An eleven year old girl was innocently laughing as her mother drove her to meet a friend at Ben & Jerry’s in Condado. Her mother pulled up to the square where the Ben & Jerry’s was located as she told her daughter to be cautious and aware of her surroundings. The girl didn’t know what her mother had meant and dismissed it. She waved her mother goodbye and started to scour the open space for her friend. As she walked over to her friend, she happened to pass by some construction workers having lunch. Right as she noticed them, they started catcalling; one of them said: “Oye, mami. Echa pa’ acá.” She didn't know how to react or what to do so she thought it best to keep walking without acknowledging them, as she had seen many other women do.

That girl was me. That was the first time I was ever catcalled and I shall never forget it, for it was THE most uncomfortable and ridiculous experience of my life. In that moment, I realized what my mother had meant by “be careful”. She had not meant “be careful” like she would have told her son, if she had one; she meant “be careful” as in watch out for preying eyes and penetrating gazes that voice their desires to you and everyone else in the vicinity, watch out for older men who seek more than you can give, watch out for the disrespectful comments and the degrading treatment you would receive.

I recall later telling my mother of this incident and she replied by saying that I should “just ignore them”. It is incredibly sickening and worrisome that an eleven year old girl should have to deal with the attention of a man probably more than twice her age, and even more so, the fact that society has trained us to “just ignore them”—for this was my very reaction. The hypocrisy is astounding—we frown upon child marriage, but accept the degrading catcalling that happens every day to young girls, just as it happened to me, and women. Now, years later, I have realized that I will not keep quiet and that I will tell them to “F*** OFF” because if I don’t I am indirectly saying that it is okay and acceptable for men, and young boys taught by those men, to act that away. In excusing their behavior, I would be propagating a degrading cultural phenomenon by normalizing it.

Every day, thousands, if not millions, of women (and young girls) get catcalled as if they were things instead of humans worthy of respect. In fact, 84% of women are catcalled before they are seventeen, according to a study conducted by Cornell University and an anti-harassment group called iHollaback. This is were inequality is rooted—in the small actions of our daily lives. It is the small, habitual actions that are instilled upon a human mind. This is why I need Feminism, why I need equality, and why I call myself a Feminist. I don’t claim that men don’t get degraded, because they do. I don’t claim that men don’t suffer from inequality, because they do. I do not claim that women are the sole victims of this cruel world’s injustices, because it is not true. I simply, and humbly, say that equality is needed now because each time that a young girl gets cat-called, I lose a small bit of hope for the human race.