Passing By: Street Remarks, Address Rights, and the Urban Female

Anecdotal data from unstructured interviews with 10 F & 10 M white U of Pennsylvania students are used in conjunction with Erving Goffman's concept of "civil inattention" (Behavior in Public Places, New York: Free Press, 1963) in a detailed analysis of M to F remarks in public places. The analysis presumes that US Ur centers are governed by a norm of reciprocal inattention & silence among strangers. Attention is given to breaches of this norm, wherein certain categories of people are considered "open" & subject to both unconscious paralinguistic & deliberate commentary on the streets. Such categories are noted to include the fat, the handicapped, the ugly, as well as those caught in out-of-role behaviors. How Fs are treated as open to evaluative commentary by Ms is examined in detail, emphasizing the implications for M & F sex roles; the functions of M-to-F remarks in public places appear positive, complimentary, & unobjectionable to Ms, but send ambiguous messages to Fs, raising questions about their SS & general safety in a world where Ms are reinforced for breaching norms that should work for both sexes. M. Blair.