“Smile for me baby.” “Daaang, you look good today.” “Preciosa.” “Hey, baby.” “Girl, where you goin’?”
I am a 20-year-old college student and I have heard every one of these phrases, and countless others, in the past month alone.
And, they terrify me.
Where have I heard them? Walking to the library. Walking to church. Walking to my car. Driving my car. Walking in the mall. Walking into a store. Basically, anywhere I have ever gone in my life.
These “compliments” don’t make me smile or make me feel good about myself. When they are coming from a complete stranger shouting from across the street or whispered in my ear as they pass me by, these words send chills down my spine.
If you have left your house and walked down the street before, in any city and at any time of day, you are undoubtedly familiar with the tactic of cat-calling. Some call it harmless, but I like to refer to this as a form of sexual harassment used by immature people so they can feel powerful by making the victim feel ashamed and worsening our society’s already extremely flawed view of sexuality. In other words, I think it is one of the worst things that is seen as acceptable in our society and needs immediate termination.
For starters, it’s a form of sexual harassment.
Cat-calling, otherwise known as street harassment, is never okay. There is a huge different between a stranger kindly coming up to you and sincerely complimenting your outfit, your purse or your smile, and a stranger calling out from 20 yards away, slowly approaching you and giving you a creepy, wide-eyed grin.
Cat-calling has made me, and so many other people, both women and men, feel uncomfortable and threatened, and has sometimes even led to further assault. It has made me afraid to walk around alone, even when I’m just walking to church. It has made me turn around and glance behind me every few yards I walk, just in case. It has filled me with anxiety about ever going into large crowds or walking into an uncrowded store. Why is something that is defended as being a “compliment” making me and so many other people feel so afraid to do normal, daily tasks? Even more pressing, why is it something that is so commonplace and not taken seriously?
I don’t feel complimented after I receive some sort of cat-call, whether it is a word, a question, a phrase or something even more threatening. I feel afraid, ashamed, troubled, belittled, objectified, and powerless. And, I’m not the only one. Too many people are being sexually harassed on the streets every day, and there is not enough being done about it.
Allowing cat-calling to continue is only going to allow other types of sexual harassment, like rape and abuse, to continue. Sexual harassment in any form implies that people are objects, used for one’s benefit, without giving any regard for the dignity of the other person. Cat-calling is no different. If we are fine with cat-calling, that means we are fine with one person taking advantage of another person’s sense of worth and using them for their own personal gain. If we are fine with cat-calling, that means we are fine with making people feel unsafe and afraid. If we are fine with cat-calling, that means we are fine with making people an object of sexuality without their consent.
That doesn’t sit very well with me. In fact, that makes me mad.
If we are going to change our society and untwist the distorted view of sexuality that is so common today, we have to stop cat-calling once and for all. If we want sexuality to return to its beautiful nature and away from the vulgar, objectifying and threatening views, we have to be committed to stopping sexual harassment. All forms of it.
