UUP councillor: Wolf-whistle contest is demoralising

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Melissa Patton and Kirsty Stewart paraded through the streets of Belfast at the launch of Belfast Fashion Week last year, and brought work on a nearby construction site to a standstill

Saturday Mar 28 2009

A competition to find the best wolf-whistler in Ireland has set pulses racing in Fermanagh.

The novel contest is part of the Lady of the Lake Festival in the heart of Lough Erne country where an array of women will parade past a line of lip-pursing men whose sole aim is to earn their spurs as the top wolf-whistler.

However while organisers state that the competition is good clean fun, some local politicians have complained that it is sexist and demeaning to females.

The competition, which has caused waves of controversy in lakeland, has been dreamed up by local hotelier Joe Mahon.

Joe said that the former Miss Northern Ireland Judith Wilson (also from Fermanagh) has registered for this whistling extravaganza.

But local UUP councillor Jean McVitty has whistled up a storm and insists the competition should be scrapped.

However, unrepentant organiser Joe, who came up with the idea after chatting to friends in his bar, insists that it’s all good clean fun.

“I think women love being whistled at because it’s a compliment to them,” he said.

Everyone does it, builders have done it for years and I whistle at my wife all the time and she loves it.

In fact, he says, a well-timed wolf-whistle was how he met Marie, his wife of 22 years: “I saw this good-looking woman walking down the main street in Irvinestown but I was too shy to talk to her, so I gave her a whistle.” The rest, as they say, is history. “We have about 40 girls signed up already, old and young,” says Mahon.

“And Judith Wilson, the former Miss Northern Ireland, who is from Ballinamallard in Co Fermanagh, rang me up and put her name down. The local paper ran a poll about the event and it showed that the women all loved it, the only people giving out about it were a couple of men.

“We want all ages and sizes of women – big, wee, whatever, the more the better. It’s important that everyone sees the sporting side of the thing.”

He added: “Then we’ll have men all lined up and down the street to wolf whistle at the women as they parade past. There’ll be a judge and he’ll pick the best”.

But Ms McVitty told the Irish Times: “I find it extremely degrading to women and not becoming of the female gender. It’s an activity that one would not expect to find in 2009, it’s something one would find in the dark ages . . . I know it’s only a bit of craic and to publicise the Lady of the Lake festival but many women find it demoralising.”

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