Yet another young woman attacked by a male. When will it end?

Regarding women in the workplace or wherever making bawdy jokes or passing comments on delivery boys or male co-workers, it is too simplistic to say that it is in the same league as the same from a few men about a female worker. It just isn't like that, even though the exact same actions are being made. The dynamic of the situation just totally different.

If men were passing comment and being bawdy towards a young female colleague, apart from being annoyed and offended, she would be justified in being worried that it could escalate, at that moment or in the longer term, to full on abuse or rape.

A few middle aged women making bawdy comments towards a young male colleague, while annoying and possibly offensive, realistically the young fella doesn't have to worry about being last to leave in the evening in case one or more middle aged women commits the physically impossible act of rapin him in a dark corner of the car park or the store room.

That is the difference and why one is more serious than the other. The potential for escalation and serious harm is immeasurably greater when it is male on female. With female on male, it would be almost unheard of for it to progress beyond an annoyance for the male concerned. The power dynamic is just totally different between the two situations.

I will tell you 2 stories.

I was involved in an amatuer drama very recently with a group of 20s-30s guys and girls. One of the 30s female characters is to look one of the younger early 20s cast members up and down as part of the play. During rehearsals and practice of that scene one of the mid 20s females was saying "oh do a proper perv now, make sure you get a good eyeful etc etc". Another one of them said "ya, i woulda just felt him up a bit" etc. There followed more comments in that vein egging each other on. It wasn't an issue, the lad was laughing at it too and having the banter.

Reverse the situation and have a few lads making bawdy comments towards a young female actress and it would not have been a good experience.

The reality of it is that, real world, males and females are not equal in those situations. Again, it comes down to the potential for excalation and harm in the female on male scenario, and the virtually absence of that for female-on-male variant of the scenario.

Another story. I know a woman who was leaving a job at a professional services firm. In her farewell whole-workplace email, she said all the bye-bye usual stuff, but then she named out a few imminently former male colleagues who she said if they had not been married she would have ripped their cloths off and pinned them to the wall. Now, that was going a bit too far and was unprofessional. However, it only drew humorous joking replies but a couple of weeks later a female director contacted her to say it was out of order and that it shocked quite a few people.

Now, imagine if a man said that in an email about a former colleague, there would be war. The named fellas in that email were hardly left in fear of women and in need of counselling after the email. My guess is they probably laughed it off or just treated it as the unprofessional WTF moment that it was.

But it is understandable that there is a double standard there - one situation is likely to cause far more fear, and has potential for escalation and serious harm and the other situation simply does not.

I suppose the tl dr of it that basically, yes there is this sort of double standard in society. But at the end of the day it is a largely justifiable double standard, because of the different dynamic and the potential for escalation and harm, or the lack of it.