Dear catcallers,

I'm pretty sure you already know this, but what you say and do doesn't make women feel good about themselves. When you make obscene comments about our appearance, we don't feel better about ourselves, we feel horrible for hours, maybe even days after this.

Personally, the first time I experienced this disgusting phenomenon was when I was 12. Myself, as well as a friend of mine, were walking to her mother's car after watching fireworks. During this walk, we were honked at multiple times, and the same exact thing happened to us the following year as we were leaving the exact same event.

As a middle school student, I didn't have a very clear understanding as to why these people were honking at two children walking, I just knew it was wrong. It wasn't until another incident in high school when I truly understood the effects that catcalling could have on a women's, or even young girls, self esteem.

It was towards the end of my sophomore year and I was walking back from lunch with my best friend. The seniors were about to graduate so the hallways were significantly emptier. As we walked through the massive cafeteria, we heard an upperclassmen yell something about prom in our general direction. I had no idea if these comments were aimed at us and I don't remember his exact words, but we ignored the statement and went on with the remainder of our classes.

However, the following Monday, that same friend was walking with me through the cafeteria and the same person yelled something once again, and this time we knew that this was meant for us. The upperclassman yelled at us, telling us to "spread our legs," calling us whores.

Now whatever confidence I had that day was shot as the two of us exchanged horrified looks. She never showed up to our next class, telling me that she felt disgusting and had to leave. I shared this story with a small number of friends that day, feeling gross until I was able to escape campus at the end of the day.

The following year my PE class was walking outside to the tennis courts and, since it was over 90 degrees outside nearly every day, we wore shorts. We passed a building where students in one of the construction classes were working. A number of these students whistled at us when we walked by, making comments about our bodies. Eventually our teacher found out and the harassment stopped, but we all felt defenseless, since their statements would continue no matter how many times we told them to cut it out.

Although I've only dealt with catcalling a few times, there are people who have it much worse than I do, being catcalled on a daily basis. Whether it's directed at young girls or mature women, it has the same psychological effects.

I don't know why you do this, and there's a chance you don't either. I personally believe you do it to prove your masculinity to yourself or your friends, but harassing women and making them feel vulnerable and poor about themselves is not the way to go about it.

You need to realize that catcalling can be a form of sexual harassment. Women are obviously not going to react positively if you're spewing "compliments" at us.

You aren't complimenting us, you're just giving us the creeps. Seriously, if you're just knowingly going to make women feel uncomfortable, don't even open your mouth.