I checked it!
For the most part guys don’t usually sit around in the locker room having degrading conversations about women. Usually it is a small group of guys talking and the majority is stuck in the locker room with them until we change.
There have been several times when I have either been hanging out or working with a male coworker or friend. Then they point out some attractive looking female nearby. Talking about women in a really segmented, objectifying way. Now in the past my usual response was just to shrug my shoulders and say whatever because I was taught if you have nothing nice to say, then you don’t say anything at all.
But after a time it got to be rather annoying to hear these degrading remarks going on and on. Then have the guys asking me what I thought about whatever particular woman was in their sights.
After a time I came up with a way of discouraging people from doing this around me. Whenever someone would make a degrading comment about a woman and ask me for my option on the woman or women. I would look in the general direction of the described woman, shrug and simply reply “I wonder what kind of soup she likes”?
This was awesome in many ways, not only was the look on their faces priceless as they did a double take as the ‘object’ of their ogling suddenly took on a whole new aspect in their minds eye. But it also got them to stop seeing that woman or women as something than other than an object of base desires.
It also had the overall affect of getting guys off the topic of ogling and degrading women. While this was fun for me, it just meant that guys just stopped talking about women around me unless it was a more serious line of questioning. Like what I looked for in women like; personality, likes, hobbies, and other such more quality based questions. I hope in some small way that the dozen or so guys I have done this on helped to get them off the ban wagon of ogling women and seeing them instead as the unique individuals that all women are.