grand scheme of things, this is a relatively harmless offence, but I think it is a form of sex crime nevertheless, and Ms Smart, by going to the police and making sure she publicised the fact, has done all women a service.

Back in 2012, after Britain signed up to the Council of Europe’s convention on violence against women, which outlawed “verbal, non-verbal and physical” sexual harassment, David Cameron specifically said he wasn’t going to criminalise wolf whistling. Why on earth not? Which of our inviolable customs was Mr Cameron protecting by giving men the right to wolf whistle at women? I know I sound like a joyless leftie who Richard Littlejohn would send up, but I fail to see how a society built on respect could incorporate behaviour that some women find threatening.

West Mercia police took no action in Ms Smart’s case, and the matter is being dealt with by the miscreants’ building firm. This seems like the most sensible course, but it seems odd, in an age when the merest whiff of racism is rightly pounced upon by the authorities, that everyday sexism is institutionally condoned. We live in cities where people pick up their dog mess, don’t throw litter on the streets, and the pavements are largely free of chewing gum. I’m not suggesting that every builder who looks up from his copy of The Sun to whistle at a woman should be prosecuted, but it would be nice to think that this, too, would be considered anti-social behaviour.